ANN
BIANCHETTI
Diary #12
Indirect
Lessons
As my school's peer mediation advisor I was recently at a conference to learn about the "Natural Helpers" program for peer mediation and peer counseling. During the one-day workshop I learned many lessons, directly and indirectly, that have implications for the classroom.
The basis for the Natural Helpers program is that some students are natural helpers; peers usually come to them for help or advice. The program is designed to help teacher-advisors train these natural helpers to talk with, advise and resolve conflicts with and among fellow students. We spent our workshop day watching videos that demonstrated the program's techniques, discussing these techniques with the workshop leader, and role playing as students.
The strategies were valuable, and I plan to use them in my classroom and with my peer mediators. Indirectly, I learned a much greater lesson that may impact my classroom more.
Indirect lesson one
Materials and Money. The room where the workshop was held was a dilapidated, cold storage room in our city's public library. The room contained paintings stacked up for storage. Large plastic tarps covered some of the walls to protect other paintings. The single-toilet bathroom was frigid and had walls with peeling paint, dirty floors and a rusted, dripping sink.
I don't mean to condemn my city's public library, which has recently been hit with severe budget cuts, but to speak to how these conditions affected our learning. Many of my colleagues and myself grumbled over these conditions, saying things like, "The district didn't bother to get us a decent place," and "I guess they don't really care about the peer mediation program." We also learned that no substitutes from our in-service department had been allocated to our schools for that day, leaving our principals scrambling for coverage — and that the peer mediation/substance abuse awareness department's budget had also been slashed dramatically.
We felt belittled. We all had been struggling to create viable peer mediation and peer counseling programs in our schools, often getting good results. In most cases bullying was down and empathy was up. Despite our hard efforts and successes we now felt ignored by the district. We felt uncared for.
On top of our already wounded egos we were told that due to the budget cuts, only five out of the 20 of us would receive the Natural Helpers program materials for use in our school, and no school at all would be participating in the three-day Natural Helpers training retreat for students. We believed we had been handed a mandate from the district: reduce the bullying, drugs, and violence endemic in our schools. Now we were being refused the material to do so. This message convinced us that the program was not really that important to our district.
The same kinds of indirect messages ("we don't value you") affect our students and their learning. In the public school of choice (themed magnet school) in which I teach, we started out our existence four years ago with a decent budget. Each year we received less and less money. This year has been the lowest with a 400 percent reduction. As teachers we encourage the kids to work hard and push them to do well on our state's standardized tests. We preach the importance of education, hard work, perseverance, and knowledge. We tell them that we care for them and the district cares for them, and we all have their ultimate success as adults as our goal.In the next breath, we tell them that we will no longer have field trips because the bus budget has been cut. We inform them we will not have new history textbooks, even though our current ones are very outdated because the textbook budget has been cut. We shrug our shoulders when the students ask us why their playground is a mess with cracked pavement, a broken basketball hoop, and tons of weeds, reluctant to say "budget cuts" yet again.
It's bad enough when resilient adults committed to education receive the indirect message of "We don't really care about you or this program, despite what we say" at a one-day workshop. But in a material-and-money-deprived school or district, impressionable middle school kids get the message 180 days a year. Is it any wonder that many students feel that schools and teachers don't really care? Is it any wonder that many students give up on their education?
Indirect lesson two
Dignity. At one point during the video and discussion sessions with the workshop leader, I got up to get some hot tea from the refreshment table. Most of us were freezing in the cold room. I had a throat tickle that I knew tea would soothe. As I walked to the back of the room where the refreshment table was, listening to the speaker all the while, I heard her say, "Please sit down and wait for the break to get something to drink. I need your attention."
It took me a moment to realize she was talking to me. Feeling a little bit of shame and a little bit of annoyance I sat back down without my tea. At another point another teacher got up to use the bathroom. She, too, was reprimanded to "sit down and wait for the break, please." Most of the day went much the same way. We felt insulted. "Doesn't she [the workshop leader] realize I can get a cup of tea while listening to her?" and "If I miss two minutes while I'm in the bathroom, I can catch up when I return."
We felt cowed; our physical needs were being dismissed. We were cold, we couldn't get a drink when we needed one and couldn't use the bathroom when we needed to. This resentment and annoyance interfered with our learning, not to mention the interference caused by the physical discomfort.
Again, I reflected on classroom practice and indirect, hidden lessons. I was stunned to realize I often treated my students' physical needs in just such a dismissive way.
I recalled instances of denying students permission to use the bathroom, get a drink, or wear their jackets in class. Now that I'd had my own physical needs ignored, I realized how degrading and undignified it felt to be treated that way. I fully felt the hidden message that "what I have to say is more important than your need" and "I am more important than you."
As I considered how turned off to learning I had been after my tea reprimand, I realized something important. When I refuse a child's request to use the bathroom because I don't want them to miss any of the lesson, I may be achieving the opposite effect! After my refusal the student is probably focused on the need to go and not my lesson.
I know that I and many other teachers attempt to regulate student movement to avoid chaos or disruption. Many feel that allowing students to get up whenever they "need to"will result in a classroom climate of confusion. What we don't realize is the internal disruption in the students' mind that results from rigid rules on student movement. We say, "we care about you," but we act differently. "I care about you as long as your physical needs don't conflict with my academic or control needs."I resolved to go back to the classroom and respect my students' dignity and physical needs. This does not mean I will tolerate the student who consistently uses a bathroom request to avoid work or get out of the room. But I do need to work on my attitude. If we are to truly teach our students to respect themselves and others, our indirect lessons need to be as carefully considered as our direct ones.
We need to find ways to have their physical surroundings (money and material) and physical needs correspond to the words we say. We must see education as a whole process and not just the transmission of information. Our actions need to speak as loud as our words; otherwise our words may become lost in contradictory actions.
