The Struggles of Teaching a Transitional Skills class / Catching Fire

3/8/2015: The Struggles of Teaching a Transitional Skills class / Catching Fire

3:38pm – 5:14pm

If last week was my worse class then this week is my most disruptive.  The beginning of the class started out alright. 

A resident came to me before class and said, “Steven, I like your class.  It’s short and sweet.”

I acknowledged him.  Part of my style is to not waste time and to teach what is important. 

After waiting for the resident to finish signing-in (there are 13 residents) and be seated, I introduced myself.  I told them my name and that I’m a social work student at UTEP during my internship here at DC.  Then, I went over the rules, that the class keep voice levels down (variation of only one person can talk and the rest listen) and that everyone respect each other.  I then introduced the topic: Handling Social Influences

I introduced the class by showing them a clip of the famous Millgram experiment, where the experimenter tests people’s obedience to authority against their moral values, conscience, and empathy.  The clip is 15 minutes long but I sped up some sections.  At the end of the clip, I asked the class to summarize.

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I’ve noticed that almost every class I taught, resident participation is very lacking.  I structured this class to make it more interactive.  Every other sentence I have is either a question or a fill-in-the blank and even then nobody really says anything.  There is a distinct pause in all of my interaction questions.  Thankfully, a few of the residents did speak up but it is just a few and most of my questions are answered by them. 

Then I went over my powerpoint and outline.  What is social influence?  I went back to the video of how seemingly good citizens can do evil things based on following orders.  No wonder the majority of citizens in Germany and Italy supported their dictator.  I made that relate to the individual, that we are influenced by those close to us without knowing.  I covered good and bad influence. 

How to resist social influence?  Well, the first is to know yourself.  I spent some time talking about this, including showing a picture of a scene in Alice in Wonderland where Alice stands in a road of signs.  I added a quote from the cat: “If you don’t know where you want to go, then it doesn’t matter which path you take.”

After knowing yourself, then I discussed preventative measures.  This whole time, as it is worth to note, almost all of the students look uninterested.  They seem to look at their tables and wish that the class can be over.  A few of the residents just worked on the practice questions in the handbook.  One of the residents, by this time and before that, started to grumble that this class is taking so long.  I saw him putting one end of the earphones and he shook his head around like he is listening to music.  As long as he stays quiet, I thought, I’ll tolerate that.  In retrospect, I did the right thing.  Had I disturbed him at that point, the class would have been even more chaotic.  I shared the quote by Benjamin Frankin (by asking a resident to read it), “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” and asked the residents what it means.  I talked how to apply that in our own lives.  Stay away from negative people and situations.  Keep yourself busy doing good things, and so forth.  My next point is how to actually deal with social influences.  It’s like playing tag, I said.  We can’t always run, that is prevent, and not get caught.  There will be situations that we can’t avoid. 

At this point, the person listening on the headphones started to talk loudly to other residents in class.  When I came to tell him that this is a class and that I’m still teaching, he went off on me.  He told me this class is bullshit and a waste of time.  Everybody here has already made up their minds and it can’t change anybody, he said.  To calm the situation down, I told him that the authors of this book and the facility think differently, that the purpose of these classes is to prepare us for life in the greater community because there is hope.  He paused when I said “hope” but he continued to argue saying that he has been taught this over and over again and that he is frustrated.  Another resident said that [a teacher] can cover this in ten to fifteen minutes.  During this whole time, I was trying to move on with the content.  I didn’t want to dismiss their concerns since it hurts the process of the class and I see opportunity to help the residents understand but they are spending too much time on it. So, by this time, I told them bluntly that we need to move on.  The other resident continued to complain.  He said this class is boring.  “Just take a look around,” he said, “Can we leave now?” 

I told him, “Sir, this class is supposed to be an hour-and-a-half long.”  I was going to add that I do have plans to make it shorter since I will be able to cover all my content and I don’t want to waste their and my time.  But he didn’t let me finish.

“An hour and a half??”  “Fuck that,” I think I heard either this resident or the resident with the headphones said.

I told the class, “This class has been pretty disruptive and it is fine to voice your opinions.  However, this is the program [from DC] and you all need to cooperate.”

One of the disturbing residents looked at me and wanted to cuss at me.  But instead he told me that my class is useless, boring, a waste of time, and that I can’t relate to them.  They already know this stuff, he said.  I wanted to say, “Well, if you already know this stuff, then why are you here?”  But I refrained. 

The class was getting out-of-control so I adjusted fire.  Instead of going through the rest of my lesson plan, I decided to just test them on what they knew.

“Many of you told me that you already know this material, so, I will skip the homework and give you guys the test instead.”  “Tell me about handling social influences, how do you handle social influences?” I asked.  The one with the earphone told me that he already told me so he will not cooperate.  In my mind, I didn’t remember him telling me anything about how to handle social influences.  In my questions and answers, I feel either the residents are just very disinterested or they, despite being is so many transitional skills classes in prison and halfway houses, still don’t know the material well enough. 

“Just say no,” one of the residents said. 

“Saying no is one way to handle social influences,” I said, “What are some other ways?” 

That resident looked at me like I’m crazy.  I then covered other strategies such as compromise but that not one strategy will work in all circumstances.

“It is like the tools in a toolbox. Just as one tool can’t fix everything, so can one strategy be inappropriate in a situation.”

The troublemaking resident interrupted me again and asked me if the class is done.

I told him, “Sir, if you are not willing to stay for the class, you may leave but I won’t be able to sign your sheet.”

That resident took my words as a threat.  “Are you threatening me?” he said.  I tried to diffuse the situation by saying that I’m not threating him but I still need to teach the class.  Instead, he got up and walked away, even after when I told him, in reality, that the class was almost over. 

Like one minute after he left, I concluded the class.  Many of the residents by now are complaining or grumbling at me. 

The one with the earphones told me, “Don’t come back next week.” 

The one who left early came back shortly and gave me a sort-of apology but with his justifications.  I still signed his sheet.

I felt like crying.  I don’t want to be here.  I’m not paid enough.  I, like many of the American people, probably work just as hard as CEO’s but earn only a tiny fraction of them.  We sweat, give our time, our lives, and our heart to earn measly wages.  For me, I’m doing this for free.  Social workers, I believe, have the worse deal of all.  They labor for the oppressed, they advocate for them, try to promote change in the community, work in the mico, mezzo, and macro levels and still get paid the least of all professional professions.  I am struggling with this issue, at the unfairness of American society, where hard work does not equal fair pay.  But, I told myself that another factor other than money is fulfillment.  The Prophet in Ecclesiastics got it right: “I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live” (Ecc. 3:12).  If I enjoy what I’m doing, then it won’t be a burden or a job for me.

            When I signed off the resident’s time sheets, I still said thank you and have a nice day to each of them because, as I told them earlier in class, I wish them the best.  Many of the residents said thank you back.

            One of the last residents, when it was his turn for me to sign his book and attendance sheet, told me to not give up.  He said that there are many residents that just think this program and everything in it is bullshit but he adds that many people like him are trying to change.  He told me not to let these people get to me and that he knows I care.

“Keep doing what you’re doing.” he said, “Don’t let them [bother you].”

            The last resident also encouraged me.  He told me that in this world, there are people who are strong and those are smart.  It is easy to be strong, he said, but hard to be smart.  I didn’t really remember what he told me since I was in a little bit of a shock.  He said that there are people who want to better themselves and those that don’t.  For those that don’t, we can’t force them to change.  They have to do it themselves.  I agree with him.  In social work it’s called self-determination.  When he said that, I began to think if I was being too forceful on some of them.  Instead of debating, perhaps I should have just asked them to leave.  There is a balance with that.

“Be strong.“ he told me, and left. 

I feel part of it is my fault, that I didn’t put in 100% in preparing for this class because, hey, I’m not being paid for this and I have a million other things to do and I feel stressed and overwhelmed. 

After doing the paperwork and filing the sheets of the residents who attended, I came to the intern office to rest and reflect.  I was planning to do a lot today, but I can’t just move on as usual with experiences such as these.  I want to take some time to reflect and learn and let time heal me for a bit.  That is why I decided to write my experience for my blog entry today.

I’m bad at remembering names but good at remembering stories.  Well, maybe not even that, since I’m writing it down.  Hopefully by writing my experiences down, I can learn from them in the future.