It is not easy to teach when you are low. I have been feeling crummy for various reasons, and yesterday I let my guard down in the creative writing class and they mutinied on me. Not the first, but I hope the last.

All the high school kids are finally done with their Advanced Placement tests, and yesterday was the final day. Five of the six students in my last afternoon class had all taken APs, and they were fried. To ask them to write creatively was asking a lot, and I have more than enough sympathy and patience for stressed teenagers (having one of my own at home seems to amplify this). So I told them I would read to them from a great poetry collection I have, Real Poems for Unreal Times, and that they could scrawl out some poems of their own to fill the hour and a half.

Well, my one roustabout badgered me to let them watch a movie. I had a couple students who were interested in using the time to write, so when someone suggested that the movie watchers go to a vacant classroom to watch their movie, I didn't think much or long about it and simply wanted to get them out of my hair. I said be gone, and they were.

But I began to think I had done my wimping thing again, and wrote about it (thank you, Peter Elbow), and realized through the free write that I needed to get back in control of this small but semi-powerful clique. I also talked to my boss who encouraged me to do the same.

I called the students from their movie, had them return to my classroom, sat them down and explained what had gone wrong for them and for me. They were remorseful and sorry, and I'm glad I talked to them. I wish this hadn't come up in the first place, but it is my number one issue as a new teacher to want to be friends, or at least to not truly piss off any teens, and it gets me in trouble once in a while. It certainly doesn't help the students. But what do other high school teachers do when their kids are wiped out by AP?

Today went much better. Whenever I have a crisis of confidence, it is always followed by a period of sterner expectations on my part and the students do live up to it. The softness and lax attitude always devolves into an unenjoyable situation. It is true in many arenas, not just the high school. Why does it work to keep people on a short tether? That little bit of fear is really quite a motivator.

How come simple kindness doesn't compel people to do their best?