Final Exams In The Schools

I'm giving the final exam at school this week. It will likely bleed into some of next week too. That's why we start early. Our school requires a final as 20% of kids' overall grades, so it's a big deal. I use pieces of old New York State Regents examinations and have two guys here right now trying to do the reading comprehension part. Of course, neither is reading the passage on which the multiple choice questions will be based. 

Before the exam, I gave them advice about how to score well: Read the questions, then read the passage, and finally, cross out answers they know are wrong in order to circle the right one. Most of them skip reading the passage. I don't blame them, but try to talk them out of it. They say, I never read no passages and get like hundreds on these things. I nod. Wow, I say, that's great, but students in my classes haven't done that well with that method and so you might-- Nah, they say, I got this. They then answer three out of ten correctly and say the test is rigged.

Teaching is a series of largely rejected suggestions. I would be more upset if this wasn't also my model for learning. I want to figure things out on my own anyway even if that means failing the first seven times. For better and for worse, I'm suspicious of advice and other people's experience. I can't be surprised then when my students think I'm full of shit, nor can I say they're wrong. 

One guy here just started trying to read the passage. The other just asked me what sheems means. Puzzled, I went to his desk, looked where he pointed, and said, oh, schemes. He repeated my pronunciation. Oh, he said, then asked, what does that mean? It's in one of the questions, so I couldn't say but I said he might be able to figure it out from reading that part of the passage. He said, screw it, that's too much work, and circled answer three at random. 

The last two weeks of classes are like this. The end of the school year is like this. I want to think we have made huge advances, that kids have been transformed. As Hemingway wrote, "Isn't it pretty to think so?" They aren't transformed. Maybe they've learned a few things, but these are the same kids with whom I've worked most of the year. Kids don't change into what I want them to be. School doesn't work that way. 

They have changed though and mostly for the better. That one kid is still trying to read the passage. The other, well, he's honest with me and hasn't thrown anything in anger. We've only had one school year together and so it's wrong to expect transformation. I've been working on slow change for them and there's some evidence that they have changed. 

Thankfully, I've changed too. I'm not battling them much. I try to understand them a little more. Change is slow with me too and I don't feel that I have been transformed. Like change, learning is often just at the edge of what we can register. Teaching is mysterious. We don't really understand one or the other. What we do know is that final exams are largely exercises in wasted time. I go on through the mysteries of teaching and learning because what else is there to do? We carry on with finals because someone, somewhere clings to the idea that they have meaning, and that someone signs my paycheck. Good enough reason for me. 

Lousy Day In The Schools

Lest anyone get the idea I have all the answers or even the right questions, I present today's seventh period class, a fairly complete disaster for your amusement and edification. 

I was trying to teach a lesson ostensibly about a poem, but really about compassion and how we recover from the fight that broke out a few days ago after school. It was the same lesson that went perfectly fifth period. That should have given me pause, lightning not striking the same place twice, but I thought I had planned well enough to weather most anything. 

They came in riled up. The class is mostly seniors with a handful of eighth- through eleventh-graders. Several are challenging and I don't have enough desks so kids sit on the heater and at the back table. It's not ideal. Within the first minute I knew they were going to be difficult. This is how it goes sometimes. 

I reeled in some of them, but not many, not enough. Four were glued to phones. I mentioned that it would be good to put phones away. No dice. Two of them were messaging each other and dissolving into giggles. Within five minutes I asked one to leave, but knew it wouldn't really help. I was losing them. They were pretty much gone.  

I went through the lesson from fifth period, but it was no good. Our special ed teacher took two tough kids to a reading test. A senior came in from who knows where. Each interruption derailed us. Mostly I tried to keep people from talking about other things, arguing, and swearing. 

Pressing on, we read the poem and tried to discuss it, but I kept interrupting: "please put the phones aside," "don't touch her," "please watch your language," "yes, you can go to the bathroom," "come back together, folks," and a half dozen other ineffective things. I set up the writing prompt and asked, "are we ready to write?" A guy on the heater asked, "about what?!" I explained again just in time for a senior to ask, "what are we supposed to write about?" Before I could answer, a younger kid asked, "can we write about anything?" I pointed to the prompt on the board. Perhaps I should have texted this shit to them. 

Some of us wrote. Two never started. One stopped after two sentences. "I'm done." No, I explained. We write for the whole time (nine minutes today). I had explained this before we began. It has been S.O.P. since September. We write to get from the first idea into the second and third, to see where our pens and minds take us. "But I'm done," the kid said. I may have sighed. I kept my pen moving on the page, hoping it would be enough to keep some of them writing. 

Some did. Some listened to the poem and thought about it. Some even got the idea about compassion and empathy. But that's not what I took away from class. I was angry, frustrated, and wishing most of them would skip class from now on or maybe transfer. I didn't and don't hate them, but I didn't much like them today.  

Am I allowed to say this? 

I'm not a teacher who loves his students. When the school year is over, I move on. Their lives are up to them, not me. I'm happy if I see some of them (especially if I can remember their names). I shrug when the news says they've been arrested, arraigned, or sentenced, Oh well, I say. Who's next? 

I'll have to try and teach that group of students again and again this month and next. Who knows how it will go? It doesn't have as much to do with my preparation as some believe. I was prepared today, just not for them as they were. Success in schools is a lot about their moods (and mine), the weather, and luck. A crowded classroom often tumbles into chaos and disappointment. Today was chaotic. It was disappointing as hell and pissed me right off. 

I blame them. So there. 

To paraphrase Art Buchwald, I gave them a perfect lesson, and they screwed it up. Schools would work just great if not for the damn kids. That's the only real school reform to consider. I'm in favor of it. Today, I am. Tomorrow, I might feel otherwise. For now, I'm pouring a glass of bourbon, adding one ice cube, and going outside with the dog to watch the sun set. 

Understanding In The Schools

There’s this kid in my class—I’ll call him Frank—he doesn’t say much. Each day, I wait outside my classroom and greet each kid by name. Every time I say hello, Frank acts as though he has not heard me, stares at his phone, and passes by. I usually shake hands or bump fists, but Frank refuses. I’ve stopped extending my hand or fist so as not to annoy him, but I still nod and say hello to show him respect and teach him that this is how things are done. 

In class, Frank sits alone at a table he pulls over near the wall. He doesn’t interact with me and usually has to be asked twice to do things. I ask gently and ask too if there is anything I can do to be of use to him. He doesn’t respond.

Yesterday Frank hadn’t gotten out pen and paper and I mentioned it quietly to him for a third time: “If you can, please put down today’s date so we can get ready to write.” Frank was busy on Snapchat but responded softly, “next time that motherfucker say anything, I bust him up.” I said, “you can leave now.” He went. 

Later in the period, I stopped by the office. Frank was there. I stayed more than an arm’s-length away as I squatted so that I was below his level. I don’t want to be threatening or the victim of a right hook. I said, “I’ve been nothing but kind to you. I’ll continue to be kind. Do you know that you abuse me?” 

Frank said nothing. Frank refused to engage, but he heard me. I’m sure he took it as a challenge. I don’t want to challenge him to a fight, but I do want to challenge him to hear someone criticize him without it becoming a fight. I bet that’s rare in his life. I waited a few seconds in case he wanted to talk, saw that he didn’t, thanked him, and went back to class. 

Later yesterday, I asked the social worker to arrange a meeting for the three of us. Frank and I weren’t going to make progress without help. We had that meeting today. We didn’t make much progress. 

I kept quiet, letting the social worker speak first. Frank got his phone out and busied himself with it. The social worker talked. Then I said, “I was hoping we could talk about how you and I get along. I feel I’ve been kind to you but you’re pretty abusive to me.” Frank said he don’t do nothing to me. “Maybe you could put your phone aside so we can talk.” Frank said he was listening. I felt myself getting frustrated. “I wonder if you were trying to tell me something and I had my head in my phone how that would go.” Frank said he didn’t give a fuck. 

This isn’t unusual in my line of work. Still, it gets to me. In two decades I’ve run through most of the reactions to this sort of thing. Only two work well. The first is to nod and wait it out. When I’m at my best, I do just that. However, that also requires something of the kid. Today I wasn’t at my best and Frank wasn’t going to budge, so I got up and left. I told the social worker and Frank. “Please, excuse me” walked out, closed the door gently, and went back to class. 

Frank and the social worker talked without me likely making more progress than if I had stayed. I returned to class feeling frustrated, apologized to the students for having been gone, and said, “if I seem frustrated tell me to get over it.” One shouted, “Get over it!” I smiled. 

I don’t know that I’ve gotten over anything, but I’m not under much of anything either. It’s a thing that happened and I don’t yet understand it much. This is how it goes in schools. Things happen. We react or respond (maybe a little of both). Then more things happen and we don’t understand much of it right away. It reminds me of parenting. 

When I left the meeting with the social worker and Frank did I give up, surrender, choose discretion over valor, or something else? I don’t know. Ask me next October. By then I might have some idea.