Sorry. I can't be your friend.

Something that I've started to realize more and more is that as a teacher, I can't really be friends with my students. When I first started teaching, I thought the best thing to do was to try to be everybody's friend and make the class really fun and happy. Well I still try to make the class really fun and happy, but a little less so and definitely not by becoming everyone's friend. It's kind of sad, but necessary I think.

So what's wrong with becoming friends with my students? Well the problem is that when a student sees me as a friend, that student starts to not take directions seriously. That student will be more likely to pay less attention, socialize with friends, not raise his/her hand, and etc. It's basically a calling card for bad behavior.

Realizing this as a teacher has actually changed the way I communicate with a lot of people outside of teaching. I used to always talk with my professors and authorities in a very casual, informal manner, as if they were my friend. This has also always been the way I conducted myself at interviews, and presentations. Talking to people as if they're my friend has always just felt the most natural to me, and as you can probably tell I hate "professionalism" because it seems so fake. I think talking to people as if they're my friend has generally worked in my favor, but I'm realizing that there needs to be a certain level of professionalism in order for information to be efficiently transferred from one body to the other. This is especially true for teaching.

As a student, I've always loved saying random comments during class because I always felt it contributed to the livelihood. But now as a teacher who has to deal with those comments from my students, I realized that they can be very distracting from the lesson. So now as a college student I'm much more cognizant of making random comments during class and I feel kind of like an asshole to many of my previous professors, and hope they read this post because I'm sorry. I didn't know how annoying I was.

In a previous post I had about icebreakers, you could probably see that I'm all about fun and games. Acting silly is one of my fortes. It's true that a critical part of teaching is making the class fun, but the real point of teaching is for the students to learn something. That might sound painfully obvious, but it's finally starting to really hit me.

So has my class turned into something like a memorial service? No, and I refuse to ever eliminate fun, because that's what keeps most students coming to class. But it's time to start finding that balance between serious and fun so that my students can not only have a good time, but get something meaningful out of their classes. So no, I can't be your friend.

Teaching Ex-Cons

I am a volunteer at an organization that helps homeless and low income individuals find employment. Originally my volunteer responsibilities were meeting with clients one-on-one to build their resume and go through mock interviews which was an incredibly rewarding experience. Then not too long ago I received an e-mail from my volunteer supervisor offering me the position to teach a class on job retention.

My first reaction was that it sounded like an extremely fun and awesome opportunity. My second reaction, which happened 2 seconds later, was that it sounded really scary. The second reaction quickly dominated the first reaction.

Envision a classroom of mostly ex-convicts in their 30's and 40's. At the front of the room is a skinny 21 year old college student who happens to be teaching these guys about how to be successful in their future jobs.

Now consider the facts:

• The only job this college student's ever had was being a waiter for three months when he was 17.
• He's never been to prison.
• It's his first class and he's terrified.
• This guy is me.

Many might agree that this is a recipe for disaster. Why on earth would these clients ever listen to some guy half their age AND size who looks like he came from the Far East? He most likely knows nothing about the kinds of lives these men and women are struggling through and won't be able to offer them jack. Now these are very valid questions.

These were some of the questions running through my mind weeks before my first class. While tossing and turning in my sleep I was able to answer some of them which gave me slight comfort. I guess the biggest question was how I was going to teach them to be successful at their job when I've barely had a job myself. What I realized is that school itself is like a job. No I wouldn't be able to answer specific questions about what it's like to work as a metal welder, but I would be able to shed light on what it takes to lead others, accomplish goals, and work in teams. In fact, the skills that it takes to be successful on the job are the skills that it takes to be successful in LIFE. And yes I do consider that I've had some level of success in my life that validates why I might deserve to be teaching my clients.

However, just because I convinced myself of an answer didn't mean that I felt 100% confident going in to my first class. During my bike ride to the place where I teach, I kept thinking, "So in 20 minutes I'll be teaching.... So in 10 minutes I'll be teaching... So in 5 minutes I'll be teaching .... OH MY GOD."

Well it came down to 0 minutes left, as I walked with my supervisor down the hall to my class. When she asked me if I was ready, I knew this was it. No more freaking out. I spent hours preparing my lesson the night before and I knew I got this. I tried to trick myself into thinking that I've taught this class for years now, which actually kind of worked.

"Hello everyone and welcome to class!"

The class itself was a little shaky, but by the end I was stoked out of my mind that I didn't fall flat on my face. The fact that none of my clients were sad, or angry at me was the equivalent of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. My volunteer supervisor gave me the lowdown on how she thought it went, listing things she thought I could add to my next lesson and that overall it was great. G-R-E-A-T. Frosted Flakes great. I couldn't believe it. Life was so sweet.

By now I've taught 7 lessons, and am in love with it. I've made many changes to my lesson plan to make it better than ever. Receiving compliments from the clients might just be the most amazing feeling in the world, knowing that I gave them something worthwhile.

Facilitating VS Teaching

If you read my last blog post, you might be wondering what I teach to my clients. Well in truth, I don't actually teach them. I have them teach themselves, with me as a facilitator. I personally don't really like telling people what to do, because I feel that they need to figure it out for themselves before it really soaks in. There's a pretty awesome quote by Confucius that nicely sums up this belief of mine.

Tell me, and I will forget.
Show me, and I may remember.
Involve me, and I will understand.

So what better way to involve my clients than by having them be the ones teaching each other? Now it's not like I just sit back and let them say whatever they want. There actually is structure to my class. A lot of it. In fact being a facilitator can be in many ways more challenging than simply lecturing because it involves stimulating discussion and ideation while subtly guiding that conversation toward the lesson points. That can be quite difficult at times.

In fact, let's talk about some fun/challenging situations that I often face in my classroom.

1. Q. What happens if a client asks a question/makes a comment that only slightly pertains to the topic but is more of just a life story?

A. Listen. They may address a point that somehow relates to what I am trying to talk about. I wait for them to finish and say, "And I'm glad you mentioned ____, because that's something important that we're all going to talk about." The key is to not make the client feel as if I am ignoring their input, but rather that I'm building off it. Yesterday, I barely finished introducing myself when someone raised his hand and told me how the front-desk lady gave him trouble because he referred to another lady as "Asian." Well, that related nicely to a later topic of dealing with difficult people at the workplace.

2. Q. What if they talk WAY too long?

A. Many of my clients have indeed been through a lot of BS (that's why they're my clients), and naturally feel the need to vent their frustration. Although I hate cutting them off in the middle of a story, sometimes it needs to be done in a respectful manner. I would usually say in an apologetic way, "I appreciate your comments, but for the sake of time we're going to have to move on." Then if I can, I try to relate something that they said to my lesson so that they know they contributed.

Awesome Techniques:

The Greeting: As my clients walk into my class, I make sure to shake each of their hands, look them into the eyes with a huge smile, and greet them with, "Welcome to class!" or "It's nice meeting you!" This is honestly one of the best parts of my class and helps in so many ways. First, it establishes a direct relationship between me, and every single one of my clients. Secondly, it sets a positive and cheerful tone that is so helpful to having a good class. Thirdly, my clients like it. It makes them feel good. And if it makes them feel good, it makes me feel good. And when we all feel good together, that's key to an amazing class. In fact, I've noticed a lower amount of participation in the couple of classes that I could not greet all my clients. Maybe this is due to confirmation bias, but I like to think its' not.

Well, I have to go but I'll continue to update this as I keep facilitating!

The Ice Breaker = ENERGY

(Updated 10/24/12) I have to admit, I freaking love icebreaker games. They're kind of a guilty pleasure of mine. What's better than running around and doing stupid things in front of your peers without embarrassing yourself, since embarrassment is part of the game? When everyone is giddy with laughter and screaming all around you, that's like the coolest class ever! But then I get really confused because I would often hear my peers saying how much they hated icebreakers and how stupid and annoying they are. If they hated icebreakers so much, how come they were laughing and smiling so much during the game? Maybe they're just really good actors and were only pretending to have a good time. Or they're just liars. Or they have really bad memories. Or all three.

OR they experienced something like this...

So what is it that I love about falling over my classmates, smacking my shins on chairs, breathing hard, and screaming my head off? I love how it brings my energy level from here to HERE.

My supervisor explained to me that a good teacher is a master of maintaining energy level in a classroom. You can't have the class being crazy during the entire class because then nobody's going to learn anything, and you can't have people with puddles of drool on their desks either because then ain't nobody gonna learn nothin neither. That's why I think a perfect tool for controlling that energy is the icebreaker.

Why does the icebreaker always have to be in the beginning of class? Why can't it be in the middle, or even the end? The icebreaker is typically at the start of class so that everyone's pumped up and excited to learn, but then like 10 minutes after the game you've got everyone slouched over and feeling like they've been duped into thinking this was going to be an exciting class. That's messed up! Let's talk about the advantage of having the icebreaker in the middle of class. You know that lull in class when saliva starts to flow out and the teacher seems totally oblivious? Well at that point he should be like, "Since everybody's passing out, let's all get up and play some NINJA WARS!" Actually, a good teacher wouldn't even let the energy get down that low to begin with.

So what about having the icebreaker at the end? That seems dumb! Why would you get everyone excited and then just have them leave? Well something really interesting that I learned is that when people try to remember if an experience was good or not, their memory is mostly based on how they felt at the END. So that's why having the students leave class on a fun and positive note will mean that they're actually going to like the class, because they'll remember it as being fun and positive.

Here are a few really fun icebreakers that I like to play:

•  I love all my fellow students - Have everyone sitting in chairs in a circle with one person standing in the middle. The middle person says "I love all my fellow students who (something about himself/herself)". Then everyone who has that same characteristic has to get up and find a different seat and one person will always be stuck in the middle. This game always leads to bruises and sweat. That'll wake em up!
• Count Together - Have everyone sit in a circle. The point of the game is to try to count as high as possible with only person saying a number at a time. If people say a number at the same time, go back to zero. This usually leads to anger, frustration, and sadness, which equals bonding and teamwork.
• SPLAT - everyone stands in a circle with one guy in the middle (the splatter). The splatter claps his hands at someone, who ducks down. The people on each side of the target person have to splat each other. Whoever messed up needs to GET OUT. This game usually leads to hyper concentration and fear, which equals fun.
• Skittles - This one is a lot more chill, so it would be appropriate to bring down the energy level. Give two different colored skittles to each student and make sure they don't eat them yet. Each color represents a different question they need to answer: Red - What's good in your life? Green - Where are you going in life? Yellow - What's a fun/interesting fact about you? Purple - What's the craziest thing you've ever done? Orange - Freebie

I'm stalking someone

So in order for me to be more educated on education, I decided that I would find someone who has the same interests as me and use that person as my resource to harness more knowledge. But where on earth was I going to find that person, let alone discreetly? Welll... what better place to stalk someone than the internet? Duh! So I decided to sign up for a social bookmarking website which basically allows me to see other people's bookmarked websites and what kind of tags/comments they labeled to those websites. To find my soulmateI typed in these tags in the search bar: Education, Teaching, Classroom, Teacher, and Reform.

Good news! Based on those tags, I think I've found my social bookmarking soul mate, whose name I will not reveal because (s)he already has enough stalkers (me).

By the way, I am NOT proud to have been reduced to this...



So for the sake of this post, we'll call my social bookmarking soul mate, Oregano. Oregano is hungry for information. By looking at his profile I can see that he bookmarks different articles at least every few days, which is really quite impressive. Having been a member since November 2010, he's accumulated a whopping 1349 articles, mainly about teaching and education, that he's categorized in different tags so that not only is it easy for him to sort through the articles, it's easy for his followers since this is all public. Even more impressively, Oregano actively involves himself in the dialogue about education by posting his own comments on these articles for all of the world to read and ponder about.

I want to share with you guys a couple of his bookmarks that I found particularly interesting:

Twenty Tips for Success for New Teachers
Even for those who aren't teachers, ALL of these tips can still be applied to anybody in any profession. Things like getting a mentor, collaborating others, knowing your passion, and etc are all extremely important to growing personally and professionally.

Seven Ways to Transform Your Classroom
Obviously Oregano is a big fan of lists. This is another equally awesome resource that's definitely more tailored toward the actual classroom.

You know what these links have in common? They both emphasize the importance of blogging! Blogging is extremely important for teachers to reflect, get ideas, and communicate with their students! It's also a fantastic way for students to post their writing and have a real audience beyond just their fellow students and teacher.

Oregano is awesome. He's already shown me how to be a better teacher just by looking at his "Recent Tags" list. Just to share a bit of background about Oregano (but not too much!), he is a school improvement consultant. How cool is that? Through his social bookmarking and me exploiting that, his consulting will reach to even more audiences like you and me. If I wanted, I could go through every 1349 article he has bookmarked and write a different blog post on it.

Thank you Oregano!