Edu-Confessional

October 19, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Forgive me #edutwitter, for I have sinned. It’s been two weeks since my last post, but months since anything, you know… good.

Where should I start? I teach history so I’m partial to chronologically, but—

Maybe it’s best if I just dive in with the worst of it, then move through the list from there.

First, I assign a lot of videos in my AP World History class. My AP U.S. History class, too – but not as many as for World. “Required Viewing,” I call it, to go with each week’s “Required Reading.” Crash Course, Hip Hughes, Ted-Ed, Overly Sarcastic (not to be confused with OverSimplified, which in turn is quite different than Simple History).

I think I even used It’s History! once or twice, when it really fit.

It’s just… well, our textbook isn’t very good. It’s poorly organized and at times downright bewildering. My kids get frustrated with it – and not in the usual “but this is hard!” way. It has some good sections, but… well, it’s mediocre at best for most things.

There are articles and supplemental readings I use, but when you can have animation and key points on the screen and entertaining personalities… Plus, we went one-to-one this year and there’s that unspoken pressure to use the damn devices, you know?

OMG – I meant, um… ‘gosh-darned’! Maybe we should add ‘bad language’ to the list. Sometimes in class. But not usually. But sometimes.

Let’s see, what else?

Oh, yes. Forgive me, #edutwitter, for being so annoyed with my Early Civilizations class. They exhaust me, and…

I don’t want to say it.

I shouldn’t feel this way, you understand, but…

*sigh*

I dread them every day. I don’t look forward to that hour at all. Ever. I’m relieved when they go.

I don’t dislike them individually, you understand. But while my advanced classes aren’t all brilliant or intrinsically motivated or any of those other stereotypes, there are times when pouring hours of preparation and research and risk into a lesson WORKS with them. They’re not ALL great days, but great days happen. Most of the rest are at least GOOD days. They learn stuff, and do stuff, and show signs of life and everything. Most even have a pulse!

But not in Early Civ. I keep dragging that horse towards the river of rudimentary academics, but the hydrophobia is strong and honestly I’ve started just giving them graphic organizers or stuff I’ve lifted from other teachers.

I do try. I put in the prep time. I’m definitely pouring more time and emotion into that one hour than they are collectively applying in return. And none of it’s fun, or fulfilling, or whatever. There are parts of this job that are never any fun – grading, meetings, discipline, etc. – but most days I look forward to going to work. Most classes have those moments that something clicks – that breakthrough – that discussion – that brilliant question. But not with this group. I’ve tried every trick I know, and it’s like trying to punch my way through a room of wet bread wearing toasters on my feet.

They’re never discipline problems. Sometimes I almost wish they were ‘bad kids’, so I’d have an excuse.

An excuse for what? Well… *sigh*. I mean, that’s just it. They’ve made it to high school. They’re not stupid or out to cause trouble or anything. So it must be, you know… me. I’m failing. Them. I’m failing them.

I mean, yes – many of them have ‘F’s right now, but that’s not what I mean. I’m failing at what I’m supposedly ‘called’ to do. What I used to be pretty decent at, I thought. But I sure seem to suck now, and I’m not sure what to do differently. At the same time, I’m pretty sure the problem isn’t primarily me – but I’m the adult, and the one paid to figure it out.

It makes me resent them.

Anyway, those are the biggies. What else…? I need to check my notes.

Oh! Here’s one – I’ve skipped lots of “required” paperwork from my district already this year. If it’s important, they’ll ask again, right? Even when I do it, I tend to, um… streamline a bit, for efficiency’s sake. Only once in twenty years has an administrator called my room to let me know they read through my professional goals for the year and noticed #3 was “Look, if anyone ever actually reads these, let me know and we can talk about personal and professional growth or whatever. Otherwise, this is merely an exercise in wasting my time while killing as many trees as possible.”

They didn’t find it as amusing as I did. That happens a lot, actually.

Forgive me, #edutwitter, for missing bus duty Friday, even though I’d been warned for missing a duty shift already this month. One of my kids came in right after school, and she was having a complete meltdown. Nothing that triggers “mandatory reporting” or anything, but she needed someone to talk her off the proverbial ledge, and I guess that was me. So, yeah – bus duty. I’ll be hearing about that on Monday, no doubt.

Forgive me that sometimes when I’m grading I just scan the work to see if they took it seriously and count it as good enough. Twice I’ve thrown entire assignments away without recording them, figuring the goal is that they learn, not that I improve at data entry. It’s not like there are that many surprises – the hundred-and-four-percenters still do excellent work and the fifty-percenters still turn in stuff that looks like they ate it and threw it back up first.

Forgive me, #edutwitter, for not reading that many teacher books. There have been some great ones, but most leave me feeling rather bleh. Honestly, there are about a dozen educators blogging for no money who are WAY more challenging and inspirational than whatever it was our district gave us at the start of THIS year for our ‘department books study’ or whatever.

Forgive me that I find many of my students more interesting and even occasionally entertaining than actual grading or lesson planning. Lord knows I’m at school late enough in the afternoon, but so are many of them as they wait for band or theater or speech/debate. I could close and lock my door, but… I mean, relationships, right?

I’m sure it started when I came to peace with spending time on things I found important and interesting even if that meant taking a few shortcuts through the mandated curriculum. It’s a slippery slope – gateway pedagogy on the road to serious classroom rebellion.

Forgive me, #edutwitter, for not always knowing the best thing to say or do for my kids who aren’t there to be entertaining or even to get academic help, but who are hurt or angry or broken or terrified, anxious or numb or frantic. I listen – and I know that’s no small thing. But you can’t grant someone ‘perspective’ or ‘wisdom’ or ‘comfort’ or ‘hope’. They’re in pain and it’s not usually their fault and I can’t fix it. I’m not sure I always even help. I’m sorry.

Oh – that reminds me. I forgot my door was ajar the other day and I had The Regrettes streaming rather loudly when sweet little Carmichael came in wanting help with an assignment. “Seashore” was motivating me through some tedious grading when I realized someone was standing in the doorway and it might have scarred her for life. I think it might be best if I stick with Coltrane or E.L.O. during school hours – even when I think the door is closed. In any case, I seek your absolution, cyber-peers.

I used a district copy code the other day to run some class sets – I’m not sure if that counts, but figured I should mention it. I told a peer I couldn’t have lunch with them because I had students coming in to work when really I just needed the quiet for half-an-hour. I shared with a colleague about a close reading activity I’ve not actually used for a PD activity last week just to keep from drawing attention to myself for being unprepared.

I think that’s about it, anonymous friends and virtual colleagues. I mean, there is one more little thing, but it seems to be ongoing, so I’m not sure if I’m making it better or worse by seeking absolution.

Forgive me, universe, for never quite getting it as right as they deserve. I am ambitious with my lessons, to be sure, but sometimes they don’t quite do what I hope they’ll do. I feel like it’s always first hour my first few years – the potential is there, some good things are happening, but I keep looking forward to ironing out the problems, shoring up the weaknesses, and finally actually changing the damned world by dragging them into knowledge, skills, realistic self-images, a hunger for truth and justice, and of course… growth mindsets.

I think overall I’m getting better, but not quickly enough. Not strongly enough. I don’t know enough or do enough or adjust enough or hold the line enough or… something enough. If only I had another twenty years, amiright?

I think that’s it for real this time, but thanks for hearing me out. I’m sure I’ll be back in a few weeks. Maybe a few days. Actually, what are you doing tomorrow?

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#BlackLivesMatter – Better Voices Than Mine

October 14, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I read something this morning which kicked me in the gut – “What #BlackLivesMatter Means To Me (Spoiler Alert: I’m Not Black)” by Isa Adney on HuffingtonPost.com. It’s not short, but it’s well worth a complete read.

A few highlights which particularly struck me:

I would guess that most of the people using #BlackLivesMatter probably have the courage and strength to fight for this because someone in their life told them that they mattered, and now they’re trying to get the rest of the world to see it too, not for themselves, but for the 7th graders.
But the kids who don’t have those influences in their lives – someone telling them why they matter and how to ignore the hate – are in danger of growing up to believe that “people like them” cannot {fill in the blank with their hopes and dreams here}…
And that’s not okay with me.

And this:

I get confused and scared talking about my own identity, let alone someone else’s. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. I didn’t want to make things worse. I didn’t want to say something unknowingly racist. I didn’t want to add any more painful rhetoric to the mix. That’s the last thing we need.

And certainly this:

People don’t fight injustice because it’s fun or because they’re bored or because they want to start conflict or enjoy defending themselves and blocking people on Twitter who they thought were their friends. This stuff is not fun. No one wants to fight this fight…
Experience has taught me that if someone is saying they feel like they don’t matter, it’s really important to listen to what they have to say. Because it takes a lot of courage to say that out loud, knowing the backlash that’s coming, knowing that some people will think you’re trying to get attention, that you’re making this up. Because somehow in saying you feel broken, some people think you’re blaming them for breaking you and then they think they need to defend themselves because, really, they weren’t trying to hurt you they were just trying to live their lives and do their best. But in most cases that defensiveness quickly turns cruel, making you feel like you matter even less, making you need to fight harder, speak louder, and the cycle begins again.
And I’m afraid of how many people have to die before that cycle breaks. The lack of compassion even now, after people were shot in a church, messes me up in my core, sends shivers up my entire body. Makes it hard to breathe.

I’ve tried before several times to express my thoughts and frustrations on this nightmare of an issue. Most were such rhetorical train wrecks they were never posted, and the few which were – while sincere in and of themselves – proved a bit awkward and incomplete compared to what I’d hoped.

Adney at least has the credibility of being a woman of mixed ethnicity – as in, she’s dealt with some of the headaches which accompany being biologically and culturally interesting. I’m an old straight white guy. A Republican until a few years ago. An evangelical back in the day. And I’m not even a proper progressive now – I’m just so $#%&ing sick and tired of watching people who look like my students getting killed under the most %$&*est pretexts, and why the $#%@ is this even a DEBATE?!

I’m telling you, it slices the conservative right out of you – quickly, and without anesthetic or proper sutures.

After the smug and bewildering announcement by Robert McCulloch last November that it was all good that Michael Brown had been shot by police for insufficient deference and that the real victims – the REAL VICTIMS – were the grand jurors who had to TALK ABOUT THIS for a couple of days, well…

I kind of lost my mind.

I had to leave social media and the blog for a few days just to regroup.

I have a certain longing for social justice, but nothing as passionate or noble as many around me. Truth be told, I’m far more easily fired up by inconsistency and blatant bullsh*tting swallowed whole to salve consciences sick with cognitive dissonance and assuage collective guilt grounded in apathy.

In other words, I wish my outrage were holy, but it’s often just… outrage.

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I took to following numerous #educolor voices on social media, occasionally commenting or responding, but it didn’t go smoothly. Mostly I was simply irrelevant – a check to the ego, to be sure, but hardly shocking or offensive. I’m small potatoes, and contributed little more than ‘yeah, me too!’ most of the time.

And I’ve made some friends – or at least developed positive rapports to whatever extent Twitter allows. I’m thankful for those who endure and interact with me – especially when I’m slow.

Then I was blocked by someone rather well-known, who I respected, and with whom I’d even had a few brief, positive exchanges. I never found out why, but suddenly every time I wasn’t welcome in a discussion or found myself misunderstood in a comment or unable to procure a reply to a question, it seemed more… collective? Alienating?

But who was I to fuss? Am I seriously going to get all offended or hurt because people who are confronting death and injustice and constant personal threats and character attacks via the anonymity of social media aren’t catering to my ego sufficiently? Really, Blue – #WhitePrivilege much?

So mostly I just shut up, retweeting or sharing the best or most important stories or comments as they came my way. The biggest difference has been in my classroom, where I’m utilizing the freedom of tenure to full effect by engaging students in conversations about current events and issues under the rather loose umbrella of American Government studies.

Because these are my kids.

My Hispanic students are under no illusions regarding the stereotypes impacting them, nor are my Black students – although the young men tend to speak less freely of such things than the young ladies. My kids from miscellaneous ethnicities and faiths are surprisingly open about race, religion, and culture, and not at all bitter most times about the nonsense with which they must deal on a regular basis from friends as much as strangers.

I have the most entertaining young lady of devout Islamic faith and far too much wisdom and insight for her years whose calling in life so far seems to be helping clueless peers transfer their good feelings towards her personally to the wider variety of people around them who are less comfortable being outliers. She does so with a constant smile, but I know it makes her tired.

Stop killing my kids, you twisted $%#&s. I’ll pay for the candy bar or whatever, but stop tasering their genitalia while they’re handcuffed to a metal chair, you sick bastards.

MY KIDS.

As I suggested earlier, though, my outrage is hardly pure.

I’m bewildered and in a constant snit that we see so little discrepancy between our lofty American ideals and the treatment we’re allowing towards people of color by local law enforcement.

I teach the Bill of Rights, and hate how often I must preface amendments with “in theory” just to maintain basic credibility. “In theory,” no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law. “In theory,” you have a right to be informed of the charges against you, and confront those accusing you. “In theory,” no cruel and unusual punishment is permitted. “In theory,” your right to be secure in your persons shall not be violated without a warrant based on probably cause.

“In theory,” all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. “In theory” these include Life and Liberty.

I love our founding ideals, and these aren’t them. I’m bothered that more people aren’t bothered. It’s so damn wrong how many of us are OK with this, as long as it’s a bunch of ____________ who were probably asking for it because-you-know-how-those-people-are.

Each new killing sparks debate over whether or not the victims were ‘doing anything wrong,’ complicated by how often those playing for Team Protect’n’Serve lie lie lie until exposed, at which point they simply change the lies or choose some new justification which the rest of us gladly swallow because oh-my-god-wouldn’t-it-suck-if-we-really-had-to-get-our-souls-around-what-we’re-rationalizing? Somehow calling this out means hating cops and wanting them all killed – WTF?!

But it often doesn’t matter to me whether the deceased were stealing cigarettes or talking back or known to smoke a joint or two or whatever other things explain summary execution these days if your pigmentation prevents entrance to the ‘brown bag’ clubs.

Because that’s not the point.

We have some pretty lofty ideals about who we are and how government should work. Ideals worth killing the British over a few centuries ago. Ideals worth forcing the South to stay in the Union and give up their way of life. Ideals worth trotting out anytime we send our soldiers overseas to demand that others emulate or embrace us. Ideals cited anytime we wish to justify our economic or political maneuverings.

The thing about ideals, though, is that they require application when it’s time to make decisions.

If you’re only a vegetarian until that steak on the grill smells pretty tasty, you’re not really a vegetarian. If you’re only a devout Christian until it’s uncomfortable and you’d rather go along with the crowd, you’re not a particularly devout Christian. If you’re only a committed spouse until a really exciting opportunity to play around comes up and no one will ever know and besides we were drinking, that’s fine – but at that point you cease being a committed spouse.

Ideals are only ideals if they apply in real life. If they only work in the neatest, cleanest circumstances, they’re not really our ideals – they’re just stuff we feel better saying, but don’t actually believe.

If our lingering claim to fame as a nation is that we’re still pretty bad-ass militarily, have decent purchasing power, and that we’ve embraced a half-dozen spin-off reality shows built around a sex-tape protagonist, let’s go with that. America – the Chris Jericho of countries! The Rolling Stones of nation-states! The Yahoo.com of democratic ideals!

Country music fans everywhere will buy the bumper stickers: “America – we’re still around in some form or another!”

But stop trotting out our damned founding ideals if we have absolutely no intention of applying them consistently and universally – to all people, in all situations, whether we like them or not. Forget the Confederate flag controversy – stop waving the Stars and Stripes if it’s only to cover up our comfort with killing one another, as long as the victims are primarily the dark or dirty ones we never meant to get along with anyway.

Isa Adney’s piece is a far better read than mine, by the way. It’s thoughtful, and transparent, and honest, and so very well-written. She’s an ideal spokesperson for the perspective she represents.

I’m pretty good at several things, but speaking thoughtfully or concisely on this issue doesn’t seem to be one of them. I’m so genuinely thankful there are better voices out there than mine.

Confessions

May 7, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 3 Comments

This is not a year I’ve been proud of.

I’ve had a few over the past sixteen years that have sucked for reasons largely outside my control, but this is the first time since those first few semesters that I’ve felt almost entirely responsible – not as a cause, but as someone who knew better in terms of MY responses, and didn’t do it.

For… *sniff* – the children.

In years past I’ve been a pretty consistent hard-ass – quality of work, organization, due dates, etc. Like most teachers, exceptions abounded with circumstances. I’ve lost count of the number of individual deals I’ve made with students in difficulty, whether weird personal lives or academic struggles. If they’re trying, we’ll work something out.

I’ve had to stifle overt hostility every time we’re told from the golden podium to give 50% to students who haven’t shown up or done anything yet because some kid in an anecdote had a tough October and we’re too jaded and dillweedish to let them ever recover.

“Damn – they’re on to us! We got into this profession so we could cackle maniacally at the unjust failings of children! We especially like to crush the ones living in their cars, working three jobs, and taking care of eleven siblings even though they don’t have fingers or eardrums. Fail, Enrique! Fail!”

Apparently I don’t always stifle it.

But over time, reading enough tweets, enough blogs, enough articles, I softened. I weakened. I caved. Some of it was genuine doubt whether I could possibly be right and so many people smarter than me be wrong. Much of it, though – and this is where the self-loathing begins – much of it was laziness. The time and effort necessary to keep pushing every kid, to remember who was absent when and what that means for their make-up work and who had surgery and who was on a cruise, and the stories from other teachers about the parent calls, and emails, and meetings, and administrators, and…

Most headaches can be easily avoided if you pretty much accept anything a kid gives you, whenever they give it. I lost a battle drawing some lines with a parent years ago (by following district policies, no less), and haven’t wanted to do that again. Every time I’d watch what other teachers were going through simply for holding to basic expectations, I’d pat myself on the back for knowing better than to go down THAT road again.

I knew I was condemning my kids to much harder lessons down the road because I wasn’t willing to fight for their academic souls here, this year – when we all still basically love them and want to help them. This is the safest place in the world to struggle, or even fail a little. Not later, not somewhere else.

But I wouldn’t see it – their eventual awakening. I wouldn’t know how much harder it would be later. But I do.

That’s the wound; here’s the salt:

This ‘flexibility’, this over-generalized ‘compassion’, didn’t work. Not for behavior, not for grades, not for anything. The more flexible I became, the more students were mired in a swampy mixture of all the stress one would expect from academic and personal overload but the actual productivity one would find in a 19th century San Francisco opium den. They were doing less and less, but freaking out about it more and more.

What they eventually produced wasn’t usually very good, and often lacked context or use. Despite my most vehement exhortations, I couldn’t convince the majority of those so mired to keep up with what we were doing right now, in class, rather than dragging through that content review from last month’s quiz that they never seem to finish before they lose it and start over.

“What does it matter WHEN they learn it?” Turns out it matters a whole damn lot.

True student collaboration became impossible because only a slim majority of students were prepared to contribute in any useful way. Class discussions or even direct instruction became less and less effective because it’s hard to build on something a third of them haven’t learned yet, and might never.

History may never be easy, but it’s much less onerous when it’s experienced in order, and learned actively, together. Those opportunities vanished as I gradually ended up with 140 students in 40-50 different places, some analyzing and writing with great sophistication and others who’d pretty much ignored weeks of foundational work but suddenly wanted to get their ‘Skills Grades’ up and who had to be taught from scratch.

It wasn’t just academics. I let too many little stupid things slide early in the year because I was trying to be more understanding of their individual quirks and needs and such. When I did assign something punitive, like lunch detention or some sort of service work, I’d quickly lose track of the paperwork as some would attend, some wouldn’t, half were absent that day anyway, and others were in detention already from another class, and… and…

Eventually I just returned my energies to lesson planning and teaching. I now have a dozen kids throughout the day who aren’t “bad kids,” but who are 15 years old and still behave like a special needs group of 3rd graders when the spirit moves. I can’t skip the paperwork trail of consequences and just throw them all out in frustration (nor would I wish to), and there are four weeks left.

So I’m making do.

The worst part of it is, I’ve failed my best kids. Their grades are fine, but they learned early on that most of my energy, most of our curriculum, most of their headaches would be dictated by the bottom 20% of the class. I suppose this in many ways is preparing them for the ‘real world,’ but I hate creating so many cynical little Republicans before they can even drive.

I’ve failed my ‘challenging’ students because they’ve learned nothing, other than that they can pretty much do what they want and still move right along – thus reinforcing the very thing we complain about from our middle schools, who have about as much power to change that system as we do.

I’ve failed my ‘average’ kids because they weren’t pushed beyond quiet mediocrity, staying below the radar and not causing trouble. Not exactly the motivational poster I signed up for.

This freshmen class came to us as one of the least motivated, most pampered, quick-to-collapse, easily distracted, helpless, hopeless, shallow little nurslings I’ve ever encountered en masse, and I’ve accomplished absolutely nothing in challenging or changing any of that. There are some diamonds, believe me – and I love them all, somehow. But I fear for the rest if reality ever catches up.

Maybe it won’t. Maybe our society has evolved enough that the consequence for irresponsibility, ignorance, and apathy, is food, clothing, shelter, and days spent drifting aimlessly and checking their phones obsessively. Maybe it’s not a teenager problem, but imminent national collapse. And maybe I can’t change any of it.

But here’s what I CAN do. I can resolve next year to risk seeming merciless in my expectations, rigid in all things responsibility-ish, and demanding in my demeanor. I’ll fight the fights over standards and behavior, with or without official backing. I’ll lose some of them, but I’ll go down kicking and screaming – not because I’m an asshole who wants kids to fail, but because I love them. I want better for them. I want hope for them. And because I know from long, painful experience that the only true fulfillment or growth comes from actually accomplishing things. Actually learning stuff and doing things.

I’m sure we have about a dozen motivation posters to that effect in this hallway alone. Maybe they’ll be my defense.

I may not succeed. I doubt my humble efforts will prove to be some kind of miraculous solution. But I hope by May 2016, I’ll at least have offset some of the scalding awareness that I’ve become part of the problem.

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