Today during third period I collected my students' theses and reasons for their five paragraph essays that are due on Friday. I gave this assignment with the knowledge that most of my students would wait until Thursday night to even attempt to write the paper and that would be WAY too late. I gave the assignment because I expect them to have at least started to work on the essay by now - especially seeing as today is Wednesday.
And I gave the assignment knowing full well that the vast majority of them would not do it.
I told them yesterday (Tuesday) after having assigned the essay on Monday that I would want their thesis statements and reasons for their theses today. I knew that my 3rd period class would have study hall 8th period today when I did that. I was already plotting in my mind to give them double history today.
Why?
Because I knew they wouldn't do the assignment. It turns out that 2/3 of them attempted the assignment (probably in their second period class), but didn't finish it. The rest shrugged it off. We spent the remainder of the period trying to get cogent thesis statements comparing and contrasting the Roman Monarchy and the Roman Republic down on paper. And then we did it again 8th period. And only four kids were allowed to leave my room when school ended.
They came to me one by one asking if their thesis was any good, if their reasons were valid, to get coached on their thinking. I read and corrected and read and corrected non-stop with these kids for three hours today. They slowly leaked away one by one as I pronounced their ideas fit to be turned into an essay. Two students were done 3rd period today and actually started writing their essays this afternoon. Two students were still with me struggling to write a coherent thesis statement at 5 o'clock this afternoon.
Teaching in Newark is like being a doctor in a hospital emergency room in the middle of a war zone (I suppose that's redundant, but it's sufficient simile). I do not know how some of my students reached my classroom not knowing some of the things that they do not know. It boggles my mind and fills me with such doubt in the lower grade teachers, such doubt in the educational system as a whole. It dampens my hopes for the the future of America.
BUT, there again, I have entire classes of students now that KNOW, REALLY KNOW how to write a thesis statement and come up with three reasons explaining that thesis. Can they write an essay? Well, two of them can as far as I can tell. But the others will come along with time. At least I can hope that they will. But I've done it with some of them. I've taught them how to write! I taught students, even if they're only two right now, how to write a coherent paper! This is beyond anything I had come to hope for and is a red banner day for me, to say the least.
A colleague once said to me, "We can't save them all; even Jesus has hell." And this is most certainly true, a very sobering statement to say the least. But I must work everyday as though I can save them all - sort out the ones that don't need as much help as others and get them on their way, focus one-on-one with those that need me most... it's triage in my classroom. And I do what I can. I've lost many patients, but the saves... the saves give me reason to hope, to love, to dream even as reason tells me I should not. I can't save them all, but I want to -- and that's what keeps me doing this every day. I love these kids so much.
A final thought: I've recently learned that a former student of mine has joined a Newark gang. He is now a "full-fledged member" of one of them, the Crypts or the Bloods, I don't recall which and quite frankly, damn them all, but this is one that I loved - as I love them all. I cared. I dreamed for him. His smile made his friends smile, his thoughts were developing as they should, his work was coming along from nothing, his ideas had promise, his grammar was improving, his knowledge of history was expanding, ... and then he flatlined. He checked out. And then he found himself out in the cold. He found what he thinks is safety in the arms of the devil.
I can't save them all. But I want to. And it hurts so much to lose one. And it feels so good to save one. I don't get the good feeling of a save very often, but thank God they happen. I want to save them all.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
The Grand Experiment
I've reached a period of duldrums where my stories are repetitive and my successes infrequent. My posts have begun to taper off not because I've lost interest - far from it - but because the reason to write is simply not there. I celebrated a pretty big success last Friday when a girl in one of my classes that had checked out on me some time ago suddenly applied herself and earned a 100 on a map of Europe test.
This is a girl that four weeks ago looked at me and called Italy "Africa." She now can point to Slovenia and Estonia with confidence and is tutoring other students in geography. I want to celebrate this, to take credit for it, and indeed, I do both. But morale is so low among the faculty anymore that this twinkle in the night is not elating me as I should hope it would under ordinary circumstances.
Progress Reports went home recently. I have so many students failing that if I were a public school teacher, I'd be reprimanded. What times do we live in...? A wise man once told me that the world didn't work the way I thought it did. One day, I'd grow up, get my first pay check, and truly understand what it means to pay taxes. Some day finally came... I've grown up. And the world is not a pretty place. Certainly it has its beauty, its wonder, its moments that remind us that life is worth living, but all in all, we live in a pretty awful place we humans.
Michelle Obama said in a speech recently that for the first time in her adult life, she's proud of her country. Many people took offense to that remark. I did not. And that is primarily because she did not say, "For the first time in my life, I love my country." She used pride. I can agree with that, but I have to say, I've yet to find myself proud of the country that I love.
America began as a grand experiment in participatory democracy. The experiment was tested time and time again. To this day, liberty and "freedom" endure in America as they do in few other places, but what country can be called free that is shackled by debt, crippled by poverty, and increasingly blinded by what is a loathsome ignorance? I cannot be proud of that. I drive streets where people triple park without consequence, and I teach students that would rather text in some sub-English language rather than revel in the beauty of proper English. I cannot be proud of that.
My students are skipping school, lying to their parents, involving themselves with less than reputable individuals, saying a collective "F*ck you" to the faculty by not doing our homework, and all but gving up on material that, frankly, belongs in a Middle School. THIS is America. I teach and live and breathe in America.
Whether people like it or not, whether they realize it or not, America is not destined for the sunlit uplands our Founding Father saw in the rising sun of George Washington's chair. Thomas Jefferson knew that the lifeblood of a democracy endures because of education, that a people's future can be predicted by looking at their children. America is a grand experiment in participatory democracy heading for dark times. We're certainly not a failure yet, but our children are failing left and right -- and they'll be in charge someday. What of our grand experiment then?
This is a girl that four weeks ago looked at me and called Italy "Africa." She now can point to Slovenia and Estonia with confidence and is tutoring other students in geography. I want to celebrate this, to take credit for it, and indeed, I do both. But morale is so low among the faculty anymore that this twinkle in the night is not elating me as I should hope it would under ordinary circumstances.
Progress Reports went home recently. I have so many students failing that if I were a public school teacher, I'd be reprimanded. What times do we live in...? A wise man once told me that the world didn't work the way I thought it did. One day, I'd grow up, get my first pay check, and truly understand what it means to pay taxes. Some day finally came... I've grown up. And the world is not a pretty place. Certainly it has its beauty, its wonder, its moments that remind us that life is worth living, but all in all, we live in a pretty awful place we humans.
Michelle Obama said in a speech recently that for the first time in her adult life, she's proud of her country. Many people took offense to that remark. I did not. And that is primarily because she did not say, "For the first time in my life, I love my country." She used pride. I can agree with that, but I have to say, I've yet to find myself proud of the country that I love.
America began as a grand experiment in participatory democracy. The experiment was tested time and time again. To this day, liberty and "freedom" endure in America as they do in few other places, but what country can be called free that is shackled by debt, crippled by poverty, and increasingly blinded by what is a loathsome ignorance? I cannot be proud of that. I drive streets where people triple park without consequence, and I teach students that would rather text in some sub-English language rather than revel in the beauty of proper English. I cannot be proud of that.
My students are skipping school, lying to their parents, involving themselves with less than reputable individuals, saying a collective "F*ck you" to the faculty by not doing our homework, and all but gving up on material that, frankly, belongs in a Middle School. THIS is America. I teach and live and breathe in America.
Whether people like it or not, whether they realize it or not, America is not destined for the sunlit uplands our Founding Father saw in the rising sun of George Washington's chair. Thomas Jefferson knew that the lifeblood of a democracy endures because of education, that a people's future can be predicted by looking at their children. America is a grand experiment in participatory democracy heading for dark times. We're certainly not a failure yet, but our children are failing left and right -- and they'll be in charge someday. What of our grand experiment then?
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Under Construction or "Words My Grandmother Taught Me"
I must apologize to my more loyal readers that have pestered me for not posting of late. The period since my last posting was consumed first by exam preparation (as the previous post hinted at the first signs of) and then by the exams themselves and then by what I can only describe as the fallout from those exams.
I write today if for no other reason than for the fact that it is time to bring you who are not present in my classroom up to speed, whether the "you" I refer to is someone near to me or it be wider posterity (I am rather enamoured with my own importance sometimes; I am, after all, a history teacher).
96 students took my exam. One of them earned a 100. Six total earned A's. A fair mix earned B's and C's. A full 60% (that's 58 total) failed the exam. Were I at any other school, I would have resigned my position. I decided to look at it like this: "Well, at least I reached 6 kids." When students lack any study skills, possess near-zero prior knowledge, and value things other than school, well... these are the results. I read an article recently that described the gradual dumbing down of America, and while I think the views expressed are far too pessimistic for me to adopt them myself, I cannot help but reflect on the fact that the evidence presented in the article is, even if superficialy, cropping up in my own classroom.
American students lack the structure, the push, the screaming need to succeed. Or, if I over generalize too much, MY students lack this essential quality. But, more than this motivation, they lack the base knowledge required to succeed. They have been passed forward by a system that would rather be rid of a problem than solve it. And I, as a 9th grade History teacher, am left with the dirty mop that is my children's basic skills. How am I to teach children about Alexander the Great and the rise of Rome if they are shown a map of Italy and think it Africa? If they cannot read the word "agriculture" and then, once told the word, cannot define it? To quote a paper I recently wrote, "I chase rainbows on a clearing day."
Confronted with this conundrum, I redesigned my class the weekend after exams. I sat down and asked myself the simple question: "What do I wish to accomplish before the end of the school year?" I answered myself in four parts: "1. I want to teach my students to think; 2. I want to teach my students to write & research properly; 3. I want to teach my students Western history; and 4. I want my students to improve in their geographic knowledge."
My class now has four component parts and each part has its own development aspect worth 10% and its own mastery aspect worth 15%. When multiplied by four, the casual observer will note that "development assignments" now compose 40% of my students' grades and "mastery assignments" now compose 60%. Each category has its own types of assignments to achieve the stated aim of development or mastery.
So far, I have hit a couple roadblocks and frustrations. The first is writing and research. I nearly broke down the weekend that I decided to redesign my curriculum - indeed, it was the breakdown that provided that catalyst for the redesign - when I read what I presumed were simple 5 paragraph essays helping my students to review. They were, without mincing words, the most atrocious dribble ever to be penned by human hands. I know 4th graders that have better structure and more concept of what it means to communicate in English. I nearly quit.
Clearly I did not. But I spent two weeks with two classes and now I am on my third week with the other two teaching them how to properly structure a five paragraph essay, how to write a proper APA bibliography, and how to cite a quote in a paper. I told the students the following: "Until the class as a whole obtains an average of 70 or better, I will reteach this and requiz you even if June arrives before I am done." Every class failed the first quiz. Only two failed the second. God willing, no class will fail the one that approaches this Friday and we shall move on into the bright sunlit uplands of essay writing and history studying and map memorizing. For if they do not, then shall descend a further week of study of paper writing and my students will fall even further behind - at least with regard to the historical material. With regard to essay writing, well... if I teach them nothing else but how to write a proper paper, then I suppose I have accomplished something of merit, something of benefit. Indeed, I know I will have.
The two classes that passed, well, they pressed onward this week with a deep question of history: a five paragraph essay, due at the end of this week, on whether Alexander the Great was a promoter of Greek civilization or an egomaniacal drunk with a lust for power. They have delved into the books and are scratching their collective thinking hats in an effort to produce something not only of interest about Alexander, but that meets my requirements of structure for the proper presentation of ideas.
It naturally raises a dichotomy: what happens when you move forward with two and leave two behind? And, God forbid, what happens if one more moves ahead this week and the last one gets left behind. Time is more valuable than gold to me, more precious than money, for I have so little of it, my kids have so little... They start the school year with a month deficit from day one because of their work schedules. And I'm expected to do the same as any other 9th grade history teacher with students that are not at grade level in even less time than would normally be allotted. I am reminded of a pithy sign that hung in the entry way of my grandmother's home when I was growing up:
"We must acheive more with less time, fewer resources, less gratification, and no coffee break -- and it's all due yesterday."
I doubt I've remembered it perfectly and I believe the sign was a crack about civil engineering since she worked for the county, but the words stuck with me -- and they come back now that I live them. Alas, this blog has already eaten up time I do not have. Watch for another post within the week (I hope), gentle readers. Until then, I build on.
I write today if for no other reason than for the fact that it is time to bring you who are not present in my classroom up to speed, whether the "you" I refer to is someone near to me or it be wider posterity (I am rather enamoured with my own importance sometimes; I am, after all, a history teacher).
96 students took my exam. One of them earned a 100. Six total earned A's. A fair mix earned B's and C's. A full 60% (that's 58 total) failed the exam. Were I at any other school, I would have resigned my position. I decided to look at it like this: "Well, at least I reached 6 kids." When students lack any study skills, possess near-zero prior knowledge, and value things other than school, well... these are the results. I read an article recently that described the gradual dumbing down of America, and while I think the views expressed are far too pessimistic for me to adopt them myself, I cannot help but reflect on the fact that the evidence presented in the article is, even if superficialy, cropping up in my own classroom.
American students lack the structure, the push, the screaming need to succeed. Or, if I over generalize too much, MY students lack this essential quality. But, more than this motivation, they lack the base knowledge required to succeed. They have been passed forward by a system that would rather be rid of a problem than solve it. And I, as a 9th grade History teacher, am left with the dirty mop that is my children's basic skills. How am I to teach children about Alexander the Great and the rise of Rome if they are shown a map of Italy and think it Africa? If they cannot read the word "agriculture" and then, once told the word, cannot define it? To quote a paper I recently wrote, "I chase rainbows on a clearing day."
Confronted with this conundrum, I redesigned my class the weekend after exams. I sat down and asked myself the simple question: "What do I wish to accomplish before the end of the school year?" I answered myself in four parts: "1. I want to teach my students to think; 2. I want to teach my students to write & research properly; 3. I want to teach my students Western history; and 4. I want my students to improve in their geographic knowledge."
My class now has four component parts and each part has its own development aspect worth 10% and its own mastery aspect worth 15%. When multiplied by four, the casual observer will note that "development assignments" now compose 40% of my students' grades and "mastery assignments" now compose 60%. Each category has its own types of assignments to achieve the stated aim of development or mastery.
So far, I have hit a couple roadblocks and frustrations. The first is writing and research. I nearly broke down the weekend that I decided to redesign my curriculum - indeed, it was the breakdown that provided that catalyst for the redesign - when I read what I presumed were simple 5 paragraph essays helping my students to review. They were, without mincing words, the most atrocious dribble ever to be penned by human hands. I know 4th graders that have better structure and more concept of what it means to communicate in English. I nearly quit.
Clearly I did not. But I spent two weeks with two classes and now I am on my third week with the other two teaching them how to properly structure a five paragraph essay, how to write a proper APA bibliography, and how to cite a quote in a paper. I told the students the following: "Until the class as a whole obtains an average of 70 or better, I will reteach this and requiz you even if June arrives before I am done." Every class failed the first quiz. Only two failed the second. God willing, no class will fail the one that approaches this Friday and we shall move on into the bright sunlit uplands of essay writing and history studying and map memorizing. For if they do not, then shall descend a further week of study of paper writing and my students will fall even further behind - at least with regard to the historical material. With regard to essay writing, well... if I teach them nothing else but how to write a proper paper, then I suppose I have accomplished something of merit, something of benefit. Indeed, I know I will have.
The two classes that passed, well, they pressed onward this week with a deep question of history: a five paragraph essay, due at the end of this week, on whether Alexander the Great was a promoter of Greek civilization or an egomaniacal drunk with a lust for power. They have delved into the books and are scratching their collective thinking hats in an effort to produce something not only of interest about Alexander, but that meets my requirements of structure for the proper presentation of ideas.
It naturally raises a dichotomy: what happens when you move forward with two and leave two behind? And, God forbid, what happens if one more moves ahead this week and the last one gets left behind. Time is more valuable than gold to me, more precious than money, for I have so little of it, my kids have so little... They start the school year with a month deficit from day one because of their work schedules. And I'm expected to do the same as any other 9th grade history teacher with students that are not at grade level in even less time than would normally be allotted. I am reminded of a pithy sign that hung in the entry way of my grandmother's home when I was growing up:
"We must acheive more with less time, fewer resources, less gratification, and no coffee break -- and it's all due yesterday."
I doubt I've remembered it perfectly and I believe the sign was a crack about civil engineering since she worked for the county, but the words stuck with me -- and they come back now that I live them. Alas, this blog has already eaten up time I do not have. Watch for another post within the week (I hope), gentle readers. Until then, I build on.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Math Describes Everything
I am grateful for many things, but few things more than my love of math. Don't misunderstand me when I say this for I've never been a math prodigy. Indeed, I never earned anything over a C in math between 5th Grade and 12th Grade. Interestingly enough, I earned A's in 5th Grade Math and A's in 12th Grade Calculus. Go figure. But I digress.
My high school taught me many things, and my high school teachers were responsible for 90% of those things, but it was, oddly enough, my 10th-12th Grade math teacher that taught me to love math. It took her three years to do it and I spent most of that time hating math, but when I left her, I did so with the deepest understanding of the universe and how it works as I had ever had to that point in my life.
Math is all about relationships. Xs and Ys, independent variables and dependent variables, and the relationships that exist between them. Numbers certainly are dry and unfeeling and do things that can seem rather pointless to the untrained eye. But tell somebody that musical harmony has a mathematical relationship (quadratic, I belive, but then again, I'm not a math teacher nor a music major) or that food supplies and populations share a unique relationship that can be described with a linear function and, well, if they have any interest in anything, their interest in math will be (at least) piqued.
I spent today as I spent yesterday and as I intend to spend the next week: reviewing my classes for the impending semester exam in my history class. In September, before this Blog began operating and before I had received my textbooks, I decided to teach my students social scientific methodology. Take an observed phenomenon, ask a why question about it, offer a hypothesis explaining it, test it, and find out if you were right. Repeat as required. Obviously there's more to it than that, but I'm not going to write my whole lesson right here. So, after months of indirectly using the method in class, we return to where this all began and review the method itself.
I find myself faced with the need of reviewing independent variables and dependent variables. The kids have learned some things since I first taught this, so it went better than it had in September. Using questions ranging from "Why are students failing Social Studies?" to "Why were people migrating at the beginning of the Iron Age?", we proposed hypotheses such as "Students are failing Social Studies because they aren't paying attention in class" and "People were migrating at the beginning of the Iron Age because food supplies were low."
After school today, two of my students (a Friday girl and a Thursday boy) came for a deeper review of the method. We used the question & hypothesis about the Iron Age so that we could review both the method and the Iron Age (another section on my exam) at the same time. We made up fake food supply numbers (Y) and fake population numbers (X) and we went through the numbers and, after 10 minutes of calculation, we discovered a positive linear relationship between food supply and population. But that wasn't the hypothesis! So we re-attacked the numbers, this time looking at population change from year to year, and came up with a negative linear relationship... with a y-intercept that had to be discovered! 0 = m(18), and m does not equal 0, so there has to be a b.
We didn't know slope (m) or the y-intercept (b), all we had were several points. We solved for b, then we solved for m, then we had the equation of our line! Y=-333 1/3 (x) + 6,000!
The kids loved it. They had never seen math do that before, though they had seen the beginnings of that math before in math class. Both of them immediately came to understand the deeper meaning of math... and they understood that history has math in it. They instantly got the whole purpose of the method, they realized what math is and what it does and how the thinking of math is in everything else. They got how the history could be better understood using math.
They got it. Two of my students had a breakthrough that I did not have until 12th Grade. That's what I did today. Math, history, knowledge... I have to tell you that after that experience, to quote Louis Armstrong, "I said to myself, 'What a wonderful world.'"
Cheers to math from a teacher of history. Cheers to Mrs. Savage. And cheers to anyone who ever came to understand that math describes everything.
My high school taught me many things, and my high school teachers were responsible for 90% of those things, but it was, oddly enough, my 10th-12th Grade math teacher that taught me to love math. It took her three years to do it and I spent most of that time hating math, but when I left her, I did so with the deepest understanding of the universe and how it works as I had ever had to that point in my life.
Math is all about relationships. Xs and Ys, independent variables and dependent variables, and the relationships that exist between them. Numbers certainly are dry and unfeeling and do things that can seem rather pointless to the untrained eye. But tell somebody that musical harmony has a mathematical relationship (quadratic, I belive, but then again, I'm not a math teacher nor a music major) or that food supplies and populations share a unique relationship that can be described with a linear function and, well, if they have any interest in anything, their interest in math will be (at least) piqued.
I spent today as I spent yesterday and as I intend to spend the next week: reviewing my classes for the impending semester exam in my history class. In September, before this Blog began operating and before I had received my textbooks, I decided to teach my students social scientific methodology. Take an observed phenomenon, ask a why question about it, offer a hypothesis explaining it, test it, and find out if you were right. Repeat as required. Obviously there's more to it than that, but I'm not going to write my whole lesson right here. So, after months of indirectly using the method in class, we return to where this all began and review the method itself.
I find myself faced with the need of reviewing independent variables and dependent variables. The kids have learned some things since I first taught this, so it went better than it had in September. Using questions ranging from "Why are students failing Social Studies?" to "Why were people migrating at the beginning of the Iron Age?", we proposed hypotheses such as "Students are failing Social Studies because they aren't paying attention in class" and "People were migrating at the beginning of the Iron Age because food supplies were low."
After school today, two of my students (a Friday girl and a Thursday boy) came for a deeper review of the method. We used the question & hypothesis about the Iron Age so that we could review both the method and the Iron Age (another section on my exam) at the same time. We made up fake food supply numbers (Y) and fake population numbers (X) and we went through the numbers and, after 10 minutes of calculation, we discovered a positive linear relationship between food supply and population. But that wasn't the hypothesis! So we re-attacked the numbers, this time looking at population change from year to year, and came up with a negative linear relationship... with a y-intercept that had to be discovered! 0 = m(18), and m does not equal 0, so there has to be a b.
We didn't know slope (m) or the y-intercept (b), all we had were several points. We solved for b, then we solved for m, then we had the equation of our line! Y=-333 1/3 (x) + 6,000!
The kids loved it. They had never seen math do that before, though they had seen the beginnings of that math before in math class. Both of them immediately came to understand the deeper meaning of math... and they understood that history has math in it. They instantly got the whole purpose of the method, they realized what math is and what it does and how the thinking of math is in everything else. They got how the history could be better understood using math.
They got it. Two of my students had a breakthrough that I did not have until 12th Grade. That's what I did today. Math, history, knowledge... I have to tell you that after that experience, to quote Louis Armstrong, "I said to myself, 'What a wonderful world.'"
Cheers to math from a teacher of history. Cheers to Mrs. Savage. And cheers to anyone who ever came to understand that math describes everything.
Friday, December 21, 2007
"The Greatest History of All is the Kind You Make!" - One of my Students
Yesterday evening, one of my students with a notable disability of some kind (either physical or mental or emotional, I can't be certain myself) interrupted the mundane conversation the school's math teacher and I were having about the usual teacher nonsense (when the meeting or grades or something was going on... maybe we were talking about exams? I don't remember) to tell the math teacher all about how King Xerxes invaded Greece with an army of 2 million men thus sparking the Second Persian War.
I about collapsed.
The math teacher sat there beaming, listening to this student recount the story of three centuries of Greek and Persian history with one of the most excited tones. He repeated me verbatim, acting out the wild battle I had vividly described to his class earlier in the day.
But he didn't stop there. He just had to tell his math teacher (and because I was standing there, I suppose me, too) all about everything he had learned in history for about the last two weeks of school. I knew the kid was smart, but he's always had trouble communicating with me and with others in anything resembling an organized fashion. A month ago, I told him that I was advancing him to the "next level in the video game that is history class". I told him that before he speaks, he should write down what he intends to say and then read that. He was skeptical, yes, but everytime the lad speaks in class now, he gets applause from his classmates. I tried to discourage this, but it was genuine and spontaneous and I stopped when I saw how positive an experience it was for him. Once organized, he is perhaps one of my smartest and most articulate students. And he works hard.
And he wowed me again and made me feel that I had accomplished something. Here is a student that others have written off as "slow" and "awkward" and a pain. He reminds me in MANY ways of Steve Urkel, but in the loveable way (I think I've heard him say "Did I do that?" once or twice). He is in some ways all of these things, and yet he learned the Persian Wars. And he learned the important history leading up to it, including Athenian help for the Ionian Revolt. He personally reenacted the Battle of Thermopylae, which he told the math teacher is Greek for Hot Gates. I had tears in my eyes listening to it all.
When the boy scampered off down the hall to get home, the math teacher and I stood alone in the hallway staring after him in silence for what felt like 30 seconds or a minute. We turned to each other and he patted my shoulder with his gloved hand and said, "Well, you got through to someone." I nodded my stern nod that I've developed, smiled, said good night and walked back into my classroom. The Math teacher turned to leave and said the same.
Christmas break is here and for all of us - students, teachers, staff - it could not have come at a better time. We're drained. I feel like I've emptied myself of every last ounce of strength I have for these kids. I've exhausted myself in planning and in grading and in praying and in disciplining and in just being a teacher for practically every single waking moment of every single day. I have to stop myself from telling strangers on the subway in New York to spit their gum out on weekends when I'm in the city.
I teach history. And I'm beginning to wonder if I've not been making it all along for and with my students. A girl in my homeroom told me today that the greatest history of all is the kind "you" make. I presumed she meant "you" in the sense that the grammatically-correct mean "one", but she corrected me and said, "No, Mr. Cochran, the history you [pointing to me] make." And then she hugged me and left. I was stunned. And many of the other kids said less poignant though equally telling things (not to mention all the Christmas gifts they gave me over my loud objections).
I teach history. My students teach me that being human means more than just being good. It means growing, even when it seems impossible to grow. The moments like the ones described don't happen to me everyday. I suppose I'd write every day if they did. But they happen often enough to remind me that I'm on the frontline of history everyday.
How fortunate am I to be present at such awe inspiring moments as these. How fortunate am I to teach & make history.
I about collapsed.
The math teacher sat there beaming, listening to this student recount the story of three centuries of Greek and Persian history with one of the most excited tones. He repeated me verbatim, acting out the wild battle I had vividly described to his class earlier in the day.
But he didn't stop there. He just had to tell his math teacher (and because I was standing there, I suppose me, too) all about everything he had learned in history for about the last two weeks of school. I knew the kid was smart, but he's always had trouble communicating with me and with others in anything resembling an organized fashion. A month ago, I told him that I was advancing him to the "next level in the video game that is history class". I told him that before he speaks, he should write down what he intends to say and then read that. He was skeptical, yes, but everytime the lad speaks in class now, he gets applause from his classmates. I tried to discourage this, but it was genuine and spontaneous and I stopped when I saw how positive an experience it was for him. Once organized, he is perhaps one of my smartest and most articulate students. And he works hard.
And he wowed me again and made me feel that I had accomplished something. Here is a student that others have written off as "slow" and "awkward" and a pain. He reminds me in MANY ways of Steve Urkel, but in the loveable way (I think I've heard him say "Did I do that?" once or twice). He is in some ways all of these things, and yet he learned the Persian Wars. And he learned the important history leading up to it, including Athenian help for the Ionian Revolt. He personally reenacted the Battle of Thermopylae, which he told the math teacher is Greek for Hot Gates. I had tears in my eyes listening to it all.
When the boy scampered off down the hall to get home, the math teacher and I stood alone in the hallway staring after him in silence for what felt like 30 seconds or a minute. We turned to each other and he patted my shoulder with his gloved hand and said, "Well, you got through to someone." I nodded my stern nod that I've developed, smiled, said good night and walked back into my classroom. The Math teacher turned to leave and said the same.
Christmas break is here and for all of us - students, teachers, staff - it could not have come at a better time. We're drained. I feel like I've emptied myself of every last ounce of strength I have for these kids. I've exhausted myself in planning and in grading and in praying and in disciplining and in just being a teacher for practically every single waking moment of every single day. I have to stop myself from telling strangers on the subway in New York to spit their gum out on weekends when I'm in the city.
I teach history. And I'm beginning to wonder if I've not been making it all along for and with my students. A girl in my homeroom told me today that the greatest history of all is the kind "you" make. I presumed she meant "you" in the sense that the grammatically-correct mean "one", but she corrected me and said, "No, Mr. Cochran, the history you [pointing to me] make." And then she hugged me and left. I was stunned. And many of the other kids said less poignant though equally telling things (not to mention all the Christmas gifts they gave me over my loud objections).
I teach history. My students teach me that being human means more than just being good. It means growing, even when it seems impossible to grow. The moments like the ones described don't happen to me everyday. I suppose I'd write every day if they did. But they happen often enough to remind me that I'm on the frontline of history everyday.
How fortunate am I to be present at such awe inspiring moments as these. How fortunate am I to teach & make history.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Stille Nacht
There was an incident on Thursday last that unfortunately I cannot publish here, but suffice it to say, I made a mistake. The fallout from that day lingered for roughly 24 hours - though I expected it to have lasting implications. I learned from it, my students learned from it, and we've all been able to move on.
But something I've noticed about mistakes before now is that making them some how brings people closer together. It's almost as if they affirm our humanity, they teach us both about the specific instance at issue, but they also teach us more broadly about what it means to be human. Teaching is, in many ways, the science of being human. Teaching itself is an art, but the matters confronted by teachers are for civilized society radically a part of the very fabric of life. To read, to write, to think, to debate, to decide, to conform, to stand out, to cipher, to approach problems logically, to be something distinct while being a part of something larger... education accomplishes these things for young and old alike. When students are told a teacher is a human being and can make mistakes, it is as some fact in some dusty book, detached from reality, other & separate from the here and now.
But when students witness a teacher make a mistake, well... the fact becomes more real. Just as it is far easier to teach students about the Peloponnesian War by having the two (or more) sides of the classroom take sides in the conflict even as it is lectured to them, it is also far easier for students to grasp the humanity of a teacher should they witness that humanity played out in that most "unlikely" of ways, namely, the mistake.
Friday came following Thursday as a million other Fridays have followed a million other Thursdays since time immemorial (though we skipped a week and some in 1582 when Thursday October 4 was followed by Friday October 15). Despite my past observations, this Friday flowed smoother. Students that had never bothered to pay attention suddenly felt compelled to, students that had treated me with indifference showed a new found respect... rule by fear is hardly what I desire or require, but I won't say with certainty that it was fear that drove the new order that has persisted through the momentum destroying weekend into today.
Students have begun to try for me, to push themselves. Certainly I still have the few that are not college prep material, but there again, I have others that I had discounted until only recently. The preparation for Christmas continues in all of my classes as I struggle to bring students forward in time into the Hellenistic Age and the rise of Rome. But with only minor problems, blips as they were, I am making genuine progress that would be written off by any other institution but which I must grab onto for the sake of my own sanity, progress that even I should have called impossible only two months ago. Indeed, my own writing on this blog back in its infancy might well have expressed skepticism at the life I've seen in a few of my more precarious wards.
With Christmas only a week away and as time continues to slide forward, I pause and reflect at the night that reigns. But even as I do, I cannot help but picture the three burning candles of the Advent wreath that my religion class and I gathered around this morning. We sang "Adeste Fideles" in the original Latin (the little troopers gave their best shots) and "O Come O Come Emmanuel" and then we sang one of their favorites, "Silent Night," but I printed up lyrics for several of the stanzas and I added in a Spanish stanza for my Hispanic students and for the others to practice. And then I finished with the original verse that had been written in German.
They stood and listened with wide-eyed awe at the sound of the other language as it came from my mouth. I'm not the best singer in the world, but years of choir (including one Christmas when I sang "Stille Nacht") put me in a position to bring the carol to them in a meaningful way.
I was able to get students in a Newark High School to listen to me sing "Silent Night" in German, to appreciate it, to admire it, to ask me to sing it again... I don't know how many times I will experience moments like this in my life.
However many times it is, for now, I'm just going to sit back, grade papers, and enjoy the quiet of the Stille Nacht.
But something I've noticed about mistakes before now is that making them some how brings people closer together. It's almost as if they affirm our humanity, they teach us both about the specific instance at issue, but they also teach us more broadly about what it means to be human. Teaching is, in many ways, the science of being human. Teaching itself is an art, but the matters confronted by teachers are for civilized society radically a part of the very fabric of life. To read, to write, to think, to debate, to decide, to conform, to stand out, to cipher, to approach problems logically, to be something distinct while being a part of something larger... education accomplishes these things for young and old alike. When students are told a teacher is a human being and can make mistakes, it is as some fact in some dusty book, detached from reality, other & separate from the here and now.
But when students witness a teacher make a mistake, well... the fact becomes more real. Just as it is far easier to teach students about the Peloponnesian War by having the two (or more) sides of the classroom take sides in the conflict even as it is lectured to them, it is also far easier for students to grasp the humanity of a teacher should they witness that humanity played out in that most "unlikely" of ways, namely, the mistake.
Friday came following Thursday as a million other Fridays have followed a million other Thursdays since time immemorial (though we skipped a week and some in 1582 when Thursday October 4 was followed by Friday October 15). Despite my past observations, this Friday flowed smoother. Students that had never bothered to pay attention suddenly felt compelled to, students that had treated me with indifference showed a new found respect... rule by fear is hardly what I desire or require, but I won't say with certainty that it was fear that drove the new order that has persisted through the momentum destroying weekend into today.
Students have begun to try for me, to push themselves. Certainly I still have the few that are not college prep material, but there again, I have others that I had discounted until only recently. The preparation for Christmas continues in all of my classes as I struggle to bring students forward in time into the Hellenistic Age and the rise of Rome. But with only minor problems, blips as they were, I am making genuine progress that would be written off by any other institution but which I must grab onto for the sake of my own sanity, progress that even I should have called impossible only two months ago. Indeed, my own writing on this blog back in its infancy might well have expressed skepticism at the life I've seen in a few of my more precarious wards.
With Christmas only a week away and as time continues to slide forward, I pause and reflect at the night that reigns. But even as I do, I cannot help but picture the three burning candles of the Advent wreath that my religion class and I gathered around this morning. We sang "Adeste Fideles" in the original Latin (the little troopers gave their best shots) and "O Come O Come Emmanuel" and then we sang one of their favorites, "Silent Night," but I printed up lyrics for several of the stanzas and I added in a Spanish stanza for my Hispanic students and for the others to practice. And then I finished with the original verse that had been written in German.
They stood and listened with wide-eyed awe at the sound of the other language as it came from my mouth. I'm not the best singer in the world, but years of choir (including one Christmas when I sang "Stille Nacht") put me in a position to bring the carol to them in a meaningful way.
I was able to get students in a Newark High School to listen to me sing "Silent Night" in German, to appreciate it, to admire it, to ask me to sing it again... I don't know how many times I will experience moments like this in my life.
However many times it is, for now, I'm just going to sit back, grade papers, and enjoy the quiet of the Stille Nacht.
Monday, December 10, 2007
What I've learned in the interim
Sorry to all my loyal readers who've felt left out of my teaching experiences without my frequent reflections. I should be able to get back on some semblance of a normal routine now that progress reports are done and my planning and grading are caught up.
Since last writing, I've learned a few practical things: first, don't collect 120 journals all at once and then expect to read them all thoroughly in a brief amount of time; second, it is vain of a teacher to believe they've taught their students something after only once teaching it, especially when that something falls under the category of "modern political discussion material." Even if the issue under discussion is misunderstood in wider society and that is why it is discussed anyway, do not presume to think you can clear away the fog and lead people to understanding just like that. If people are already believing the world was created in 7 days, then simply telling them that Genesis is not a scientific description of the creation of the universe is not going to end the problem.
I've learned it's very easy to feel like a failure even when you're not. It's also easy to come out of that feeling so long as you have people around you who see the same thing you see and tell you that you're not a failure. Teaching is very much an art. Not that I think I'm a master, but even the great masters of painting and sculpture reviled some of their own greatest masterpieces even as the rest of humanity basked in their beauty. I've reflected before on the need to focus more on the big picture, but it is so hard to live beyond the immediate moment when the student will not behave, will not follow directions, will not be serious about a given situation, just wills not to comply. It is so hard.
I've also had the experience of dealing with the old cliche, "You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink." Last week, as I sat to prepare progress reports, I found myself facing the fact that one of the students in my home room had not handed in either a history journal (participation grade) or his religion journal (project grade). I sat him down after school and just put all the cards on the table and told him, "Look. You're failing almost beyond recovery for not handing in your work. The time to hand these things in has more than elapsed, but I'm going to break my own rule and let you take until this coming Monday [today, 12/10; the conversation happened on 12/5] to get these things done." He cried and thanked me for giving him the extra time. I saw a genuine desire to do better.
He didn't have his journals today. He "had a game to go to this weekend."
I put the zeros in my grade book right in front of him and let him watch his average change. He cried again, but this time I had no pity. I asked him, point blank, if he cared. His response was, "Of course I care!" and my response, flatly, was, "It certainly doesn't look like it, does it?" pointing to his averages.
When I was in high school, I was public enemy number one when it came to not handing in math homework. I would start out the semester doing it, but way would lead onto way and I'd get caught up in my other classes and I'd try to do my math homework but it would take me too long and I would rarely understand all of it until we had moved on to the next section - by which time it would be too late to do the old homework anyway since I now had new homework to do. So I just didn't do it.
I tried to put this student into that same mold, but in this student's case my class isn't math, it's history and religion. And the assignment isn't problems 1-49 every-other-odd, it's write a page worth of reflection on a given prompt that he is given time in class to write on (not to mention a great deal of time at home). The excuses I gave in my discussion of math homework were not sufficient then and are not now, but they explain why I didn't do it. For this student, I'm left with the conclusion that either he cannot do the work - and his general writing ability that I've seen does not reflect this - or he will not do the work. He "has a game to go to."
I told the student that, one way or another, he would learn from me before he left my class: either he would master my class's curriculum, or he would learn a very important life lesson. I didn't tell him that I had to learn a comparable life lesson in high school myself. I'm really hoping I don't have to teach him a lesson about failure, but then again, I suppose it's better he fail me now on a report card than he fail a job later and lose his house.
And that's what I've learned in the interim.
Since last writing, I've learned a few practical things: first, don't collect 120 journals all at once and then expect to read them all thoroughly in a brief amount of time; second, it is vain of a teacher to believe they've taught their students something after only once teaching it, especially when that something falls under the category of "modern political discussion material." Even if the issue under discussion is misunderstood in wider society and that is why it is discussed anyway, do not presume to think you can clear away the fog and lead people to understanding just like that. If people are already believing the world was created in 7 days, then simply telling them that Genesis is not a scientific description of the creation of the universe is not going to end the problem.
I've learned it's very easy to feel like a failure even when you're not. It's also easy to come out of that feeling so long as you have people around you who see the same thing you see and tell you that you're not a failure. Teaching is very much an art. Not that I think I'm a master, but even the great masters of painting and sculpture reviled some of their own greatest masterpieces even as the rest of humanity basked in their beauty. I've reflected before on the need to focus more on the big picture, but it is so hard to live beyond the immediate moment when the student will not behave, will not follow directions, will not be serious about a given situation, just wills not to comply. It is so hard.
I've also had the experience of dealing with the old cliche, "You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink." Last week, as I sat to prepare progress reports, I found myself facing the fact that one of the students in my home room had not handed in either a history journal (participation grade) or his religion journal (project grade). I sat him down after school and just put all the cards on the table and told him, "Look. You're failing almost beyond recovery for not handing in your work. The time to hand these things in has more than elapsed, but I'm going to break my own rule and let you take until this coming Monday [today, 12/10; the conversation happened on 12/5] to get these things done." He cried and thanked me for giving him the extra time. I saw a genuine desire to do better.
He didn't have his journals today. He "had a game to go to this weekend."
I put the zeros in my grade book right in front of him and let him watch his average change. He cried again, but this time I had no pity. I asked him, point blank, if he cared. His response was, "Of course I care!" and my response, flatly, was, "It certainly doesn't look like it, does it?" pointing to his averages.
When I was in high school, I was public enemy number one when it came to not handing in math homework. I would start out the semester doing it, but way would lead onto way and I'd get caught up in my other classes and I'd try to do my math homework but it would take me too long and I would rarely understand all of it until we had moved on to the next section - by which time it would be too late to do the old homework anyway since I now had new homework to do. So I just didn't do it.
I tried to put this student into that same mold, but in this student's case my class isn't math, it's history and religion. And the assignment isn't problems 1-49 every-other-odd, it's write a page worth of reflection on a given prompt that he is given time in class to write on (not to mention a great deal of time at home). The excuses I gave in my discussion of math homework were not sufficient then and are not now, but they explain why I didn't do it. For this student, I'm left with the conclusion that either he cannot do the work - and his general writing ability that I've seen does not reflect this - or he will not do the work. He "has a game to go to."
I told the student that, one way or another, he would learn from me before he left my class: either he would master my class's curriculum, or he would learn a very important life lesson. I didn't tell him that I had to learn a comparable life lesson in high school myself. I'm really hoping I don't have to teach him a lesson about failure, but then again, I suppose it's better he fail me now on a report card than he fail a job later and lose his house.
Since last post, I've aged a year further and I've come to realize that adults aren't really that much smarter than kids. I know adults that are much less intelligent than some of my students. The difference is in the experiences, the mistakes, the lessons learned. The great tragedy is that with all the brainpower that humans have, we're rarely smart enough to learn from the mistakes of others, especially from others who have authority over us. For someone like me, teaching is as much a Purgatory as it is a Paradise; every time I get on a student for not handing in work, I feel my inner voice getting on me for the same reason. I have no idea what to do about that, assuming it's even something that needs attention.
And that's what I've learned in the interim.
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