I feel like this week has become unhinged. Its worrisome considering how so early into Term 3 we are but I feel exhausted and really can’t be can’t be fucked. I’m going to blame the writing. Having a massive day then sitting down to write 1000 words means that there is very little respite. As soon as I finish writing, I have to go straight to bed since I have to get up so god damn early to do it all again the next day.
When I picked up Alice from afterschool care, it took me a solid 20 seconds of steering at the iPad to sign her out before I finally remembered my own phone number. In my defence I’d had a huge day at the Tech School with 40 rowdy Year 9 students. It was pretty chaotic even for me and I’m normally great working a more robust crowd. I had to initiate ‘pub talk’ which is a pedagogy of teaching I’ve been working on where instead of trying to calm the chaos, I subtly steer it from within. It’s meeting the students where they’re at and while it's fairly successful with the right audience, it also feels like running a marathon.
I never appreciated how theatrical teaching was which is surprising considering we were running a program called STEM Showdown. It is so performative but much like a comedian spilling their guts on stage, we rely a lot on feedback from the audience. Year 9 students are one of the toughest crowds I’ve ever had to work with. They literally give you nothing. When they first entered the presentation space for the start of the day they filed in and instantly found a wall to back into. It was as if the centre of the room held some terrible curse that would destroy any kind of social credibility if they stepped inside.
When my colleague Cathy asked them if anyone knew what the S in STEM stood for no one spoke. Probably for the only time that day, there was complete silence. These students have all come to us before and ALL know what STEM stands for but there is something strange that happens with students around this age - it becomes incredibly uncool to know the answers. Which is bullshit because I know for a fact there were some incredibly bright and engaged students in that group. The social pressure was so high that not one person raised their hand to share the answer they all obviously knew.
Not wanting to be defeated by their reluctance to engage, I rudely interrupted Cathy’s wonderful opening presentation and got them all to stand up and move into the middle of the room. Now I asked them to use their loudest inside voice to tell me what the S in STEM stands for.
“Science’. They all shouted.
What about ‘T’?
“Technology!”
And the ‘E’?
“Engineering!”
What about the “M”?
“Maths!!”
See, I knew it! They all knew what STEM meant but were only comfortable shouting the answer out when they all did it togther. This is why teaching is so exhausting - while that was a small example and probably only took 5 minutes of the day, it was one of tens of situations where I had to give it my all to keep people on task or motivated. I don’t regret spending my energy in this fashion. By the end of the day I think we’d made a real impact on most of the students. Many of the students achieved things that never thought they’d be capable of doing at the beginning of the day.
There was lots of energy required to get from “I just don’t get it” to that moment when they realise they know the answer. Their eyes open wide and eyebrows arch up. You can almost see the spark. I run a program called ‘STEM is calling’ in which students have to figure out a riddle that will give them a phone number which is used to get a four digit code for a lock. The lock is on a box containing a STEM related challenge. Since it's a competition they get points for opening the locks and 10 points for each box they complete.
It’s amazing how quickly some of these students give up when they don’t know the answer straight away. There is lots of hand holding, especially when you have a bunch of 15 year old boys who would rather be doing anything else other than maths problems. It makes them feel stupid, then one of their mates will give them shit if they even take a guess and all of a sudden no one is doing what they’re supposed to be doing. This is when pub talk comes in.
“Come on Man, don’t listen to your mate, he’s being an egg. What do you think the answer is, go on”
After a bit of back and forth we eventually get some traction and the students will be able to complete the task themselves. Most of the time they’re more than capable of doing it but again, knowing the answer isn’t cool - in some groups at least. When they do get it, they’re stoked and feel proud of themselves which is the whole point. That’s the pay off. I’ll be damned if it isn’t exhausting getting some of them there.
Writing my book is going to be a mission. Much like these students, I’m using ‘pub talk’ on myself. “Don’t be an egg Jess, what 3 months of late nights to write a book?” I still have so far to go but I can genuinely see a tiny, microscopic light at the end of the extremely long tunnel. I just need to keep moving forward.
I had an encouraging moment this morning when I got an email from Stripe with my tax invoice. This type of email wouldn’t normally inspire joy but when I checked my account there were several people who signed up to my paid subscription. I never got a notification so I just assumed that my empowering blog about charging for my value had missed the mark. I even paid for a subscription myself just to check that it was working in case that was the reason no-one had signed up… Turns out I just didn’t have the right notification settings.
As of next week I’m going to start sharing parts of my book to paid subscribers. Hopefully it will spark conversations as I ask for feedback and first impressions. It will be raw and unfinished but it will be interesting if you’ve ever wanted to see a book together in real time!!
