Are we becoming less tolerant of our students or is it them testing our patience? In our frank discussion about tolerance in the classroom, we unravel the complex dynamics between us and our students, particularly examining the differences between middle school and high school learners. We talk about how our reactions to certain classroom issues might not be as patient as we thought, even after a seemingly perfect eighth-grade day.
Are we becoming less tolerant of our students or is it them testing our patience? In our frank discussion about tolerance in the classroom, we unravel the complex dynamics between us and our students, particularly examining the differences between middle school and high school learners. We talk about how our reactions to certain classroom issues might not be as patient as we thought, even after a seemingly perfect eighth-grade day.
So this week I discovered something new about myself. You know I've been substituting high school mainly so far this year. This week I went back to some middle school. The day was perfect, one of the most perfect eighth grade days I'd ever had. Yet when I got home I had this thought man, am I less tolerant of students than I used to be Then I used to be? That's what we're gonna talk about today. Are we tolerant of certain issues in the classroom? And if we're not, it's at our fault, or is it the student's fault? Greg Collins, substitute Teacher's Lounge. It is Halloween 2023. So let's play an oldie but goodie. Substitute Teacher's Lounge Music. All right, you know we've got enough new listeners now.
Speaker 1:I thought I would just play that musical opening from the old days from probably about a year ago. I recorded it when those kids were in the sixth grade, which is kind of Halloween-y type age, if not younger, and they're now like sophomores and juniors. So I just thought it might be fun to throw that in there, kind of set the mood. This week our volleyball team did well. The season is over. They made it there's only twice I should say two other times, I guess is the best way to say it in their history had we made it as far as we did this time. We did a good job. We made it to a round of our playoffs. That was, I guess, hadn't happened in a little while, so we were excited about that, then ran into a pretty tough team, and that's just the way life is sometimes.
Speaker 1:But I say all that to say this those of you that have been listening to this for a long time know that I have always said my favorite age group to teach is middle school and my favorite grade in particular is sixth grade. In fact, when I went to this class which this week which was, by the way, an eighth grade class I'd only done maybe two other middle school classes all year. They had all been high school because it was convenient with volleyball practice happening right after school. So I went in and Principal Sawme knew I hadn't been there for a while, so he came up and shook my hand, talked to me a little while and he just said. He said man, I know, I haven't seen you for a while. What is your favorite age group to teach? And I said well, I've always said middle school and I still think that's true and specifically sixth grade, because those kids are still moldable, they're still impressionable. They don't yet have their attitudes. I mean same thing. I went through this as a student, so I'm not really killing them for it, but I've just always liked sixth grade best and he understood that. He also asked me some other questions that were of a private nature that I will not share with you. That had to do with other schools and we had a nice conversation.
Speaker 1:But then I discovered something. I looked around me and some of the kids that were in the office asking the secretary a question were so talks about small and probably they weren't really. It just been a while since I'd seen or taught students that small. I actually thought maybe they were elementary school kids that were waiting in the lobby, maybe for a bus, whatever, but they weren't. They were sixth or seventh graders in that school and I'm thinking, man, were they always this size? And then I got into the classroom.
Speaker 1:Now I will say this before I go into talk to you about how I've found I realized about myself that I was less tolerant of certain things and therefore reacted or probably the better word to use is overreacted to a couple things in the classroom that I never had before. I realized I had just gone from a predominantly high school classroom situation, type subbing, and now I'm back at middle school. Just by definition, middle school kids are going to be more immature. I had gotten used to students that were less immature, maybe more mature, how are you going to say it? That doesn't mean I didn't have any trouble in high school. I did, in fact, a lot of times. The degree of trouble obviously that you'll have in high school is greater than the degree of trouble that you might experience in middle school, all that thrown together. All I know is, by the way, if some of those students are listening to this, I really enjoyed that day.
Speaker 1:That was from top to bottom and that was one of the nicest group of students that I had run into all year. They were eighth graders. I knew some of them before every. You know a lot of them, but my fists some of them hug me. All that kind of stuff, that class reunion, any kind of stuff happened during that day. And one of the classes in particular, my goodness, they came in. They had just come from high school algebra their eighth graders and had just been to the high school for high school algebra. Obviously they were serious about their education when they were given their assignment. I don't think anybody in the room said a word for maybe 45 minutes. The class was only 50 minutes long, and it was so refreshing it was a great day.
Speaker 1:Am I, though, getting less tolerant? Let's give that situation. When you have a perfect class like that, does it then condition you to be less tolerant of things in maybe the next class that you used to just let go in the past? And I'm not talking about anything serious. I'll give you an example. In one of these classes, all these students were in different classes, so there were probably three students that I really thought had a hard time focusing, didn't care, and I could tell.
Speaker 1:Whereas I've tried to use some motivational techniques in the past for students like that, this time I caught myself not yelling Maybe they would call it yelling but raising my voice to them saying listen, dude, I'll use that as generic so that maybe you don't know if I'm talking which type of student I'm talking about. But then I got pretty serious with him. I sat with him most of the class just to get him to do something, but he's still just an eighth grader. I should have reacted differently. I overreacted, I think for me maybe it wouldn't have been overreacting for you, and that's okay. I'm no better than any of you. I'm probably just different than some of you, and that's okay. There's different teaching styles over the all of the place.
Speaker 1:But let's talk about situations that are created where we become less tolerant. Let's say you just like this. Let's say you're beautiful, one of your best classes ever was first period and the rest of the day. The first period was so good that the rest of the day almost has to go down right. Well, that could create a less tolerant situation. Going from high school is what happened to me. I went from high school back to middle school and I couldn't have the same type of conversations, I couldn't use perhaps the same type of discipline, and I noticed I've gotten so used to more maturity in the classroom that when I went to less maturity, all of a sudden I caught myself being a little bit less tolerant and man, that's just not fair. Let's talk about some other situations Coming off of assistant coaching.
Speaker 1:The season's over, we still have a banquet yet to go. I'm still gonna be subbing at that school, so I'll still see some of the students. I'll be honest, I felt it's gonna sound so sad when I said it like this. It's not as bad as I'm gonna make it sound, I'm gonna say it anyway. I felt so empty this week after the season was over, after spending months going to volleyball practice most every day, or a game, one or the other. And even if I didn't, I saw those same players in the hallways in the afternoon. They would come by to see me. I still think they will. I still think they will as I teach their classes in the future.
Speaker 1:A lot of them told me, especially the seniors. I mean, most of our seniors are co-op students Now, so they're only there half a day and they'll tell me oh, greg, you gotta coach this or you gotta sub this class and this class and this class, so we'll get to see each other more before we actually graduate. So it's been. You know, I cried with them, I laughed with them, they. When we won one of the recent games, they were so excited that they accidentally or on purpose, I don't know threw the coach to the ground. There was a huddle on the, not a huddle, a pile up like a rugby pile up on the ground, but I didn't see in the photo that was taken. I see they actually helped her and she was falling down, so it was hilarious. We had a dinner right after that happened and the coach hosted a dinner, so that was a lot of fun and I was certainly missed that.
Speaker 1:And of course, there are other things that we struggle with how tolerant we can be, how acceptable we can be for giving I don't know what the right word is. For instance, there are some of you that when you see students express themselves with their hair, with their clothing, in a way that's just not you, do you have trouble being tolerant of that situation? Do you? If you don't say something to them face to face, do you talk about them behind their back? You know I've used this example before.
Speaker 1:When I see students that have colored their hair in a way at least, I wouldn't or and I say that. But I'll be honest with you If students ask me Mr Collins, will you color your hair if we all get A's on the next class sports? Will you color your hair if we win at this level? You know I might do it. I mean, I had a friend who shaved his head as a challenge to the what next? He didn't shave in advance. He shaved it afterwards as a challenge to the team he was coaching the basketball team he was coaching, so I would probably do that. I mean, I wore a choker when I was in high school. A lot of the guys were wearing them there. I didn't really go through the earring phase, but you know, if that was my era, I probably would have.
Speaker 1:So do you ever find yourself less tolerant? When you come across students like that, I normally just ask them I might open with I'm colorblind, tell me what color your hair is. Do you do it yourself? Do you have someone else do it? Maybe you're not a Tattoo fan, but when somebody expresses themselves, do you have a less tolerance for them? Just life in general, can you be more forgiving? Can I be more forgiving? I just caught myself this week Scaring myself a little bit because I could tell all right, I'm used to putting up with students in the past few months that are much more mature than you.
Speaker 1:You need to straighten up. Well, they can't. They're only 12 or 13. That's what 12 and 13 year olds do. So I Still I'm gonna work on it. This week I've got some middle school days. This week I got one of my favorite teachers asked me to serve for them against getting this week lots of good stuff. This week I'll probably go to the state tournament volleyball tournament, which is at the end of the week and, crazy as it sounds, even though it's the state tournament, it's held at a gym that I can get to just a few minutes quicker than I get to work. My own school or my kids went to school and everything. It just so happens I live very close to a county line and the next county over, because of their really nice facilities, are hosting the tournament. Again, I always look forward to. This would be my six in a row, three as an official, three as at large. The first two I went to I just went for fun. Then I went as an official the next three years and then this year, of course, I'll be wearing my coaching shirts just to kind of represent the school I was at.
Speaker 1:But think about situations in the classroom that you are less tolerant about, or getting, in my case, getting less tolerant about, and how can you be more tolerant? Should you be more tolerant? There's some things in the classroom you can't let go. If these same students that I told you I sit down next to. I tried to get them motivated in ways that I hadn't before, tried to do it more through strength than suggestion, and it didn't really work that well. He finally went to work, but he struggled. He needed some help and I should have been more helpful than just being less tolerant that I normally am. And maybe another thing that made me less tolerant is that Pretty much all the other students in the classroom were golden, so this kid was kind of standing out. Maybe if the class was a little bit noisier, or Well not or if little bit noisier and there were two or three students like that one kid, he wasn't that much worse than all the other students in there. This time he was worse than the other students. So I caught myself being less tolerant. I'm gonna work on my forgiveness and my lack of tolerance.
Speaker 1:This week and again, Ironically, it was one of the best, most beautiful eighth grade days I had ever had. For the most part, those students just came in and got their work done and I appreciated them. That them for that. So Practice on your tolerance, if not in school, in life in general. There was one thought that I wrote down you know life, yeah, it's probably too strong for this, but life's just more fun. Substitute teaching is more fun when you don't hold grudges. The student Makes you less tolerant of them and then you come back to their class on a future day. You're starting from zero. Practice on being more tolerant for that student and not holding grudges against students or whoever you encounter While you're substitute teaching in the schools you're gonna be in this week. Happy Halloween.