Excerpt from First Lessons
The Glasser Model of Discipline.
“A classroom meeting allows a discussion of topics relevant to the students.”
I knew I wanted to be relevant more than anything. I felt somehow that a lack of relevance was where many teachers went wrong. But I also knew, after looking over those surveys, that I had serious work to do with these kids. I spent the morning of my second day thinking about Glasser’s point. How could I make my discipline plan seem relevant in our classroom meeting?
It did seem ridiculous to be cracking down on chewing gum in class when these children were facing weapons, gangs, and drug dealers outside of class. I wanted somehow to make a connection between the discipline required in my room and the lack of it in the world. I had no idea if my unorthodox lesson would work. I never really considered that it could be controversial. I just did it.
I would be seeing all eight classes again with 45 minutes in each period. By the time the first bell rang, I was ready to go over my discipline plan with the students. It could very well be the most important lesson I would teach, but I felt ready. I had my “responsibilities” poster. I had alphabetized seating charts. And I had an attitude.
I called the attendance list I had made from the students’ forms and made them move into their new seats.
I immediately hit a snag.
“You don’t mean we’re going to have to sit in assigned seats all year, do you?” a boy asked. He had sun glasses on top of his hair, which was cut to a thin burr with a swirl shaved into it, and he rolled his head and shoulders from side to side as if he were dancing to some tune only he could hear.
“What is your name?” I asked.
He danced a few seconds more, making sure he had secured the attention of every member of the class. “Luther, ma’am,” he said with an emphasis on the “ma’am” that made it obvious he knew it was something he was supposed to say, but was not to be confused with respect. He strutted a few more beats, his palms flat against the words “South Side” on the chest of his black T-shirt. Everyone laughed.
I instinctively knew that this was the class leader, and I had to quell him immediately. What Luther didn’t know is that he had given me an excellent opportunity to launch the “classroom meeting” I was using to introduce my discipline plan.
“So, Luther,” I said, using the same sassy emphasis on his name that he had given the “ma’am.” He looked at me oddly. “Do you happen to know anything about the drive-by shooting that happened Sunday night?”
He took my question quite personally–a way I hadn’t intended. “I didn’t have nothing to do with no shooting,” he said. “You can talk to my auntie.” His hands fell away from his chest to tighten into large fists by his sides.
The class tensed visibly. A chill flashed through me. What had I done? More importantly, how could I undo it?
I forced myself to laugh. “Oh, Luther, you’re too sensitive. What I mean is, do you know the facts of the case?”
He was sullen now. “Yeah,” he said, swallowing.
I briefly wondered how often he was wrongly accused of crimes.
Since he was already subdued, and I had everyone’s attention again, I abandoned the plan that I had begun only moments ago and launched the discussion the original way. Somewhere in the back of my mind I realized that teaching was always going to be like this–try one thing, scrap it immediately, turn this way, do that.
The drive-by shooting, I told them, occurred Sunday night only a few miles from the school. A 17-year-old was killed. Everyone knew about it, of course, and hands went up all over the room to tell me the details.
“They snuffed him!” said Manuel, a tiny Hispanic boy with a long wisp of hair that fell down the center of his back.
“Yeah,” said Miguel, Manuel’s friend, who sported a similar, but shorter hair tail. “He was just sitting on his porch and they blew his head off.”
“Man, if that were my brother, I’d get me a gun and go after ‘em,” said Manuel.
“Manuel,” I said quickly, glancing down at my seating chart to confirm his name. “Do you think there are some, like, problems in society that caused this to happen?”
“You mean like drugs?” he asked.
“Yes, like drugs.”
“Well, drugs!” he said, laughing.
“Good!” I said, holding out a piece of chalk. “Manuel, would you write ‘drugs’ on the board?”
Manuel hopped out of his seat, paused a moment to hitch up the loose green shorts that barely hugged his hips, then sauntered up to the board. D-R-U-G-S, he wrote, so small that no one would have recognized it.
“It might be a good idea to write it bigger,” I said.
Manuel smeared out the word with his fist and wrote it again, slightly larger.
“Good job, Manuel,” I said and handed him a small square of paper that said “Good job” on it.
“What’s this for?” he asked, staring at it.
“Hang on a few minutes, and you’ll find out,” I told him. He placed it gingerly on the edge of his desk, then hit his friend Miguel soundly on the forearm when he tried to grab it. I would definitely have to separate those two. Even in the alphabetical seating arrangement, I could already see problems.
I turned back to the class. “What are some others?” I asked.
The students hesitantly came up to the board to write their ideas–guns, gangs, curfews, parents, too few police, and alcohol. Almost all of them asked how to spell a word before they were willing to write it.
We went over the laws that were supposed to prevent each of the problems they had identified, including gun control and age limits for buying alcohol. Then we discussed why those laws didn’t work and how all this ended up in the drive-by that killed the teenager.
At that point I was ready to drive my message home. “There are laws and rules in this classroom as well,” I told them, my voice very matter-of-fact. “And if we don’t work together to make sure they are enforced,” I paused briefly, folding my arms across my chest and making eye contact with each kid in the room, pausing extra long on Luther, Manuel, and Miguel, “somebody might get shot.”
Jaws dropped. Eyes went wide. Yes, Glasser, relevance is a very good thing.
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