it's a warm morning but suddenly i'm cold

(white) teacher to (Black) student: "Pull up your pants!"
Student: (unintelligible protest)
Teacher: "We've had this discussion before!... I'm gonna give you a ROPE!"
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Student, visibly shocked, says, "What'chu talking about!!!!"
Teacher: "You know what I'm talking about!"
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Yes, we do, O Teacher; do you?

idea...

another idea from observing today... to help kids understand (1) the point and (2) the context of homework, instead of saying, "for homework tonight, I need you to..." you can say...

• "to finish today's lesson, I need you to..."
• "to prepare for tomorrow's activity, I need you to..."
• "to connect today's lesson and tomorrow's activity, I need you to..."

Just a thought.

rules & procedures

While observing in another classroom today, I made the following list of things for which a teacher needs a rule and/or logistical procedure--preferably, a set procedure that becomes familiar & predictable & therefore safe. (I could whine about how they don't teach us this in ed. school, but instead, I will just comment that as a very disorganized person, this is a list of things I need to figure out and have firmly in place.)

My main goal: to identify which of these tasks could be (1) performed and even (2) organized & overseen BY STUDENTS so I can focus on other things. I will star* those things that I think students could take on themselves, either one student as a job for the class, or each student on his/her own behalf.

Homework:
- assign & explain
- provide needed materials & adequate time
- display* the assignment in the room & remind* students about it
- collect,* assess (possibly transport to assess elsewhere), record grades in gradebook, and return* homework to students with helpful feedback
- get students to supply missing names and correct minor errors on otherwise complete work
- keep track* of who is missing work, possibly notify/chase after them
- collect, grade, return* late work

Absentees:
- catch up* on in-class activities/explanations
- assign/explain* missing work
- provide materials* for missing work
- give any tests, quizzes, etc.

Leaving the room* - nurse, bathroom, get materials from locker...

Materials* - bring appropriate materials for that class; use them; organize materials received in class; take home what's needed for homeowrk; bring it back.

Introduce new stuff: vocabulary, concepts, ideas, assignments, topics, goals.

Transitions: from work to listening; from listening to work or group formation; from group formation to group work... also beginnings & endings of the year, of the week, of the day, of each class period, of each unit or lesson...

Straightening* the room - pick garbage up, straighten desks, put supplies away.

Choosing: choosing individual students to perform tasks; assigning partners and groups; assigning roles among partners or group members.

Sound & movement: when is it ok to stand? to move around on an errand (kleenex, pencil sharpener)? to move around for no reason? to go to where your friends are sitting? to make noise - tap, drum, etc.? to talk softly? to talk at any volume? to talk about the work you're doing? to talk about anything? to speak to the teacher or class without raising your hand?

Whew! You'd think that would make me feel bad, but actually, it makes me feel better. With such an enormous list, it's no surprise that I'm a bit overwhelmed!

FYI: "How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind"

How Schooling Obscures the Life of the Mind, by Gerald Graff, Yale UP, 2003. Reviewed by Molly Swiger in Radical Teacher issue #71 (2005).

Swiger says the book "is a thought-provoking work examining the alienation students (and the public in general) feel about intellectualism and academia." She goes on to summarize how the book recommends we make "the life of the mind" more accessible to students. Below is a mixture of Swiger's, Graff's, and my ideas (mostly the first two).

1) create "bridges" to facilitate students' access to academic material by "interweaving" it with "natural language."
2) actively teach students how to use and understand "academic discourse" (or "arguespeak" in the words of the author)--aspects of which are summarized as listening to different views, summarizing them, comparing and contrasting viewpoints, spotting contradictions & non sequiturs, and reaching conclusions about them.
3) tap into students' existing rhetorical abilities. students are familiar with persuasion and persuasive language (I brought in a couple of commercials last year to show my students what I meant by using evidence to support your assertions).
4) do this by having students write both sides of an argument. this helps students see that their ideas (and the presentation of their ideas) comprise "voices" in an ongoing conversation.
5) don't be afraid to be reductive at times, in presenting complex material to students. it's not the same as "dumbing down;" it's called "introducing." -- students can move on to more complex formulations later.
6) explore why coursework is worth doing. students don't see the purpose of analysis.
7) simply exposing students to diverse viewpoints doesn't necessarily stimulate critical thinking.
8) teach students to seek, perceive & understand the "foundational premise" of a teacher's presentation. Students should understand why the "rules" seem to change between courses, and also, "develop a stronger grasp of the meaning and consequences of those rules."

I've thought about this too--in terms of talking about the "stories people think history tells." Some of the stories that people think history tells include "the story of progress through the ages," "the story of how my group is superior to others," "the story of humanity's need for divine intervention," "the story of exploitation and oppression through the ages," etc. Knowint that these stories exist and that most writing and talking about history rests on one of these bases, will (I hope) prepare students to understand & adapt to any teacher they encounter in the future.

Swiger concludes by saying that Graff provides concrete, proactive strategies for implementing his ideas.

book & article responses

One of the things I wanted to do on this blog was post ideas I get from reading stuff. It takes discipline to produce good summaries & reviews, so that's not really my goal; just "responses," where I read something and then babble a bit (oh joy!, you're thinking...) To that end, here are a few. When I get a good number, I'm going to make index pages etc. so that you can look at specific topics. Ambitious, eh? Well, anyway, here goes...

thoughts on teaching English language learners

My dear friend from high school, CP aka XE (long story) posted on her blog about teaching English language learners for the first time (typically enough, they just tossed a section of them into her schedule without any additional training, it appears, which is just infuriating, but as I said, typical). CP teaches writing and here is the incredibly long comment that I posted on her blog... only marginally less appropriate as a comment on someone else's blog, than as an inordinately long post on my own.

there are some great books about teaching English language learners--I really recommend reading some. There's a lot that I wouldn't have thought of on my own. All the books I know are about teaching younger kids, but I'm sure there are some for teaching adults.

Here's one I like a lot:

Working with Second Language Learners: Answers to Teachers' Top Ten Questions
by Stephen Cary

I'm not sure how this translates into a writing classroom, but the big things I try to remember are (1) everything you really really need students to know, should be conveyed in multiple ways--if you just say it, many will miss it. For adults, that probably means you should write it down & hand it out so they can read it later with the dictionary.
(2) *Experiences* sink in deeper, and cross cultures better, than words & explanations. Everything that you can bring into the classroom as an experience will create a richer learning environment that is more accessible to students from every culture. Again I'm not sure how this translates to a writing class, but for social studies, I do things like having them create a giant 3-D map in the classroom of a region we're studying (pile up chairs to make mountains, use snaking rolled-up blue sheets to make rivers and seas).

I think one thing you'll face that I faced in middle school is that I can say "be more descriptive" until I'm blue in the face, but a lot of the kids just don't know that many words. When I ask them to describe how something tastes, they say, "I dunno, good!" "Well, how good? Sweet, sour, tangy, salty?" They look a little panicked and say, "just GOOD, I dunno!!!" So I brought in some stuff to help them expand their vocabulary: I brought in colored pencils with cool color names (a box of 96 crayola crayons would have been better, but I was short on time), and I raided my wife's spice rack (she was not very pleased with that) so I could give them oregano, thyme, sage, basil and say, "these are herbs, these are herby smells," and cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and pepper and say, "these are spicy smells."

Probably one of the biggest things to be aware of--and you'll have to decide how you handle it--is that in many non-European cultures, "how you tell a story" is totally different from what we think it is. "beginning, middle, end" and concepts like climax and denouement (sp?) are very European, and in the US, white. There was a fascinating study done, where African- and European-American first-graders were asked to tell a story, it was transcribed, then read back onto a tape with a standard English grammar and accent, removing all clues to ethnicity etc. Then the tapes were played to European- and African-American first-grade teachers who were asked to comment on the stories. The Black teachers all said the Black children's stories were "interesting, engaging, varied, creative" etc., but the white teachers said the same stories were "rambling, confused, inconsistent, lacking in structure," and one teacher suggested that the child in question "might have cognitive disabilities and should be tested for special ed." Analysis of the stories showed that white kids' stories tended to have a beginning, middle, and end, whereas the African-American kids tended to tell "episodic" stories, about a series of events related to a theme or person.

This is related to the fact that "how you make a point" is also very different in different cultures. In many places, you make a point by analogies: you DON"T "tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em, tell 'em, then tell 'em what you told 'em," which is how I was taught to write an essay.

Instead, you tell a series of (sometimes apparently unconnected) stories, then right at the end you explain what can be concluded from them. It's very cool to listen to this kind of narrative, because for someone trained in the European point-making tradition, you may be thinking, "what the heck is this guy talking about, he's just rambling on and on about one thing and another..." but then all of a sudden, he pulls out the connective strand from each of the five stories and ties it into a bow and you're like, "whoa, how'd he do that???"

My introduction to this came when a political group I work with was hosting a South African speaker (first language = !Xhosa, but fluent in English) and I was the moderator for his three presentations. I sat there at first, wondering if I should cut him off because he was "just rambling," or "not addressing the question he was asked, not even talking about the same subject," but I didn't, out of respect for everything he'd been through. Once I got the hang of how his "point-making" worked, I was just in awe of it and loved trying to see how it was structured.

To go back to the question of "description," and the spices and so on, I haven't heard others' opinions on this, but it also struck me (on the basis of a very small and unrepresentative sample) that the African-American kids really wanted to "describe" not with adjectives but with analogies. In one case, "what does it taste like?" was answered with, "like x, like y, a little like z." When I tried to force the child to come up with adjectives, she just boggled & panicked. But the classroom I was in demanded adjectives, so we were at a stalemate, where anything this little girl wanted to say about flavor was going to be "wrong."

It was from experiences like this that I concluded that the traditional, Euro-cultured classroom actively dis-ables students from other cultures. When teachers repeatedly and consistently ask students to do things differently from what feels natural to them, without explanation (because it's obvious to the teacher) but only repeated correction, it must completely destroy the students' confidence in their own ability to assess and improve on their language skills. I often noticed that students from non-dominant cultures became much more oriented toward "what does teacher want me to say" and lost track of actually wanting to say anything themselves.

Well, I'm wandering off track here :-), but my point is, when teaching English-language writing, there are multiple possible goals. One might be, to have the student develop the ability to write something that will sound "smart" and "right" to the average Euro-trained person; to do this, it's important to understand ***and place in context*** what those requirements are--they aren't "correct," they're just one way of doing things, but because Euro-Americans are used to being the dominant culture, they're not aware that there ARE other ways. It's definitely extremely valuable to be able to "sound smart" to a dumb American who may be in charge of giving you a job, diploma, etc.

Another goal might simply be to help the student develop his/her confidence and imagination in writing, and just help with the skills that will make that writing decode-able to the average English speaker.

I don't think these need to be two separate things. In fact, this whole experience could be an incredible learning opportunity for the students in your non-ELL section. ("ELL" is the preferred term these days, because many English Language Learners are learning their third, fifth, or fourteenth--not Second--language). You could talk about all this--different structures for stories in different cultures--and ask each student to analyze the structure of a story they heard as a child that they believe is a "folk" story or a common story for children in their culture. It's often a whole new experience for a white, middle- or upper-class person to analyze something they take for granted as "normal." How *does* "Cinderella" work, in terms of narrative shape and format? Then the class could share those analyses (maybe in groups of three?) and try to see how each other's stories "work."

That's a perfect experience-based jumping-off point for ANYTHING you want to do later.*

I got that idea from reading about a teacher who had students analyze their home versions of English. Instead of saying "my English is right and yours is wrong," the teacher had them make tapes of their family members speaking English, and then analyze the tapes to see interesting patterns of grammar, pronunciation, etc. When they started to approach this as a difference, instead of an issue of being "ignorant" or "educated," they became excited and fascinated. Then, after that, they were not resistant to learning dominant-culture grammar, because (a) they had the experience of understanding how their own family's grammar worked, so they had direct access to an understanding of grammar itself--it's not just "rules to torture you," it's a description of what living language DOES. and (b) it wasn't presented as "correcting" ignorance (not only on the part of the student, but of every person the student loved best in the world), but instead, as "this is the way to be understood by the largest possible audience."

OK, well, I've rambled on long enough, but hopefully some of that will be useful. I can give you more stuff to read, that talks about having students do these kinds of experiments, or talks about how the denigration of alternate forms of English makes it much harder for students to learn "standard" English, etc. There's so much out there to read! But I bet you have one or two other things to do with your time, so I'm also happy to summarize more. Sorry if you already knew some of this--it's been a great thing for me to collect these musings and write them down, and has actually helped me recover some of my enthusiasm about teaching that had been a little bit beaten out of me this past semester.

Good luck! Wish I could sit in on your class--I bet it's awesome to see you at work! And boy, am I envious of all those different folks you get to know. I am getting really sick of Madison being so white, white, white.

At 12:11 PM, birdfarm said...

as if I haven't rambled enough, I was just re-reading what I wrote and came back to the suggestion about having them analyze a story for structure. What I meant there, in case it wasn't obvious, was that they could generate their own ideas for what the parts of a story are, and how they work, and then when you taught them the "official" terms (like climax and denouement), they already have the *concept* for it in place. And for those whose stories have a different structure, they can come up with their own names for the parts of their stories, and then once that is clear, it will be so much easier for them to see how the "standard" U.S./European story structure is different from what they consider "normal," and how to use this structure instead or in combination with what they are familiar with.

this also comes out of watching my supervising teacher do a particularly horrendous job of explaining "climax" and "first person," and watching the kids try to struggle to use these terms that were not even remotely clear to them. It's better if they have the concept first and then learn the term to put on it.

i moved MadTeach

You won't be able to tell, mostly, but I the one thing I couldn't replicate was comments from others... the comment, singular, to be specific. Sorry, Ang. And it was such an awesome comment too. Anyway, in case you were wondering, that's what happened to it.

finally!!! (and some thoughts on grading)

well, that's it, i'm finally outta there. (except I forgot a CD in the classroom CD player and somehow I still have a couple of kids' papers and the elevator key! it's like a long strand of silly putty that gets thinner and thinner but just won't break...)

i've learned some important things in the last 24 hours... some humbling things.
1) It's impossible to be fair. The first few times I graded papers, I went back over the whole group two or three times to be sure I was being SCRUPULOUSLY fair. If I took off a point on M's paper for misspelling Euphrates, I better be sure take off a point on J's paper for the same mistake. If I said they had to have twelve facts, I better be giving the same less-than-perfect score for every paper with ten facts, every paper with eight facts, etc.

Well, screw that! When I start to get rushed, it starts to be, "that felt like an eight point answer, we'll give her eight points on that one..." Even though I know that I'm skimming, that I'm completely influenced by my mood and worst of all my preconceived notion of the student... I just don't have time to define and redefine EXACTLY what an eight-point answer is and make sure that that definition is rigorously, universally applied.

As I got down to the wire the thought crossed my mind, "ah, just guess--give 'em what you figure they'll get anyway." I resisted it, but I'm sure it's been done! I did figure out a much more legit version of the same process - when I'd graded the tests but not the projects, I put all the grades in excel and then printed two versions: one where everyone who'd turned in the project got the highest possible score, and one where they got the lowest score possible for a complete project. Then I only graded the five projects that would actually make a difference in anyone's grade.

(Yes, I went back and graded everyone properly later, but I was pleased with myself for figuring out a way to meet the deadline efficiently and ethically)

Anyway, it was all a humbling experience. Any further criticism I have about racism and bias and sexism etc in the classroom, and especially in the grading process--well, don't worry, I will still rant but with a lot more sympathy for the teachers who are in this impossibly structured and deadline-heavy position...

this really is an impossible job!

although when I was there this afternoon tidying up, with all my responsibilities gone, I started to really relax and enjoy the kids' company again, which was nice. It was good to remember why I do what I do and why I enjoy it...

"making it too easy," also known as "effective teaching"

It mystifies me why some teachers seem to feel that if you make it possible to understand and pass your classes, you're "structuring too much" or "making it too easy for them."

For example: one month ago, none of my students could fill in the blank in this sentence:
"Clay tablets covered with ____________ writing tell us much about life in ancient Mesopotamia."

If they can now fill in the blank, isn't that a good thing? Isn't that an example of me TEACHING them something?

Yet I can just hear a certain voice in my head, saying that I should use the straight definition of "cuneiform": "A form of writing that uses groups of wedges and lines," because otherwise I'm "making it too easy." Hello? How is that "too easy," just because I'd be surprised if any of them couldn't do it?

It's all part of the "school as hazing" mentality that I have come to loathe so much...

To me, the whole goal of teaching is that the final test should be easy for those who have paid attention and done their homework--easy, easy, easy.

It should be something they could not have done before the unit, that they can now do after the unit.

Isn't that teaching and learning, in a nutshell? I don't believe in trick questions, I don't believe in pulling questions out of a footnote or sidebar or caption if we haven't talked about that item in class and on homework. What is the point, if not to feel smug and superior, and make the students feel like they'll never be good enough? Shouldn't they feel rewarded and victorious after a test?

And yes, I'm currently writing a final exam on the Fertile Crescent, my last activity in student teaching. Woo-hoo! God, I hate this.

survival skills

i will be so glad to get out of this setting. the last week or so, knowing i will be done soon, has been like waking up from a long period of sleepwalking.

back in november, or maybe earlier, it became clear to me that i was not going to stay sane unless i just suspended everything i know, and tried to "go with the flow" in the classroom where I found myself.

i'm good at that--forgetting, adapting, getting along...it's a valuable survival skill, sometimes.

being able to recover yourself afterward is the real challenge, but one which i think i've gained with age & confidence. it helped a lot that i took copious notes before i "went to sleep;" reading them helps me remember my shock & horror in the early days in this classroom, and reconnect with my knowledge about what its problems are.

as i write this I consider, not for the first time, that what i am describing is the same thing that so many students have to do every day. especially for students whose outside-school life is a serious mismatch with school, the skill with which they can slip between two worlds is key to their survival.

i am thinking in particular of J, an amazingly resilient little girl whom I view with something akin to awe. I want to ask her, "how did you learn to do that so well?" she seems to have an amazing self-possession, in every sense of the word. her family has all sorts of difficulties which, since they are poor, we know ALL about (god, i hate that!) and she doesn't get to school every day, but when she does, she works hard, and often spends lunch catching up with what she's missed. at the same time, she never seems worried or anxious about it, just works methodically, then brings the work back and asks, "ok, what else am I missing?" she just does what she's told in the time that she has. then she leaves.

the more amazing part, though, is that she seems to do all this without really buying into it. she seems to know that it's sort of a game. she has to do it, but it's not Important in a real sense. the kids who accept that school is a real test of their intelligence (and in some sense, of their value as human beings) get very anxious about succeeding, and this anxiety ties them up in knots (different kinds of knots depending on whether they find school do-able or not). it's like they accept that the teacher is the center of the universe, and they either love or hate that fact--they either scrabble for the teacher's approval in a sort of pathetic desperation, or kick back furiously against the teacher in a hopeless rebellion, but either way, it's still all about teacher, and the kids seem to lose themselves completely.

J, meanwhile, just coasts on through as though she's untouched by all this. She knows how to relate to teachers so they think she's a "good girl." at the same time, she makes it clear to her peers that she is not by any means "on the teacher's side." her primary peer affiliation appears to be with the Black students (I believe her Mom is white and her Dad is Black), but she gets along well with all the kids who are friendly and easygoing--not with the kids who are obsessed with school, whom she ignores. the role she plays with some of her more rebellious Black peers is interesting. she makes it clear she's "on their side" (shares with them the wry faces when the teacher says something ignorant, and makes under-the-breath comments--but hers are meant only for her peers, not to aggravate the teacher), and yet at the same time, she consciously models a sort of quiet resistance that does not show up on the teacher's radar ("shhh, cut that out--just stand here like you're in line and you won't have to go back to your seat"). it's like everyone else in the class is bouncing off the teacher, positively or negatively, and J just passes through, surviving, and surviving well in comparison to those who still put the teacher in the center of their universe. born & bred in the briar patch. how did she get so good at this?

my own response to J was very educational to me, as well. at first I felt like she was some kind of nut I had to crack, I had to get in there, get under her skin. it bothered me that she didn't care about me or my approval like the others did. but the longer I was in that room, the more I saw J as the survivor in the war zone. I forgot that I once thought she should let me in--I'm just remembering that now (ridiculously egotistical!!--and kinda sick too-- but such a classic "helper" attitude). I started wanting to tell other kids, "psst, watch J, she knows what she's doing," but there was no way to say that. I wonder if there will be, in the future.

I wonder if J really is as cool as she seems. I wonder if she has just learned to be inscrutable, but is really having all screwed up somehow. I wonder if she "got that way" from some kind of terrible experience that I shouldn't wish on anyone (like, someone who picked on her when she showed emotion, or no one to depend on at all). Somehow I doubt the last--people who are picked on and have no one to depend on tend to be more reactive, not less so--right? Hmmm.

Maybe the only thing I can say for certain here comes back to me, because I'm the only person whose head I'm inside (if that makes any sense). I think my changing reaction to J means I'm developing better boundaries; that I'm more able to see the kids as themselves, and less seeing them in terms of how they validate me (a big pitfall for me and most teachers!). That was one of my goals for the semester, so in that sense, I guess I have succeeded.

There's something to be said for the war zone, after all.

four and a half days to go

next week the semester ends, and with it, my student teaching obligations. i feel pretty relaxed, all things considered, and am really enjoying my students in these last few days.

what have i learned, my supervisor wants to know. i don't know if i'll tell him all of this, but...

i've learned that it works really well to be myself, remain calm, and trust my instincts.

i'd like to say i actually learned how to do all these this, but at this point, all i've learned is that it is a good idea.

what i mean is, every time i show someone a plan and they tell me i've got it all wrong, and i change it to suit their recommendations, i find that (a) it would have gone better if i had done it the way i had planned and (b) i actually didn't understand their recommendations until after i screwed them up, so, no matter how brilliant their idea was... well, see (a).

i've also learned not to panic continuously. i think i really do have that one licked, which is pretty amazing given that i've been in a fairly continuous state of panic for many, many years.

Wellllllll let's see how this looks.