Adventures in "Saturday School"

Say whaaattt?
Mr. Yang went to work on a Saturday? What happened to the weekend?


Well, this EXCELLENT experience today wasn't actually planned. I didn't actually know I was even going to be heading into the Bronx today until I got a text from Miss Liu, a 8th grade science teacher in a different academy, who was planning on proctoring "Saturday School" at our middle school but couldn't make it.


Needless to say, I agreed. I've never done Saturday School before, and never really wanted to, since these were students with classroom disciplinary issues. (My school holds "Saturday School" most Saturdays as disciplinary consequence.) I've heard that the students in Saturday School throw paper airplanes at each other, refuse to follow directions, don't bring any work so draw on the desks the entire time, never stop talking and constantly disrespect the proctor.


Not something I was hoping to do.


But... with the promise of getting paid administrative premium, no plans till tonight and the chance of helping a good friend, how could I say no?


The morning started off rough. Saturday School is from 9-11am, 2 full hours with 6th-8th grade students with a track record of behavioral incidences. It was difficult to get them to stop talking and face forward. The kids deliberately ignored me, even though most of them recognized me and knew of my popularity with my students. Guess popularity can't get you very far with these students... . They continued to ignore my requests, kept on running amok in my classroom and did so until about 9:45.

By then, I was just ready to give up. I mean, there were really no people there to supervise, and there was no need for me to risk ruining my voice for a group of kids too beyond my control. I sat down in the teacher's chair and began reading a magazine I had brought from the apartment (it was actually my roommate's magazine... but it looked pretty interesting! :)), and stopped caring about what was going on.

As you might have guessed, this came as a disappointing blow to me. I thought that my popularity and ability to relate to these kids would help me be successful in turning around their behavior before it was too late.

But then I realized, my apathy and willingness to give up is what a lot of classroom teachers in the inner city are doing with their classes. I REFUSED to allow myself to do this. I went up there and commanded attention of the class. I talked to them about the importance of respect and proper behavior in school. We even had a discussion about what they did to get them in Saturday School, why they behaved this way (peer pressure, boredom, hatred of the classroom teacher/AP/security guard, etc... I got some really juicy answers!) and how they can improve in the future. I did an impromptu lesson on conflict resolution and the benefits of education.

I think their 2 hours with me were pretty well received by the students. They each seemed to take something out of the lesson, which is GREAT.

Today I disproved another one of my fears of my school - proctoring Saturday School. And coming out of it, I think it was a pretty enjoyable experience! :)