I am sitting in the library right now, and there are a bunch of kids here doing their last round of easy CBM testing. I just looked across the room at a girl with light brown skin and lots of pimples who is staring absently at the dull glow of the computer monitor, and she sort of looks like one of those kids from the scene in Ferris Bueler’s Day Off, listening to boring old Ben Stein lecture about voodoo economics. She looked extremely bored. Mrs. Regan, the art teacher, is yelling at the kids to get started on their testing. I just witnessed her blowing up at the office aid on the phone because the office aid (who is a seventh grader in one of my classes) had failed to send the all-page to the entire school pulling the 30 or so kids out of their regular scheduled classes (last two days, I might add) to go finish their last round of tests.
A boy in the class was having trouble logging on to the website, so he kept moving from machine to machine, trying to find one that worked. He was getting frustrated, and he was expressing that frustration to the people around him. This made Mrs. Regan angry. She asked him twice to stop talking and login, but she wasn’t able to sit with him and help him because she had 28 other kids she was trying to get logged in--and silent. At one point she swung around and snapped at him:
“If I have to send you to the office, you will be sent home. This is testing and you have to take it seriously.”
At that point I knew the child wouldn’t last long. Mrs. Regan was mad about something else before the kids even got there, but this child, who was having technical difficulties--and who knows what had happened to him before he came into the room--would be the recipient of whatever anger she was experiencing.
He clicked on the wrong name, and got booted out of the system. In frustration he half-heartedly slammed his mouse down on the table, at which point Mrs. Regan threw him out. The child was (perhaps understandably) upset, and talked back, and got angry, and said: “Are you kidding me, how do I get in trouble for clicking on the wrong name?”
And she said: “It’s not that, it’s your mouth.”
And as he stormed out, he said: “Goddamnit.”
And just like that the child was gone. And as a result the child will not be able to meet the state mandated testing benchmark and will not be allowed to go on the end of the school trip. I do not know what will happen as a result of his not meeting the benchmark.
**
I have learned a lot during my time here at Edison. I have seen miraculous children do miraculous things. I have seen cruelty the likes of which I never saw at the small independent school where I taught--and where I will be teaching again next year. I have sat in a staff room and listened to teachers griping about students in the most stereotypical way possible. I have seen truly terrible teaching. I have seen truly inspired counseling. I have felt the frustration of having too many children in a room at one time, and, from time to time, I have been amazed at how, even in such overcrowded, humiliating conditions, the kids can say and do and think such interesting, surprising things.
I spent a few minutes at lunch today with a student named Brian, who is perhaps the neediest child I have ever worked with. Brian is stick figure thin, regularly has drawings and doodles scribble all over his arms, and, I suspect, goes hungry most days. (I have stood next to him and heard his stomach growling.) He wanted me to show him how to use google earth because he really wanted to look at pictures of his old house in Pennsylvania. So I spent a few minutes with him at lunch, and he zoomed in and showed me the road he used to live on, and he told me the story of everyone who lived in his old neighborhood, the old lady who planted a garden and the woods where he and his brother’s used to hunt squirrels and the how he had a girlfriend who lived up the road, and how much he missed the little river (he doesn’t know the word “creek” but he has had a girlfriend and knows the bitterness of transcontinental dislocation!) that ran through the woods behind his house. And I was so glad to have been able to help him see, through google orbiting spy eyes, the familiar road and the roof of his old loved house.
I do not watch the news, nor do I read the paper. From time to time, when I do read “articles” about education, I hear this shrill outcry from all across the education spectrum, that standards are too low or two high, that kids are too coddled or not coddled enough, that teachers are too strict or too permissive, that there are too many tests or not enough. And of course depending on the day all of those statements are true--but they are also irrelevant. I had great moments during my time here at “Edison”; I think the time I spent today with Brian was one of those moments--and I a few others come to mind. Schools based on population control and on standardization cannot, by definition, produce many such moments. And as a result the lives of both children and adults are lessened.
I hesitate to say much more about the “problems” of education as I saw them play out here. The two most essential difficulties of teaching here were numerical and cultural; there were two many kids, and the teaching culture was rigid and teacher-centered. I will miss these kids--and a few of the adults. I hope to remember as many of the human moments I had as possible--though I know that even their names will start to slip out of my brain pretty soon. And for these kids’ sake I hope this school district gets its act together and hires more teachers. A mediocre teacher with 25 students will do much, much more than the most gifted teacher will do with 40.
From “Edison” Middle school, this is Gil, signing off.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Expulsions
So yesterday was an exciting day here at “Edison.” I was sitting in the library reading student work, when all of a sudden I heard a long, high-pitched whistle. At first I thought it was a child doing that screech whistle that I don’t know how to do, but then I realized it was far too long for that, and the pitch was off, and then I realized that was I was hearing was, in fact, a fire work. I turned around and behind me, just off the main, second floor hallways, smoke was pouring out of the girl’s bathroom. A steady stream of excited children poked their heads in and out of the bathroom. When I arrived on the scene, many of the children scattered. I saw three girls go into the bathroom, two of whom were my students.
I asked one of them if everyone was okay, and she said yes, and then the other came out of the bathroom (I was still in the hallway) holding the burnt stub of the now dormant roman candle. I grabbed a few of the students who were milling about and asked them what they saw, but they all clammed up pretty quick. Then Alice (the assistant principle) and Mrs. P (the guidance counselor arrived) and started grilling the children. Pretty soon we had a name of a possible suspect (an eighth grade girl), and within a few more minutes we (well, Alice, really, with me and Mrs. P as witness) had the girl’s locker open and had found in her bag a lighter and a small, foldable knife.
It seemed unlikely to me that, in the mayhem that followed the firework going off (it was maybe 15 or 20 second after it was lit that I was on the scene), the suspect (notice how I’m talking like a cop) had returned to her locker to hide her lighter in her bag. We began to suspect that the alleged firework igniter had an accomplice. Alice took the bag with its nefarious contents and went to pull the student out of class to see if she could get the perp to flip on her co-conspirator.
I went into Mrs. P’s office to identify from the “facebook” (literally a book with pictures of all faces of the students) the third student I saw in the bathroom, who I didn’t know; all I remembered was that she was latina and was wearing a pink shirt. I realized pretty quickly that I am a terrible eye-witness. Though I saw two students who I thought might have been the third witness, I couldn’t saw for sure; then I became paralyzed by the fear that I was merely racially profiling the children (which, of course, I was and began to suspect my own identification). The third witness was never identified.
However Alice did succeed in getting our primary suspect to roll-over on her accomplice. They opened her locker (another eighth grade girl) and found a bag of dope, a pipe, and several more lighters.
Both of the girls were immediately suspended, pending an expulsion hearing.
When I walked out through the main office later on, I saw both of them sequestered in the nurse’s office, weeping profusely. Then they both went white when they saw a uniformed police officer enter the office. That was the point at which I walked out into a strangely glorious afternoon.
I am deeply skeptical of zero-tolerance policies, and I doubt the value (for the “perps”) of expulsion in most cases. In this case the firework caused no damage--though of course there was the potential to have caused a lot of damage, either by fire or by setting off the sprinklers--and I have to say I do wonder why the sprinklers didn’t go off, given the volume of smoke, but I suppose they need to be triggered by smoke and heat. The real damage the firework caused was that it put the school administrators on the trail to finding these girl’s drugs. This whole episode seems like a pretty obvious example of why we don’t charge children with adult crimes--because they are pretty much incapable of thinking through the consequences of their actions. I am not going to sit here and excuse these girl’s behavior. What they did was dangerous and dumb--and doubly dumb for not considering that, on a day when you drugs in your lockers, it might not be all that bright to set off fireworks in the girl’s bathrooms.
Truthfully I have found the whole episode hilarious--except when I start to think about those two girls, sitting at home, terrified about their fates and what will become of them. And maybe through that they will learn something about cause and effect, about choice and consequence. I just hope that the consequences of this dumb choice won’t stick with them for too long.
I asked one of them if everyone was okay, and she said yes, and then the other came out of the bathroom (I was still in the hallway) holding the burnt stub of the now dormant roman candle. I grabbed a few of the students who were milling about and asked them what they saw, but they all clammed up pretty quick. Then Alice (the assistant principle) and Mrs. P (the guidance counselor arrived) and started grilling the children. Pretty soon we had a name of a possible suspect (an eighth grade girl), and within a few more minutes we (well, Alice, really, with me and Mrs. P as witness) had the girl’s locker open and had found in her bag a lighter and a small, foldable knife.
It seemed unlikely to me that, in the mayhem that followed the firework going off (it was maybe 15 or 20 second after it was lit that I was on the scene), the suspect (notice how I’m talking like a cop) had returned to her locker to hide her lighter in her bag. We began to suspect that the alleged firework igniter had an accomplice. Alice took the bag with its nefarious contents and went to pull the student out of class to see if she could get the perp to flip on her co-conspirator.
I went into Mrs. P’s office to identify from the “facebook” (literally a book with pictures of all faces of the students) the third student I saw in the bathroom, who I didn’t know; all I remembered was that she was latina and was wearing a pink shirt. I realized pretty quickly that I am a terrible eye-witness. Though I saw two students who I thought might have been the third witness, I couldn’t saw for sure; then I became paralyzed by the fear that I was merely racially profiling the children (which, of course, I was and began to suspect my own identification). The third witness was never identified.
However Alice did succeed in getting our primary suspect to roll-over on her accomplice. They opened her locker (another eighth grade girl) and found a bag of dope, a pipe, and several more lighters.
Both of the girls were immediately suspended, pending an expulsion hearing.
When I walked out through the main office later on, I saw both of them sequestered in the nurse’s office, weeping profusely. Then they both went white when they saw a uniformed police officer enter the office. That was the point at which I walked out into a strangely glorious afternoon.
I am deeply skeptical of zero-tolerance policies, and I doubt the value (for the “perps”) of expulsion in most cases. In this case the firework caused no damage--though of course there was the potential to have caused a lot of damage, either by fire or by setting off the sprinklers--and I have to say I do wonder why the sprinklers didn’t go off, given the volume of smoke, but I suppose they need to be triggered by smoke and heat. The real damage the firework caused was that it put the school administrators on the trail to finding these girl’s drugs. This whole episode seems like a pretty obvious example of why we don’t charge children with adult crimes--because they are pretty much incapable of thinking through the consequences of their actions. I am not going to sit here and excuse these girl’s behavior. What they did was dangerous and dumb--and doubly dumb for not considering that, on a day when you drugs in your lockers, it might not be all that bright to set off fireworks in the girl’s bathrooms.
Truthfully I have found the whole episode hilarious--except when I start to think about those two girls, sitting at home, terrified about their fates and what will become of them. And maybe through that they will learn something about cause and effect, about choice and consequence. I just hope that the consequences of this dumb choice won’t stick with them for too long.
Monday, May 21, 2012
A Misunderstanding
So my sixth graders are working on writing their own Choose Your Own Adventure stories; as a kind of warm-up activity to this project, I gave them the story of Little Red Riding Hood and asked them to write two different endings to it. The first ending had one rule: they could only use characters or objects that had already appeared in the story. I put this rule in place because I knew that if I didn't I would get quiet a few stories in which Little Red Riding Hood was spontaneously rescued by a gang of unicorn who shot jellybeans out of their ears--or asses.
The second ending had no rules, except that I encouraged them to make their endings as logical or reasonable as possible. They kind of chuckled at me when I said that.
In one student's version of the story, the wolf gobbles Granny up, but LRRH witnesses the devouring and paints a bomb red to look like an apple. When she arrives at the house later (?), she feeds the apple to the wolf, who explodes after a 10-second delay. She and the woodcutters and Granny (who mysteriously survives the blast) eat barbecued wolf-guts all afternoon.
In another student's version of the story, LRRH falls through the floor and into the basement, where she hops onto the back of a squirrel. She rides the squirrel out of the house and then across an ocean to Japan. In Japan the squirrel is bitten by a zombie squirrel, who bites LRRH, who becomes Zombie Red Riding Hood; ZRRH then rides the squirrel to China, where they convert the entire population of China into Zombies. The Chinese zombies then come to Granny's house and eat the wolf.
Does my rule for version 1 make sense yet?
In another student's story LRRH witnesses the consumption of her Granny. She then seeks revenge on the wolf by tormenting the wolf, taunting the wolf viciously and calling the wolf a series of horrible names. During the child's reading of the story, I heard him say that LRRH called the wolf "fag", among other horrible names. By the end of the story, the wolf was so distraught by her verbal torment that he hanged himself. Wracked with guilt over seeing the wolf (and her granny) dead, LRRH puts a desert eagle .45 caliber pistol under her chin and blows her brains out.
I waited for the noise in the room to die down. Then I said: "I had a really strong negative reaction to one word in the story, Martin. Do you know which word it was?"
He looked at me, confused. "Suicide?"
"No."
"Uh...noose?"
"No."
Really confused he said: "I have no idea."
"Fag. LRRH calls the wolf 'fag' in your story."
Martin looked down at his paper to confirm what he already knew, but needed to see for himself: I had misheard him. "Fat," Martin said. "She calls him fat."
The whole room, myself included, let out a kind of nervous half-laugh half-sigh.
I smiled at Martin, who I could tell was worried that he was in trouble with me. "Do you know what we just had, Martin?"
He smiled, sensing he was out of the metaphorical woods: "A misunderstanding."
When I "heard" him read that word, a whole host of things ran through my head. My first impulse, which, thankfully, I didn't act upon, was to stop the reading and smack him down righteously for being a hateful, horrible bigot. Then as the story went on I realized that, looked at one way, this story is a kind of inverted bully story, in which LRRH torments her tormentor, and then finds herself racked with guilt after doing it. It could have been a powerful parable about cruelty, and maybe the word "fag" was even appropriate in that context, given the realities of homo-phobic bullying.
And then, when it became clear that we had a misunderstanding, I was really glad that I had waited and listened and then calmly shared my reaction--because in doing so I was able to send the same message (that those words are really problematic and probably not for use in school) without damaging the relationship with the child. I was also able to model humility and mutual respect.
Of course later on in class I had to metaphorically body-slam a few kids for tossing around the word "asian"--but I think the earlier misunderstanding, and the understanding that it created, actually helped me to address the stereotypes several of my (white) students were trafficking in.
It was a real Monday in the trenches.
The second ending had no rules, except that I encouraged them to make their endings as logical or reasonable as possible. They kind of chuckled at me when I said that.
In one student's version of the story, the wolf gobbles Granny up, but LRRH witnesses the devouring and paints a bomb red to look like an apple. When she arrives at the house later (?), she feeds the apple to the wolf, who explodes after a 10-second delay. She and the woodcutters and Granny (who mysteriously survives the blast) eat barbecued wolf-guts all afternoon.
In another student's version of the story, LRRH falls through the floor and into the basement, where she hops onto the back of a squirrel. She rides the squirrel out of the house and then across an ocean to Japan. In Japan the squirrel is bitten by a zombie squirrel, who bites LRRH, who becomes Zombie Red Riding Hood; ZRRH then rides the squirrel to China, where they convert the entire population of China into Zombies. The Chinese zombies then come to Granny's house and eat the wolf.
Does my rule for version 1 make sense yet?
In another student's story LRRH witnesses the consumption of her Granny. She then seeks revenge on the wolf by tormenting the wolf, taunting the wolf viciously and calling the wolf a series of horrible names. During the child's reading of the story, I heard him say that LRRH called the wolf "fag", among other horrible names. By the end of the story, the wolf was so distraught by her verbal torment that he hanged himself. Wracked with guilt over seeing the wolf (and her granny) dead, LRRH puts a desert eagle .45 caliber pistol under her chin and blows her brains out.
I waited for the noise in the room to die down. Then I said: "I had a really strong negative reaction to one word in the story, Martin. Do you know which word it was?"
He looked at me, confused. "Suicide?"
"No."
"Uh...noose?"
"No."
Really confused he said: "I have no idea."
"Fag. LRRH calls the wolf 'fag' in your story."
Martin looked down at his paper to confirm what he already knew, but needed to see for himself: I had misheard him. "Fat," Martin said. "She calls him fat."
The whole room, myself included, let out a kind of nervous half-laugh half-sigh.
I smiled at Martin, who I could tell was worried that he was in trouble with me. "Do you know what we just had, Martin?"
He smiled, sensing he was out of the metaphorical woods: "A misunderstanding."
When I "heard" him read that word, a whole host of things ran through my head. My first impulse, which, thankfully, I didn't act upon, was to stop the reading and smack him down righteously for being a hateful, horrible bigot. Then as the story went on I realized that, looked at one way, this story is a kind of inverted bully story, in which LRRH torments her tormentor, and then finds herself racked with guilt after doing it. It could have been a powerful parable about cruelty, and maybe the word "fag" was even appropriate in that context, given the realities of homo-phobic bullying.
And then, when it became clear that we had a misunderstanding, I was really glad that I had waited and listened and then calmly shared my reaction--because in doing so I was able to send the same message (that those words are really problematic and probably not for use in school) without damaging the relationship with the child. I was also able to model humility and mutual respect.
Of course later on in class I had to metaphorically body-slam a few kids for tossing around the word "asian"--but I think the earlier misunderstanding, and the understanding that it created, actually helped me to address the stereotypes several of my (white) students were trafficking in.
It was a real Monday in the trenches.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Confession: I do not like one of my students.
So I am one of those teachers who believes in having hope for every one of my students; I believe it is my duty as an educator to look past the layers of anger and insecurity, past the defiance and the distractibility, past the apathy and sociopathology, to look past all the noise and irritation and see the bright glimmering spirit of each of my students, brimming with life and humanity and creativity. This belief--this attitude towards my students--is a pretty powerful force; it enables me to not take personally when my students have bad days and say or do things that are hurtful or stupid; it enables me to be profoundly positive and not fall into--or allow them to fall into--the traps of negativity; it enables me, above all, to go home believing that the work I do is meaningful and that each of my children has a chance to learn something from my sweat and energy.
But this belief also comes at a cost. There is no polite way to say this. I do not like one of my students. I do not dislike this young man because he never follows instructions or because he could care less about the writing prompts I give him or because he would rather talk to his friends; he does all of those things, but so do many of his peers and I still like all of them. I do not like this child because he is mean; he is mean to many of his classmates (I have seen him quietly torture a smaller, weaker boy by throwing small wads of paper at him and he regularly says hurtful things to two girls who sit near him); he is also mean to my colleagues and to me, but, honestly, I can almost understand why a young man would feel compelled to be mean to an adult in this place. The adults are so regularly mean to the students that meanness in response is, on some level, a sane response. It's the preying on the weaker children that makes me dislike him so.
He is a bully. And there is some part of me, deep down, that believes bullies should be punished for their sins, that they are somehow less deserving of my love and care and attention; but because he is such a pain in the ass, he ends up getting more of my attention than other kids in the classroom, and I resent him very deeply for that.
I also know that he has a very unhappy home life. He doesn't get the love and attention he needs or wants and (maybe) deserves, and there is a (gradually diminishing) part of me that wants to look past all the bad behavior I see and try to understand this child in pain. But that is very hard to do because mostly what I see is a child causing pain to other children and, at the same time, making it hard for other children in my care to learn.
All of this leaves me feeling, at the end of the day, a little dirty, like I have somehow become one of the teacher drones I see around me, griping ceaselessly about the "little monsters" and making lists of kids who aren't deserving of the privilege of going on a school trip--who aren't deserving of our love. If I believe that they all deserve our care and attention and love, what do I do with all this resentment and anger I feel towards this young man?
I suppose the first step is to merely accept the reality of my feeling: I do not like this young man.
But I will continue to teach him as best I can, to care for him as best I can, to treat him with fairness and dignity as best as I can, and when I see him tormenting his peers, I will respond as quickly and as even-handedly as I can, because those students--all my students--deserve no less from me than I will give to him, the one I do not like and cannot name.
But this belief also comes at a cost. There is no polite way to say this. I do not like one of my students. I do not dislike this young man because he never follows instructions or because he could care less about the writing prompts I give him or because he would rather talk to his friends; he does all of those things, but so do many of his peers and I still like all of them. I do not like this child because he is mean; he is mean to many of his classmates (I have seen him quietly torture a smaller, weaker boy by throwing small wads of paper at him and he regularly says hurtful things to two girls who sit near him); he is also mean to my colleagues and to me, but, honestly, I can almost understand why a young man would feel compelled to be mean to an adult in this place. The adults are so regularly mean to the students that meanness in response is, on some level, a sane response. It's the preying on the weaker children that makes me dislike him so.
He is a bully. And there is some part of me, deep down, that believes bullies should be punished for their sins, that they are somehow less deserving of my love and care and attention; but because he is such a pain in the ass, he ends up getting more of my attention than other kids in the classroom, and I resent him very deeply for that.
I also know that he has a very unhappy home life. He doesn't get the love and attention he needs or wants and (maybe) deserves, and there is a (gradually diminishing) part of me that wants to look past all the bad behavior I see and try to understand this child in pain. But that is very hard to do because mostly what I see is a child causing pain to other children and, at the same time, making it hard for other children in my care to learn.
All of this leaves me feeling, at the end of the day, a little dirty, like I have somehow become one of the teacher drones I see around me, griping ceaselessly about the "little monsters" and making lists of kids who aren't deserving of the privilege of going on a school trip--who aren't deserving of our love. If I believe that they all deserve our care and attention and love, what do I do with all this resentment and anger I feel towards this young man?
I suppose the first step is to merely accept the reality of my feeling: I do not like this young man.
But I will continue to teach him as best I can, to care for him as best I can, to treat him with fairness and dignity as best as I can, and when I see him tormenting his peers, I will respond as quickly and as even-handedly as I can, because those students--all my students--deserve no less from me than I will give to him, the one I do not like and cannot name.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Substance Abuse
So for the last week or so, I've been "teaching" this substance abuse curriculum that I didn't write. Laura, my hard-hearted and often forgetful cooperating teacher, forgot to do it earlier this year, and since the school received grant money in exchange for agreeing to do it, I had to do it.
The program itself is everything that I hate about the "corporatization" of the classroom. First and perhaps foremost is the pre-packaged, "teacher-proof" curriculum. The manual comes with these ridiculously specific instructions; if I actually followed them, I would be standing at the front of the room merely reading out of the manual for much of the class time. It also comes with a checklists of "materials to photocopy" at the beginning of each lesson (there are eight lessons), but of course the manual itself says on every page: "this is copyrighted material; do not photocopy."
Then there's the tone of the materials themselves--cutesy and condescending. The handouts for the kids all have this ridiculous clip-art on it; and then there are materials that are supposed to be sent home (for the "home-team," the term the program uses for the student's family. Some of the information on these materials is probably worthwhile, but I suspect that many parents would catch a quick whiff of the condescension and immediately stop reading. I hand the paper to my students every day, as I am sort of required to do, and I haven't bad-mouthed or under-cut it so far, but most of the "home-team" materials end up in the recycle bin outside of my classroom (at least they're recycling).
There is one redeeming part of the program. The curriculum revolves around these audio recordings of four seventh graders who all face different alcohol abuse related dilemmas. And though the message of these recording is pretty obvious, I was actually impressed by the authenticity of the stories the kids told and the way they talk about their lives and experiences.
Like the other day one of the "virtual classmates" (right? like who is going to fall for that?) was worried that if she drank at a party people would think "all kinds of things about her." So we ended up having this conversation about the different stereotypes we have for different genders as they relate to alcohol. And one male student brought up the word "slut" and how people think that girls who drink are "sluts". And so then we started talking about the word "slut" and that kind of led into a discussion about gender-roles and double-standards; and the kids were really engaged, and I was really interested in what they had to say about the pressures they feel as young men and women.
And today we were looking at different advertisements for alcohol, examining the ways that ads prey on gendered-insecurities, and they were so excited about the conversation that a few of them were literally falling out of their seats (I had to squash that a little), and then they started asking questions about how addiction works on the brain and what "alcohol withdrawal" is and what "alcoholism" is. And there were moments when the class seemed on the edge of falling out of control, but it was a loss of control (on their part) due to a deep immersion in the subject.
I had a few moments today when I actually stopped class and said: "it's moments like this when I just have to stop and acknowledge how much I love my job."
And so I am partially grateful to the patronizing corporation that made the mediocre materials which allowed me to have some really interesting and engaging conversations with my seventh graders for the last few days.
The program itself is everything that I hate about the "corporatization" of the classroom. First and perhaps foremost is the pre-packaged, "teacher-proof" curriculum. The manual comes with these ridiculously specific instructions; if I actually followed them, I would be standing at the front of the room merely reading out of the manual for much of the class time. It also comes with a checklists of "materials to photocopy" at the beginning of each lesson (there are eight lessons), but of course the manual itself says on every page: "this is copyrighted material; do not photocopy."
Then there's the tone of the materials themselves--cutesy and condescending. The handouts for the kids all have this ridiculous clip-art on it; and then there are materials that are supposed to be sent home (for the "home-team," the term the program uses for the student's family. Some of the information on these materials is probably worthwhile, but I suspect that many parents would catch a quick whiff of the condescension and immediately stop reading. I hand the paper to my students every day, as I am sort of required to do, and I haven't bad-mouthed or under-cut it so far, but most of the "home-team" materials end up in the recycle bin outside of my classroom (at least they're recycling).
There is one redeeming part of the program. The curriculum revolves around these audio recordings of four seventh graders who all face different alcohol abuse related dilemmas. And though the message of these recording is pretty obvious, I was actually impressed by the authenticity of the stories the kids told and the way they talk about their lives and experiences.
Like the other day one of the "virtual classmates" (right? like who is going to fall for that?) was worried that if she drank at a party people would think "all kinds of things about her." So we ended up having this conversation about the different stereotypes we have for different genders as they relate to alcohol. And one male student brought up the word "slut" and how people think that girls who drink are "sluts". And so then we started talking about the word "slut" and that kind of led into a discussion about gender-roles and double-standards; and the kids were really engaged, and I was really interested in what they had to say about the pressures they feel as young men and women.
And today we were looking at different advertisements for alcohol, examining the ways that ads prey on gendered-insecurities, and they were so excited about the conversation that a few of them were literally falling out of their seats (I had to squash that a little), and then they started asking questions about how addiction works on the brain and what "alcohol withdrawal" is and what "alcoholism" is. And there were moments when the class seemed on the edge of falling out of control, but it was a loss of control (on their part) due to a deep immersion in the subject.
I had a few moments today when I actually stopped class and said: "it's moments like this when I just have to stop and acknowledge how much I love my job."
And so I am partially grateful to the patronizing corporation that made the mediocre materials which allowed me to have some really interesting and engaging conversations with my seventh graders for the last few days.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
"He's a do nothing."
I was sitting at my desk this morning in "my" classroom preparing for the day. There was a meeting going on of the 7th grade teachers in the room. They were planning a field trip to a ropes course, a kind of final bonding experience for the group. They started talking about logistics, getting chaperones and permission slips and buses and the like. And then they started talking about all of the kids that they didn't want to "deal with" on the trip. They then began making a list of all the children who shouldn't be allowed to go. As I sit here trying to prepare meaningful exercises for the very children these adults are thinking about excluding, I am immediately struck by the smug superiority of these adults. And then I catch myself feeling smugly superior to these adults sitting in judgement of these children. And then I started feeling pretty hopeless about the whole prospect of education, if this is how adults talk about children when the children aren't around.
A few words, overheard. If any of you ever hear me talking about children this way, please tell me to retire.
"I don't usually look at my girls in terms of behavior, but I probably should."
"So and so is just so obnoxious."
"So and so is a problem, but I really think she's just incapable."
"Mostly I just want those guys excluded who have made their career ruining classes."
"So and so is just a little pain in the butt."
"We should look at the kids who have just occupied space and keep them from going on the field trip."
"I think we should just fail them all. Make them repeat the class next year."
A few words, overheard. If any of you ever hear me talking about children this way, please tell me to retire.
"I don't usually look at my girls in terms of behavior, but I probably should."
"So and so is just so obnoxious."
"So and so is a problem, but I really think she's just incapable."
"Mostly I just want those guys excluded who have made their career ruining classes."
"So and so is just a little pain in the butt."
"We should look at the kids who have just occupied space and keep them from going on the field trip."
"I think we should just fail them all. Make them repeat the class next year."
Monday, May 7, 2012
Someone Is Watching...
So I've been having my students writing about their experiences at school. One of my most disengaged students (who has missed my class quite a bit) told me that he didn't want to write about school and that he was really mad because he kept getting stuck in "ISS". I had not idea what ISS was, so I asked him about it, and he started telling me all about it. I asked him to stop, for a moment, and quickly write down everything he knew about ISS. He looked at me like I was crazy. "Seriously," he said.
"Seriously," I replied. "Your essay is going to be about ISS. Write a letter to our alien friend explaining what ISS is and then you're done."
Here's what he wrote.
My teacher told me to tell you about ISS. First of all ISS stands for "in school suspension". It's for if you do something bad or if your late for class... In the morning the prinsiple "witch is the head of the school" will call you down to the office. When you get there they will search you for your phone ipod or any electronics that you have. then they have a box with wood wall thats about 4ft wide with a camera above it so the prinsiple can watch you. And when your in it the teachers will bring you work from your classes to work on. Then at the end of the day the teachers will let you out and you can go home.
I understand from Laura that these 8 sentences represent the most that this child has ever written in one sitting. As I see it, it contains all of the essential components of a narrative--a beginning, a middle and an end. And it has some intriguing details--the frisking and the surveillance apparatus.
To be frank, I found this child's tale of ISS a little terrifying. I wonder what is really in that box and if it is a camera is the principal really watching? And if he is, what does he want to see? Or not want to see? And then I wonder about the purpose of locking a child in a surveiled room for a day. What is the child learning from this?
This child is learning that someone is watching.
"Seriously," I replied. "Your essay is going to be about ISS. Write a letter to our alien friend explaining what ISS is and then you're done."
Here's what he wrote.
My teacher told me to tell you about ISS. First of all ISS stands for "in school suspension". It's for if you do something bad or if your late for class... In the morning the prinsiple "witch is the head of the school" will call you down to the office. When you get there they will search you for your phone ipod or any electronics that you have. then they have a box with wood wall thats about 4ft wide with a camera above it so the prinsiple can watch you. And when your in it the teachers will bring you work from your classes to work on. Then at the end of the day the teachers will let you out and you can go home.
I understand from Laura that these 8 sentences represent the most that this child has ever written in one sitting. As I see it, it contains all of the essential components of a narrative--a beginning, a middle and an end. And it has some intriguing details--the frisking and the surveillance apparatus.
To be frank, I found this child's tale of ISS a little terrifying. I wonder what is really in that box and if it is a camera is the principal really watching? And if he is, what does he want to see? Or not want to see? And then I wonder about the purpose of locking a child in a surveiled room for a day. What is the child learning from this?
This child is learning that someone is watching.
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