I let my students hate me and it was fantastic!

The primary purpose of the lesson was to conduct a little experiment with the help of my students; I wanted them to reflect on the differences between colloquial and written language to determine if it could be an explanation for cyberbullying and, more importantly, if both should be considered one and the same. My intention is to use the results to see how we could work on this process in schools. The idea was to use myself (as I so often do) so I wrote some offensive things on paper that I have either had said to me, sent via text or things I believe some would say/write to me given the chance. This turned into six very personal and offensive sentences (bear with the translations as not all work in english so well):

Fucking wog(nigger) pig, go back home!

You are so fucking fat, you fatso!

Do you understand how fucking stupid you look in a skirt? Fucking gay!

Fucking nigger! Go die!

For fuck sake, you are supposed to be a man but have tits! Diet, you’re repulsive!

Nobody likes you, everybody hates you how do you not get that?

I described the exercise as clearly as possible and six of my students volunteered to stand up, receiving each a piece of paper containing of one of the sentences.

First: Each student with a sentence came forth one by one and showed what was on the paper they had received

Second: Each student got to come out to me, outside the classroom one by one, and read out what was on the paper.

Epilogue: My initial thoughts were that it would be intensely difficult but in some ways very clear, and so it was. The students thought the lesson was tough but having to read these derogatory statements to me was far more difficult than just showing me the paper!

Some of the students' feedback:
- The most difficult thing was that I had to say something I didn’t like or think.
- It was horrible because it felt like I had hurt you despite not wanting to.
- It was far easier to just show you the note than to say the words to you.

Afterwards we had a lengthy discussion about what we just did, for example, was there a difference between hiding behind the note and looking me in the eye and reading it? How come? Is it a part of the cyberbullying problem we face today? The atmosphere in the classroom was magic to say the least, vibrant! From a teacher's perspective as magical as it gets! The students contributed with mature, well thought through interjections and comments which as a teacher just warmed my heart!

I asked: “How did people hate before the internet do you think?” and told of how I, at their age, was bullied (sometimes even the bully) and that these are the biggest reasons I am a teacher today - to, in some way, repent for things I myself did as a child. I was nearly in tears, but I wasn’t the only one. Simply put an emotional yet powerful lesson for all.

What I hadn’t given any consideration to when planning the exercise was how it would affect me emotionally. I did not expect to react the way I did, even if for the students sake I wore a smile it caused a lot of pain. It was painful to read the words despite being the one who wrote them. It was unbelievably difficult to hear them from somebody else. It was not the easiest thing to express how it felt for me to the students, but it was necessary…

This lessons was one of those lessons that nobody I know has been part of or has had themselves. This lesson though was one of the biggest experiences in my teaching career - it felt important, it felt direct and it felt necessary.

(Thanks to my friend Howard for helping me translate)

En bild säger mer än miljoner ord

Fick den här bilden skickad till mig. Den dröjde sig kvar.
Bestämde mig för att låta mina elever tänka runt den. Resultatet....

Flicka i sexan (blott knappt 12 år, på engeslska dessutom) analyserade bilden idag och ungefär så här lät det:
- Bilden visar att kunskap är nyckeln till verkligheten. Ju mer du vet, desto mer förberedd är du över vad som händer när vi växer upp. Vi har ett val, att antingen stirra in i en vacker vägg eller att studera världen och det som är viktigt, för att kunna handskas med den. Och förbättra den. Jag tror att med kunskap så har jag verktyg att göra verkligheten bättre.

Magister Isaksson är mållös. Känner att jag har så mycket att lära av dagens kids - och så mycket att kämpa för!

När jag tänker på mina elever är jag inte orolig. Det enda som gör mig orolig är att föräldrarna till dessa, jag, min och äldre generationer, inte ser det.

Jag känner hopp!

Teacher Appreciation Week

So here it is, the week when everyone should thank their teacher. So let me start by thanking a couple of the teachers I will never forget:

Anette: Thank you. You were my first teacher when I started school at the age of 7. What impresses me the most is that you still recognize me and come up say hello when we meet (every 15th year or so).

Håkan: The tall man with the big Adam's apple who laughed a lot and who introduced me to the music of Queen. You were also the one who had to deal with the most difficult a teacher has to deal with - when one of the students die. I will never forget how the rumours spread on the school yard and when you came in through the classroom door with red eyes from crying. You brought us through this dark moment and you were there when we needed you the most.

Leif: Always dependable, always caring. You managed to put up with us for a week in London in 9th grade and for that, you should have a portrait haning in the Teachers' Hall of Fame. Off the record: we bought at log of Smirnoff and beer when you didn't see.

Karin: Almost like a second mother in high-school. Always with a smile and with a great passion for your teachers. You were the one who delicately made me realize I was putting on weight (which didn't help at all, by the way). You also helped me, a bit, when I started to date Sara and you helped me when she broke up with me. Thank you for showing up at our class reunion 2011! You made us all very happy!

Sven: You put way too much salt and butter in the food. And you smoked a lot. Rest in piece, sir!

The thing with teachers is that they will all have such a great impact on a person's life whether he or she likes it or not. Teachers help you become who you are, teachers help you avoid being who you shouldn't be and they help you through one of the toughest periods of your life.

It is because of my teachers mentioned above I am a teacher today. And I know I change lives just the way my teachers did. What a treat!

When we smile and laugh at crying babies you know the world has changed

I found myself in a little discussion over at Buzzfeed's Facebook page when they linked to a blog called "Reasons my Son is Crying". A tumblr blog that is quite cute in many ways. Basically a lot of pictures of someone's son crying. Cute, sweet and in a way somewhat worrying, if you ask me. I replied that I at first smiled when I saw the pictures but rather immediately I changed my mind and my laughter got stuck somewhere along the way. I realized that there is nothing funny about crying children.
  So I questioned the very common phenomena to exploit ones children on the Internet, for whatever reason it may be. I would never myself put up photos of my kids in order to show the world how sad, cute and funny they are. Today it seems to be pretty legit to do so, which kind of makes me sad. What made me even sadder is that one I questioned it, people jumped to tell me to "chill", "stop being so melodramatic" and "it's funny, live with it". To me this is a proof that the world has indeed changed.
  Perhaps it's a sign of changed common sense. When it is totally okay to laugh at children who cry and to have fun on their expenses, well I say it has gone a tad too far. Children cry for many reasons. Some reasons are so bad I don't want to think about them. As a teacher I meet children who have gone through and live in hellish conditions and there is nothing funny about their tears, I tell you that.
  But this is perhaps the way the world is heading, after all. Back to the Roman gladiator games when people saw violence and death as entertainment. Which we by the way still do today. We laugh our asses of watching clips on Youtube when people hurt themselves, sometimes so bad it is hard to understand why it is funny. Violence, death, devestation, sorrow, hurting - it's all entertainment. Have lost track when even our youngest and most innocent ones are laughed at when they are sad, crying and hurting?
  We live in a world where we treat children as things that make us laugh. And we tell people who think this is wrong to stop being so damn melodramatic.