Boys Have Feelings Too:

And 10 Other Things I Learned

 From My Failing Student

 

 On my last day of student teaching, I spent the afternoon playing card games with the "worst" students in the school. The kids who spent more time in the principal's office throughout the year than they spent in study hall.  We had bonded and I was going to miss them. They taught me their favorite card games and then they helped me pack up my stuff and load it into my car. When it was time to say goodbye, the "worst" of them all looked up at me and said, "Thank you, Miss Webb. For, you know. Everything." I drove away with silent tears on my cheeks, sad that I had to leave them, and happy because I knew I would help lots of other students like them. In the box on my passenger seat, I had a memory book full of kind words the students had made for me. One student had written, "Miss Webb was so nice. There was never a day when she was not nice." I carried those words in my heart like a badge of honor. I was NEVER not nice. Surely, my next set of students would love me just as much...

Fast forward 8 months. 

"If you don't want to be here, then get out. Go out into the hallway and I will come deal with you when I can," I found myself saying to my "worst" student in front of the entire class on one of his worst days. I wasn't yelling, but I definitely was not being nice, and I felt my face getting hot with anger. I had never been so upset with a child. Ricardo* and I had not bonded. We were enemies.

On my walk home I thought, "How did this happen? I have a student who hates me. Why doesn't he like me like my other students do? Why doesn't he respect and appreciate me like they do?" I could list 100 things that Ricardo had done that could make me hate him. But that wouldn't help. When I finally looked carefully at how I was responding to his attitude and behavior, I realized that I had made a lot of mistakes. Here's what I did wrong and what I committed to doing differently when it comes to failing students.

1. They need you to be their mentor, not their friend.

At first, I tried to bond with Ricardo. I love teaching because I love relationships. I love it when my students tell me about their lives and when they want to hang out in my classroom during lunch. I noticed immediately that Ricardo had a horrible attitude about school. My instinct was to be his friend. Like I'd done with lots of other students, I'd kneel down next to his desk and try to talk with him one-on-one. He HATED that. I can see now that Ricardo was actually maturing a bit faster than the other 7th graders. He had already entered the 8th grade phase in which fraternizing with teachers is not cool. The more I tried to bond with Ricardo, the more he withdrew. He simply did not want to be friends with me. He is a 13 year old boy and I am his teacher, so he shouldn't have to be.

2. They don't always mean it when they say "I don't care."

Ricardo quickly learned that the fastest way to get rid of me (and the thing that would irritate me the very most) was to tell me, "I don't care." This was his line when I'd ask him why a big assignment wasn't turned in or when I'd threaten him with some consequence. I wish I'd realized sooner that this was just a defense mechanism. All kids want to be successful, but some don't know how, so they shut down.

3. They need you to be the adult. 

Ricardo's eye rolling, shrugging, and loud complaining eventually got the best of me. So I subconsciously started dishing it back to him. His bad attitude drained me and eventually caused me to have the same bad attitude when talking with him. When he would complain about having to do school work, I would complain to him about his behavior. When he would roll his eyes, I would glare at him. Why should I have to be polite to him if he isn't being polite to me?? Well. BECAUSE I AM THE ADULT IN THE ROOM. I should be modeling the correct way to deal with frustration. I am the one who should have known better, and my bad attitude dug both of us deeper and deeper into a hole. 

4. They need you to remember what it feels like to be their age.

I found myself thinking that surely I NEVER would have behaved like Ricardo when I was in 7th grade. Surely I would have appreciated all of my teachers' hard work in my behalf. But when I really thought about it, I realized I could only remember one thing about my own 7th grade Language Arts teacher. I remembered that at the end of the school year, she wrote personalized poems about every single one of us. And mine was about how I was a good writer, but I was always passing notes during class, something this teacher had never called me out on or gotten me in trouble for. So basically, this was a teacher who was so dedicated that she took the time to write POEMS about all 160 of us, and I was just passing notes in her class for the entire year. I can look back and be understanding of my 7th grade self, but I wasn't giving the same understanding to Ricardo.

5. They need less attention, not more. 

It got to the point where any time I heard any outbursts, I would look in Ricardo's direction. "WHAT?" or "IT WASN'T ME!" he would say in his annoying whine, which would only make me more irritated. But sometimes it really wasn't him. I shouldn't have placed a target on his back and hovered around him, because that only made things worse between us. I should have given him a fresh start every day and assumed the best of him.

6.  No teasing in public.

I like to think that I can quickly determine which students can handle being teased and which can't. Then, a little teasing directed towards the ones who can handle it can bring humor to the classroom, which is so needed. WRONG. I give my students independent reading time for part of class on Fridays. We have pillows in our classroom and students can get comfy to get wherever they like. One Friday, Ricardo was holding a book in his hands, but he kept talking to the people next to him and he hadn't turned any pages. "Ricardo," I said from across the room, "I need you to actually read." "I AM!" he whined defensively. I looked at the book he had chosen. It was one of those tween girl books about being best friends with a horse. I knew that Ricardo had just grabbed any book from the shelf so he could pretend he was reading, so I decided to turn my anger into humor and tease him about it. "THIS? You're reading this? Really?" The whole thing got a lot of laughs from the class, but Ricardo got angry. "Fine! I won't read then!" I will never tease one of my students in front of the class again. Even if the student who is being teased finds the whole thing funny, other students might make a silent mental note: "I cannot fully trust this teacher with my ideas or feelings because she teases kids in front of everyone." Laughs are NOT worth that conclusion.

7. They need immediate feedback when they do well.

I have a system in my classroom called "Brownie Points." When I notice good deeds, I give little paper tickets to students that they can save up and trade in for prizes. Recently, when I came back to school after having a substitute, the girl who sits next to Ricardo came over to my desk and told me, "Guess what, Mrs. Brown! Ricardo actually did his work yesterday." So I walked over to Ricardo and handed him a Brownie Point. I said, "I heard you did really well yesterday. Thank you." He looked at the ticket, then back at me. "What is this? What do I do with it?" Oh no. It was halfway through the school year and I had NEVER recognized anything good about this student? No wonder he hated me! I should have consciously worked to notice what he was doing well in class so that he could've built from there, instead of only noticing his bad attitude.

8. They need you to let go of stereotypes. 

During the first few weeks of school, I tried to give Ricardo the benefit of the doubt. Because of my school's demographics, I thought, maybe Ricardo comes from a rough background. Maybe he hasn't had many opportunities in his life. But then, one morning, I saw his parents drop him off at school in a BENTLEY. Almost all of my students walk to school. I was seething. What is this kid's problem! He has everything! I assumed, then, that he was just spoiled. But when I later met with Ricardo's parents, they were harsh, and frankly, unkind to him. I should not have assumed that just because his parents had money his home life was perfect. All students are carrying different baggage.

9. You need time to reflect and change what isn't working.

I am so glad that I stopped and thought carefully about how I was dealing with Ricardo. I could've spent the whole school year making things worse and worse, but instead I noticed patterns in my own behavior and was able to make changes that improved the atmosphere of my entire classroom.

10.  They are more forgiving than you think.

When I realized that I had spent the entire year being a total jerk to one of my students, I knew what I had to do. Apologize and ask for a fresh start for both of us. I didn't want to admit to him that he had been right about me, but I knew that I had to if I wanted things to change. As my 5th period students poured into class, I stopped Ricardo. "What now??" he whined. I stayed calm this time. "Ricardo, I've been thinking things over and I realized that I haven't been very fair to you. In fact, I've been really mean. I owe you an apology. I am so sorry. Can we start over?" He was surprised. He shrugged. "You haven't been that mean. It's because I'm not a good student."

Then things started to change. We were both free. We stopped waiting for each other to strike. I stopped wasting all of my energy hovering over Ricardo and instead let my classroom management do its job. And then something really weird happened. I started noticing things I liked about Ricardo. I remembered that he was just a kid trying to figure stuff out, and that I have a lot left to figure out too.

*name has been changed 

Miss Webb's Teaching Truths

Finally...student teaching has begun! I will be spending the next four months at Cedar Ridge Middle School with the greatest group of 7th graders on the planet. Every day I get to read to them, hear their stories, answer their questions, write down their questions so that I can answer them later, write with them, and create with them. I also get to say, "Guys. Guys. Guys. Guys. GUYS." and "Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa" a lot, when the whole "touch your nose if you can hear me" thing is at its breaking point.

In my student teaching orientation, we were asked to write down our core beliefs as teachers so that we can refer back to them when we forget how we got into this mess. I have been working on that tonight, and I will be the first to admit that I am naive and idealistic. But I think that for now, that's an advantage, not a weakness. So here they are: my teaching truths. To all my favorite teachers out there, what are your truths?

 Miss Webb’s Teaching Truths

I do not teach Language Arts. I teach people.

My choices determine whether someone is humanized or dehumanized, whether someone is left uplifted or demeaned.

Literacy is power. Words are our most valuable resource. Stories are our most reliable truth.

The work I do is important every single day. My students deserve the best version of myself that I can give them.

Our class is better because of each student’s unique experiences, beliefs, and language. I will do whatever it takes to make sure every student feels safe in our classroom, regardless of race, sex, faith, ethnicity, citizenship status, sexuality, or gender expression.

I want my students to see me learning along with them.

I will listen to my students in a way that reflects my belief that their ideas are valuable.

Every single student has the potential to succeed and to learn, just not in the same way or on the same day.

My students will have choices and deserve a say in how they learn and what happens in our classroom.

Teachers are artists and the mind is their medium.

#FergusonDecision

When I was about ten years old, my dad was walking me home from a friend's house in our Virginia neighborhood. It was after dark when I saw a large black man walking towards us. Without thinking, I moved closer to my dad and clung tightly to his arm until the man had passed. After a few minutes, my dad knelt down on the sidewalk so we were eye to eye, and said to me, "Sweetheart, if you felt scared of that man because he was bigger than you and it's dark outside, I guess that's okay. But if you felt scared of him because of the color of his skin, that's not okay."

I have thought about that instance many times throughout my life. As a ten year old, I had already been influenced by what the media told me about black men. And my father asked me to question those influences. My parents taught me to stand up against prejudice. I saw it on September 12th, 2001, when they sat me down and told me that the parents of my Muslim friends might be afraid to send their children to school, and that I needed to stand up for my friends if anyone made hurtful comments. I saw it again when my dad hung a map on his office wall that Americans would consider "upside down," and he told me, "This is to remind me that not everyone sees the world the way I do."

This was the rhetoric I was raised with, and it's clear from my social media news feed this week that not everyone I associate with was raised the same way.

As you all know, Michael Brown, a recent high school graduate, spent the summer with his grandmother. He and a friend were walking down the street when they were confronted by police and asked to get off of the sidewalk. Here, the story differs depending on who is telling it, but it is undisputed that Brown was unarmed. Several shots were fired by police and Michael Brown was killed. His friend said, "We wasn't committing any crime, bringing no harm to nobody, but my friend was murdered in cold blood."

When the riots began, I found myself wondering, "Why do we have to have this riot all over again? Isn't this the same riot we had for Rodney King? For Trayvon Martin? Has nothing changed?"

I was upset and saddened by the Ferguson event, including the court decision, but I was even more sad to see the way some people reacted to it. For several days, I noticed that many of my friends were posting articles on social media about white people being killed by police officers, or articles arguing that black on white crime goes unreported by the media.

It hurts me to think that when people post these articles, what they are really saying is, "Stop whining, black people. Racism isn't real."

Racism is real, and for some reason, Utahns don't want to acknowledge that, or at least they would like to think that people of color make a bigger deal of racism than they should. The problem of ignoring racism is worldwide, but I believe that there are unique reasons for the phenomenon in my own community. Why are we trying to silence discussions about race, whether they be about institutionalized racism or individual prejudice? What are Utahns so afraid of?

I realize that people don't want to see their police officers blamed and disrespected. I can understand that. I have the utmost respect for our many honest and brave police officers, and I am not necessarily blaming the police for what happened. I think this incident is part of a bigger issue called Institutionalized Racism.

I tutor for Sociology 1010, so I have watched a lot of Utah freshmen sit through their first Sociology lecture and I have seen how they react when their worldview is challenged. I have learned that Utahns hang on fiercely to their ideas about agency, and that their understanding of agency sometimes plays into their ignorance about race in the U.S.

During the first week of Sociology 1010, students are asked to use their sociological imagination. That means, if your friend is going through a divorce, instead of just thinking about the choices made by individuals that caused their relationship to fail, you would think about the larger social issues that cause divorce and how your friend's divorce reflects current trends in society. My tutoring experiences have shown me that, as a group, Utah Mormons usually don't have much of a sociological imagination.

The last thing these freshmen want is for a professor to tell them, "8 out of the 10 reasons you are sitting in a classroom at Utah State have nothing to do with the choices you've made. The reasons you are here instead of sitting at Harvard or sitting in a jail cell are mostly centered around the social situation you were born into."

This is not a piece about the Mormon church being prejudice or incorrect.I am a Mormon, and I believe in agency.  But I disagree with the cultural idea that individual choice determines every aspect of a person's life. Utah students want so badly to believe that everything good that has happened to them is due to choices they have made, and that if something bad happens to someone else, it must be because that person made bad choices.

That's why it's so hard for us as Utahns to accept that institutionalized racism is a reality.

A black man my age has a higher chance of going to jail than attending college. If you explain that to a room of Soc 1010 freshmen who grew up in Utah, they are going to want to explain that fact using their worldview of agency. They want to believe that the reason a black man ends up in jail instead of in college is solely because of the choices he has made.

But if you are going to tell me that the aforementioned statistic has nothing to do with racism, then you are arguing instead that black men are simply more lazy and more criminal than white men.

AND THAT IS FUNDAMENTALLY RACIST.

It hurts to examine our own prejudices. We all have them, myself included. But we have to look at ourselves honestly if we want to make the world a better place.

This phrase has been making its way around social media following the Ferguson Decision:

I have noticed several people taking offense to this image, arguing that ALL lives matter. I agree wholeheartedly. All lives do matter. But in the context of current events, black lives are the ones being treated as if they DON'T matter. It would be pointless to have a profile picture that said, "Black and white lives matter" because, as a whole, white lives have never been treated as otherwise in this country. This image is a direct response to a specific tragedy, and I'm not sure why some white people feel threatened by that. Giving one group their rights does not take away rights from another group. It may take away the advantage of privilege, which is threatening to those who are used to privilege. But I don't think the police force will value white lives any less if they value black lives more. We must use the privilege we have been given to support those who are less privileged.

Using my sociological imagination, I can see that the Ferguson incident is just one example of several large-scale social issues in America: gun violence, police brutality, institutionalized racism, mass incarceration, and the relationship between race and policing. I love my country. There are things I don't love about it, and I am going to speak up about those things. 

I often hear white people say that they are tired of hearing about race and racism. Well, I'm sorry. The story of America cannot be accurately told without the story of racism. Racism is woven into every part of our lives, and we need to start acknowledging that, rather than hiding from it by telling people to stop complaining.

Using my sociological imagination, I can also see past blaming police officers themselves, and I can see past blaming people for posting thing on social media that I consider prejudiced. I know that people are in part a product of their institutions: their families, their schools, and their churches, and that people who were raised differently than I was are not necessarily wrong. But I think that when we blame society we need to realize that we ARE society. And as a society, we can be kinder, smarter, and more understanding.

Why the Temple?

I love Neil. I really do. Every morning, I wake up excited to see him and to find out what he's going to say and do - how he's going to surprise me with his kindness, how he'll make me laugh. In fact, I love Neil so much that I want him to be my family. Forever.

Mine and Neil's relationship has been based in spirituality from the start. When we decided to get married, it was because of answered prayers. We were sitting in church together, and I suddenly thought, "I'm going to marry Neil, and our life is going to be so good." I told Neil that I was just feeling really happy, and that it seemed like God was looking at us and going, "I like this. This is good." That afternoon, Neil told me that during church he'd been praying that I would know, like he did, that we were supposed to be together, and that he felt assured that I was fine and would figure it out.

We decided to get married because we love each other madly, but also because we felt that getting married was God's plan for us.

Ceremony is an important part of our faith. It is an outward expression of our inward commitment to follow God and Jesus Christ. In the temple, Neil and I will promise to dedicate our marriage and our lives to God. To consecrate our love to Him. As we put our relationship in His hands, He will promise us that through the Atonement, every imperfect part of our marriage will eventually be made perfect in Christ. If we promise to give our marriage to Him, we can live every day with the assurance of His grace to help make our marriage beautiful.

HOW AMAZING IS THAT.

By being sealed in the temple, Neil and I are also promised that we will continue to be married after this life. Better yet, we can live with absolute certainty that the children we have together will be ours for always. After this life, we will continue to be a family. We get to keep creating, serving, and playing together as husband, wife, and children, not just as long as we both shall live.

We are getting sealed in the temple because we love each other and we love God even more. We want our marriage to be His. Even though we haven't tried it yet, we know that marriage is hard, and that it would be even harder without the promise of God's grace every day.

I love Neil. I really do. In fact, I love him so much that I never want to be separated from him. I am so thankful that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and because of the temple, we will never run out of time to be together. Our forever is about to begin!

Our Story: Hilary + Neil

I first met Neil two years ago on the night of the 80s dance. It was September at Utah State, my home for the past four years. I had five brand new roommates, and we all got dressed up and went to the dance together, along with Neil and his roommates. They lived on the floor above us, and my roommate Colette had been friends in high school with Neil. I don't remember too much about that night. I know that Neil intimidated me a little bit, because he kept talking about living abroad and he could dance and I cannot.

Over the course of that school year, we all became close friends. Neil and Cody were in our apartment almost every day, often late into the night. I remember so many nights staying up until one or two in the morning, with just me, Neil and Cody in the living room, talking about life. We all got lost in the mountains together, went down giant slip n slides together, took road trips to football games, and hit up midnight movie premieres. But we were just friends.

That same year, I decided to serve a mission. Neil was very supportive and helped me through one or two emotional breakdowns concerning the matter. In my heart, what I wanted most in life was not to go on a mission, but to fall in love and have a family. When I brought this concern to my Bishop, he promised me that if I served faithfully, my mission would bless my future husband and children, and his exact words were that I would find myself in the temple with someone I was absolutely crazy about, not just someone who was good enough. I moved forward with excitement.

I fell in love with Neil suddenly and in a single moment.We were decorating our apartment for Christmas, and Neil and Cody were helping us. Our decorations included a Christmas wish list for Santa, made of strips of green and red paper we were taping to the wall. We were all shouting out things we wanted to add to the wish list: a kayak, nail polish, colored pants, concert tickets. Then Neil said, "World peace."

I was smitten. We were soul mates. It hit me all at once and it scared me.

I went to my friend Jessica's house and told her about this crisis. Talking it out helped me see how crazy it all was - I was going on a mission and I KNEW now that that's what I wanted to do. I pushed Neil out of my mind.

Shortly afterwards, Neil came to me and said, "Colette asked me if I liked you. Weird, right?" I was hurt that he found the idea so strange, so when Colette asked ME if I liked HIM, I said something along the lines of, "Gross." It was all very mature.

In January, I got my mission call to Melbourne, Australia, and we had a going away party for Neil, who was moving to England. I remember wanting to ask him to stay. But for what? I was going to Australia in June.

When you love somebody and bite your tongue, all you get is a mouth full of blood. 

On the day he moved out, I helped Neil pack and scraped all the ice off his car. He drove me to campus. I wanted to kiss him, but instead I said, "Don't come back without a hot British wife." He looked at me confusedly, and promptly flew across the Atlantic Ocean. 

We skyped a few times while Neil was in England. He said all the English girls were ugly, which left me strangely satisfied. At his request, I came extremely close to buying a plane ticket to visit him over Spring Break, but went to Hawaii instead. 

Honestly, I didn't think about Neil at all while I was in Texas or Australia. He emailed me one time while I was in Lubbock to tell me something funny about Cody. I wrote him back and told him he'd won the Most Hilarious Email of the Day Award, but he never wrote to me again.

After serving for only seven months, my homecoming was not the happy reunion I had imagined. It was a violent, traumatic, forced removal. I was dying. So when Neil texted me and said, "What exactly happened to you?" I asked him if we could talk about it in person. He came to my homecoming talk and I hugged him for a long time because his muscles were huge.

A few days later, my sister Rachel left on her mission. She is tied with Abbie for being my very best friend in the world, and I felt empty and alone. I realized that the person I wanted to be there with me while I felt empty was Neil. I called him and said, "Rachel left and I had a meltdown and spent $150 on clothes." He suggested that we go on an adventure together the next night. 

I didn't know we were on a date until he picked me up and opened the door for me. That was new.

We drove to Antelope Island and talked and talked as we drove around the island. I told Neil what had happened to me, and he was so understanding. I felt comfortable with him. We got out of the car and walked out across the sand and into the water as the sun set. In an instant, I wanted Neil more than I had ever wanted anything. I held his hand. He didn't kiss me, so I thought he must not like me too much.

Neil told me later that after that first date, he knew we'd be together forever. I, on the other hand, was unsure of whether we were still just friends.

A couple of days later, he asked me if I wanted to come night swimming in his neighborhood. In the pool, we had this conversation:

"Neil, when I'm not with you...I want to be."

"Me too."

 - Insert epic first kiss here - 

And no one's been able to pry me away from him since. 

Neil Jordan Brown is perfect for me. He brings out my adventurous side and gets me to do things that would normally scare me. He supports my dreams to be a good teacher and advocate. He's logical and methodical, while I am all emotion all the time. He's good with money. I'm good at spending money. We both hate littering and have moments where we have to lie down because we're thinking too hard. I finally have someone to watch nerdy documentaries with, and I can talk to him about what I'm reading and thinking about. Most of all, Neil wants to be good. I see that in him every day and it makes me feel safe and honored to be his.

I am so excited for all the adventures we have ahead. Stay tuned!