 Teacher puts respect first
By Nancy Mitchell News Staff Writer The girl chewing gum whizzed past first-year teacher Stephanie Leija as she stood in the hallway outside her classroom at Wheat Ridge Middle School. Running isn't allowed in the school. Neither is gum. But class was about to begin. Another teacher might have let it go. Not Leija. She told the girl to stop and spit out the gum. The girl shrugged her off with a flip of her hand. Leija followed the student into a classroom and calmly told the girl to come with her to the principal's office. The girl cursed at her. "You have a choice," Leija said. "You can come with me or I can get (School Resource) Officer Bowman to come and get you." The girl earned a three-day suspension. And Leija polished her reputation as a teacher who tolerates no disrespect. In her classroom, where she teaches English to recent immigrants, there is little doubt Leija is in charge. The same goes for the hallway outside her room, which she must patrol between classes. "I'm laid-back and we'll have fun, but I'm very big on the respect thing," said Leija, 27. "That's my one rule and it covers everything." In her classroom, Room 2001 at Wheat Ridge, that single rule is written in blue marker on a bulletin board: "Respect everyone and everything in this classroom." Leija, a former AmeriCorps volunteer who is still earning her teaching license, means it. Her approach to discipline is simple: She explains what she expects, and she outlines clear consequences. Then she imposes them. Refuse to be quiet in class? Go sit at a table in the back or in an empty office next door. Late for class again? Three tardies and you get an after-school detention. "I'm not going to get into a war of words with kids," Leija said. "I'm not going to disrupt a class. The big thing is, I'm in charge. Not you. Me." Condensing the usual litany of classroom rules into one is an idea Leija learned in her weekly "how to be a teacher" classes. As with more than 600 new teachers in Colorado this fall, she stepped in front of a classroom without a teaching license or a background in teacher education. Instead, Leija is taking one of the state's alternative paths to teaching. Her program, the Teacher in Residence program or TIR, is on-the-job training. TIR teachers are expected to have a college degree or career work in the subject they are teaching. They attend weekly three-hour classes, receive mentoring and must pass a teacher licensing exam in their first year. "The premise is they're experts in their content area," said Stephanie Cavallaro, a Metropolitan State College of Denver instructor who teaches Leija's classes. "This is how to teach, how to transfer what's in your brain to kids." The reality of the classroom can be a shock. Last year, only nine of 16 TIR teachers hired by Jefferson County Public Schools came back for another year. Discipline issues in the classroom are typically the problem. "They're amazed by how hard it is to get kids to do what you want them to do," Cavallaro said. So, her TIR classes have focused heavily on discipline, or classroom management, since beginning in August. Leija and her 31 peers in Cavallaro's class have spent Monday nights watching demonstration videos and absorbing discipline strategies. Leija recites some steps: Walk toward a noisy student. Say the student's name. Lean toward the student. Put one hand on the table. Put both hands on the table. "The make-it or break-it in teaching is classroom management," said Cavallaro, an eight-year teaching veteran. "Can you handle a group of kids?" She's seen Leija teach and calls her "solid." "I'd actually like to see her having a little more fun with kids," Cavallaro said. In Leija's fifth-period literacy class, the noise level is rising. She raises a hand high above her head, a schoolwide signal for attention. Students are supposed to respond by raising one of their hands and quieting down. "If your hand is raised, your mouth is shut," Leija says briskly as scattered hands shoot up. This class of 24 is her largest, and usually it's her toughest discipline challenge. The class is right after lunch, and a handful of students often fade out, resting their heads on their desks. "Today, we're working on the "ah" sound as in "Aunt Agnes asked Alice for a lot of apples," Leija says, leading students through a phonics lesson. "Alaska, Apple, Africa," she prods, putting a hand on her throat. "When you are saying it, can you feel it? Is your voice box on or off?" As some in the class chatter, Leija works her way through her discipline strategies. She walks around the room. She sends a particularly noisy student to sit in an adjacent empty office. She threatens to subtract minutes from Friday's "game time" when kids play Scrabble. She threatens to impose extra homework. Each time, the noise level subsides. Then it gradually rises. Finally, the bell rings. "Listen to me, no one leaves until I excuse you. We'll wait until everyone is quiet," Leija tells them, and they quickly "shush" one another. At no point do the students seem out of control, but it's unusual for Leija to run so far down her gamut of options. She shrugs. "Kids will always test you," she says. "There will always be battles." At least she didn't have to bring out her most dreaded discipline: after-school detention. Students dread it and so does Leija, since it cuts into time she needs to study for the three night classes she's taking and for her teacher licensure exam. So far, Leija has had to impose it mostly for tardies. "Why can't they just be on time?" she laments one afternoon. "I have this paper due tomorrow." By early November, Leija has stopped a couple of fights and sent several students to the office, including the girl who cursed at her. But those are typically not her own students. The 44 pupils in Leija's English as a Second Language or ESL classes seem to realize she's serious about her "respect" rule. Student Juan, 13, spent an afternoon in detention for tardies. He said, through an interpreter, that he was late and he knew that would happen. "She is strict," said Martin, 12. "She speaks too hard." Yet, Leija worries about easing up. "You have to be consistent. You have to say, this is the deal and this is what I expect," she said. "If you don't meet my expectations, these are the consequences." In part, she is driven by advocacy for her students. She fears they will become discouraged in school if they do not conquer the language barrier. "For me, it's like it's my job to teach you as much English as possible, as quickly as possible," she said. "Otherwise, you might become a dropout. You've got a lot to learn; we're not messing around here." Leija is learning, too. She's a public relations major who ditched her publishing job after learning that she hated sitting behind a desk. Fluent in Spanish, she spent a year in AmeriCorps as a tutor, then spent two years as a tutor at Wheat Ridge Middle. Last May, she jumped at the chance to become the school's first ESL teacher. It's hard work. In addition to her TIR classes, she's enrolled in two classes to help earn her ESL endorsement from the state. But Leija isn't sure that cracking books will make her a better teacher. In discipline, for example, she believes she has learned the most from her years as a classroom tutor. "I think they can show you all the vidoes and you can read all the books you want, but a lot of it is experience," Leija said. "Classroom observation is so important." She admits she is still searching for that balance between being firm and being strict.
"I don't want to be the dictator in the classroom," Leija said. "We're learning together." Contact Nancy Mitchell at mitchelln@RockyMountainNews.com or (303) 892-5245. |
Age: 28 
