Student Voices August 30, 2007
Posted by aquiram in APUSH, Academic Decathlon, Eng III, Reflections, US History, advanced placement, classroom, lessons, responsibility.trackback
Feeding off the great posts by CTG and Dana, I can no longer hide from the blog world and blame it on the workload.
Brief history–I, by nature, tend to challenge myself to the extent of driving myself crazy. I am currently teaching two sections of AP US History (never taught before), one section of Academic Decathlon (never taught before), the Gifted Coordinator (3 years now), and coaching the Odyssey of the Mind team (2 years). I am also a mother, but not a wife (so there’s a bit of a break!), to two daughters (8 and 12) with active engagement calendars (homework and various sports/activities).
So, this year, I am treading water and have been using it as an excuse for not posting. In fact, right now, I have a list of 10 items needing to be completed, but need to post this piece. One way I avoid work is to read the latest blog posts. I have my fave, must reads and travel to them like a ship in search of a beacon. Today, I have found two points to embrace, ponder, and act upon.
Over the summer I followed California Teacher Guy’s posts on finding a new job. I congratulate him on a job found, one in which he had many reservations, but felt the calling within his heart. Two days into the job and already the power of being a teacher has shown itself. We are the beacon’s for many of our students, but may not realize it until they are long gone and coming into their own. CTG is lucky enough to realize he is a beacon and is obviously someone willing to “stand and deliver.”
My reference to the movie, Stand and Deliver is no mere coincidence. The best compliment I have ever received came two days ago in the midst of a powerful and emotional discussion with my Academic Decathlon students. “Ms. Q, you are our Jaime Escalante.” It was murmured, barely above a whisper, but the entire class heard it and responded with a myriad of affirmatives. Before this trepiditious utterance, the conversation had been draining the beliefs and devotions of my students to close to zero.
One young girl had been confronted by a teacher and accused of not being smart enough to be an Academic Decathlete.
Normally, I would chalk this kind of comment up to a misinterpretation on the part of the student, or a lack of tact on the part of the teacher, but further investigation and I was left knowing, beyond a doubt, there are adults on our campus in all postions who should not be. For a teacher or a staff member to call a student “not smart enough” is as close to an unforgiveable sin as I can imagine.
The one girl’s troubles are shared by all. In a Hispanic school (99% Hispanic), in bordertown USA, there is stigma of being associated with the area. I have been shunned by the public and other teachers within my school district (from the major town 20 miles away), because of my association with the school I work in. We are seen as a lesser entity because of WHO WE ARE. Unfortunately, the students have no tools to help them block or overcome this sort of derision, especially when heaped upon them at the school.
Another student asked,
But, Ms. Q, when teachers encourage us and ask us to concentrate on things like athletics, art, or music, aren’t they really telling us they don’t believe in our academic abilities?
And you know what? I could not counter this argument. I still can’t counter this argument. On Monday, we sat through a school meeting on the use of rubrics in our classrooms. The meeting started with a prominent English teacher showing us a project her students completed–an analysis of a scene in Hamlet. The group showcased had chosen to do a film adaptation using the silent movies as inspiration. It was sheer creative thinking and an excellent showpiece, except for one minor (I believe MAJOR) error. Grammar mistakes were found on several of the “talkie” slides. The English teacher stated–”Because of the creativity, I could not give the students anything less than an ‘A’.”
As an English teacher myself, I really have problems with this. As a district, especially on our campus, our writing scores on the state and district assessments are not good. I admit I don’t grade everything for every standard, but something like grammar/spelling/mechanics should be a major part of any major project/assignment. Projects and assigments that are taken to a final draft stage should take this into account. From what my AcaDeca student said, I can see how we are setting our kids up to fail. They believe we do not believe in them, so why should they try? By avoiding or allowing students to complete assignments in a less than “professional” manner, we are telling them “We know you can’t do it because of your language issues, so go ahead and turn in something creative to make up for it and I will give you an A.”
This is the reason students are going to college not knowing basic skills anymore.
We encourage their lack of effort. We acknowledge the creative, while ignoring their academics. I am not for one over the other, they both have their place, but how can you completely ignore the academic. After the meeting on Monday, I left upset. I knew the teachers who presented were shortchanging their students, but I figured it was in the name of good–”Play on their strengths.” However, when I am confronted by a great student, with the accusation of teachers not caring because of this idea of “playing on their strengths,” what other conclusions can I come to?
This leads me to Dana’s post, over at her blog HuffEnglish. She writes about a lack of homework and a late work policy requiring teachers to accept late work no matter when it is completed in her 8th grade daughter’s middle school. Like Dana, I have issues with both problems.
Lack of homework
My AP US History students are drowning in my homework. Mind you–we are on a block schedule. Kids have 4 classes per semester. As AP students, these are the top of the school, so they are also taking other essential classes with maybe one elective. Very few teachers assign homework and when they do, it is a large project or piece of writing. I assign nightly reading and IDs for my AP kids. I am trying to get them to 1) Read a textbook, 2) become responsible for the information in the textbook, and 3) develop the habit of working within time constraints. The number of pages read each night varies from 5-12 pages. Within a week, most students are reading around 50+ pages in my class alone and being held responsible for the information. I give a daily quiz and the students are doing pretty well on them.
The struggle my kids have is not with the homework itself, it’s with the idea of actually having to do regular homework. These kids are used to having the answers given to them. They are used to working in groups and not being responsible for the actual understanding and applying of the material, let alone the analysis and evaluation of material. I give my students new strategies to use everyday, but it’s apparent they simply want me to give less homework and give them the answers. From day one, my kids know I don’t and won’t do this. But I fear their hatred of the class or the subject because of this lack of preparedness on their part.
For those who think I give too much work–it is an AP course; we have to have all of US history covered by May 7; I am covering 2 subjects (English and the AP US, so I can have my students all year long, rather than just a semester); and, they have NO OTHER HOMEWORK from me. Everything else is done in class. Essays are written in class because the AP essays are timed essays. English homework is nonexistent, as I want them to focus their attention on the reading of the textbook. It doesn’t help that many of my students have been attending school in the US since Kindergarten and still cannot read at a high school level. (This is a different post topic!)
I applaud Dana for her inquiry into the lack of homework at the middle school level. I taught at the ms level for two years and left because of the lack of rigor our kids were receiving. We are allowing them to coast through middle school and end up in high school severely underprepared. Shame on us!
As to her other point–late work being accepted whenever–I agree. I have a no late work policy and make it clear from day one–NO ONE gets to turn in late work. (Absences are different!) This year, I have not had to struggle with this concept, as the kids know they can’t and simply accept it.
Sorry for the length of this post, if you are still reading, but I had to get these thoughts out. I am hoping for some collective thoughts and assessments of the situation from you all, as well. I am but one beacon and am working hard at what I do, but…
As an honors English teacher, I often meet the same resistance from my tenth graders when it comes to reading assignments. I generally tell the kids that I’m preparing them for college in the long run, and at the very least, AP English for the next two years.
I wonder about the “no late work” policy. I know other teachers who have done it, and I’ve done half credit for late work in the past, but I can’t pin down how I really feel about it. Some of the reading I’ve done recently (unfortunately, the writer’s name is alluding me right now) challenges the idea of “work habits” affecting students’ academic grades.
Good luck continuing to create your own waves.
About the speaker who ‘had’ to give an A to a group project because of activity in spite of several grammatical mistakes:
Why is she only giving only one grade for an activity that embodies so many skills? I would give several: one for accuracy of analysis, pne for use of quotes (perhaps — I don’t know enoug about how the project was et up), one for showing iprovement after each check-in with me, one for creativity, one for proper use of language, and one for team participation (if possible to determine). You get the idea.
Grade for each skill demonstrtaed. Weight them differently — analysis should count for more than team participation, for instance. One single grade for something so big and complex cannot ever reflect a kid’s learning.
Rats. That ‘activity’ in the first sentence should be ‘creativity.’ Aaargh.
I finished reading the rest of my last comment and I blush at the errors. I am blaming it on having to use this teensy laptop keyboard instead of the lovely and friendly one that melted down with my last computer.
I have my own issues right now with rigor v. creativity. I try to blend them. On homework though- it will always be too much, if you listen to them. So, I try not to- too much. I take surveys occasionally to check whether or not there is some real difficulty, but especially in college prep environments, giving useful homework consistently is the correct way to go. One big difference- I accept late work. I take off a lot of credit, but I take it, because I am more interested in them completing the work and giving me something to evaluate than giving the 0. I remind them that this isn’t really the way the world works, but for now, I want to make sure they’re learning. The way to do that is to make them do the work and not allow them to think they can get away with avoiding it by taking the “0.”