Teacher Interview

 The following transcript is an interview with my high school history teacher. I would also like to note that he apologized for swearing.

Q: How long have you been teaching?

A: I have been teaching for twenty three years--a long time, a very, very long time. 

Q: Do you have a classroom management philosophy?

A: Absolutely! I think when it comes to classroom management there’s a couple of things. One is the golden rule always applies, do unto others. The other thing is that if you’re up front and honest with students about your rules on the first day and establish them, and have continuity and fairness, you should be good.  

    The other thing too is that if you make the lessons good and get them engaged, we don't have to worry so much about classroom management.  Let me tell you right now post COVID we have freshmen now who are like seventh graders.  We really have to focus on the basics of classroom management.  Be upfront! “Here's what I don’t like, don’t do this”, the stuff that really irritates you, the other things you can deal with.

Q: You already kind of answered this, but how do you begin the school year to get things started off right concerning classroom management?

A: Right away on the first day I go through the rules and expectations, and I always tell students that they should have expectations for me.  You establish it the first day.  In a perfect world, would I be perfect every time with incorporating my rules? Sure. Do I? No. There’s days you slip and fall. There's days where you let certain things slide because you’re not in the mood.  Nothing too major, but you know it’s things like that. You establish it on the first day, if you don’t it’s tougher to get back.

Q: When each day starts, are there any routines that you follow?

A: Yeah totally.  I’m like Danny routine, it’s sad.  You’ll see this when you become a teacher, I don’t know if it’s a rut or if it helps you get through the day.  I get here at 5:30 because I have a 7 o’clock class.  We have Google Classroom so I want to make sure everyone has a copy of the notes, so last year I made little outlines of every lesson for all of my classes.  I upload those for all the kids so they have a heads up on what the lesson is going to be. I have literally over here a picture of my wife and kids and I look at that before I start teaching and think “Okay, don’t screw this up”, and I’ll still screw it up.  I also prepare the night before. When I go home tonight I’m going to look at the stuff I’m going over tomorrow, when I get in early I do the same thing. 

Q: Slightly off topic, but is everything done on Google Classroom? I noticed in my field placement that no one takes notes on paper anymore.

A: Yeah, I would say that. What’s weird now with AP classes is that they haven’t changed the test.  The test is still paper, so I find myself in AP classes still doing things old school.  I teach two regular level US classes and we’re doing some old school stuff too because they have been so trained to be on devices. “Let’s see if we can read some stuff, here’s a reading”. “Here’s how you take basic notes before we just cut and paste stuff on a computer”. I found myself this year being a little more old school because of the pandemic. Last year I was able to get everything online, and it lent itself to copious amounts of cheating.

Q: How do you get students to respect you? What do you do if they do not?

A: I have no idea, that’s a tough question. I think the only way to get students to respect you is by working your ass off. You have to show them that if they’re working you’re working. You earn their respect with hard work and knowing your stuff.  They’ll respect you if you know your stuff, and you’ll get better with that over time. That’s how it is.

    If they’re openly defiant or disrespectful I’m going to handle that in class.  We’ll have a conversation outside because as the teacher I’m going to win that one. I don’t know if you can really force it [respect], but you can nullify it [disrespect]. You can nullify it by addressing it, don’t just pretend it didn’t happen.  There’ve been times where I’ve had to have that conversation with students.

Q: What classroom management strategies have you tried? 

A: One of the things that always works for me is keeping the lesson moving, it alleviates real problems. If there’s kids that you know that can be problematic you keep them closer to you, like in proximity. Have them sit closer or in a main aisle. If it’s a group of kids I like to play four corners, divide and conquer. That’s the kind of stuff that’s always worked for me.

Q: Have you had anything not work?

A: There’s tons of stuff that never works. My first few years I tried to be nice, but you have to let them know who’s boss.  I was terrible at this. I had senior classes who would walk all over me. I remember being a sub, the worst day I had in my life was at Rich Central. I came home, I was still living at home, and my dad was home drinking because he got home from school, and I got in there with him and went “How did you do this? I just had a day I don’t ever want to go back”. So there’s stuff that doesn’t work--I’ll leave it at that.

Do you have any school-wide classroom management initiatives/programs?

A: I do not.  The best classroom management is to keep it simple and follow through.  Four years ago the principal said that if a kid has to go to the bathroom you have to let them go.  After the pandemic everyone wants to go to the bathroom all the time so she had to make an announcement to wait until the last few minutes unless it’s an emergency.  I’ve spent the last twenty-three years of teaching saying that to kids on the first day!  I see these teachers with page lists of discipline--keep it simple.  You do what works for you and what you’re comfortable with.

Q: How do you combat negative behaviors in your students? Do you deal with them immediately or just ignore them?

A: You have to deal with them immediately.  You can try to ignore it, but I give one warning. If they continue to do it--okay, get out if you don’t want to be here. I was talking to a colleague the other day and the phone stuff had gotten crazy--it’s like they’re addicted to it! Seriously, it's crazy! You can choose to give them a warning, and if they do it again then there’s an issue.

Q: When do you involve parents?

A: If it escalates or is continual. Usually only parents come into play if something escalates or if the problem or behavior is continual which is rare. In twenty-three years that’s only happened a few times.

Q: How do you deal with disruptive students without disrupting the class?

A: The proper way is to say to be professional. The real way is to be sarcastic, clown them, and then you never hear from them again.  The goal is to keep moving, to keep the class going and not have them be a nuisance.  If it’s a larger issue, you try to move them outside and if they want to escalate it you have to call the dean or security and then it’s going to take five minutes to get the class back. I wish I had a better answer. It’s difficult. You want to address the behavior, but there are also thirty other kids in the room. It’s a fine line.

Q: Have you ever used a token system for rewards in your classroom? What are your thoughts about it?

A: In high school no. I think it’s something that could work in junior high or grade school. If you’re 17-18 and don’t know how to act in a social setting, I don’t think rewards can help you.

Q:What is the worst student behavior that has ever happened in your classroom? How did you handle it?

A: Open disrespect.  There’s only ever been to kids where I was like “woah, you want to take this to the next level”. They thought that they were seniors and they could do whatever they wanted and that wasn’t the case. I had to hit the call button and have people come in and take them out. I was very proud of myself for keeping calm. In those situations you stay professional and calm and you move on.

Q: What success stories do you have to share?

A: None! It’s been twenty-three years of mediocrity and sorrow.  I think the success story is that it’s been twenty-three years and I’m still here. I say to younger teachers that it’s a love of the game. That’s the success. You have to really love it to enjoy it. I have ten years left until I can retire and I still love it. I’m still challenged by it, and I hope younger teachers are as well. It will be challenging. There will be days where you question life's existence, but it’s worth it. My success stories are the students I’ve had, people like yourself. The success story is here’s a former student and we’re still talking.

Q: How do you move on from having a rough day at school?

A: If I could offer advice, you’ve got to let it go. Each day is a new day. You can't let a bad day get to you because we all have them. I always think bad days are my fault and I go “Okay, how can I make it better?”. I’ll blame myself and work on lessons. You’ve got to let it go, which is easy to say but impossible to do. 

Q: What is the best advice that you can give to a pre-service teacher concerning classroom management?

A: Be fair, be upfront, be honest and be consistent. Set that tone the first day. The worst advice I ever got from an educator was during my student teaching. The guy I was with said not to smile until November, and I looked at him and asked why wouldn’t I smile if it was a job I really liked. He said the students would try and take advantage. There are going to be some kids that test it and they’ll get handled. I can smile then right? And have fun with the job? The job is incredibly fun if you look at it the right way. There’s a reason why younger teachers leave, and I get it, but what a job! It’s awesome!

    I think one of the clearest connections between what he said in the interview is the section in Chapter Seven that talks about effective instruction delivery. Woolfolk mentions on page 271 that instructions that are clear and specific are more effective.  That is exactly what he does in his classroom on the first day.  He lists specific behaviors that will not be tolerated, and from what I remember from my own time in his class it worked pretty well.  We all knew exactly what should and shouldn’t be done, and things moved along efficiently.  Something similar is also mentioned in Chapter Thirteen on pages 521-522, which discusses what a teacher should do during the first week of school to start the school year off on the right foot.  Another example would be on page 524, where Woolfolk talks about teacher connections.  In the interview we discussed how he viewed our conversation as a success story, how he was able to build a strong enough relationship where his students still reached out to him for help.  Before the interview even started he stopped to ask how my younger siblings were doing, and if we ever needed anything to reach out.  It really shows how valuable it is to have connections with your students.  A final connection can be seen through the discipline strategies we discussed in the interview, and what Woolfolk mentioned in the text.  She stresses the importance of being able to deescalate a situation on page 527, and that was something we talked about when I asked questions about dealing with disruptive students and the worst behavior he had seen in the classroom.  While he admitted that it was difficult for him to remain calm, he knew that it would be harder to get the rest of the class back on track after. He also mentioned that he gives students one warning, without getting hostile like Woolfolk mentions on page 529.

    The teacher I sat down with for this interview was the same person I mentioned in the first discussion post we had in class. What you don’t get from this transcript is that the power went out at the high school halfway through the Zoom call, and he got in his car and drove home to finish the interview. How many teachers would do that for a former student? That’s dedication. It was nice to know that he also has bad days, and that his classroom management strategies didn’t always work.  He started off in the same place that I am now, and it gives me hope that I might one day get to be as good of a teacher as he is.