In teaching, it’s sometimes hard to believe what students say. But after you keep hearing them again and again, it might actually be true.
My post yesterday about a class having six subs was probably not right–the list is a little less. Maybe. But it is one that has had subs that have to leave after 30 days, and that means they’re operating on an emergency credential. Not a big deal if the person is teaching well, or if the kids can get that person back after a one-day hiatus, but I don’t think that’s the case either.
Long story short, though, students were talking again before class about their math class and how they are going to get another teacher. But, hold your horses, it’s time to warm up the MATHBOT3000. Every kid that was talking about this class claimed that they would be taught via a computer program for the rest of the semester. Holy, Euclidian Geometry! Has someone designed a STOVERBOT3000 for math? Say it ain’t so.
I’ve heard this a few times for a few days, and it doesn’t really sound too far-fetched to believe. Which begs the question–why do kids have to come to school for a computer-taught class? That sounds like kids could be a pajama-wearing, cereal-eating, music-blasting student. Who knows? Maybe MATHBOT3000 will need someone to monitor and maintain it. We don’t want another HITCHBOT on our hands.
When it’s all said and done, it’s just what kids say.
Today, I was thrilled when one of my kids told me that he was happy about being in APN, the senior class where I teach the English side and Gillian Hart teaches the Government/Economics side. The same kids come from her class to mine for a two-hour block. They also perform community service, which is built into the class. Right now, our students tutor at Edison Elementary School, which is next door. The program has been around since 1972.
This student mentioned above told me he was thinking of not taking the class because he was told that he should not take APN, that it was a “fun” class. He used air quotes for “fun.” This is a student with a mid-range grade-point-average, one that will probably prohibit him from going to the upper-echelon colleges, who was in a regular English class. Yet, being told not to take the class because it was “fun” made him think twice.
Three novels, British poetry, short stories, narratives, personal statements, along with media literacy and semantics–that’s the fun. Oh, I kid. The fun part is that Gillian Hart and I have dealt with professional jealousy for years, and no matter how hard the adults try to take down our program (for it is ONLY the adults) we still get about a third of the senior class to sign up for it. It might be fun many days, and students should appreciate that. But they might also appreciate that we don’t give them busywork, or talk to them like we are the supreme leaders who have all the answers and they are mere pawns in our chess game of life. Maybe they buy-in to the “fun” because we prepare for them for college and present a classroom world to them that is outside their previous realms of thinking.
I can guarantee one thing–the teacher that thinks we’re fun has never received two emails in the same week from previous students who want an honest and critical response to their short story and graphic novel, respectively. It’s lifetime learning, critics of ours, and that sometimes starts with–wait for it!–fun. What on earth did you get into teaching for?
But, maybe this is all moot. It’s just kids talking, right?