High School starts in my district next week. I’m preparing myself in a variety of ways. I’m reading up on a lot of education theory and studies (Keeping Track by Jeannie Oakes is one I’m halfway through), I’m looking over unit plans here on my computer at home, and I’m trying to sleep as much as possible.

In the end, I know that there are some things I can get myself ready for, and some things I can’t. One of the things I am never fully prepared for is the hate.

What I mean is simple: When a lot of these kids walk in your door on the first day of school, they hate you.

I’m serious. I know it sounds a little extreme, throwing the “H” word around, but it really is the case. I don’t say this too often, but watch “Freedom Writers.” One of the only good things I take away from that movie is when Hilary Swank admits she doesn’t get their respect automatically, she needs to earn it. That is a classroom truth if I’ve ever heard one. The problem there is that before you earn their respect, that means you’re not getting any.

What does a lack of respect look like? It’s not pretty.

These kids come in on day one with daggers in their eyes. I mean, they are looking at you like they would like nothing better than for you to choke on every syllable that comes out of your mouth. The really messed up ones are liable to start swearing at you, at other students, and try to own your classroom. Teachers aren’t on their list of people they should give a shit[1] about, so it is up to us to make them give a shit. And that’s hard.

Of course it isn’t every student, but in your regular heterogeneous classroom at a low-income public school, it’s a heck of a lot of them. Their education up to meeting you has been below average, they have been told over and over by tests, and grades, and adults themselves, how dumb they are. In schools we place emphasis on successful students, they get awards, they get praise, they get everything. A struggling student gets nothing.

So school has been letting them down for years, and by the time they enter into your class, they aren’t expecting anything different.

Plus, they are GHETTO in all caps bold italic.

We come in every year, and those are the faces we are faced with. Of course, I am going to earn their respect. I’m not going to wrap them in my little throw-away box and give up on them. I look at it as a challenge. I take every class personally, and I will do whatever I can to get every student to respect me. Every year we are Dangerous Minds. Every year we are Freedom Writers. Unfortunately, as opposed to Hollywood, we see waaaaayyyyyyy more sad ending than happy ones, and then we start it all over again. I am Michelle Pfeiffer but even better. I am Hilary Swank but REAL. I am a dancing monkey with cymbals riding a unicycle every day starting at 8:05, and even though I get off the unicycle sometime around 3:30, I never really put the cymbals down.

How do we prepare for the hate then?

You can’t. You just need to know it’s coming, and you need to know it isn’t personal. Of course, everything’s personal. But you need to remember that the daggers directed at you are from a lifetime of being told they aren’t good enough, they are failures, they aren’t smart, and they have no future.

Which means it is now your job to turn all of that around. It is now your job to maybe be the first one to show them you won’t give up on them.

It’s just hard, that’s all I’m saying. It’s the part I don’t look forward to—the haters.

So get out your juggling balls and get on your unicycle. Yes, as a teacher, it must be a unicycle, because it’s more engaging than a regular bike, and your school doesn’t have money for that second wheel anyway.

---

[1] I am very deliberate about my continual use of profanity on this blog. In the school I teach at I hear things coming out of the mouths of 14-year-olds that would make my grandmother faint. Life isn’t gift-wrapped with perfume, it is ugly, dirty, and full of strife. When you try to ignore that, you’re ignoring life. So when I swear in this blog, it isn’t because I’m ignorant, it’s because I’m over here in the real world.