It’s rough out there. Imagine if you were a senior in high school, and were forced to take the required senior English course–if you’re older than a senior in high school, you don’t even have to imagine this. At North High School, we offer English 4 (in seat and online), APN (that’s the class I teach with Gillian Hart when I teach English 4 to the same kids she teaches Gov/Econ), and AP Literature. Those are the choices. We used to have other choices for senior English–Philosophy/Thanatology, World Masterpieces, Contemporary Literature–but those were recently removed so that there would be more English 4.
The goal was simple. If we got rid of all those horrible options for students, there would be a more singular class, one where teachers could collaborate together, be on the same page, thus making the English 4 classes interchangeable, but with differing teaching styles, of course. It’s not about robots teaching yet (although the Stoverbot3000 is at the ready), but about getting rid of options so that we can generate better lessons for all and know that each student is getting a similar experience in senior English.
That’s fine and dandy until something happens that to the great machine. In this case, I write of the teacher that doesn’t exist anymore despite teaching at North for 10 years. That teacher is gone, off to repopulate the world with another child, while the class has been led (word choice) by a substitute teacher who no one knew about, and now another substitute teacher who came in a week after Christmas break. We were sent an email with her name. So, since Thanksgiving, students have had one substitute without a subject credential until January 9th, when another substitute replaced the first one.
With all the collaboration, and PLCs, and RTI, and Common Core, and standards-based instruction, and common formative assessments (and summative, too), one would think that the machine could plug just about anyone into that position and it would run like clockwork. You would think.
The reality is that most of our school doesn’t even know about this situation–the teacher, the replacements, or the kids involved. I would not have known myself unless seniors who don’t have me as a teacher came into my room at lunch and started talking about it. They told me there was a sub in the class for their regular teacher, but she really didn’t know what to do, so the kids just kind of “hung out” and didn’t do much. Kids. Filled with silliness and hyperbole, until . . . I introduced myself to the sub and offered to help her with anything senior-oriented, since I’ve taught seniors forever. And she seemed relieved, since her efforts to find out what to do were met with “Ask so-and-so,” then “Ask another so-and-so,” and then “Ask the original so-and-so” until she gave up.
I haven’t talked to the new substitute teacher, but the students also have been worried that they’re going to fail because nothing’s been graded. They claimed they have had little assignments here and there, but nothing had really been serious. Once again, I was a little doubtful of their claims until I went online and saw they hadn’t had an assignment recorded in their grade since November 21st, the day the teacher who never existed left school to have a baby.
Today, though, ONE day before finals, 10 assignments were graded and added to their total. One day before finals, after an over two-month wait for updating, these seniors now know their grades. And they better be happy with them, because there’s not much time left to raise them, since we start finals tomorrow. Once again, this is a required class for ALL students, and since we strive to keep all students meeting the A-G requirements, and encourage them to attend four-year universities immediately after graduation, the stakes are high. Students must pass the class to graduate and must receive a C or higher to attend college out of high school.
Did parents not know of this? Were they pacified somehow by students who thought they could coast by with no assignments and no updated grades? Wasn’t there a four-year-university-bound student in the class that was worried about his or her future?
Every day we ask our kid about school. You should, too, because the only way I know of this story is from random students who eat in my room at lunch now and again. And, if this is what we now know, what don’t we know?