In May of 2008, I retired from teaching vowing never to go back.
After graduating from college, I went to Austria to teach English for a year. Being a middle class stereotype and modest regarding my infinite talents, I thought I would have been able to captivate my students through American history, politics and hip-hop. At the time, I wanted to be a college professor, and so I wanted to approach my classes in that vein. Not taking into account your target audience, this was a failed proposition with students younger than 20 that don't care about American history, politics or music. Needless to say, I did not hold these kids in rapture, and I struggled with the job.
During and after Austria, I spent a lot of time ruminating on my shortcomings as a teacher. The frustration and impotence I felt as an educator during that year was grinding. Every class was met with stares and the occasional blink; feeling personally responsible for this, I thought I could fix it. For the most part, I was unsuccessful connecting with the teenagers I taught. The teachers would congratulate me on an interesting class, but that wasn’t my audience. After a school year of non-receptive, Austrian grade schoolers, I had written off ever wanting to be a teacher.
Fast forward to June 2011 and imagine my surprise when one of my coworkers popped into my office to tell me that I would be teaching a legal English class twice a week. I remember someone vaguely mentioning this when I applied to the job, but had completely forgotten about it. In some kind of karmic retribution, I was to teach 180 minutes of legal English a week to law students and attorneys in town. To my own chagrin, I was teaching again.
The class has no books, material or lesson plan. I am given 100% discretion to talk about and do whatever I want. Going into my first class, I had no idea what to expect or how to fill 90 minutes. I didn’t know the level of English they spoke and read at. I didn’t know their legal backgrounds. I didn’t know how I was going to sit 33 registered students in a room with 25 chairs.
Being completely clueless about this class and even more clueless about legal English, I put together two articles. One a Wall Street Journal blog post about a vehicular manslaughter case in Florida and the second a longer article from NPR regarding a U.S. Supreme Court case on the subject of class actions in arbitration and cohesion contracts. My goal was to weed out the different English abilities. Having flashbacks to Austria, I was ready for them to find me extremely boring and wonder why they agreed to spend their Tuesdays and Thursdays with me.
The class has its characters to be sure. There is the unabashed capitalist, the domestic violence apologist and the misplaced linguist in a room full of lawyers. The apologist was convinced that DV was a personal matter not meant for the courts. Noting the difference of opinions in this class, I wanted to continue this conversation, I asked her facetiously how hard I would have to hit her to trigger a criminal trial. This got a laugh from the class; she responded, “Pretty hard.” Judging her size and the fact that my only fight experience was in the 4th grade, I decided that this discussion topic had met its end. We moved on.
The class also has a girl that leaves me a little uneasy. I’m not going to say that every group has one, but this one certainly does. Her body language with me is like that of a six year old that “really likes” you. She gives off the kinda vibe that leaves you expecting her at your door even though you never gave her your address. She stands to close when talking to you and seems a little over eager (if not misguided) that I’m an “attorney” from America.
To start the class, I took a page out of half of my law professors' handbooks: I started my first class with a Simpsons clip that illustrated the need to both know legal English and to remember your pants for court. While they are familiar with the show, the execution on my laptop screen was lackluster. Admittedly, a weak start.
To my shock and amazement, however, class was a success. I was unfamiliar with success from a teacher’s perspective, but they responded to discussion questions! They had opinions! I didn’t even have to stoop to law school’s level and was able to completely avoid cold calling. (Full disclosure: I did ask “OK, who was mad at who?” after the second article, but they responded!)
While 70% of the class can easily keep up, there are a few students behind the curve. They tend to be older and from an era when English wasn’t compulsory in their Soviet classroom. Some have dropped over the term, but others have impressively stuck with it. Struggling in my own Russian classes, I know that it’s a difficult task to sit through confusion and misunderstanding twice a week. For their perseverance, I’m proud of them.
Besides that Austria and Armenia both start and end with the same letter, there is little similarity to the outcome of my classes. I think one reason why is on me more than the Austrians or the Armenians I teach. I don’t take myself nearly as seriously (hard to believe, I know) as I did when I showed up in Linz. When I arrived in Austria, I was still high on my senior thesis about feminism in the Harlem Renaissance. What I acknowledge now, that I didn’t then, is that it will be a cold day in hell when any Austrian high school student would ever give a damn about feminism in the early Harlem Renaissance. I my approach was too serious and needlessly heady to impart knowledge unsuccessfully into those blonde skulls in Austria.
Four years later and after two years of the most deprecating education America has ever thought to produce, it is nearly impossible for me to think that highly of my intellectual ability. To be honest, I think this makes all of the difference. While law school has undoubtedly been dehumanizing, I think that I’ve oddly become more human, if not more aware. My ability to be more relaxed and less serious gives me the ability to joke about my shortcomings as an educator instead of being rigid and uncomfortable about those shortcoming. I think it makes me more personable to my students and in the end better at relating and communicating with them.
As of June of 2011, for better or worse, I'm out of retirement and back in the classroom.
After graduating from college, I went to Austria to teach English for a year. Being a middle class stereotype and modest regarding my infinite talents, I thought I would have been able to captivate my students through American history, politics and hip-hop. At the time, I wanted to be a college professor, and so I wanted to approach my classes in that vein. Not taking into account your target audience, this was a failed proposition with students younger than 20 that don't care about American history, politics or music. Needless to say, I did not hold these kids in rapture, and I struggled with the job.
During and after Austria, I spent a lot of time ruminating on my shortcomings as a teacher. The frustration and impotence I felt as an educator during that year was grinding. Every class was met with stares and the occasional blink; feeling personally responsible for this, I thought I could fix it. For the most part, I was unsuccessful connecting with the teenagers I taught. The teachers would congratulate me on an interesting class, but that wasn’t my audience. After a school year of non-receptive, Austrian grade schoolers, I had written off ever wanting to be a teacher.
Fast forward to June 2011 and imagine my surprise when one of my coworkers popped into my office to tell me that I would be teaching a legal English class twice a week. I remember someone vaguely mentioning this when I applied to the job, but had completely forgotten about it. In some kind of karmic retribution, I was to teach 180 minutes of legal English a week to law students and attorneys in town. To my own chagrin, I was teaching again.
The class has no books, material or lesson plan. I am given 100% discretion to talk about and do whatever I want. Going into my first class, I had no idea what to expect or how to fill 90 minutes. I didn’t know the level of English they spoke and read at. I didn’t know their legal backgrounds. I didn’t know how I was going to sit 33 registered students in a room with 25 chairs.
Being completely clueless about this class and even more clueless about legal English, I put together two articles. One a Wall Street Journal blog post about a vehicular manslaughter case in Florida and the second a longer article from NPR regarding a U.S. Supreme Court case on the subject of class actions in arbitration and cohesion contracts. My goal was to weed out the different English abilities. Having flashbacks to Austria, I was ready for them to find me extremely boring and wonder why they agreed to spend their Tuesdays and Thursdays with me.
The class has its characters to be sure. There is the unabashed capitalist, the domestic violence apologist and the misplaced linguist in a room full of lawyers. The apologist was convinced that DV was a personal matter not meant for the courts. Noting the difference of opinions in this class, I wanted to continue this conversation, I asked her facetiously how hard I would have to hit her to trigger a criminal trial. This got a laugh from the class; she responded, “Pretty hard.” Judging her size and the fact that my only fight experience was in the 4th grade, I decided that this discussion topic had met its end. We moved on.
The class also has a girl that leaves me a little uneasy. I’m not going to say that every group has one, but this one certainly does. Her body language with me is like that of a six year old that “really likes” you. She gives off the kinda vibe that leaves you expecting her at your door even though you never gave her your address. She stands to close when talking to you and seems a little over eager (if not misguided) that I’m an “attorney” from America.
To start the class, I took a page out of half of my law professors' handbooks: I started my first class with a Simpsons clip that illustrated the need to both know legal English and to remember your pants for court. While they are familiar with the show, the execution on my laptop screen was lackluster. Admittedly, a weak start.
To my shock and amazement, however, class was a success. I was unfamiliar with success from a teacher’s perspective, but they responded to discussion questions! They had opinions! I didn’t even have to stoop to law school’s level and was able to completely avoid cold calling. (Full disclosure: I did ask “OK, who was mad at who?” after the second article, but they responded!)
While 70% of the class can easily keep up, there are a few students behind the curve. They tend to be older and from an era when English wasn’t compulsory in their Soviet classroom. Some have dropped over the term, but others have impressively stuck with it. Struggling in my own Russian classes, I know that it’s a difficult task to sit through confusion and misunderstanding twice a week. For their perseverance, I’m proud of them.
Besides that Austria and Armenia both start and end with the same letter, there is little similarity to the outcome of my classes. I think one reason why is on me more than the Austrians or the Armenians I teach. I don’t take myself nearly as seriously (hard to believe, I know) as I did when I showed up in Linz. When I arrived in Austria, I was still high on my senior thesis about feminism in the Harlem Renaissance. What I acknowledge now, that I didn’t then, is that it will be a cold day in hell when any Austrian high school student would ever give a damn about feminism in the early Harlem Renaissance. I my approach was too serious and needlessly heady to impart knowledge unsuccessfully into those blonde skulls in Austria.
Four years later and after two years of the most deprecating education America has ever thought to produce, it is nearly impossible for me to think that highly of my intellectual ability. To be honest, I think this makes all of the difference. While law school has undoubtedly been dehumanizing, I think that I’ve oddly become more human, if not more aware. My ability to be more relaxed and less serious gives me the ability to joke about my shortcomings as an educator instead of being rigid and uncomfortable about those shortcoming. I think it makes me more personable to my students and in the end better at relating and communicating with them.
As of June of 2011, for better or worse, I'm out of retirement and back in the classroom.
