Different Kinds of People

During my internship I taught Junior English and Freshmen English classes. They were benchmark students, which is awesome, and there was a lot of classroom management practice going on for me. One of my mentors was also a football coach, and one period of the day was about a third football players, so they were used to a certain camaraderie with the teacher. They were frequently loud and distracted each other repeatedly.

I had several conversations with them away from the rest of the class over the course of my time there. I explained that they had the power to derail class for everyone, but they also had the power to lead by example. I talked to them about the importance of meeting expectations the world has for them as men; something I don't do anymore because gender-based pep-talks are a bad idea.

The last time I talked to them I wanted to be sure they understood that most of their behavior wasn't inherently bad, they were doing things that I consider fun or funny, but they were doing them in the wrong place, at the wrong time. This is essentially the precursor to the "know your audience" conversation I have with class clowns these days.

One the the young men, bless his heart, interrupted to say something along the lines of, "You don't like us distracting your class, but you'd go camping with us!"

There are different kinds of people in the world, some make great camping companions, and others make great goal-oriented co-workers. I am always trying to help my students learn how to be both.