Ready or Not

Time to grow up. I’ve been telling my students that this week. We’re into our fourth week of school and they have yet to really engage in the learning process. I am struggling with methods of motivation. I’m trying to connect to students. I’m trying to find relevance between curriculum and personal stories. I want students to integrate what I’m teaching into their experiences.

Last posting I described my classes - four classes of English 9, and one class of English 12. I am a special educator, and three of my freshmen classes are co-taught sections, meaning that some of the students have IEP’s and some don’t. But all have needs, “special” or not. I teach students with learning disabilities, health impairments such as attention deficit disorders, emotional disturbances, autism, vision/hearing impairments, and unspecified multiple disorders. I also teach students who have not performed well in school, who don’t like to read, who have challenges at home which impact learning. Each student is different, yet they have one thing in common: youth.

I’m going to be careful and call them “youthful” and not “immature”. The ninth graders are fresh from middle-school, where goofing off was appreciated by their peers and sometimes accepted by their teachers. Fun was an important part of learning. School was what you did when you weren’t playing. Now let me be clear that I’m only repeating what the students say – I know middle school is as academically rigorous, but it is different.

High school isn’t so much fun. We’re working. Learning is a job now. School is your life, and playing is in distant second-place. We don’t have much time for social breaks, and goofing off, and recreation. Every class is planned with an objective, a task, an agenda. I need to know, before you leave today, whether you’ve reached this objective. You need to prove to me, right now, if you’re learning.

The freshmen will have their real test when they take the high school assessment exams which evaluate their worthiness for a diploma. But each day in my classroom is an assessment. If you don’t get what I’m offering today, tomorrow won’t be good. So I’ll teach it again, maybe in a different way. We’ll work harder.

Seniors are a little different. My one class of seniors is all self-contained students. This group of ten students has been taking classes together throughout high school, sometimes back to elementary school. They know each other well. They know each other’s family stories, and they know each other’s abilities and struggles. They are accepting of each other, and for the most part, supportive. They are getting worried about next year.

The Seniors discuss things differently than do the Freshmen. We talk about adulthood. The 12th grade English class is studying Beowulf, which has some great themes in it. On Thursday we had a Socratic Seminar on the topic of relationships. What is Friendship? Kinship? Loyalty? Enmity? These kids jumped into discussion head-first. I heard stories about single mothers raising children, and older children raising younger siblings. I heard from a 19 year-old who’s been supporting the family since he was 14. An 18 year-old, college-hopeful man outlined what kind of father he plans to be in the future. He knows what is needed because his father has been absent. A young woman of 18 spoke of wanting to move to Atlanta to experience the excitement and change a big city might offer. I heard stories of friends, and enemies. Some of those stories were remembered from middle school, some from ninth grade, some from last week. Some families had changed a lot in three years, and some students had as well.

How did I know the 12th grade students had achieved the learning objective? They ended the seminar by writing their definitions of those four words. Next class we’ll apply those words to writing themes for Beowulf. That connects literature to personal relevance.

Starting, and finishing. The freshmen look back sort of wistfully – it was easier in middle school. The seniors look back regretfully – I could have done it differently. The freshmen look ahead with excitement and fear – can I do it? What is “it” going to look like? The seniors look ahead with dreams and disquiet – Can I find it? When I do, will “it” look like my dream?

As a teacher it’s my job to present the objectives of the curriculum and evaluate whether or not the students have achieved the learning goals. As an adult, working with children, it’s my job to present students with the opportunity to identify their dreams, and evaluate whether they have what they’ll need to reach them. And if they don’t, I’m going to try again, maybe in a different way. I’ll work harder. Until they get it. Until they grow up. It's time.

Posted by at 6:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I’ve had two full weeks with my students and I am beginning to know them. Of the six classes I teach, five are ninth grade English. I’m working with two co-teachers, and I have two self-contained classes. Ninth graders are in that great transition period from childhood to adulthood. The beginning of high school is the bridge they cross to enter this period of their lives.

Week one: students come in quietly, sit where directed to sit, write what they’re told to write. They are fairly compliant and rather anxious. They don’t know their way around, they don’t know the teachers, and they’re thinking of all the bad stories they’ve heard from older siblings. They are wondering how they get to the cafeteria and if they’ll have time to eat.

Week two: it’s not the same group of students as last week. They know their way around and haven’t been lost recently. They’ve made some new friends, and they’ve identified people to avoid so they have their safety zone. They know the teachers’ names, and most of the teachers know their names by now. The building is starting to feel like “my school”, not “the high school.”

Of course in week two some students need to try to carve out a special niche for themselves. So I have dealt with some pre-bullying issues as tough kids try to feel out who the weaker students are. We’ve had a few kids who didn’t turn in their homework on time. So we called parents the second day to let them know their child’s grade was already plummeting. We’ve enforced rules, and changed seating charts twice, studied IEP’s and Behavior Plans. I’ve spent time talking “man-to-man” with a student in the hall to find out what’s going on, or to let them know the possible consequences of their second week choices.

Two weeks in, and we are teaching. We’re passed the procedural/administrative discussions. We’re deep into poetry themes and application of themes. We’re beginning short stories next week. This is my third year teaching, and now the curriculum is well-known to me. But still students amaze me when they offer insights I’ve not heard before. I can apply a poem’s theme to “real life”, but I am inspired when a student applies it to his own life and I hear a story of struggle and courage and persistence. Such as the student who spent years in a foster home, who had to tell the class she didn’t have childhood photos to put on her Life’s Journey Map. Or the shy student who stood in front of the class to say it is two years now since his policeman father died in the line of duty, and his map has a lot of bridges crossing over obstacles. Or the student who realized (I think for the first time) just how great a childhood she’d had as she showed photos of cruises, family reunions, summer camps with friends, and birthday-present bicycles.

I enjoy freshmen because their ideas are fresh and they have not yet learned to think ideas over before sharing. They don’t measure their words. They like to participate.

My sixth class is English 12. I knew every one of the students on my class list before school began. I’ve taught them in US History, World Civilization, or English 11 last year. They are an outstanding group of students. They are not Honors-level students, but they are able students. Some are now thinking of four-year colleges. They are students who have learned how to self-accommodate disabilities and family issues. They get themselves to school, and jobs, and take care of younger siblings. They have an incredible awareness of what it will take for them to get ahead, and they are frightened because they know it’s going to be hard to get there. But these are kids who have always had to work hard to achieve the goals of the curriculum. And I’m inspired because they’ve made it to their last year in high school, and life is just beginning to open up to them. I know we’re going to have some interesting conversations in that class. And I know I have a real obligation to them, to help them conclude this stage of their life.

It’s interesting, how I’m working with both freshmen and seniors this year - the two book-ends of the high school career. I’m excited about it!

My professional focus is on learning from the master teachers, mentors, and award winners in education. This is year three for me. I know how to teach, basically. I know how to grade, basically. I know how to differentiate for IEP students, basically. I’m thinking of our state assessments, with categories of “Basic”, “Proficient”, and “Advanced”. Now I need to become proficient, and move to the next level. “Advanced” is still years away. So let me share something I recently read and which inspires me when I grow tired:

“When I teach my heart fills up with love, my soul deepens, my mind expands, my spirit dances, my hands create, my eyes behold beauty, and praise is what I do.” Linda Alson, winner of the Kinder Excellence in Education Award (quoted in Education World Wire Side Chat). Thanks, Linda Alson, for letting me rely on your words this year.

Posted by at 6:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)