By Baylee Lorenne
On May 13, 2023 Baylee Lorenne graduated from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, College of Education, Bachelor of Education in Secondary Education (BEd-Secondary) Kahalewaihoʻonaʻauao Program. This was one of the final steps in her journey to become a certified secondary social studies teacher in the State of Hawai‘i. As a part of her culminating experiences in the program, Baylee was asked to share lessons learned from her first year of teaching with both her peers and the new group of teacher candidates who had just entered the program. The following is an excerpt from her public presentation. As a new report from the state Department of Education (2023) highlights the ongoing difficulties of addressing Hawaii's teacher shortage, this blog provides insight into the experiences of young people as they step into one of the most challenging and rewarding professions.
The first thing my mentor teacher asked me before I jumped into my final term of student teaching was, “What tone are you going to start off the semester with? How are you going to present yourself to your students?” These questions stopped me in my tracks. I realized that of all the things I had been worrying about, I hadn’t even considered how I was going to set “the tone” with my students. I had been hyper-focused on settling into my placement, preparing my syllabus, writing lesson plans, and making seating charts that I hadn’t even stopped to consider how the students were going to perceive me and feel about me being their new teacher. As I reflected on the questions, I thought a lot about first-year student teachers who aspire to be the “fun teacher” or the “cool teacher,” but that doesn’t always translate as well as we want it to, especially in a high school environment. I knew that right off the bat, students would look at me, a tattoo-covered 21-year-old, and think, “You’re our teacher?” I started to imagine being 16-17 years old and getting told what to do by someone that was maybe 5-6 years older than me. I came to the realization that having confidence in myself and taking pride in the way I presented myself was going to make or break the relationship I had with my students.
This is when I realized my youth might actually help transform my classroom and student relationships. It might actually help me find some balance in the tone I set in my classroom–the balance between being cool and being a good role model, and the balance between being approachable but respectable all at the same time. As Thomas B. Yos argues, “loving, caring, fun-filled human relationships are at the core of human flourishing” (Yos 2012, 52). I wanted my students to be excited to walk in the door, even if they weren’t fans of history. I pictured the type of safe and reassuring environment I would have wanted as a high school student.
It was then that I began to get more and more comfortable in my classroom. I learned very quickly that most students love to talk about themselves–their interests, hobbies, dogs, what they had for breakfast–they just need someone to ask. After a few weeks, I got into the habit of walking around during individual or group work time and just making conversation with students. Of course, helping with the activity and answering clarifying questions if they needed it, but also just allowing them a space to talk and build up a trusting relationship. This is how I began to create and maintain the intellectually and emotionally safe environment that I wanted my classroom to be.
Within weeks my classroom management went from boring, drawn-out calls and responses to simply saying “I want attention now. Thanks!”, and students would quiet down. I started to use social media as inspiration for a lot of assignments. I also used pop culture references or slang that I heard my students using as a part of my lectures. Even if I cringed at myself a little bit while doing it, the point is that I knew they would become engaged and they would better grasp the historical concepts I was teaching in a way that they were familiar with. And although my students' work sometimes came out a little “slangy,” what’s important to me is that they clearly understood and made their own personal connections because of the examples that I used.
I also came to realize that if my students were asked to explain a historical turning point to me as if it was their freshest piece of gossip, not only would they remember and elaborate on the content, they would also feel comfortable enough with me to phrase their explanation in any way they need to without fear of being “wrong” or “immature.” Students need to have teachers that do not “dismiss ideas simply because they differ from what they have been told in the past” (James 2002, p. 114). The main takeaway from that being, the more comfortable I became teaching, the more comfortable students were in the classroom. For instance, during a class discussion on the social impacts of war, I had a student say, “Miss, it feels like we’re hanging out right now.” This comment came from a student who was getting a C in my class, which he worked up to an A by the end of the quarter. He was a D average student in the two quarters before, so this comment, combined with the lighthearted interactions I was having with other students, made me feel like I was actually creating the warm, fun environment that I got into teaching for.
In my own experience as a high school student, there was a period of time when I was skipping classes, missing assignments, and falling behind. One of the moments that still sticks with me is walking into a classroom for the first time in weeks, and my teacher saying “Look who decided to show up today!” Now regardless of how that teacher meant that comment to come across, I never wanted to go to that class again. Immediately I felt uncomfortable, unsafe, and like I didn’t stand a chance against my classmates because my grade was already suffering. This one moment is something that I refuse to forget when going into my classroom. The feeling that I had at that moment is a feeling I don’t want to cause in any of my students.
This semester I taught both of the first periods of the day at Kalani High School, and students would frequently walk in 45-60 minutes late. In these situations, I made a point to greet my students by saying “Good morning, I’m glad you made it”, or “Perfect timing, we’re just starting our last activity, you’re going to love it”. Those students would set their bags down, hop into a group, and get to work, approaching me after class to discuss what they missed. I didn’t know if this small gesture was landing quite like I wanted it to until my mentor teacher approached me and said that half of these students never came to his classes last quarter at all. And even when they did, they would never stay after class to ask what they missed.
I grew up in a family where high school itself was a battle, let alone any pursuit of post-secondary education. A lot of that battle stems from the socioeconomic class we were in, the home life we had, the area in which we lived, and subsequently the education system that all of those variables forced us into. For example, the dropout rate at my high school at the time I was attending was almost 15% of students by their junior year. For context, the national average is somewhere around 5.1%. Even as a student, it dawned on me that it wasn’t our fault, but the system seemed broken. As Debbie Wei once wrote, “all too often, the students who ‘drop out’ are actually pushed out by a system which often oppresses them” (Wei 2002, 216). So, to have watched this system–whether it be teachers, counselors, administrators, etc–fail to support the people around me for so much of my early life, it brings me so much fulfillment and gratification to hear comments of praise from my observers, my mentors, and most importantly, my students.
Of all the things I’ve learned in my first year of student teaching, most valuable to me is the importance of doing everything we can, even in the smallest ways, to build trusting relationships with all students so they are excited to step through the doors of our classrooms. Although the Secondary Kahalewaihoʻonaʻauao program has been intense, and at times overwhelming, this last semester in particular has reignited the passion that inspired me to teach in the first place. It has helped me understand my own teaching style and to embody the characteristics of the educator I always wish I had.
Works Cited:
James, Kai. 2002. “Dear High School Teacher.” In Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development, edited by Enid Lee, Deborah Menkart, and Margo Okazawa-Rey, 114-115. N.p.: Teaching for Change.
Wei, Debbie. 2002. “Students' Stories in Action Comics.” In Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Anti-racist, Multicultural Education and Staff Development, edited by Enid Lee, Deborah Menkart, and Margo Okazawa-Rey, 216-218. N.p.: Teaching for Change.
Yos, Thomas B. 2012. “Raising the Bar: Love, the Community of Inquiry, and the Flourishing Life.” Educational Perspectives 44 (1 & 2): 52-57.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Baylee Lorenne is a recent graduate from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, College of Education, Bachelor of Education in Secondary Education (BEd-Secondary) Kahalewaihoʻonaʻauao Program. Going into the 2023-2024 school year, Baylee will be kicking off her career as a high school social studies teacher at Kalaheo High School before pursuing a Masters & Licensure in Counseling Psychology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo.
