Lessons from School

At the end of the last school year, I had some time to reflect on the two semesters of teaching and learning, progress and struggle. I wrote this list of 10 lessons to share with my students as a way to both congratulate those who passed and even excelled in my classes and to put in perspective the failures that many of my students received. It was a learning process for me to recall and make sense of the year in a simple list of 10 items. There was no difficulty coming up with the ideas, but what was challenging was to find the right way to express the thought. Some ideas had to be reworked so they were not personal, but could be seen in a broader perspective, not just my own. Judging from the responses of my students’ sober acknowledgment, the messages were clear.

1. Students read less today than their predecessors. In this world of fast, instant and convenient information, it is no surprise that young people in general take less time to sit down and read a book. Much of their time is spent devouring information by the by the gibabyte from the internet, chats, e-mail, television, music and other digital media. Who has time to slow down and flip through a 300 page book? This is not to say that the book and library is dead, but the reality is the books we assign must compete with so much more attention-grabbing, instant gratification. The sources of information are wide open as well. Books are not the authoritative source of knowledge as we used to believe. There are so many electronic services on the internet that unless we understand it as teachers and students, the lines between plagiarism and referencing will become obsolete.

2. Today’s students are capable of doing more challenging, real-world tasks. Despite performing poorly on tests and taking a lackadaisical attitude toward failure, students today are more savvy than we think. With access to the same tools that adults have, they are creating videos that they post online, they mix and sample music to create new songs, they maintain elaborate networks on their myspace sites, they blog about anything that interests them. And most importantly, they interact with online and offline games that challenge them to do anything from become leaders to play the guitar. What we are witnessing is a new generation who will have highly marketable skills regardless of whether or not they have a high school diploma.

3. Students like to express themselves (whether creatively, analytically, or emotionally). Whether the class clown or the wallflower, young people crave to express themselves and let themselves be known. We all want to be recognized in some way or form. This is especially critical at adolescence and as a young adult. They try on personas and take on beliefs and ideals and carry opinions that are changing faster than the world is spinning. That is all healthy, as is our promoting their individuality (or their belief in it). They may not always want to tell you or the class, but keep in mind that we as humans want to let it out when the time and place is right. And when it happens, that is one of the moments of teaching!

4. Students need to balance multiple responsibilities from different bases of knowledge. Imagine that you have 5 or 6 academic classes in a semester. Each teacher on any given night would assign separate homework due the next day. Some classes might have a quiz or test that you have to prepare for. Or worse yet, you may have to draft an essay or do research for a report due in less than a month. Any time for extra-curricular activities? A social life? Kids who can manage this daily grind prove themselves to be highly skilled, multi-tasked, well-balanced individuals whom many of us adults would envy.

5. Fact is scarier than fiction. Compared to what we’ve witnessed in the news over the year, the literature we’ve read and the movies that we’ve watched pale in comparison. The world that we live in is a scary one. Violence erupts out of nowhere. The innocent become victims. Diseases and corruption run free without a twitch from our government leaders. Families are broken faster than they are created. Children run wild without supervision or guidance. Kids pack guns to school. They sell drugs. They force females into having sex. They cheat and lie and back-stab. Who says school is removed from the real world? Unlike the books and movies, the events and situations our kids face have real consequences which are uglier, more shocking, and more painful than the worst fiction has to offer.

6. Technology is not the goal, but the environment (or world) in which we live/work. Whenever we talk about technology, we either resist it or get carried away in its wake and lose sight of the big picture. Technology has always been with us. The telephone changed communication. The television changed families. The internet changed how we get information. The cell phone makes us walking offices. All the technologies that are used for education are merely the tools that we use to further the greater agenda – learning. If it’s reading and writing that we are teaching, the computers, software, etc. are merely a reflection of the world in which our students engage with the media. It is part of the world in which we do our work, but it is not where we eventually want to go.

7. Nobody accepts failure unless they expect it. Many of my students did not pass my classes. It was just as painful for me dishing out the F’s as it must have been for them to receive them. Despite their cool attitude toward accepting their F’s, students earnestly do not want to fail. A lot of times, they realize midway into the school-year that it is easier to give up than catch up. Others see each successive failure as a fulfillment of criticisms that they’ve been getting all along – that they’re not smart, that they’re lazy, that they don’t care, etc. Why don’t they succeed is a good question, but perhaps what will make them succeed is better.

8. You have to enjoy what you’re doing – from that point, others will follow. No matter what you do, whether you are a teacher or student or parent, you have to love what you do in life. Otherwise, you will not respect yourself. And of course, others will not respect you. It is a matter of taking charge of your life, accepting your life and who you are. Young people will look up to you for keeping to your convictions, pursuing your passions. They would like to live a life like your own. They may not want to do what you specifically do, but they seek strong individuals to model their lives and behaviors after.

Oops, I came up 2 short! O well, there’s always next year.

Changing the Paradigm

What are students expected to learn, perform, demonstrate over the course of the semester? Originally, the Test Preparation portion of the 10th Grade English curriculum was devoted to preparing students to master standardized tests like the CAHSEE or STAR exams. There is a nation-wide trend that has been the buzzword in education and political circles for standardized education, or in other words “No Child Left Behind.” Educational equity. Leveling the playing field. Accountability. What does this all mean?
For us as teachers, this means we have our work cut out for us. The goals, objectives, dreams and ambitions that guide our planning must be checked with national, state and district standards and objectives. We are told that we are merely aligning our work with the standards, which is a demonstration of ‘good teaching’.
For our students, this shift in priorities is much more confusing. In the pre-No Child era, students were expected to read whole works, engaged in creative projects that engaged with the texts, and learned language in the context of themes and larger concepts. Now, they are given tests and quizzes frequently, drilled on preparing for multiple choice questions, asked to comprehend facts, compare/constrast, get the main idea and/or theme, evaluate the writer’s style, and sometimes asked their opinions about readings. That seems to be a greater burden of responsibility for each individual student than it does to us as teachers who at least are trained to use this language and commit at least half of our waking lives to these ideas. But for our students, they are entering an unfamiliar, often alienating world.
What I am suggesting is not to throw out the entire standardized education movement. That is unwise and as likely as emptying the Pacific Ocean and filling it up again. No Child Left Behind is here to stay whether we like it or not. That’s one of the things I learned that’s helped me survive as a teacher – reserve your personal opinions about battles you cannot win. Essentially, what I propose is to shift the paradigm or our perspective on the situation. Rather than view the Test Prep as a way to catch up students performing below standards, why not look at it as a beginning for these students to think of how they can change their world. Often, under-performance is not isolated to a lack of intellectual or academic skills, but inherently tied to family, social, and personal issues. By merely tackling the academic deficiencies, we emphasize individual success/failure rather than help students seek the source of their failures and help them find ways to overcome them. Failure becomes a cycle when the real problems are not addressed. Test Prep can be a whole lot more for our students, but it does not have to change its goal of preparing students to succeed on standardized tests. Strengthening their ability to think about themselves and the world around them will eventually impact their ability to answer questions on multiple choice tests. They need to learn to find the correct answers, but they will do so because they know why the question was asked in the first place and they can see why answering correctly is important to them.
Many of us started teaching because we really thought we could change the world, one student at a time. Whether it’s been one year or 10, or 30, we need to keep believing in that ideal. If we do not aim high, we will only get mediocre results. Meeting the standard is good, but we can do more. Their world will not be qualitatively better if their scores go up. It is still a world that is filled with stereotypes, racism, violence, hypocrisy. And that is only at school. Imagine how giving students real tools to live life could change the world. Does the President and other education bigwigs really believe children were left behind because not everyone was tested on the same standards?