I took yesterday off. I was fighting a cold all weekend that has now subsided, I had EPICs class at Seton Hall all weekend, and I had a 1/2 foot high pile of papers to grade. I fought off the cold and all but finished the grading - a successful day to say the least.
I came to school on Sunday afternoon to lay out my lesson plans for the three classes that would miss me. I had a nice little handout on the supposed/postulated Phoenician discovery of America some 1,300 years before the Vikings were in Newfoundland. Quite the interesting piece to say the least. The students had to complete a handout with questions that slowly increased in difficulty as they approached the end of the worksheet with the primary things I'm looking for being Reading Comprehension and then eventually higher order thinking skills (i.e. get information from the handout, get information from the text, combine the two ideas and come up with an analysis). It might have been asking a lot of a few of them, but if I'm to teach these kids how to do it, I need to make them do it. Sink or swim and all that as my mother used to say.
One of my classes were far too rowdy and out of control according to the substitute's notes. So, today's critical thinking quote was, "When the cat is away, the mice will play." Everyone got the meaning immediately. And the class that misbehaved even confessed. I did not have to punish them TOO severely (meaning I didn't take away a drop grade, I just denied them yesterday's tally point). But I did give them a lesson in moral development and what it means to behave just because an authority is not around.
I suspect some of them got it, but then again, I can't be certain that I've taught my students anything from day to day. If they leave me at the end of the year more conscientious of themselves, better able to think, more capable human beings... if they leave me better for having known me, then I will know that I have succeeded. But unlike other jobs, I'm quickly coming to realize that the "mission accomplished" moments for teachers are few and far between -- and I'm beginning to wonder if they ever come. I can only hope that the students I see day in and day out benefit from having known me, from having been in my classroom.
Because if watching them STILL chew gum (I had five more scraping gum today) and watching them STILL talk in the stairwell and listening to them talk about me when they think I can't hear them and watching them just not do their homework is the only consolation I ever have, I don't know that I'll be able to do this the rest of my life. Leonardo and Monet at least could step back and admire their masterpieces once they had finished them. I may never know that I've created masterpieces assuming that I even do.
Goodness, I hope I do. I desperately hope I do.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Friday, November 2, 2007
The Cask of Amontillado
I remember being young and being in school and loving Fridays -- and yes, I realize that statement is most likely not the deepest bit of trivia I have ever shared. My perspective on Friday as a teacher is now altered from the high opinion that I once possessed of Fridays of yester-year. For Friday to an educator is the day of the week that students think belongs to them, the day that precedes Saturday as trumpets precede the arrival of a crowned head. And as such, Friday is not a real school day... No! Friday is a day for merriment, tomfoolerly, nonsense, and all sorts of other hullaballoo (do I sound like an old man, yet?).
Friday, to quote Rocko's Modern Life, is a very dangerous day. I am always especially on my guard on Fridays. They say a good deterrent is the best defense, and so it was. Today passed - for me at least - without any major incidents.
Save for the three gum chewers I caught 3rd Period. I swear, lately, I'm catching gum chewers like the Portuguese & Basques used to catch cod in the Grand Banks. I merely set out my dragnet and in they come as if eager to be caught. But I digress.
No, today was most likely the best Friday in memory. I had to send no one out, I had to "scream" at no class, I did not have to raise my voice... certainly I had the usual unpreparedness that sometimes prevails, the usual suspects and such. They were given detention, but it hardly served to phase me or to disrupt my day or that of my students. They have learned, as they well should, that I have rules and enforce them accordingly. They did not at one time enjoy it, nor do they now I should suppose, but many of them welcome it now as a penitent welcomes the absolution of a priest after confession. They learn and grow and improve as a result of it. And they seem to love me, to fear me? to respect me all the more in the wake of my punishments.
The school's English teacher was out today and I happened to be walking by the 7th period English class (I'm off everyday 7th period; it's my planning period, which is nice) at the beginning of 7th period. The students, alone, were going crazy as unmonitored students are wont to do. I entered the room and silence fell across the children as darkness might fall on a valley as the sun disappears behind a mountain in the desert. I had to say nothing, merely enter. In a calm voice, I ordered them to their seats and they complied at once. They seemed convinced that I should permit them to goof off. Hah!
Instead, I asked them to open their English books.
Seeing no lesson plan, I eyeballed the table of contents until I spotted a story that I know well: E. A. Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," a delicious piece for the "Halloween" season that still feels as present as the gaudy Halloween decorations that persist throughout my neighborhood. North Jersey goes all out on the Halloween decorations, that's for sure. I had the students turn their pages to the story and we began.
I had to silence the first several groans as I began to talk about the cultivation of wine and what, precisely, Amontillado is. Once they had been sufficiently enlightened, the students were no more impressed (I suppose they're champagne drinkers, hm?). And then I launched into the introduction with full force as I explained the depth of hatred, of need for vengeance, that Poe's Montresor character desired against the fool Fortunato. Some students grew bored with the length of Poe's prose, but most of this class of 26 were riveted to their seats as I walked them through the imagery, taking them into the catacombs, showing them the depth of the narrator's evil and hatred for this oaf of a man who remained incapable of seeing his fate coming.
And then the climax. The students sat in stunned silence as I pantomimed the final sealing of the final brick as Fortunado was buried alive, immeured forever in dark and rank catacomb. They cringed in fear at the thought that the perfect crime, the perfect criminal, should have as his Latin motto, "Nemo me impune lacessit," or "No one strikes me with impunity." Some shivered at the thought that revenge could go so far.
When the famous ending lines of the story were read, "in pace requiescat," or "Rest in Peace," the students burst into thunderous applause. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I should not like to be an English teacher, but to be able to share something like a great work of the Western canon as "The Cask of Amontillado" with them and have them appreciate it, to be able to lead them to appreciation of it... ay me, it's days like this that make me feel like Fortunato had he been released from the catacombs.
Now... anyone for a glass of amontillado?
Friday, to quote Rocko's Modern Life, is a very dangerous day. I am always especially on my guard on Fridays. They say a good deterrent is the best defense, and so it was. Today passed - for me at least - without any major incidents.
Save for the three gum chewers I caught 3rd Period. I swear, lately, I'm catching gum chewers like the Portuguese & Basques used to catch cod in the Grand Banks. I merely set out my dragnet and in they come as if eager to be caught. But I digress.
No, today was most likely the best Friday in memory. I had to send no one out, I had to "scream" at no class, I did not have to raise my voice... certainly I had the usual unpreparedness that sometimes prevails, the usual suspects and such. They were given detention, but it hardly served to phase me or to disrupt my day or that of my students. They have learned, as they well should, that I have rules and enforce them accordingly. They did not at one time enjoy it, nor do they now I should suppose, but many of them welcome it now as a penitent welcomes the absolution of a priest after confession. They learn and grow and improve as a result of it. And they seem to love me, to fear me? to respect me all the more in the wake of my punishments.
The school's English teacher was out today and I happened to be walking by the 7th period English class (I'm off everyday 7th period; it's my planning period, which is nice) at the beginning of 7th period. The students, alone, were going crazy as unmonitored students are wont to do. I entered the room and silence fell across the children as darkness might fall on a valley as the sun disappears behind a mountain in the desert. I had to say nothing, merely enter. In a calm voice, I ordered them to their seats and they complied at once. They seemed convinced that I should permit them to goof off. Hah!
Instead, I asked them to open their English books.
Seeing no lesson plan, I eyeballed the table of contents until I spotted a story that I know well: E. A. Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," a delicious piece for the "Halloween" season that still feels as present as the gaudy Halloween decorations that persist throughout my neighborhood. North Jersey goes all out on the Halloween decorations, that's for sure. I had the students turn their pages to the story and we began.
I had to silence the first several groans as I began to talk about the cultivation of wine and what, precisely, Amontillado is. Once they had been sufficiently enlightened, the students were no more impressed (I suppose they're champagne drinkers, hm?). And then I launched into the introduction with full force as I explained the depth of hatred, of need for vengeance, that Poe's Montresor character desired against the fool Fortunato. Some students grew bored with the length of Poe's prose, but most of this class of 26 were riveted to their seats as I walked them through the imagery, taking them into the catacombs, showing them the depth of the narrator's evil and hatred for this oaf of a man who remained incapable of seeing his fate coming.
And then the climax. The students sat in stunned silence as I pantomimed the final sealing of the final brick as Fortunado was buried alive, immeured forever in dark and rank catacomb. They cringed in fear at the thought that the perfect crime, the perfect criminal, should have as his Latin motto, "Nemo me impune lacessit," or "No one strikes me with impunity." Some shivered at the thought that revenge could go so far.
When the famous ending lines of the story were read, "in pace requiescat," or "Rest in Peace," the students burst into thunderous applause. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I should not like to be an English teacher, but to be able to share something like a great work of the Western canon as "The Cask of Amontillado" with them and have them appreciate it, to be able to lead them to appreciation of it... ay me, it's days like this that make me feel like Fortunato had he been released from the catacombs.
Now... anyone for a glass of amontillado?
Thursday, November 1, 2007
The Day of All Saints
To those who know and keep the Roman calendar, happy feast day. And what a day it has been. Though not yet over, sufficient numbers of highlights and lowlights have danced and pranced across the stage of life that I can make an entry for today. The past several days have been "ordinary" days with little worth noting having occured, but I would have written something if I did not also have a stack of papers nearly a foot high that need grading.
Today demands my electronic pen be put to paper, and so I write to those who follow my sojourn as an educator.
This morning opened with a particularly "checked out" young lady loudly calling one of her fellow classmates the N-word. She naturally was using it in the unfortunate modern usage that prevails among young people of her socio-economic background and sub-culture. Were I on the street, my spine would have bristled, but I would have continued on my way. In the halls of my school where I am expected to teach my students to reach beyond their socio-economic backgrounds and to transcend their sub-cultures, I naturally was forced to react. I gave her detention on the spot and had a conversation with her about language and its very powerful effects.
But she and I were not done for the day. Fifteen minutes later, I caught her chewing gum. For those unapprised of the dire consequences for those observed chewing gum by me, I have the students complete an "odious task," which five students discovered roughly a month ago means, "scraping gum off the bottom of Mr. Cochran's desks." My room remains gum free even now as I type this (to my knowledge; I last checked two days ago. I'll check again before the end of the day). So, the math teacher will have a gum free classroom this afternoon as well.
The day goes forward. The entire school attended mass for the Feast of All Saints and then we returned for second period, missing first period religion class. The periods slipped onward until the aforementioned young lady arrives for my fourth period class. Rather than paying attention, now she feels the need to write notes and so forth. I seize what she writes very naturally. Thirty seconds later she resumes her writing. This time, I kick her out of my room. As she is leaving, I inform her of the fact that I will be expecting her this afternoon to help clear the math teacher's room of gum. She retorts that I will most certainly not see her (though not quite in so many words; she was more vulgar). I told her it would mean suspension if I did not see her and then sent her on her way.
It is in the background of today's Feast of the Saints, those who chose in this life to live for God and to serve their neighbors and so now enjoy the beatific vision of our Lord, that I relate this story of sin, uncouthness, and woe. And I do mean woe, for I am saddened that so many of my students have been forced into positions by their own choices and the great many circumstances of their lives outside of their control that they face the high probabiliy of material & spiritual failure. It would be a sin against hope for me to presume that this girl will never face herself and correct the errors of her own making, especially at an age when I myself was guilty of making my own poor choices. But when a student never turns in a single piece of work, ignores questions posed in class, and does little beyond occupy the time-space continuum inside a school building for 8 hours a day everyday, what am I supposed to believe? What image am I to conjure when reason dictates to my perceptions that this girl faces more than just academic failure but worse should her life not change course...?
The quote for purposes of critical thinking in my class today was, "All that is necessary to be a saint is to want to be one" by Robert Lax. The quote had appeal even to those of my students who profess no faith that I am aware of for it spoke to the power behind desire, intention, and ambition in the face of doing good. My young gum chewer sat in a daze as the words were read and discussed, the words that could save her from herself falling on her deaf ears. She occupies a seat in the class that sent me the most over the edge in my previous post concerning reading comprehension. She and a few others continue to worry me in that room, but my new reading comprehension-centered approach seems to be working. The students responded to my walking them through an assignment due today on Tuesday. And I gave them a handout for tomorrow's class on which I intend to test them.
... but my greatest moment, my reminder that the saints do indeed pray for us, came when one of those same students all but fell out of his chair to tell me that he had procured a dictionary for himself as I had instructed them to do the day of my podium-post. He beamed as he searched ardently for the meaning of words he did not know and he then used them - properly. And he answered my questions with new confidence and vigor that I had not yet seen.
We celebrate the saints today. All of the saints. And we celebrate them because they wanted to be saints. When someone wants to be good, there is cause for all of us to celebrate.
Today demands my electronic pen be put to paper, and so I write to those who follow my sojourn as an educator.
This morning opened with a particularly "checked out" young lady loudly calling one of her fellow classmates the N-word. She naturally was using it in the unfortunate modern usage that prevails among young people of her socio-economic background and sub-culture. Were I on the street, my spine would have bristled, but I would have continued on my way. In the halls of my school where I am expected to teach my students to reach beyond their socio-economic backgrounds and to transcend their sub-cultures, I naturally was forced to react. I gave her detention on the spot and had a conversation with her about language and its very powerful effects.
But she and I were not done for the day. Fifteen minutes later, I caught her chewing gum. For those unapprised of the dire consequences for those observed chewing gum by me, I have the students complete an "odious task," which five students discovered roughly a month ago means, "scraping gum off the bottom of Mr. Cochran's desks." My room remains gum free even now as I type this (to my knowledge; I last checked two days ago. I'll check again before the end of the day). So, the math teacher will have a gum free classroom this afternoon as well.
The day goes forward. The entire school attended mass for the Feast of All Saints and then we returned for second period, missing first period religion class. The periods slipped onward until the aforementioned young lady arrives for my fourth period class. Rather than paying attention, now she feels the need to write notes and so forth. I seize what she writes very naturally. Thirty seconds later she resumes her writing. This time, I kick her out of my room. As she is leaving, I inform her of the fact that I will be expecting her this afternoon to help clear the math teacher's room of gum. She retorts that I will most certainly not see her (though not quite in so many words; she was more vulgar). I told her it would mean suspension if I did not see her and then sent her on her way.
It is in the background of today's Feast of the Saints, those who chose in this life to live for God and to serve their neighbors and so now enjoy the beatific vision of our Lord, that I relate this story of sin, uncouthness, and woe. And I do mean woe, for I am saddened that so many of my students have been forced into positions by their own choices and the great many circumstances of their lives outside of their control that they face the high probabiliy of material & spiritual failure. It would be a sin against hope for me to presume that this girl will never face herself and correct the errors of her own making, especially at an age when I myself was guilty of making my own poor choices. But when a student never turns in a single piece of work, ignores questions posed in class, and does little beyond occupy the time-space continuum inside a school building for 8 hours a day everyday, what am I supposed to believe? What image am I to conjure when reason dictates to my perceptions that this girl faces more than just academic failure but worse should her life not change course...?
The quote for purposes of critical thinking in my class today was, "All that is necessary to be a saint is to want to be one" by Robert Lax. The quote had appeal even to those of my students who profess no faith that I am aware of for it spoke to the power behind desire, intention, and ambition in the face of doing good. My young gum chewer sat in a daze as the words were read and discussed, the words that could save her from herself falling on her deaf ears. She occupies a seat in the class that sent me the most over the edge in my previous post concerning reading comprehension. She and a few others continue to worry me in that room, but my new reading comprehension-centered approach seems to be working. The students responded to my walking them through an assignment due today on Tuesday. And I gave them a handout for tomorrow's class on which I intend to test them.
... but my greatest moment, my reminder that the saints do indeed pray for us, came when one of those same students all but fell out of his chair to tell me that he had procured a dictionary for himself as I had instructed them to do the day of my podium-post. He beamed as he searched ardently for the meaning of words he did not know and he then used them - properly. And he answered my questions with new confidence and vigor that I had not yet seen.
We celebrate the saints today. All of the saints. And we celebrate them because they wanted to be saints. When someone wants to be good, there is cause for all of us to celebrate.
Monday, October 29, 2007
The Day I made a Podium from a Box
I have days where I feel as if I've reached my students. Where the fog and mist of ignorance are cleared away and my students leave my room more educated, more alive -- better human beings for having known me.
And then I have days where I stare in the mirror at myself and wonder what the heck I'm doing. Problems that have no immediate solutions present themselves. And these aren't problems like, "Should we have pork or salmon for dinner tonight?" They're problems that are reminiscent of, "We're in a car hurtling downhill toward the edge of a cliff, the brakes are shot, and the doors are stuck. What do we do?" They're moral dilemmas.
Today was a day that feels an awful lot like the latter, even if somewhere in the distance I look back on it and it turns out to have been the former. I desperately wanted to move forward with my Thursday and Wednesday work groups. Desperately. They need to complete (start in the case of Wednesday, re-start in the case of Thursday) their outline presentations on Chapter Four. I gave Thursday more time today to organize their presentations in groups (though admittedly this varies greatly from what I did with the still-surging-ahead Tuesday group).
Within ten minutes, the class was in their groups and each group was miles from doing what I had asked. I imposed silence so that people could concentrate. Many a teacher can sympathize with the ironically named Simon & Garfunkle tune, "The Sound of Silence," for they know that silence can speak volumes. In this silence I saw students giving up after roughly 30 seconds and staring into some unseen distance. I had students "secretly" whispering to each other about something other than Celtic migration patterns. And I had some students who must have eye problems because if they can't see without putting their faces on the page while snoring, well... you get the picture.
I scratched my head for a moment and one of my students came to my aid. "Mr. Cochran, I don't understand this." Me: "Understand what?" Student: "This." And she indicated to the page and a half she was responsible for reading in her group. I pointed out, to help break her disillusionment with herself, that the passage was in English. She giggled as I knew she would, and I brought her back by asking, "What, specifically, don't you understand? Are you reading it paragraph by paragraph as I suggested?" I spent some time leading her through it, but suffice it to say, the girl had no reading comprehension whatsoever. It wasn't that the text bored her or that she felt it dry (though what she did understand, she did pronounce "boring"), it was that she honestly did not understand most of the words on the page and she could not form coherent ideas from the text.
I quickly discovered that she was not an exception (as I had secretly suspected for sometime). I've been kidding myself for sometime now about my students' reading abilities. I had everyone put their desks back where they belong and I had them turn to the first page of the chapter and we read the first paragraph quietly. After they were done, I had the students ask what various words meant -- bearing in mind that I told them before they started reading to pay attention to the words around words they did not understand so that the context might clue them in.
Commerce. Substantial. Evoke. Narrow. Phenomenon. Decisive. Mediterranean. "Carthago, as the city was known to the Romans." These, among many smaller and less awe-inspiring words & phrases, landed on the radars of every one of my students. Whenever a word was brought forward, I always asked the class what the word meant. With few exceptions (narrow was one of them) no one knew what the words meant. Couldn't even make a guess as to what the word meant. Context meant nothing.
I was reminded by one of my students of my own 9th grade days by the word, "Analogous," because I remember the day in 9th Grade Biology that I learned that word. But substantial? Commerce? I may be kidding myself, or perhaps expecting too much, but are these words really that... well, I suppose I just don't know.
I grew tired of holding my textbook near the end of the Thursday work group's period and I grabbed some boxes from my back closet and built a make shift podium that came to just above my waist. It was shaky, but it held the textbook for me. I kept it in place for the fourth period (Wednesday Work Group) so that I could do the same activity with them. And the results were comparable with Thursday, though with less enthusiasm.
I feel a great deal at the moment like my students are that podium made out of boxes. They're shaky at best, I have to watch them to make sure they don't fall, and the odds of them being able to support the weight & breadth of the high school history textbook are fairly slim. I mean, sure, they might pull it off, but it's a triumph if they do, not the natural result that should be expected. The odds of them being able to support the standard college text & work load are not quite as good as all that. If "The Earth and Its Peoples" is too much, what will "The Critique of Pure Reason" and "Physics: An Introduction" and "Global Finance" do to them? For that matter, what will the tenth grade do to them?
How do I turn the shaky boxes into solid oak finish? And can I? Will I? And, God help me, what happens if I don't?
And then I have days where I stare in the mirror at myself and wonder what the heck I'm doing. Problems that have no immediate solutions present themselves. And these aren't problems like, "Should we have pork or salmon for dinner tonight?" They're problems that are reminiscent of, "We're in a car hurtling downhill toward the edge of a cliff, the brakes are shot, and the doors are stuck. What do we do?" They're moral dilemmas.
Today was a day that feels an awful lot like the latter, even if somewhere in the distance I look back on it and it turns out to have been the former. I desperately wanted to move forward with my Thursday and Wednesday work groups. Desperately. They need to complete (start in the case of Wednesday, re-start in the case of Thursday) their outline presentations on Chapter Four. I gave Thursday more time today to organize their presentations in groups (though admittedly this varies greatly from what I did with the still-surging-ahead Tuesday group).
Within ten minutes, the class was in their groups and each group was miles from doing what I had asked. I imposed silence so that people could concentrate. Many a teacher can sympathize with the ironically named Simon & Garfunkle tune, "The Sound of Silence," for they know that silence can speak volumes. In this silence I saw students giving up after roughly 30 seconds and staring into some unseen distance. I had students "secretly" whispering to each other about something other than Celtic migration patterns. And I had some students who must have eye problems because if they can't see without putting their faces on the page while snoring, well... you get the picture.
I scratched my head for a moment and one of my students came to my aid. "Mr. Cochran, I don't understand this." Me: "Understand what?" Student: "This." And she indicated to the page and a half she was responsible for reading in her group. I pointed out, to help break her disillusionment with herself, that the passage was in English. She giggled as I knew she would, and I brought her back by asking, "What, specifically, don't you understand? Are you reading it paragraph by paragraph as I suggested?" I spent some time leading her through it, but suffice it to say, the girl had no reading comprehension whatsoever. It wasn't that the text bored her or that she felt it dry (though what she did understand, she did pronounce "boring"), it was that she honestly did not understand most of the words on the page and she could not form coherent ideas from the text.
I quickly discovered that she was not an exception (as I had secretly suspected for sometime). I've been kidding myself for sometime now about my students' reading abilities. I had everyone put their desks back where they belong and I had them turn to the first page of the chapter and we read the first paragraph quietly. After they were done, I had the students ask what various words meant -- bearing in mind that I told them before they started reading to pay attention to the words around words they did not understand so that the context might clue them in.
Commerce. Substantial. Evoke. Narrow. Phenomenon. Decisive. Mediterranean. "Carthago, as the city was known to the Romans." These, among many smaller and less awe-inspiring words & phrases, landed on the radars of every one of my students. Whenever a word was brought forward, I always asked the class what the word meant. With few exceptions (narrow was one of them) no one knew what the words meant. Couldn't even make a guess as to what the word meant. Context meant nothing.
I was reminded by one of my students of my own 9th grade days by the word, "Analogous," because I remember the day in 9th Grade Biology that I learned that word. But substantial? Commerce? I may be kidding myself, or perhaps expecting too much, but are these words really that... well, I suppose I just don't know.
I grew tired of holding my textbook near the end of the Thursday work group's period and I grabbed some boxes from my back closet and built a make shift podium that came to just above my waist. It was shaky, but it held the textbook for me. I kept it in place for the fourth period (Wednesday Work Group) so that I could do the same activity with them. And the results were comparable with Thursday, though with less enthusiasm.
I feel a great deal at the moment like my students are that podium made out of boxes. They're shaky at best, I have to watch them to make sure they don't fall, and the odds of them being able to support the weight & breadth of the high school history textbook are fairly slim. I mean, sure, they might pull it off, but it's a triumph if they do, not the natural result that should be expected. The odds of them being able to support the standard college text & work load are not quite as good as all that. If "The Earth and Its Peoples" is too much, what will "The Critique of Pure Reason" and "Physics: An Introduction" and "Global Finance" do to them? For that matter, what will the tenth grade do to them?
How do I turn the shaky boxes into solid oak finish? And can I? Will I? And, God help me, what happens if I don't?
Friday, October 26, 2007
Silence & Suffering, Faith & Works
My homeroom is also my Religion Class. As a convert to Catholicism and a veteran of four years of RCIA classes at Seton Hall, I can honestly say that next to my other passion, history, teaching a religion class is one of my all time favorite past times. After spending four years (longer if you count the few years prior I spent studying the faith on my own) being catechized, I'm now in a position to lead others in a search for their own spirituality. I am certainly in no position to teach Catholic Catechism or to teach an RCIA class, but only four of my homeroom students are Catholic so most of the questions I get, any reasonably-well-versed Catholic could answer them.
Now that the background is out of the way, today we discussed Chapter Four in Shusaku Endo's famed work, "Silence". Without getting into too much detail, the book chronicles the adventures and misadventures of two Portuguese priests in 17th century Japan - a period of great persecution for the Church. One of the first startling outbursts of Father Rodrigues occurs in this chapter, namely, when three of the Japanese Christians are about to face torture unless they renounce their faith, the good Father advises them to apostatize rather than suffer. A very disturbing scene, indeed.
The ensuing discussion in my class went right to the heart of what it means to be human, to love, to believe. The class was, interestingly enough, evenly divided between those who saw no problem with a false public denunciation of the Christian (or any other) faith provided that that denunciation was, indeed, false and that it was done to avoid suffering -- and those who insisted that a public defense of faith was always necessary.
During the discussion, the identities of the students that advocated the position that it was alright to publicly deny belief in Christ (or whomever) while privately still believing did not always surprise me. Reflecting as I frequently have on the backgrounds and socio-economic origins of my students, suffering and "martyrdom" are not virtues to these students, but rather, their lives. Many of them are physical witnesses to the horrors of what it means to be a "martyr" and what it means to suffer for what you believe. Far from seeing this as a thing of value, the students doubtlessly view those "courageous" enough to welcome suffering in the name of faith (when they could easily avoid it by simply denying their faith) as foolish.
Many of my students, however, have a deep and personal faith that reaches beyond the suffering and turmoil they have witnessed in the urban world around them. Several of the students insisted that God expects us, quoting the Gospels, "to confess Him before men so that [He] might confess [them] to His Father in Heaven." The religious issue of bearing witness to one's faith aside, many of the students clearly showed their personal stripes on what it means to believe something and how that belief can carry itself forward into one's actions and life. My students are not bad people and as such may not believe that cheating is correct, for instance, or even that retaliatory violence is acceptable. But the crux rests on their view of suffering: their belief about cheating or retaliatory violence may have to be set aside, in their view, in the name of avoiding suffering (a bad grade in the case of the former and loss of reputation in the case of the latter).
Suffering, then, shapes the lives of my students: their views, their beliefs, their pasts... How they each individually choose to address the suffering in their lives - and the risk of suffering - will necessarily dictate their futures.
I left my class with the following from the Letter of St. James, the Apostle of Our Lord: "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,' but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also of faith itself, if it does not have works, is dead." (James 3:14-17) St. James goes on to call those who do not believe such things "ignoramus", but I mercifully left that part out.
Those versed in the politics of the Reformation know well the controversy this passage has caused among Protestant communities who emphasize "faith alone" for the sake of salvation, excluding works not from faith, but from the equation of salvation. Reformation theology aside, my students sat back for a moment, taken aback. The one who had led the charge in the name of private belief over public confession seemed genuinely perplexed, but also to be thinking hard.
I would never disagree with St. James, my own namesake, especially as a Catholic. Yet the traditional interpretation of Faith and Works may need some reworking in light of what the modern urban experience has taught and teaches ordinary human beings about suffering. Indeed, if I had to wager a guess, I should say that my students are confusing two different virtues: faith and hope. What they possess may not be faith at all, but rather "hope" in a faith that may come or that remains out of reach. They threaten each other or lie or cheat or fail to try not because they do not consider these things to be bad, but because the world they inhabit is one that would punish actions in compliance with beliefs such as these. Ergo, their actions are not out of step with their beliefs, but rather in step with the fact that they as yet can only hope for a world where such belief may give rise to virtuous actions that are not in turn subsequently punished.
If nothing else, the silence after the reading of St. James spoke more than their discussion ever could have. And the work of my school, my classroom, my life, continues.
Now that the background is out of the way, today we discussed Chapter Four in Shusaku Endo's famed work, "Silence". Without getting into too much detail, the book chronicles the adventures and misadventures of two Portuguese priests in 17th century Japan - a period of great persecution for the Church. One of the first startling outbursts of Father Rodrigues occurs in this chapter, namely, when three of the Japanese Christians are about to face torture unless they renounce their faith, the good Father advises them to apostatize rather than suffer. A very disturbing scene, indeed.
The ensuing discussion in my class went right to the heart of what it means to be human, to love, to believe. The class was, interestingly enough, evenly divided between those who saw no problem with a false public denunciation of the Christian (or any other) faith provided that that denunciation was, indeed, false and that it was done to avoid suffering -- and those who insisted that a public defense of faith was always necessary.
During the discussion, the identities of the students that advocated the position that it was alright to publicly deny belief in Christ (or whomever) while privately still believing did not always surprise me. Reflecting as I frequently have on the backgrounds and socio-economic origins of my students, suffering and "martyrdom" are not virtues to these students, but rather, their lives. Many of them are physical witnesses to the horrors of what it means to be a "martyr" and what it means to suffer for what you believe. Far from seeing this as a thing of value, the students doubtlessly view those "courageous" enough to welcome suffering in the name of faith (when they could easily avoid it by simply denying their faith) as foolish.
Many of my students, however, have a deep and personal faith that reaches beyond the suffering and turmoil they have witnessed in the urban world around them. Several of the students insisted that God expects us, quoting the Gospels, "to confess Him before men so that [He] might confess [them] to His Father in Heaven." The religious issue of bearing witness to one's faith aside, many of the students clearly showed their personal stripes on what it means to believe something and how that belief can carry itself forward into one's actions and life. My students are not bad people and as such may not believe that cheating is correct, for instance, or even that retaliatory violence is acceptable. But the crux rests on their view of suffering: their belief about cheating or retaliatory violence may have to be set aside, in their view, in the name of avoiding suffering (a bad grade in the case of the former and loss of reputation in the case of the latter).
Suffering, then, shapes the lives of my students: their views, their beliefs, their pasts... How they each individually choose to address the suffering in their lives - and the risk of suffering - will necessarily dictate their futures.
I left my class with the following from the Letter of St. James, the Apostle of Our Lord: "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,' but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also of faith itself, if it does not have works, is dead." (James 3:14-17) St. James goes on to call those who do not believe such things "ignoramus", but I mercifully left that part out.
Those versed in the politics of the Reformation know well the controversy this passage has caused among Protestant communities who emphasize "faith alone" for the sake of salvation, excluding works not from faith, but from the equation of salvation. Reformation theology aside, my students sat back for a moment, taken aback. The one who had led the charge in the name of private belief over public confession seemed genuinely perplexed, but also to be thinking hard.
I would never disagree with St. James, my own namesake, especially as a Catholic. Yet the traditional interpretation of Faith and Works may need some reworking in light of what the modern urban experience has taught and teaches ordinary human beings about suffering. Indeed, if I had to wager a guess, I should say that my students are confusing two different virtues: faith and hope. What they possess may not be faith at all, but rather "hope" in a faith that may come or that remains out of reach. They threaten each other or lie or cheat or fail to try not because they do not consider these things to be bad, but because the world they inhabit is one that would punish actions in compliance with beliefs such as these. Ergo, their actions are not out of step with their beliefs, but rather in step with the fact that they as yet can only hope for a world where such belief may give rise to virtuous actions that are not in turn subsequently punished.
If nothing else, the silence after the reading of St. James spoke more than their discussion ever could have. And the work of my school, my classroom, my life, continues.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Time Management
I was in my classroom at 7PM last night, the latest I've remained (save Parent Night) so far this year. My wife had a very long day at the office and as we carpool, it meant a long day for me, too. Needless to say, I got a great deal done - planning, papers graded, and so forth.
While I was grading papers, I noticed all of a sudden that I was reading the same thing over and over and over again. I went through nine student papers before the words started to change on me. And then it hit me: the previous nine had all copied from one another.
As unsettling as this sounds (or perhaps doesn't sound to experienced educators), consider that I have very strict consequences for cheaters and this class has seen me deal with cheaters before. Instead of a single grade (for instance, 75 or 90 or 0), I give cheaters two 0s for cheating (sort of as if they failed to turn in two assignments), detention, and I call their parents. And, of course, I have to deal with this tomorrow because the cheaters are all at work today. Fine.
I take a step back and ask myself, "Why would they do this?" Is my work too hard? I don't think it is, and the students do well enough in discussion... Certainly they could stand to spend more time on it - Hammurabi's Code is not the easiest thing in the world to understand. It isn't rocket science, certainly, but it isn't "Hop on Pop" or "Green Eggs & Ham," either.
I decided, for sake of argument, that the zeros I have in my gradebook and the homework that's getting done at school and the copying is all the result of poor time management. No one has ever taken it upon themselves to explain to these kids that their purpose is school. Period.
So I did that with all of the other classes today and I will do it with the Thursday work group tomorrow. It began like this:
"What time do you get up in the morning?" I received differing answers depending on distance from school, but the mode of answers was 6AM. So I told them, "subtract 8 hours from whatever time you get up and that is your new bedtime. You have to get 8 hours of sleep everynight." For some of my students, it was as if I had told them they had to go home tonight and drown some kittens. "Impossible!" They screamed. "But I go to bed at midnight!" yelled another.
"Not anymore you don't," was my reply. I told them I want them, for a grade, to write out their "from now on" afternoon schedules and have them go from 3PM to their "new" bedtime. And I told them that from now on, their names are now, "First Name Last Name, College Prep Student", not "FN LN, Basketball Player" or "... TV Watcher" or what have you. There was much disquiet in all of them, but one group had the nerve to insist they already know how to time manage. My response was simple: "Not one person in this room has an A in this class. To a person, it is because you are missing homework. You do not know how to time manage." They closed their mouths (those who jaws weren't on the floor) and got to work on their schedules.
I felt vindicated in the first class I did this in when one of my students informed me that he plays for a basketball team and that he has practice every night from 6PM to 9PM. When I told him that I was beginning to understand why he was missing so much work and why his quiz grades were not up to what I consider him capable of, he looked puzzled. I told him to ask his coach to let him miss some practice time. When he said that he'd be off the team for that, I told him that he needed to make an informed choice for himself: scale back (or quit) basketball and devote more time to his studies, or face the prospect of failing Religion and Western Civilization. It hit him hard, but no one had ever said this to him before. I hope he doesn't have to quit basketball, but all of my kids obviously need to get a handle on their time.
So with that, I fall one day further behind in my quest to reach the end of the Second World War before the middle of June. But I'm hoping that it wasn't "time wasted."
While I was grading papers, I noticed all of a sudden that I was reading the same thing over and over and over again. I went through nine student papers before the words started to change on me. And then it hit me: the previous nine had all copied from one another.
As unsettling as this sounds (or perhaps doesn't sound to experienced educators), consider that I have very strict consequences for cheaters and this class has seen me deal with cheaters before. Instead of a single grade (for instance, 75 or 90 or 0), I give cheaters two 0s for cheating (sort of as if they failed to turn in two assignments), detention, and I call their parents. And, of course, I have to deal with this tomorrow because the cheaters are all at work today. Fine.
I take a step back and ask myself, "Why would they do this?" Is my work too hard? I don't think it is, and the students do well enough in discussion... Certainly they could stand to spend more time on it - Hammurabi's Code is not the easiest thing in the world to understand. It isn't rocket science, certainly, but it isn't "Hop on Pop" or "Green Eggs & Ham," either.
I decided, for sake of argument, that the zeros I have in my gradebook and the homework that's getting done at school and the copying is all the result of poor time management. No one has ever taken it upon themselves to explain to these kids that their purpose is school. Period.
So I did that with all of the other classes today and I will do it with the Thursday work group tomorrow. It began like this:
"What time do you get up in the morning?" I received differing answers depending on distance from school, but the mode of answers was 6AM. So I told them, "subtract 8 hours from whatever time you get up and that is your new bedtime. You have to get 8 hours of sleep everynight." For some of my students, it was as if I had told them they had to go home tonight and drown some kittens. "Impossible!" They screamed. "But I go to bed at midnight!" yelled another.
"Not anymore you don't," was my reply. I told them I want them, for a grade, to write out their "from now on" afternoon schedules and have them go from 3PM to their "new" bedtime. And I told them that from now on, their names are now, "First Name Last Name, College Prep Student", not "FN LN, Basketball Player" or "... TV Watcher" or what have you. There was much disquiet in all of them, but one group had the nerve to insist they already know how to time manage. My response was simple: "Not one person in this room has an A in this class. To a person, it is because you are missing homework. You do not know how to time manage." They closed their mouths (those who jaws weren't on the floor) and got to work on their schedules.
I felt vindicated in the first class I did this in when one of my students informed me that he plays for a basketball team and that he has practice every night from 6PM to 9PM. When I told him that I was beginning to understand why he was missing so much work and why his quiz grades were not up to what I consider him capable of, he looked puzzled. I told him to ask his coach to let him miss some practice time. When he said that he'd be off the team for that, I told him that he needed to make an informed choice for himself: scale back (or quit) basketball and devote more time to his studies, or face the prospect of failing Religion and Western Civilization. It hit him hard, but no one had ever said this to him before. I hope he doesn't have to quit basketball, but all of my kids obviously need to get a handle on their time.
So with that, I fall one day further behind in my quest to reach the end of the Second World War before the middle of June. But I'm hoping that it wasn't "time wasted."
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Nearly Two Months On
I have been thinking for sometime about keeping a journal for myself about my class. This blog never came to be used for its primary purpose as most of my students lack home computers and internet access. To that end, I will continue this Blog with much of the primary purpose still in mind, but with more of an emphasis on allowing me to reflect on what has occured in class. And goodness what has occured:
Yesterday, I discovered that my Thursday work group class (3rd Period) LOVE debate. Every class begins the same way: I put a quote on the board and the students tell me what it means. The point is to develop critical thinking skills, but the students showed me that and more. Certainly they've been developing over the last month and a half good habits of critical thinking, but would never have predicted the reaction. Practically every student in the class participated in the discussion that ensued. I moderated as usual, throwing questions to keep the dialogue flowing, but the students took the class in the direction they wanted to go. And what a paradise they sailed to!
The Thursday work group is the "problem" work group at school. The other teachers have reported the most problems with these students and I have experienced the general apathy as well, but what a transformation with the debate! Their work could stand a similar transformation, but I will, as their teacher, continue to have to seek out what that transformation might look like and how it might occur. Sadly, time will probably be the only cure for apathy about homework - time and report cards, which come out in two weeks.
The Tuesday Work Group continues to surge ahead. Today, they completed 1/4 of the chart concerning the Iron Age civilizations (Celts, Assyrians, Israelites/Hebrews, Phoenicians) and loved the discussion about the Celts - but they usually take to the history minutiae better than the other three classes. I'm having my doubts about the presentations I made them give on their outlines. They didn't seem to understand outlining at all and the lack of a textbook that they can work on outside of class only adds to the difficulty. I hope the textbooks I ordered arrive soon.
Yesterday, I discovered that my Thursday work group class (3rd Period) LOVE debate. Every class begins the same way: I put a quote on the board and the students tell me what it means. The point is to develop critical thinking skills, but the students showed me that and more. Certainly they've been developing over the last month and a half good habits of critical thinking, but would never have predicted the reaction. Practically every student in the class participated in the discussion that ensued. I moderated as usual, throwing questions to keep the dialogue flowing, but the students took the class in the direction they wanted to go. And what a paradise they sailed to!
The Thursday work group is the "problem" work group at school. The other teachers have reported the most problems with these students and I have experienced the general apathy as well, but what a transformation with the debate! Their work could stand a similar transformation, but I will, as their teacher, continue to have to seek out what that transformation might look like and how it might occur. Sadly, time will probably be the only cure for apathy about homework - time and report cards, which come out in two weeks.
The Tuesday Work Group continues to surge ahead. Today, they completed 1/4 of the chart concerning the Iron Age civilizations (Celts, Assyrians, Israelites/Hebrews, Phoenicians) and loved the discussion about the Celts - but they usually take to the history minutiae better than the other three classes. I'm having my doubts about the presentations I made them give on their outlines. They didn't seem to understand outlining at all and the lack of a textbook that they can work on outside of class only adds to the difficulty. I hope the textbooks I ordered arrive soon.
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