What I learned about eighth graders- Part III: Stay Flexible

Moving from sixth grade to eighth grade this year was a leap, not just in curricular expectations or unit topics, but also in dealing with personalities. Three students in particular challenged me and made me continuously question how and why I was teaching the way I was. Because of their challenges, I grew as a teacher. This is the third student.

J- was a hyper-focused high achiever. Not really a perfectionist because she missed some homework and was not a good editor of her own work. But she loved to show how much she knew about something, or if she didn’t know it, she would dig until she knew every particle. Her modus operandi was to write down everything that was in her head, with arrows and asterisks and tiny writing between lines, hoping to impress with quantity. The grade was important to her, and if some mark was unclear, she would argue and explain and demand explanations without listening to reasoning. It was aggressive and belligerent at times. I tried to show her how to focus her answers, taught lessons on concise and precise writing, and marked “not relevant” on test answers. But still, she kept on filling the page for a one- to two-sentence response expectation. She also loved to take assignments in her own direction, choosing a topic not on the list, or answering in the role of the devil’s advocate. Her non-conformity made me angry and challenged. That is, until I was showing her note-taking on the final exam to the librarian, ranting about the quantity and lack of neatness and obsessiveness of it, and he said, “I can understand everything on this page. It’s in proper note form, and organized by topic.” He was right. J- taught me that bright, confident kids need to do things their own way to be challenged and interested. If their way is not my way, that doesn’t make it wrong, just different. I have to keep the objectives in mind and see the work as valuable without personal judgment

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What I learned about eighth graders - Part II: Consistency Matters

Moving from sixth grade to eighth grade this year was a leap, not just in curricular expectations or unit topics, but also in dealing with personalities. Three students in particular challenged me and made me continuously question how and why I was teaching the way I was. Because of their challenges, I grew as a teacher. This is the second student:

R- was a tough girl. She wore the same grey hooded sweatshirt to class every day with her jeans and sneakers. She was a soccer star and reveled in being a tomboy. Her longtime best friend liked soccer too, but she also became someone’s girlfriend in August. R- felt hurt and jealous and lonely, which made her enter the room sulky and unfocused. She wrote long letters to her friend in her writer’s notebook-- forbidden for me to read-- about how she missed her. She doodled her name on her papers. She was angry at me for asking her to do something other than moon over her lost friend. On our November teacher feedback survey she wrote, “I just don’t like the way the teacher teaches. I’m not learning anything in her class.” I kept expecting the work to get done, though, and made sure I was holding her accountable during conferences. I also made sure I made positive comments whenever I could, trying to get her to buy into the class. I really don’t know what happened, but she suddenly shifted to my camp in February (did her friend and the boy break up?). Suddenly, I was her “bestie”. She would write me little notes on exit tickets, “Hi bestie :-)”. We fist bumped at every opportunity. She frequently asked me if she was my favorite student. R- taught me that I need to hang in there with the ups and downs of eighth grade girls. They are hormonal. They are moody. They can’t control it and don’t like it either. They are looking for structure, consistency, and safety when everything else feels loose and uncertain.