Sorry for the radio silence, readers! I have been in the process of absorbing some very big news, on which more in a few days or so. In the mean time, here's a post I wrote about the fact that teachers from Solorio have raised over $10,000 since Solorio opened its doors in the fall of 2010. That's pretty amazing. It also shows that "miracle schools" don't perform miracles without tens of thousands of dollars of extra money--literally.
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Many people have bought the education reform line that money doesn't make a difference in educational outcomes. But, if you are a classroom teacher or a leftist, you find this argument highly suspicious on its face. Money always matters. I'm proud of Solorio this year, because, even in its short existence, people who teach at Solorio have raised over $10,000 for students through Donors Choose alone. They have also won outside grants for art and public art projects, and sold lots and lots of baked goods, to the tune of probably double that. Add to that the largesse of AUSL, and the newest green building in all of CPS, and it's not hard to fathom why Solorio would be on everyone's "schools to watch" list.
My school boasts a wonderful staff of about 70 people who are mostly young, smart, and nice. Everyone tries to get along with everyone else. We have a lot of meetings. I like working there because it reminds me of another school I worked in like that--a Quaker school, where every decision had to be made by a committee.
I was on 4 committees at Westtown, not counting my two departmental affiliations (English and Theater) or the full faculty meetings, which were scheduled for 90 minutes after dinner every Wednesday. I probably spent 10 hours a week in meetings, 30 hours a week teaching, and 20-30 hours a week prepping for class and caring for students. I loved it, because I love meetings and I love students.
A lot of teachers will tell you that teaching in a high school often feels like being sent back to high school, and they're right. If you were an outcast in high school, you can become a quirky misfit on a high school staff pretty easily, especially if you're friendly and like to volunteer to do dirty jobs nobody else wants to do. In other words, schools are political environments for everyone: all of the adults and all of the children are citizens of the empire, and everyone is a member of a smaller polis ("clique" or "crew" or "bromance") outside the Capitol, which is The Main Office.
You will know you have entered the Hunger Games in a high school building when you realize that what you are wearing matters way more than you thought it would when you put it on that morning. It is very risky to wear bright colors or use the words "folks" or "people" at any urban high school. It is also very risky to use a vast array of other loaded words if you are in a school with a lot of turbulence. The turbulence is just waiting to erupt into violence at any moment. You know you are in such a school when: the school has metal detectors, armed security, a dress code, or a uniform policy that excludes any kind of self-expression through fashion (piercings, nails, earrings are forbidden, shoes must be black or brown with no markings whatsoever).
When a charter school claims to "produce" better students at a more "efficient" rate than its comparable neighborhood school, you have to ask these questions: how much money is spent per student in real dollars? And where does the money come from? Words like "produce" and "efficient" and anything that treats a school like a factory should be treated with caution.
People who feel like they are "other" know this. "The Other" is a word from postcolonialism that is an English adaptation of the word "subaltern," used influentially by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci in the 1930s. Gramsci loved populism and hated Mussolini, whose government put him in prison. Reading Gramsci helped me understand why it might be OK to write an Italian romantic comedy about the Holocaust, which the younger me (The Old Me) would never have thought was OK.
Subaltern people are any people who identify themselves as being "mis-fits" in high school: nerds, LGBTQQ, people with physical, mood, and intellectual disabilities, women, people of color, people with a threatening, "weird" faith--basically, those who get bullied and those who do the bullying. Does that sound like the "bad people" list of anyone you know? Probably not anyone you know personally, because if you're reading my blog, and you've read this far, you probably think it's OK to be Politically Correct, at least when you're not trying to be ironic.
Basically, I'm talking about the same people who are always cool: hipsters, the youth, teachers, and fashionistas. These are people who have learned, either by nature or culture, to find the language of the market highly suspicious. They are the same people as those who also want to try to fit in without looking like they're trying. Teenagers are the most brutal audience there is. If you honed your wit as a social outcast in Chicago, like Tina Fey or Steven Colbert or Gwendolyn Brooks, then your wit can cut like a knife, or tear your flesh (which most people will recognize as the etymology of the word "sarcasm").
We all know or suspect that anything that claims to be "new and improved" or "cool" is actually old and cheaper than it used to be. When I first met Solorio's students, I told them that my favorite store was Target and they could smell the dork on me like I had just bathed in the dollar bins.
Aside: When you let the students ask you questions about yourself, there's a standard list. Top of the list are where you buy your car and clothes. If you're dressed nice that day, they're impressed. If you're not dressed nice and you don't drive a cool car, you reek of loserdom. The best thing about kids these days is that the majority of them are much nicer to adults than my peers were to me when I was young. But the bad news is that all that kindness and courtesy usually masks an ugly underbelly of bullying and deceit and mean girl drama. The way a society treats its children is a sign of the times. When society treats children like objects instead of people, you know times are tough.
In high school, fashion that is cheap rules the day: short or otherwise low-maintenance hairstyles; glasses, facial hair, painted fingernails, and tattoos; and good taste in popular culture are the badges of cool. (I know what you're thinking: those things cost money! Well, they do and they don't. They cost money for some people, and they cost a lot less money for other people. If you've ever wondered why, Google Chicago Sociology or Worlds Columbian Exposition, or read the Sparknotes of The Jungle, or visit a Target.)*
What makes me sad? Educators started using the same value-laden language as the market to describe the kids. Too many educators have so bought into the narrative of modernity that they actually believe the hype. They believe that adults are naturally smarter than young people, that men are naturally smarter than women, that realistic fiction is naturally better than romantic or fantasy fiction. These are all of the cultural lies of modernity: late modernism, which some people choose to call "postmodernism," taught people of my generation to hate the old and love the new. But you only have to visit a high school for a day to be reminded that the old is always new again to a teen.
Showing posts with label weirdteens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label weirdteens. Show all posts
Friday, January 25, 2013
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
My "Lazy" Student has Dropped Out of High School. My "Bad" Kid is Saving His Own Life.
The student I called "Joey" in this post has dropped out of high school. I'm devastated. I wish he would choose what's right for his future, but I'm worried that he won't.
The student I called "Mike" in this post is doing "One Goal," formerly known as "US Empowered." He's taking school seriously and he's working hard this year. I couldn't be prouder.
The student I called "Mike" in this post is doing "One Goal," formerly known as "US Empowered." He's taking school seriously and he's working hard this year. I couldn't be prouder.
Two Americas: Health Edition
In the America I grew up in, parents beg for a diagnosis of anxiety disorder or ADHD so that their children can have extra time. In my students' America, they refuse treatment because they're embarrassed or their home culture frowns on therapy and mood and mental disabilities.
In the America I grew up in, I was taught about health and nutrition more than once. In my students' America, that's not tested, so it's not taught.
In the America I grew up in, we got proper treatment for asthma (one brother and I have it). In my students' America, you use your rescue inhaler every day because you don't know that there are better treatments out there, and neither do your parents.
In the America I grew up in, my parents could afford glasses. In my students' America, free glasses are first-come, first-served.
In the America I grew up in, we had good health insurance. In my students' America, you have Medicaid or nothing.
In the America I grew up in, you didn't miss school if you had a sports injury. In my students' America, you miss multiple days of school going to the doctor and going downtown to get your Medicaid approvals.
In the America I grew up in, we had sex ed more than once, and very few people got pregnant. If you did get pregnant, you got an abortion and no one talked about it. In my students' America, you don't get sex ed because it's not provided for in funding or policy. If you get pregnant, your parents force you to have the baby to teach you a lesson, or because abortions are against your religion. You are forced to raise the baby to teach you a lesson. And, chances are, you drop out of school to raise your child.
In the America I grew up in, teachers are rarely sexist or racist. They know about political correctness. They never claim that fathers shouldn't have to pay child support if abortion is legal. In my students' America, that's not the case.
In the America I grew up in, students with disabilities get everything they need. In my students' America, you can be an amazing student with a physical disability who advocates for yourself and all the other students in the school. You are the most amazing young woman your teacher has ever met. You are afraid you won't get to go to the college of your choice because you won't be able to afford it.
In the America I grew up in, I was taught about health and nutrition more than once. In my students' America, that's not tested, so it's not taught.
In the America I grew up in, we got proper treatment for asthma (one brother and I have it). In my students' America, you use your rescue inhaler every day because you don't know that there are better treatments out there, and neither do your parents.
In the America I grew up in, my parents could afford glasses. In my students' America, free glasses are first-come, first-served.
In the America I grew up in, we had good health insurance. In my students' America, you have Medicaid or nothing.
In the America I grew up in, you didn't miss school if you had a sports injury. In my students' America, you miss multiple days of school going to the doctor and going downtown to get your Medicaid approvals.
In the America I grew up in, we had sex ed more than once, and very few people got pregnant. If you did get pregnant, you got an abortion and no one talked about it. In my students' America, you don't get sex ed because it's not provided for in funding or policy. If you get pregnant, your parents force you to have the baby to teach you a lesson, or because abortions are against your religion. You are forced to raise the baby to teach you a lesson. And, chances are, you drop out of school to raise your child.
In the America I grew up in, teachers are rarely sexist or racist. They know about political correctness. They never claim that fathers shouldn't have to pay child support if abortion is legal. In my students' America, that's not the case.
In the America I grew up in, students with disabilities get everything they need. In my students' America, you can be an amazing student with a physical disability who advocates for yourself and all the other students in the school. You are the most amazing young woman your teacher has ever met. You are afraid you won't get to go to the college of your choice because you won't be able to afford it.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Conversations with Students: a series
One
Me: Check this out, I have four fat markers in my pocket! Do I look like a tagger?
Student: Nah, you gotta sag.
Me: Check this out, I have four fat markers in my pocket! Do I look like a tagger?
Student: Nah, you gotta sag.
Two
Student: Ms. Barton, you've accomplished so much and you're so young! You're so successful!
Me: Thank you, that is so sweet of you to say. I don't feel very successful, though, at least not usually.
Student: Well, I think you could probably have chosen a better career...
Me: And that's why. Because people say that to me all the time.
Student: Ms. Barton, you've accomplished so much and you're so young! You're so successful!
Me: Thank you, that is so sweet of you to say. I don't feel very successful, though, at least not usually.
Student: Well, I think you could probably have chosen a better career...
Me: And that's why. Because people say that to me all the time.
Three
Me: J---, you're inferring that Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones is black because she speaks African American Vernacular English.Student: I still don't believe that's a real thing. [pause] Ms. Barton, you must have a lot of black friends.
Me: Well, I do have some black friends, J-----, but I wouldn't say I have a lot. I study African American literature and culture. That's what my dissertation is about. That's why I know about AAVE.
Student: You must really love black people.
Me: Well, I love all people, but I do love black culture. That's why I've studied it for so long.
Student: Ooohhhhh, so that's why you got this stuff here [pointing to my posters of MLK and James Baldwin]
Me: Right.
Four
Me: I want to tell you something. You're not in trouble. Your pants are too tight. If you wear tights, you need to have something on that covers you down to your knees. Otherwise Ms. Lisa will put sweatpants on you.
Student: Really?
[later]
Student: Ms. Barton, I have some other pants in my backpack. Should I go change now?
Me: It can wait until lunch.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
I'm a Feminist Again: A Micro-autobiography
Now, I'm guessing that the majority of my handful of readers have read the title up top and said, "again"?
Yes, again. I have always been a feminist, even, I think, before I knew the word, because I have a strong, successful mother and I grew up in a household with four brothers and no sisters. Us girls gotta defend ourselves. Someone--my dad?--gave me one of those little feminist quote books that you can get in the bargain section at Barnes and Noble. Maybe I bought it for myself. I had a little commonplace book that I started sophomore year that had all these feminist sayings in it. I got all mad at my family whenever they tried to tease me about PMS (which they did all the time!) I loved Gloria Steinem and Joan Didion.
But when I was in college, I sort of got over feminism. College was a magical place of surprising levels of gender equality. Maybe Title IX has something to do with that--no sarcasm, that thought really just occurred to me. In college, gender-based literary studies sort of turned me off. I did take one class that I really loved about race and class, so I started to get interested in that. My roommate all four years of college is/was queer and I want to say he was a gender studies major, but now I can't remember. He was really involved in the women's center and also the LGBT group. College was the first time I had a lot of gay friends, so I got really interested in the queer studies side of gender studies, but a lot less interested in the women's studies side.
The Quaker school was also very progressive from a gender standpoint. We had faculty members who were out, we had an active GSA, my colleague taught a gender studies senior elective, and tons of students took it. We had very few problems with body image or disordered eating, even with the boys on the wrestling team, which had the same following as a football team (since we didn't have one of those. Football is too violent for Quakers.) It's true that I sometimes butted heads with male and female students in ways that had to do with gender, but the students at that school didn't seem to "need" much education (though they always do, I now realize) in political correctness, because Quaker education is awesome like that.
Political correctness, by the way, is a sort of obnoxious but convenient name for the practice of avoiding saying things that are racist, sexist, homophobic, or disrespectful toward people with disabilities, or disrespectful, discriminatory, or stereotyping of any one group. A lot of people think political correctness is silly, but maybe they wouldn't if they had the experience I had at the beginning of this year, with my 9th grade students unwittingly whispering sexist anti-Asian racial slurs, at first as a joke, and then, after I had explained how personally offensive it was, about me directly. (This is a "teens don't know any better, and they're mean" moment.) Since everyone now reading this blog knows where my school is, I don't want to embarrass my school or my students by explaining any further, but let me just say it was shockingly ignorant. Once the Dean of Students came into my class to explain to them the seriousness of what they were doing, it was over. I'm really proud of my 9th graders for taking it seriously, and several apologized to me personally.
So anyway, back to feminism. In grad school I got really interested in reading about the history of gender and class in a class with Lauren Berlant, and I also continued to be really interested in the dynamics of gender and race and class. But making the argument "this text is misogynistic" just didn't interest me at all. So I sort of left it. I planned one dissertation chapter where I was going to talk about gender and these two awesome female playwrights (Lorraine Hansberry, who you've heard of, and Alice Childress, who, in my opinion, deserves to be even more famous). But I ended up cutting that chapter to save time. I may end up writing it some day. But it's not all that surprising, given the trend of my interests, that it was the chapter I decided to cut. Of all the texts discussed in my diss, only one is by a woman (Alice Childress's play Trouble in Mind, which has experienced a bit of a revival in the last decade, so if you ever get a chance to see it, do see it. It's a brilliant play.)
These days I find myself returning to my feminist roots, including rediscovering Didion (I mean, I've read Didion all along, but right now I'm on a Didion bender. I wish she would let me write her biography. That's never gonna happen.) The main reason, I am beginning to notice, is that my students are just dumbfoundingly ignorant about gender and race, and the whole multiculturalism revolution in general, and, sad to say, so are a lot of teachers (I've written about this before). When I was in coursework for my teaching certificate I wrote an essay about how there are literally libraries of books about "the problem with black boys" and ONE about black and brown girls.
Now, it may surprise you, since my school is about 95% Latino and about 5% African American, but my students constantly use racial slurs about each other and about their white and Asian teachers, and literally, literally sexually harass each other and their female teachers. My students say all kinds of awful things--racist, sexist, you name it. And they sometimes think awful things. And my girls have terrible body image issues. And lots of girls accidentally become mothers.
So I had one student last year who became a mom at 15, and She. Is. Awesome. She has done such an amazing job of figuring out how to give her daughter a great life and still be an honors student. I'm so proud of her and impressed by her that sometimes I wish that she could help me if I ever get pregnant--and I'm twice her age. This year, I have another student, a junior, who is due at the end of the month. She's in lots of discomfort, but she is an extraordinary young woman, because she comes to school almost every day, and she does all of her work, and she's one of the hardest working students I've ever met.
So one day I asked the one student from last year, now a junior, if we had a support group for moms at our school. Here's our conversation:
Me: Do we have a group for students who are moms?
She: No. I kind of wish we did.
Me: Yeah. Lots of other schools have one. Maybe I'll start one or try to find someone to start one.
She: That would be great. I'll help you if you want.
Me (in my head): No, you'll start it and I'll help you.
So that is exactly what's happening! I'm so excited. She's excited. Our co-sponsor is excited. The other moms and expecting moms at the school are excited. I just hope it actually gets off the ground. I asked my student--the one who will now put on her transcript that the was the founding president of this group--what we should call the group when we talk about it at school, so it sort of has a code name. She said--I'm not making this up--that it should be "something about not giving up." So we decided to wait for inspiration to hit us and let each other know when we had an idea. I asked my husband, who is a brilliant song lyricist. He said we could use FIGHT as an acronym, and then we figured out what the words would stand for. But then I said it would be better if it was a Spanish word, so then he figured out an acronym for L.U.C.H.A. Either way, I'm going to have to turn away the male students (one in particular I already have in mind) who think it's a fight club or a wrestling club. But it's gonna be great. And this is another one of those times when I'm just so full of love for my students for helping themselves, and believing in themselves, and fighting for what they deserve.
Yes, again. I have always been a feminist, even, I think, before I knew the word, because I have a strong, successful mother and I grew up in a household with four brothers and no sisters. Us girls gotta defend ourselves. Someone--my dad?--gave me one of those little feminist quote books that you can get in the bargain section at Barnes and Noble. Maybe I bought it for myself. I had a little commonplace book that I started sophomore year that had all these feminist sayings in it. I got all mad at my family whenever they tried to tease me about PMS (which they did all the time!) I loved Gloria Steinem and Joan Didion.
But when I was in college, I sort of got over feminism. College was a magical place of surprising levels of gender equality. Maybe Title IX has something to do with that--no sarcasm, that thought really just occurred to me. In college, gender-based literary studies sort of turned me off. I did take one class that I really loved about race and class, so I started to get interested in that. My roommate all four years of college is/was queer and I want to say he was a gender studies major, but now I can't remember. He was really involved in the women's center and also the LGBT group. College was the first time I had a lot of gay friends, so I got really interested in the queer studies side of gender studies, but a lot less interested in the women's studies side.
The Quaker school was also very progressive from a gender standpoint. We had faculty members who were out, we had an active GSA, my colleague taught a gender studies senior elective, and tons of students took it. We had very few problems with body image or disordered eating, even with the boys on the wrestling team, which had the same following as a football team (since we didn't have one of those. Football is too violent for Quakers.) It's true that I sometimes butted heads with male and female students in ways that had to do with gender, but the students at that school didn't seem to "need" much education (though they always do, I now realize) in political correctness, because Quaker education is awesome like that.
Political correctness, by the way, is a sort of obnoxious but convenient name for the practice of avoiding saying things that are racist, sexist, homophobic, or disrespectful toward people with disabilities, or disrespectful, discriminatory, or stereotyping of any one group. A lot of people think political correctness is silly, but maybe they wouldn't if they had the experience I had at the beginning of this year, with my 9th grade students unwittingly whispering sexist anti-Asian racial slurs, at first as a joke, and then, after I had explained how personally offensive it was, about me directly. (This is a "teens don't know any better, and they're mean" moment.) Since everyone now reading this blog knows where my school is, I don't want to embarrass my school or my students by explaining any further, but let me just say it was shockingly ignorant. Once the Dean of Students came into my class to explain to them the seriousness of what they were doing, it was over. I'm really proud of my 9th graders for taking it seriously, and several apologized to me personally.
So anyway, back to feminism. In grad school I got really interested in reading about the history of gender and class in a class with Lauren Berlant, and I also continued to be really interested in the dynamics of gender and race and class. But making the argument "this text is misogynistic" just didn't interest me at all. So I sort of left it. I planned one dissertation chapter where I was going to talk about gender and these two awesome female playwrights (Lorraine Hansberry, who you've heard of, and Alice Childress, who, in my opinion, deserves to be even more famous). But I ended up cutting that chapter to save time. I may end up writing it some day. But it's not all that surprising, given the trend of my interests, that it was the chapter I decided to cut. Of all the texts discussed in my diss, only one is by a woman (Alice Childress's play Trouble in Mind, which has experienced a bit of a revival in the last decade, so if you ever get a chance to see it, do see it. It's a brilliant play.)
These days I find myself returning to my feminist roots, including rediscovering Didion (I mean, I've read Didion all along, but right now I'm on a Didion bender. I wish she would let me write her biography. That's never gonna happen.) The main reason, I am beginning to notice, is that my students are just dumbfoundingly ignorant about gender and race, and the whole multiculturalism revolution in general, and, sad to say, so are a lot of teachers (I've written about this before). When I was in coursework for my teaching certificate I wrote an essay about how there are literally libraries of books about "the problem with black boys" and ONE about black and brown girls.
Now, it may surprise you, since my school is about 95% Latino and about 5% African American, but my students constantly use racial slurs about each other and about their white and Asian teachers, and literally, literally sexually harass each other and their female teachers. My students say all kinds of awful things--racist, sexist, you name it. And they sometimes think awful things. And my girls have terrible body image issues. And lots of girls accidentally become mothers.
So I had one student last year who became a mom at 15, and She. Is. Awesome. She has done such an amazing job of figuring out how to give her daughter a great life and still be an honors student. I'm so proud of her and impressed by her that sometimes I wish that she could help me if I ever get pregnant--and I'm twice her age. This year, I have another student, a junior, who is due at the end of the month. She's in lots of discomfort, but she is an extraordinary young woman, because she comes to school almost every day, and she does all of her work, and she's one of the hardest working students I've ever met.
So one day I asked the one student from last year, now a junior, if we had a support group for moms at our school. Here's our conversation:
Me: Do we have a group for students who are moms?
She: No. I kind of wish we did.
Me: Yeah. Lots of other schools have one. Maybe I'll start one or try to find someone to start one.
She: That would be great. I'll help you if you want.
Me (in my head): No, you'll start it and I'll help you.
So that is exactly what's happening! I'm so excited. She's excited. Our co-sponsor is excited. The other moms and expecting moms at the school are excited. I just hope it actually gets off the ground. I asked my student--the one who will now put on her transcript that the was the founding president of this group--what we should call the group when we talk about it at school, so it sort of has a code name. She said--I'm not making this up--that it should be "something about not giving up." So we decided to wait for inspiration to hit us and let each other know when we had an idea. I asked my husband, who is a brilliant song lyricist. He said we could use FIGHT as an acronym, and then we figured out what the words would stand for. But then I said it would be better if it was a Spanish word, so then he figured out an acronym for L.U.C.H.A. Either way, I'm going to have to turn away the male students (one in particular I already have in mind) who think it's a fight club or a wrestling club. But it's gonna be great. And this is another one of those times when I'm just so full of love for my students for helping themselves, and believing in themselves, and fighting for what they deserve.
Friday, May 11, 2012
The Kids You Love the Most
I recently told a story about a certain type of kid named Joey. This is a story about a type of kid named Mike. Mike is the kid who is always talking when he's not supposed to be talking. He almost never does what he is told to do. When reprimanded, he becomes combative and belligerent. And, OK, if Mike were my peer, I would think he was kind of a jerk.
But Mike is not my peer. He's just a kid. When you ask Mike why he did what he did (if he can be civil at all), he'll sometimes say, "I guess I'm just a bad kid." Just like Joey, Mike has heard himself called this over and over for years. But Mike is not a bad kid. He's just a kid who messed up. Or one who messes up a lot. That's why I prefer the terminology of the consultant Kristyn Klei, who calls kids like Mike the kids you love the most.
I have not always thought this. When I was first teaching, I had a class full of Mikes (really, they were a combination of Mikes and Johnnys--the kid who will blindly follow whatever Mike does). They drove me nuts. I hated them. And I thought it was all their fault. When people of my generation were in high school (and for sure before), teens were thought of as pre-adults: people who, though inferior to teachers, had the emotional and cognitive capabilities of adults. These teens, so the thinking went, could be told that they had to be more responsible and less lazy. They would do what they were supposed to do if threatened with the proper punishments. And, the good news is, the majority of teens will do what they're supposed to do, most of the time. But if you think that they do this out of fear of being punished, you're wrong.
We now know (and knew when I was in high school, but forget that) that teens are not fully developed human beings. They may stop growing on the outside and start to look more and more like adults (especially kids like Mike, who are often male and of color), but they are still children. The cognitive research is now telling us that the human brain is not fully developed until the age of 25. And the part of the brain that is still developing is the prefrontal cortex, the part that helps you organize and make decisions, decisions like, "Would it be a good idea for me to blurt something out right now?" or "If I throw this thing across the room, am I likely to get in trouble?" or "Is getting into a fist fight ever a good idea?" or "Homework or video games?" The list goes on and on. A colleague and friend of mine has even developed this sort of knee-jerk response when we tell stories at lunch about the dumb things our kids have done. After every story, she says "underdeveloped frontal loooobe" in a funny voice.
When I was 22 and a brand new teacher, I found the Mikes and Johnnys of this world supremely frustrating, and I decided that they were my enemies. They were out to make sure that I could not conduct my class. And so I began to expect the worst from them--nothing but bad behavior, and certainly no academic work. And, don't get me wrong, I still lose my temper with the Mikes when they're driving me nuts. But you have to see a teen as a kid. When a kid does something dumb, HE REALLY WASN'T THINKING OF WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. In fact, he is somewhat incapable* of thinking ahead like that. So telling him that he has to be responsible and threatening him with punishment is just not going to work in a lot of cases. Calling him a bad kid will just make that label stick in his mind, so that he learns to assume that he is the kind of kid who teachers hate. And that's why these are the kids we have to love the most.
*Of course, the majority of children are able to stay out of trouble, and there are those especially mature children who are constantly thinking about their futures. But most teens just don't understand that getting bad grades now, or getting suspended, or even arrested, will mean bad things in the future.
But Mike is not my peer. He's just a kid. When you ask Mike why he did what he did (if he can be civil at all), he'll sometimes say, "I guess I'm just a bad kid." Just like Joey, Mike has heard himself called this over and over for years. But Mike is not a bad kid. He's just a kid who messed up. Or one who messes up a lot. That's why I prefer the terminology of the consultant Kristyn Klei, who calls kids like Mike the kids you love the most.
I have not always thought this. When I was first teaching, I had a class full of Mikes (really, they were a combination of Mikes and Johnnys--the kid who will blindly follow whatever Mike does). They drove me nuts. I hated them. And I thought it was all their fault. When people of my generation were in high school (and for sure before), teens were thought of as pre-adults: people who, though inferior to teachers, had the emotional and cognitive capabilities of adults. These teens, so the thinking went, could be told that they had to be more responsible and less lazy. They would do what they were supposed to do if threatened with the proper punishments. And, the good news is, the majority of teens will do what they're supposed to do, most of the time. But if you think that they do this out of fear of being punished, you're wrong.
We now know (and knew when I was in high school, but forget that) that teens are not fully developed human beings. They may stop growing on the outside and start to look more and more like adults (especially kids like Mike, who are often male and of color), but they are still children. The cognitive research is now telling us that the human brain is not fully developed until the age of 25. And the part of the brain that is still developing is the prefrontal cortex, the part that helps you organize and make decisions, decisions like, "Would it be a good idea for me to blurt something out right now?" or "If I throw this thing across the room, am I likely to get in trouble?" or "Is getting into a fist fight ever a good idea?" or "Homework or video games?" The list goes on and on. A colleague and friend of mine has even developed this sort of knee-jerk response when we tell stories at lunch about the dumb things our kids have done. After every story, she says "underdeveloped frontal loooobe" in a funny voice.
When I was 22 and a brand new teacher, I found the Mikes and Johnnys of this world supremely frustrating, and I decided that they were my enemies. They were out to make sure that I could not conduct my class. And so I began to expect the worst from them--nothing but bad behavior, and certainly no academic work. And, don't get me wrong, I still lose my temper with the Mikes when they're driving me nuts. But you have to see a teen as a kid. When a kid does something dumb, HE REALLY WASN'T THINKING OF WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. In fact, he is somewhat incapable* of thinking ahead like that. So telling him that he has to be responsible and threatening him with punishment is just not going to work in a lot of cases. Calling him a bad kid will just make that label stick in his mind, so that he learns to assume that he is the kind of kid who teachers hate. And that's why these are the kids we have to love the most.
*Of course, the majority of children are able to stay out of trouble, and there are those especially mature children who are constantly thinking about their futures. But most teens just don't understand that getting bad grades now, or getting suspended, or even arrested, will mean bad things in the future.
Friday, April 27, 2012
The L-Word
Here's a student. Let's call him Johnny or Joey.* (Joey is usually, but not always, a male student.) Joey is clearly bright, with-it, perhaps worldly in ways that other students, even the brightest ones, are not. Joey tends to do well on tests when they concern things he has already learned, such as grammar, vocabulary, or standardized tests. Joey's report card, however, tells a different story. He gets mostly Ds and Fs. He rarely turns in homework. In fact, he almost never does an assignment outside of class, unless it is to read something that interests him. (When you ask him to write a response to what he reads, he won't do that, either.)
When you ask Joey about his performance, he has one word for you: "I guess I'm just lazy."
By the time he's 16, Joey, the promising, talented student with tons of "potential," has probably been told that he's lazy dozens, if not hundreds, of times, by teachers, coaches, parents, and maybe even his friends. Every teacher has taught a Joey. I have two brothers who were both considered "Joeys" when they were in school, and their teachers and my parents called them lazy. I, a strong student, was still called lazy when I didn't want to do chores, or didn't wake up early on weekends.
But I have learned something about this. Does it make sense to call someone lazy who gets Ds and Fs, but works hard for 12 hours a day both Saturday and Sunday helping his dad paint houses or lay carpet? Should you call someone lazy if she spends all her time creating brilliant, funny, beautiful comic books, but doesn't do any of her homework? Is a young man lazy if he spends all of his time outside of school lifting weights and learning martial arts, but not writing that essay? What if he has trouble getting out of bed, has lost interest in everything that ever interested him before, and spends most of his time on the couch instead of hanging out with friends?
Very few people, if any, are actually lazy in the sense that they are committing the sin of sloth. Kids who are not interested in school are almost always either A) interested in other things, or B) depressed. Teachers often respond to these students by punishing them with failing grades. The problem is, failing an unmotivated student is unlikely to motivate him. The Joeys of the world are already not extrinsically motivated. Daniel Pink's terrific argument in Drive, better in the shortened, TED talk version (with animation!) makes this very point. He argues that extrinsic motivation (grades, bonuses, detention, getting fired) does not lead to better performance when cognitive skill is required. Pink has his critics, but his argument is still worth considering, especially in light of this piece on reforming our industrial-revolution-era educational model. This piece essentially argues that, rather than use a punitive/extrinsically incentivized model of education, we need to remodel education completely, tapping into students' intrinsic motivation and training them as critical thinkers.
So, when a student tells me that he's lazy, I tend to argue with him. "Well," I say, "I don't think that lazy people work at their uncle's store for 4 hours every night after school, do you?" or "I don't see any lazy people lifting weights in a gym. Ever."
There is one exception to this rule, though, that both frustrates and fascinates me. Teenagers AS A WHOLE are amazingly lazy when it comes to moving their bodies. Walking down the hall. Taking out a pencil. Standing up and sitting down. They are SO FREAKING SLOW!!! Why? I googled "Why don't teenagers like to move?" and got millions of hits about teens not liking to relocate with their families. I googled "Why do teenagers walk so slowly?" and had more success. Here are some of the answers I found:
- they're too cool for that; people who move fast are overachievers
- they don't care that people are waiting for them or behind them; they're not going to hurry for the likes of you!
- late-onset growing pains
- they're passive-aggressive by nature and moving slowly is a way to take control
- they're uppity
- they're easily distracted (which is different from having ADHD)
- they're sleepy
- teenagers are conservative by nature and therefore they don't like to transition (provided by a friend who is a school therapist)
In sum, the only context in which I allow myself to call my students lazy is when I tell one to move across the room (or five feet!) to work with another and neither one will move. THAT is lazy. If they're not doing their work, then something else is going on.
*Johnny and Joey are always the generic names of choice when people who train teachers talk about students. Even when you work at a school where no one is named Johnny or Joey. As one of my students once said, "Jimmy is what white people call their kids who are named James."
*Johnny and Joey are always the generic names of choice when people who train teachers talk about students. Even when you work at a school where no one is named Johnny or Joey. As one of my students once said, "Jimmy is what white people call their kids who are named James."
Sunday, April 15, 2012
On Teens Having Sex
While national reports have repeatedly trumpeted the decline in teen pregnancy rates over the last two decades, someone standing in the hallway during passing period at any high school in a high poverty urban neighborhood could tell you that this problem is still very much with us. As the numbers from the CDC show, the rates of teen pregnancy among Latina and black young women still remains much higher than the national average, and they are nearly twice the rate among white and Asian young women. The correlation between the teen birth rate and poverty--as both a cause of poverty and and effect of poverty--is staggering. Sixty percent of all teen births are from mothers living in poverty. Teen mothers have a 50% chance of graduating from high school, compared to 90% for all women, and children of teen mothers are at higher risk for a whole host of negative outcomes, including dropping out of high school, landing in prison, and becoming young mothers themselves.
Of course, the government is no help, what with the increase in parental consent, anti-Plan-B, and other laws that will undoubtedly result in increased teen pregnancies. The pro-life lobby is particularly guilty. When I drive down the highway, I see countless billboards telling pregnant adolescents not to be scared and to keep their babies. Parents don't help, either. The majority of my students are opposed to abortion under any circumstances, which means prevention has to be the way forward.
Particularly for a female, feminist urban teacher, this is a highly frustrating state of affairs, particularly when you see every day how completely ignorant your students are about sex, contraception, and STIs. Even though students in my district are required by law to receive sex education in 6th grade, I teach plenty of high school students who don't really understand how babies are made. Students should not have sex ed just once. They should have it early and often because, even though some are waiting longer to have sex, teenagers will always have sex. We already know that students need to learn how to reduce fractions or use 's more than once. Why can't we figure this out with sex ed? No matter how much people may think that "pregnancy pacts" and shows like 16 and Pregnant are to blame, the truth is that most teens in urban schools have no idea how easy it is to get pregnant because no one is telling them. When I hear that a student of mine is pregnant, I cry. I have seen teen mothers work hard and fight to finish high school, and I know they can do it. But I also know the extent to which society has failed and betrayed them by letting this happen in the first place.
Of course, the government is no help, what with the increase in parental consent, anti-Plan-B, and other laws that will undoubtedly result in increased teen pregnancies. The pro-life lobby is particularly guilty. When I drive down the highway, I see countless billboards telling pregnant adolescents not to be scared and to keep their babies. Parents don't help, either. The majority of my students are opposed to abortion under any circumstances, which means prevention has to be the way forward.
Particularly for a female, feminist urban teacher, this is a highly frustrating state of affairs, particularly when you see every day how completely ignorant your students are about sex, contraception, and STIs. Even though students in my district are required by law to receive sex education in 6th grade, I teach plenty of high school students who don't really understand how babies are made. Students should not have sex ed just once. They should have it early and often because, even though some are waiting longer to have sex, teenagers will always have sex. We already know that students need to learn how to reduce fractions or use 's more than once. Why can't we figure this out with sex ed? No matter how much people may think that "pregnancy pacts" and shows like 16 and Pregnant are to blame, the truth is that most teens in urban schools have no idea how easy it is to get pregnant because no one is telling them. When I hear that a student of mine is pregnant, I cry. I have seen teen mothers work hard and fight to finish high school, and I know they can do it. But I also know the extent to which society has failed and betrayed them by letting this happen in the first place.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
On irony
OK, I haven't posted in a long time! I am not making any promises, but I have had several post ideas and I'm going to try to roll out a few of them over the next few weeks.
This one is brief. When I was in high school, I had an English teacher who I loved and who really taught me a lot about how to analyze literature, how to write an expository essay, and how to be a journalist. The year I finished high school, he left teaching to become a full-time editor for a newspaper, and he always gave the impression that teaching was something that he didn't really want to do. What he really wanted to do was talk about books. (More on that another day.) The other thing about him is that he was absolutely hilarious, and that his humor depended largely on his deftness with sarcasm. In fact, many of my favorite teachers were the ones who were cynical and funny. The cynical teacher whose #1 tool is a wit that depends almost entirely on the use of sarcasm has become a common stereotype in our culture--we see it all the time in movies, on T.V., and in literature. (Think Tina Fey in Mean Girls, Paul Giamatti in Sideways, etc, etc)
It was surprising, then, when I learned that Charlotte Danielson (THE Charlotte Danielson), in her exhaustive rubric of teaching, "Framework for Teaching," lists "sarcasm" as among the attributes of an "Unsatisfactory" teacher. But here's the thing. Adolescents really don't get sarcasm. I teach both freshmen and seniors, and neither group can reliably and predictably detect irony*--the seniors are an AP group and they still have a really hard time identifying irony. Irony requires us to understand language or ideas on multiple levels simultaneously, and most adolescents are only beginning to develop the ability to think abstractly when they begin high school. It's really amazing to watch this happen. But what it also means is that they just don't understand sarcasm.
For adolescents, sarcasm is likely go to one of two ways. 1) The child understands from your tone that you're being mean or insulting, and her feelings get hurt, or 2) The child doesn't understand that you don't mean what you say, and takes your statement at its face. (A student asks you to go to the bathroom, and you say, "Well, OK, I guess you really want to get a bad grade.") Either way, it's not doing what you want it to do. And, chances are, you really are being mean. Adolescents have really thin skins. That's not their problem, and it's not our job to make their skins thicker by hurling darts at them. It doesn't mean we have to stop trying to be funny, but maybe we should try to invent better ways.
*Irony, by the way, is when (1) you mean the opposite of what you say, as in "Yeah, Einstein was a real dummy," (2) when you know something that the people in the story you are reading don't, and they really need to know, as when Romeo doesn't know that Juliet isn't dead, or (3) when what you expect to happen is the opposite of what happens, like when you get a free ride when you've already paid.**
**This is the only situation in the catalogue presented by Alanis Morissette in her song "Ironic" that is actually ironic.
This one is brief. When I was in high school, I had an English teacher who I loved and who really taught me a lot about how to analyze literature, how to write an expository essay, and how to be a journalist. The year I finished high school, he left teaching to become a full-time editor for a newspaper, and he always gave the impression that teaching was something that he didn't really want to do. What he really wanted to do was talk about books. (More on that another day.) The other thing about him is that he was absolutely hilarious, and that his humor depended largely on his deftness with sarcasm. In fact, many of my favorite teachers were the ones who were cynical and funny. The cynical teacher whose #1 tool is a wit that depends almost entirely on the use of sarcasm has become a common stereotype in our culture--we see it all the time in movies, on T.V., and in literature. (Think Tina Fey in Mean Girls, Paul Giamatti in Sideways, etc, etc)
It was surprising, then, when I learned that Charlotte Danielson (THE Charlotte Danielson), in her exhaustive rubric of teaching, "Framework for Teaching," lists "sarcasm" as among the attributes of an "Unsatisfactory" teacher. But here's the thing. Adolescents really don't get sarcasm. I teach both freshmen and seniors, and neither group can reliably and predictably detect irony*--the seniors are an AP group and they still have a really hard time identifying irony. Irony requires us to understand language or ideas on multiple levels simultaneously, and most adolescents are only beginning to develop the ability to think abstractly when they begin high school. It's really amazing to watch this happen. But what it also means is that they just don't understand sarcasm.
For adolescents, sarcasm is likely go to one of two ways. 1) The child understands from your tone that you're being mean or insulting, and her feelings get hurt, or 2) The child doesn't understand that you don't mean what you say, and takes your statement at its face. (A student asks you to go to the bathroom, and you say, "Well, OK, I guess you really want to get a bad grade.") Either way, it's not doing what you want it to do. And, chances are, you really are being mean. Adolescents have really thin skins. That's not their problem, and it's not our job to make their skins thicker by hurling darts at them. It doesn't mean we have to stop trying to be funny, but maybe we should try to invent better ways.
*Irony, by the way, is when (1) you mean the opposite of what you say, as in "Yeah, Einstein was a real dummy," (2) when you know something that the people in the story you are reading don't, and they really need to know, as when Romeo doesn't know that Juliet isn't dead, or (3) when what you expect to happen is the opposite of what happens, like when you get a free ride when you've already paid.**
**This is the only situation in the catalogue presented by Alanis Morissette in her song "Ironic" that is actually ironic.
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