Get to know your students. All of them.

It was my second week of teaching, and I was already beginning to see the cracks in my classroom management. I approached a veteran teacher who had a quiet, orderly room and asked her what I should do.

“Nail the biggest troublemaker on the first day. Starting tomorrow, show them who’s the boss,” she said.

“I usually pull them aside and talk to them about their behavior,” I said

“You’re a teacher not a counselor. And you have to show that you’re the boss. Part of being a boss is getting rid of the ones who are getting in the way.”

“Should I give a warning?”

She shook her head. “They don’t need warnings. Warnings are a nice way of saying that they can get away with misbehavior and you’ll be passive. The first time your worst kid acts up, write a referral. Make a martyr out of him.”

I bristled at the word “martyr.” Judging from history, martyrs have always had a way of turning people against power structures. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that to my class.

“See, bad kids can be like cancer. They’ll ruin the whole group if you’re not careful.”

We learn best when we can share the best parts of us.

I took her advice with a grain of salt. OK, more like a giant salt rock. Still, I wondered if I needed to make an example of the worst kid in class and see if her theory worked. Secretly, I wondered about my third period group. This was the class with Ernesto, the boy with the stone-hard stare who refused to lift a pencil unless he planned to get it stuck on the ceiling. He talked through direct instruction and marked up a chair with graffiti during cooperative learning.

It didn’t take long before I labeled him as an “intentional non-learner,” which was my way of saying, “I don’t like this kid. He’s mean, and he’s lazy.” He wasn’t just disruptive. He seemed to enjoy saying cruel things that would hurt other people.

At one point, he asked to sit next to Eric, a boy with Asperger syndrome. Convinced he was going to bully this student, I moved the two across the room from each other, and I almost wrote him up when he walked into class and said, “Me and Eric are best friends. He’s going to help me organize my binder. His is really organized, right?”

Eric nodded, apparently unaware that he was being teased.

Midway through the second quarter, Ernesto brought a fart machine to school. I mean, it wasn’t a real fart machine. It just made the sounds and not the smell. Whenever I walked near his group, he’d press a button. “Mr. Spencer, you shouldn’t have beans for breakfast,” he’s say, followed by his stone-hard stare.

When I pinpointed the noise and asked him to open his backpack, Ernesto replied, “I thought you just taught us about the Fourth Amendment.” Turns out he was paying at least a little bit of attention.

Revealed by a fight

That day at lunch, I arrived back to school and noticed a binder in the air. Kids were laughing, a boy was screaming, and papers were scattered everywhere. A crowd stood around laughing.

I noticed Ernesto in the group and wondered if he put the two boys up to it. But as I watched, Ernesto pushed through the crowd. “Leave him alone!” he screamed. “Everyone just leave him the hell alone.”

Two boys stepped up to him, and Ernesto clenched fist, ready to fight. As I intervened and led the two boys to the office, I turned back and saw Ernesto picking up the papers and setting them in the binder for Eric.

The next day, I pulled him aside. “What did I do wrong?” he huffed.

“That was brave what you did yesterday.”

He met me with the cold hard stare and then sat down. Suddenly, I saw Ernesto differently. He wasn’t a cancer I had to cut out; he was part of the cure.

As I got to know Ernesto over the next few weeks, there was a slow change. He still interrupted me at times. But I saw his creativity, his sensitivity, and his loyalty.

I realized something else. I used to think that masks were something people wore to hide their dark side. But the real tragedy is that we sometimes wear masks that hide the best parts of us: the hidden talents, the great ideas, the wild hopes, and the parts of our character we are scared to let out for fear of being hurt.

This is why I don’t have a list of good or bad students. I’m convinced that often when something unexpected happens that I may not know the whole story. That’s why teaching has to be relational. Students are motivated when they are known.

Geek out projects

Fast forward a decade. I’m in my classroom planning the first unit. Instead of an icebreaker — as an introvert, I’d rather have the ice melt slowly — I try something called the Geek Out Project. It’s a horrible name. I realize that “geek” can be a pejorative term — at least it was when I was growing up and called a geek by my peers. However, we used it as a term for the talents, interests, and beliefs that ignite our passion.

The real tragedy is that the masks we wear hide the best parts of us: the hidden talents, the great ideas, the wild hopes, and the parts of our character we are scared to let out for fear of being hurt.

I started with focus questions: What do you really care about and why? What ignites your passion? What is something you know inside and out? What are things you wish you could be learning in school that you aren’t? What are things you deeply believe in? What are your convictions?

I explained that geekiness is a passion, interest, enjoyment, and often convictions about a particular topic. From there, we moved into research, blogging, podcasts, and short presentations on the topics.

They were all over the place. In one group, a girl chose Korean pop music while the girl next to her delved into issues of immigration. Then, surprisingly, they found connections in their ideas. A boy across the room chose Minecraft while the kid next to him gave seven amazing reasons why zombies would make great pets. A few kids wrote about their lives, their families, or their cultures.

There was nothing particularly innovative about the project. However, I was struck by how well I got to know my students. It wasn’t just new students, either. I saw a different side to students that I taught all day in a self-contained environment last year. I realized that I had been so focused on whether they mastered linear equations or clarifying questions that I never bothered to figure out who they were, what they were interested in, or what they believed about life.

It has me thinking that one of the best things a teacher can do is create a safe, trusted environment where students can take off their masks and be affirmed for who they are. I’m not referring to a fluffy, feel-good concept of self-esteem. It’s more about being known, really known, and affirmed for one’s identity.

School often works against this. In a standardized system, it’s easy to value compliance and conformity. Kids learn to wear “good kid,” “bad kid,” and “goofy kid” masks that keep them from ever showing their true talents and interests and ideas. However, my experience this year has reminded me that we learn best when we can share the best parts of us. That happens only when it’s safe enough to remove the mask.

CITATION: Spencer, J.T. (2013). IN PRACTICE | TEACHING: We hide the best parts. Phi Delta Kappan, 95 (3), 74-75.