School. What is . . . school? Is the day so young?
When you get past the 15 seconds of hagiography that accompanies your nostalgia, you might remember that school used to be pretty boring. And, maybe I’m not writing that correctly. What I really meant was BORING! A high school kid goes to school from 8 until 3, five days a week. Right there, you’re at 35 hours. Plus, students will try to convince me that they have two to three hours of homework per night–maybe if you count chatting, texting, YouTube, and all the other windows they have open–but even if it’s one hour a night, that’s your basic 40-hour week. Some have to include travel time, too, since a quarter of North High’s students are on permit from other districts, while another percent are happy we don’t do address checks anymore.
But, OH!, the monotony. How do teachers keep trotting out the same lessons, year after year, and still have a smile on their faces. Do these same teachers go home immediately to kick puppies and chase cats up trees? In the age of computers, in a world where students are plugged into everything, we still have teachers that give work that was created on a typewriter.
Someone told me earlier in the day that there would be people from the district office on our campus today, and that they would be coming into classrooms to see the fine work we all do. There was an email about it earlier, too. I’m sure everyone put on their best dog-and-pony show, complete with students jumping through flaming hoops of state standards. But do they do that every day? Is what the district office folk saw today indicative of our daily classrooms?
I’m a daily grinder, 180 days of uninterrupted fun. I don’t take sick days. This is my 18th year at North High and I have 144 sick days accrued (we get 10 per year). It’s my job, it’s daily, we keep going until the end. It’s the same way I used to gamble–people knew I gambled so they would ask me who was my “best bet.” Who did I like the most? or, worse, Who did I like in the Super Bowl? or any one-game situation? That’s the deal with gambling, teaching, and life, in general. It’s not a “one-game situation,” or the presentation for the district office–it’s every single day, moving toward those goals. No bet on a game is better than another and each day offers something different.
My biggest goal this year is to have my students communicate in writing and speaking to their desired audiences. Simple, I know. Who wouldn’t want that? Maybe everyone does, but it better come with an essential question, or a Socratic seminar, or a rubric.
Back to the district folk. For one of the rare times during any day, I was not pacing in front of class, or sitting on my stool facing the class, or yelling and screaming and trying to get them to think out of the box and question everything (ooh, another goal). I was sitting behind my desk, and, when the group walked in, they saw one of my students writing down stuff on the board. The topic was simple–we’re reading 1984 and I see the Julia character as Inner Party, Thought Police, and not someone on Winston’s side. I let students work in groups and they chose a group. One group. The whole class. Okay, we’ll see how that goes.
My student spent time standing on my stool because the board is high, fielding answers and suggestions from many in class. When answers lagged, I prompted. When things picked up, I let the students have their moment. I’m not sure how that fits into the district’s philosophy, but I liked it. Really? I had a girl standing on a stool, the class was hanging in there doing something they normally don’t do, there were tons of examples supporting the claim, we were laughing (I know!!!), re-examining text, and synthesizing answers.
No dog-and-pony show. Nothing up my sleeve. Just another average day of confusing kids enough to keep them interested in the next day. Rubrics? Essential questions? Socratic seminars? That must get tiring.