When I first observed a South African classroom, the teacher threatened multiple students with weed work for not complying with her demands, and reprimanded a student for not paying close attention. The students responded with eerie silence, their faces stoic, with only the occasional tremor of masked laughter. This silence was made even more palpable by the fact that I had just seen these same students laughing, talking and making fun of each other very loudly outside the classroom.
After seeing this classroom, I told myself that my classroom would be different. No no no, I wanted the students in my classroom to respect me because they liked me, not because I was older than them, and certainly not just because I was their teacher.
I suppose, if I excavate my subconscious a bit, I still had some mythologized teacher / student relationship I'd picked up from 'Half Nelson' and 'Sister Act' where the teachers (not always effortlessly) straddled the line between authority figure and friend, helping students with personal issues they wouldn't share with just any teacher, but only a compassionate caring and fun teacher like Whoopi Goldberg or a brooding non-conformist teacher like Ryan Gosling. I wanted to be their Whoopi.
Recently though, I'd been feeling less and less like a celebrity and more and more like an out of touch hippie loser. I'd let the kids get too close to me, and now they were walking all over me.
"Walk us to the gate!" they yelled at me one day after class. "But I'm exhausted," I said to them and shrugged my shoulders. "Do it!" one of the girls yelled at me again, and then said something in Xhosa and laughed. "What did you just say?" I asked her but she wouldn't tell me.
"You are late!" they would yell at me when I arrived five minutes late. "We have been waiting!".... "You did not bring us Valentines Cards!" ......"Where's Melissa!? Where's the nice teacher?!" Such accusations! Such anger!
I told Sume about the incidents and she shook her head. "They are testing you," she said to me, "because you are younger and you are not a teacher here. Do you want me to come in and say something to them?" She asked me. I thought about it for a moment. I wanted the students to respect me because I was awesome, not because Sume told them to, but I also wanted the classroom to run smoothly, without having to talk over their laughter constantly. "Fine...I guess," I said to her
Today Sume came into the classroom and sat on one of the desks in the front. Her presence was calm and commanding. She instantly captured the gaze of everyone in the room. She said a few words to the students in Xhosa. I have no idea what, but she repeatedly gestured toward me and said "respect" in English. The students responded defensively. I believe they were saying something about how I'd been unclear, how I'd joked around with them earlier and now I wanted to make the transition to serious teacher without filling them in.
Then Sume left, and I passed back the student essays, which I'd tried to grade on a friendly scale of 1 to 3 stars depending on clear elements like grammar and number of sentences. I think I mispronounced every single one of their names, but I did not hear a peep of laughter. "Mummm--baa--baa--loo?" I asked the class. They looked at me like I was an alien, but an alien they must treat with respect.
"Yeah, that's me," said Mumbablo, as he grabbed his paper. We then delved into our scene workshop about a character with AIDS (I'll describe this later...) and the kids were totally calm; they didn't start laughing in the middle of the scene, or tease each other, they didn't break character at all.
Near the middle of the scene workshop, one of the students offstage started laughing. I instantly reprimanded him and sent him outside. The students were shocked. It was the first time I'd ever sent anyone outside but it felt like the right thing to do.
By the end of the scene workshop, the students were still engaged and listening, even as I packed my bags and said goodbye. "Goodbye," they responded, almost uniformly, like they were soldiers and I was their drill sergeant.
And, for the first time in ever, it felt OK to be the sergeant of the classroom.
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