I realize I told you last time to stay tuned for classroom updates. Well... stay tuned a little longer. We (by the way: whenever I reference "we" I am most likely referencing my husband and me. Being teachers of English in the same building, we tend to share a lot of stories and similarities) are going in for the last time tomorrow before our final work day of the year. Our goal is to get everything in our classrooms done and decorated tomorrow so we can spend our work day working. By working, I mean getting ready for the first few days, first few weeks, etc. Before work can be done, I believe a healthy workspace should be created. But more on that later.
Today, I want to talk about the S Word.
Some background.
Friday was our first inservice day of the year. We kicked off with three speeches: one from our superintendent, one from the 2015 Teacher of the Year and one from an outstanding high school principal. Picture an entire school district stuffed into a school auditorium, filling the floor seats and the balcony seats with easy grace. The temperature rises. The voices swell. The smart phones and tablets are out to distract from what is doomed to be another 2-3 hours of inane rambling and verbosity (mind you, I am still in the phase where I like to take notes and pay attention. Inservices are still exciting. Though my phone did come out a few times...).
After an extended welcome from our superintendent, we were turned over to the 2015 Teacher of the Year. Her name is Shanna Peeples (my teacher-to-high-school-student radar immediately giggled and imagined it as "Miss Peoples" and could see at least one student saying, "Peoples isn't a real word!!" when it actually is). She is an English teacher in Amarillo, TX. She walked on stage, the epitome of crisp and pristine in her blue button down and white skirt. Her voice was soft with that encouraging and friendly twang of an accent. Shanna Peeples started off by telling us how fabulous we looked and that we should take a selfie immediately because who knows if we would look that fabulous later in the year.
(cue my exceedingly handsome husband whipping out his phone to take a selfie and me snickering)
Then Shanna Peeples began to speak of her experiences.
To be honest... the first few minutes tied in with a short video didn't sell me. Here was another teacher who had had extreme success and played it down with modesty. The video showed beautiful and inspirational interviews from students reflecting on how much she had changed their lives. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. But still... haven't we seen this before?
Then Shanna Peeples started to talk about the F word.
Fear.
I guarantee you can go out and search for Shanna Peeples' childhood and the fear she witnessed with her parents. She eloquently described the fear she had as a student moving across the country and the fear she had (and still has) as a teacher. Her voice resonated quietly and calmly about the fear she saw in her students almost every day: the fear to hope.
And believe me, there were several stories of students fearing to hope that resonated in sniffles throughout the crowd. It is never easy to talk about students fearing to hope. We all have our stories.
As I sat there, listening to this dynamic and deliberate woman speak, I kept hearing her repeat the word "fear." And all I could really do was re-translate it in my head to the S word.
Shame.
Here's where we need more background.
In 2013, my husband introduced me to a book and a lifestyle. Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw. I could go on and on about what this book details (and I guarantee my husband could multiply that length by 5) with what moral and toxic shame does to our lives. It's almost difficult to break it all down into a simple definition. I will try... but I might not do it justice. You might need to read the book.
Human beings are affected by moral and toxic shame. Moral is the good kind: you legitimately hurt a person with your actions and you could stand to grow from it. We all need to have some moral shame. I apologize to my husband and my students when I have done something wrong. Moral Shame is good.
Toxic is the bad kind: we receive toxic shame from others who can't understand their own shame and must push to someone else. Like lashing out at a student if they are talking to loud and I have had a bad day; my bad day has nothing to do with them and yet I have taken it out on them. Bradshaw details the process from birth to adulthood and describes many different aspects of how toxic shame hits us. Some parts of the book were more definition; other parts forced me to close the book and reflect on my life (in tears).
My husband and I have had hours and hours of discussion of how we can consider the shame of our students when they come into our classrooms. It's not an over exaggeration when we say that every student comes in with a different story. Some students come from healthy families; some come from unhealthy families. And even those students from healthy families have their own skeletons and shadows. We see students who come in with less-than-human perspectives ("Well, I suck at it and I know I'm going to fail, so I'm not even going to try") and students with more-than-human perspectives ("If I fail this class, that means I am a failure, so I cannot fail"). We see every face of shame walk into our rooms. In my experience, the majority of them don't even know where to begin in understanding their shame.
Jump back to Shanna Peeples. Our 2015 Teacher of the Year preached the process of helping students healing their own shame even if it was behind the word "fear." She spoke of students who accepted that they were less-than-human and described her fight to helping them to the medium of "human being" (not "human doing" which is a whole different definition). Her soft voice exploded over students embracing their future of jail or death. And through it all, she proved that she does what she can to help these students overcome their fear of hope. Or in my translation: she helps these students overcome their toxic shame.
And that is the focus for my second year.
I'm not perfect. I'm not a veteran teacher. I'm still working on my own shame. I have had daily struggles with self-image since high school (while I'm out of the physically harmful bits, the mental bits still need help). I have bouts of anxiety and fight the more-than-human perspective often. I am a perfectionist who feels like a failure if I don't get something absolutely right. I wake up with exuberant intention to pick up the phone and find a counselor; I begin shaking when I try to dial the number because I struggle to talk on the phone with strangers. I get nervous in parking lots, intense traffic and even ATMs because I have no control over the situation. I used to be unable to sleep during student teaching and my first year. I would often walk into my classroom gripped with extreme nausea and shaking hands during my first year. Believe me: I know I have a long way to go.
And I know that the 25-31 young adults walking into my room have a long way to go, too.
So ultimately: Shanna Peeples reminded me of what I want to focus on more in my second year. The curriculum is there; I can talk for hours about metaphors and themes. But I want to talk with my students. I want to understand even more where they are coming from and what they are bringing to our classroom. Because every single student will walk into my classroom with their own healthy dose of moral shame but most likely an overload of toxic shame.
And I want to help them sort it out.
Now, I'm a realist. I know I won't get to every student. I didn't get to every student last year and I won't get to every student 20-40 years from now. Some truly have to go it alone.
But if I can let as many students know that they can leave their toxic shame at the door in my classroom... I will know I've done something right. Or that they can express their toxic shame and we can talk through it... I will know I've done something right.
I know most people enjoyed our third speaker. Honestly, I know most people enjoyed when the whole inservice day was over.
But it was incredibly refreshing to hear the 2015 Teacher of the Year reference shame in students and how she fights to help them fight that shame.
Even it she uses the f word.
Today, I want to talk about the S Word.
Some background.
Friday was our first inservice day of the year. We kicked off with three speeches: one from our superintendent, one from the 2015 Teacher of the Year and one from an outstanding high school principal. Picture an entire school district stuffed into a school auditorium, filling the floor seats and the balcony seats with easy grace. The temperature rises. The voices swell. The smart phones and tablets are out to distract from what is doomed to be another 2-3 hours of inane rambling and verbosity (mind you, I am still in the phase where I like to take notes and pay attention. Inservices are still exciting. Though my phone did come out a few times...).
After an extended welcome from our superintendent, we were turned over to the 2015 Teacher of the Year. Her name is Shanna Peeples (my teacher-to-high-school-student radar immediately giggled and imagined it as "Miss Peoples" and could see at least one student saying, "Peoples isn't a real word!!" when it actually is). She is an English teacher in Amarillo, TX. She walked on stage, the epitome of crisp and pristine in her blue button down and white skirt. Her voice was soft with that encouraging and friendly twang of an accent. Shanna Peeples started off by telling us how fabulous we looked and that we should take a selfie immediately because who knows if we would look that fabulous later in the year.
(cue my exceedingly handsome husband whipping out his phone to take a selfie and me snickering)
Then Shanna Peeples began to speak of her experiences.
To be honest... the first few minutes tied in with a short video didn't sell me. Here was another teacher who had had extreme success and played it down with modesty. The video showed beautiful and inspirational interviews from students reflecting on how much she had changed their lives. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. But still... haven't we seen this before?
Then Shanna Peeples started to talk about the F word.
Fear.
I guarantee you can go out and search for Shanna Peeples' childhood and the fear she witnessed with her parents. She eloquently described the fear she had as a student moving across the country and the fear she had (and still has) as a teacher. Her voice resonated quietly and calmly about the fear she saw in her students almost every day: the fear to hope.
And believe me, there were several stories of students fearing to hope that resonated in sniffles throughout the crowd. It is never easy to talk about students fearing to hope. We all have our stories.
As I sat there, listening to this dynamic and deliberate woman speak, I kept hearing her repeat the word "fear." And all I could really do was re-translate it in my head to the S word.
Shame.
Here's where we need more background.
In 2013, my husband introduced me to a book and a lifestyle. Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw. I could go on and on about what this book details (and I guarantee my husband could multiply that length by 5) with what moral and toxic shame does to our lives. It's almost difficult to break it all down into a simple definition. I will try... but I might not do it justice. You might need to read the book.
Human beings are affected by moral and toxic shame. Moral is the good kind: you legitimately hurt a person with your actions and you could stand to grow from it. We all need to have some moral shame. I apologize to my husband and my students when I have done something wrong. Moral Shame is good.
Toxic is the bad kind: we receive toxic shame from others who can't understand their own shame and must push to someone else. Like lashing out at a student if they are talking to loud and I have had a bad day; my bad day has nothing to do with them and yet I have taken it out on them. Bradshaw details the process from birth to adulthood and describes many different aspects of how toxic shame hits us. Some parts of the book were more definition; other parts forced me to close the book and reflect on my life (in tears).
My husband and I have had hours and hours of discussion of how we can consider the shame of our students when they come into our classrooms. It's not an over exaggeration when we say that every student comes in with a different story. Some students come from healthy families; some come from unhealthy families. And even those students from healthy families have their own skeletons and shadows. We see students who come in with less-than-human perspectives ("Well, I suck at it and I know I'm going to fail, so I'm not even going to try") and students with more-than-human perspectives ("If I fail this class, that means I am a failure, so I cannot fail"). We see every face of shame walk into our rooms. In my experience, the majority of them don't even know where to begin in understanding their shame.
Jump back to Shanna Peeples. Our 2015 Teacher of the Year preached the process of helping students healing their own shame even if it was behind the word "fear." She spoke of students who accepted that they were less-than-human and described her fight to helping them to the medium of "human being" (not "human doing" which is a whole different definition). Her soft voice exploded over students embracing their future of jail or death. And through it all, she proved that she does what she can to help these students overcome their fear of hope. Or in my translation: she helps these students overcome their toxic shame.
And that is the focus for my second year.
I'm not perfect. I'm not a veteran teacher. I'm still working on my own shame. I have had daily struggles with self-image since high school (while I'm out of the physically harmful bits, the mental bits still need help). I have bouts of anxiety and fight the more-than-human perspective often. I am a perfectionist who feels like a failure if I don't get something absolutely right. I wake up with exuberant intention to pick up the phone and find a counselor; I begin shaking when I try to dial the number because I struggle to talk on the phone with strangers. I get nervous in parking lots, intense traffic and even ATMs because I have no control over the situation. I used to be unable to sleep during student teaching and my first year. I would often walk into my classroom gripped with extreme nausea and shaking hands during my first year. Believe me: I know I have a long way to go.
And I know that the 25-31 young adults walking into my room have a long way to go, too.
So ultimately: Shanna Peeples reminded me of what I want to focus on more in my second year. The curriculum is there; I can talk for hours about metaphors and themes. But I want to talk with my students. I want to understand even more where they are coming from and what they are bringing to our classroom. Because every single student will walk into my classroom with their own healthy dose of moral shame but most likely an overload of toxic shame.
And I want to help them sort it out.
Now, I'm a realist. I know I won't get to every student. I didn't get to every student last year and I won't get to every student 20-40 years from now. Some truly have to go it alone.
But if I can let as many students know that they can leave their toxic shame at the door in my classroom... I will know I've done something right. Or that they can express their toxic shame and we can talk through it... I will know I've done something right.
I know most people enjoyed our third speaker. Honestly, I know most people enjoyed when the whole inservice day was over.
But it was incredibly refreshing to hear the 2015 Teacher of the Year reference shame in students and how she fights to help them fight that shame.
Even it she uses the f word.