The Uninvited

95% of teaching is not about content...it's about surveying, mapping, and then tracking the soul of adolescence. It's about navigating the rough terrain of emotions, confusion, and insecurity.

Remember Middle School? Or if you are of a certain age, Junior High?

What do we remember? What did we learn?

Sure there were probably bright spots -- teachers who meant something to us, who taught us something useful -- but if we weigh the crap of our experience against the fertile compost of it, which would weigh more?

For me, the crap.

I think about that often when I'm working with my students. In ten years, what will they remember of this experience? Am I falling into the crap pile or the fertile pile?

Some days it's a toss up.

Case in point:

Small, private school. 22 students in the class and two teachers (yes, two). The students come from all over, applying to the school because they believe in the "mission", or they want a more focused education, or they are tired of swimming in the sewage of the overworked, underpaid, and overcrowded public schools (where I taught for 18 years, so I know of what I speak). Since the students don't really know each other in Septemeber, we spend a lot of time "community building", but developing friendships takes time and it's right about now (it happens every year like this) that the kids start to see who has bonded with whom. They have, in essence, created their own visual map of friendships.

Some kids are excellent at making friends. They flit from one group to the next, comfortably discussing movies and music, silly stories and imaginary friends. Other students are painfully shy (and I do mean painfully...one girl has said all of 10 words to me this whole year...but we're working on that one!) and aren't certain how to go about asking another student on a "playdate" or inviting another student to join them on cushions during reading time.

And there are a whole bunch of students in the middle -- some friendships developed, but they are, by no means, the "popular" kids.

So we spend hours, literally hours, talking about strategies for making friendships -- how to be invited into a game or how to invite someone else; how to talk to someone you don't know or ask questions of someone who might be a possible friend; how to carry on conversations that aren't always focused on yourself...and on and on and on.

But recently, two students (twins) asked some of the other students to their birthday party. Notice the focus on "some other students"...not everyone in the class got invited.

And oh the tears...how can this be? I'm friends with that friend who's a friend of yours and a friend of the twins!! How come I didn't get invited? That's it! I'm not inviting them to my party (as one parent said, "oh great, a vengence party").

Where do we begin?

Dream response: Well, kids, it's a fact of life. Friends are far and few between...treasure the few you've got because they are worth their weight in gold. I know it hurts, but thems the way the dice have fallen and you best get used to it because from here on out, it's gonna be a series of "un" invitations. Besides, do you invite everyone to YOUR birthday party?

Actual response: Today, I think we need to talk about friendship. What are the responsibilities of a friend and what are the benefits? How many friends do you need? Do friendships stay constant?

We'll spend hours on this, too and I know, in the long run, these experiences will land me in the fertile memory pile, but this kind of teaching is exhausting. Emotional energy.

And still there will be hurt feelings because when you're 10 or 11, it's all about feeling, isn't it?

So much for the killer bioaccumulation science activity we planned for tomorrow!