Obligatory Thanksgiving Post

November 25, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

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“Do you see anything positive in life?”

I was taken aback at the very question, posited in response to a Facebook post I made recently which – all things considered – I didn’t even find to be among my most cynical or worried. Go figure.

I responded with a few specific things I found very positive in life – any number of amazing individuals, hockey, great literature, well-written history, They Might Be Giants, and Hideaway Pizza among them. The question did nudge me, though, to do this specific post – one I’ve considered and abandoned a few dozen times, and one perhaps a bit cheesy given the looming onset of that one holiday.

But I am thankful, and genuinely so, for a number of things related to public education, blogging, and such. So that the Universe might let me get back to frothily protesting systemic inanity, I’ll confess a few:

I’m thankful for an online community – particularly on edu-Twitter – which leans towards encouraging, funny, insightful, and bold. Social media can be a chaotic, twisted, foreboding domain. The silence and apathy greeting your best efforts can be crippling.

I am thankful, then, for those who ‘favorite’, and ‘reply’, and re-tweet, and quote. I’m thankful for those who challenge me, those who feed my ego, those who argue with me, and those who simply let me vent. I’m particularly grateful for those who comment on the blog with something other than infected links, ads for sexual services, or home repair contractors in Australia.

Listing individuals is a doomed course – inevitably I’ll leave out someone very dear to me – but it would be irresponsible not to acknowledge Rob Miller, Rick Cobb, and Claudia Swisher – the Big Legit Three of Oklahoma edu-blogging – who treated me like someone valuable with something useful to say, even when I kinda sucked most weeks and was still working out my ‘voice.’

Well-timed warm-fuzzies from national edu-entities like Starr Sackstein and Peter Greene of Curmudgucation provided ridiculous amounts of joy, and when Diana Ravitch tweeted out the original version of Ms. Bullen’s Data Rich Year to her eleventeen zillion followers, I nearly had to change pants.

They were just tweets, but seeing my links going out from those accounts – both in-state and out – was crazy validating. At the same time, it pushed me towards considerations of agency and responsibility – like I should try to not veer too far from reality or suck too badly, because people might actually be reading from time to time.

So I’m thankful for people who treated me like a legit voice at the table even when I was faking it and mostly just needed to work through some anger issues. I’ve since expanded to include obscure historical figures and more potty humor – so… growth.

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I’m insanely thankful for the #11FF – a semi-contrived community of ‘followers’ who tacitly agree to feign extreme excitement over my approval. A shared inside joke quickly became a real circle of those loved and adored, and whatever good mojo they’ve sent my way, they deserve back a dozen-fold. I have the BEST followers on Twitter – no joke.

The fact that many of them are smarter, kinder, funnier, and much better looking than I am we have collectively agreed to ignore.

Tyler Bridges and Lindsey Lipsky were the first two people to win Blue Serial #11FF shirts, and both posed in them, took appropriate pics, and posted them with the sort of enthusiasm I was hoping the concept would garner. They both also happened to look damn good in them, which didn’t hurt.

Because they set the precedent, the whole thing worked. Later, there were even mugs. See what a little cooperation and ego-tickling can do for the rest of the world?

If we’ve ‘spoken’ regularly on Twitter, I adore you. If I didn’t, we wouldn’t be having ‘those’ conversations. The #11FF thing is fun, but I’m actually a bit of an elitist #@%& in real life. If I bestow valuable minutes upon you, you’re genuinely rare and amazing. Thank you for being such.

I’m thankful for many of my admins in my ‘real’ job. I have that principal you can go sit with in the morning and confess shortcomings or celebrate triumphs, and who won’t respond in platitudes or policies. I walk away with actual ideas or better challenges, inspired not by a poster on his wall or some Chex Mix and a notepad every May, but by genuine interaction with a brilliant professional.

I’m thankful for those assistant principals who want to know what I think should happen and discuss what’s best for students before blindly submitting to bureaucracy.

I’m thankful for building secretaries who are fine with that title even though they’re often the most essential elements of the equation. I’m particularly thankful for one who doesn’t like me some days, but who holds the entire system together so that the rest of us can teach and such.

I’ll take ‘that damn good’ over ‘thinks I’m adorable’ any day.

I’m thankful for a handful of people up the chain of command who hear me out from time to time when something sets me off. I’m thankful for how often their solutions are better than mine, and because even when I don’t buy into their plans or their approach, they’re clearly founded on the same values and convictions as mine.

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I’m crazy thankful for students who come back or email or Tweet to tell me when something we did in class was helpful for them down the road. My freshmen hate this, because they know every time a former student thanks me for all that document analysis or writing, their lives become more difficult.

I take sick pleasure in this. Pleasure for which I’m truly thankful.

I’m thankful for how many of my students are genuinely likeable, funny, thoughtful, insightful, challenging, interesting, honest, and wildly gifted – even when so many aren’t that enamored with school or the current system.

Urging them on towards ownership of their learning and academic excellence is much like trying to drive a nail into concrete using only fresh croissants – they crumble far too easily and the nail doesn’t always move very much, but the buttery fresh goodness and entertaining flakiness keep me from being overly distraught.

I’m thankful I teach a non-tested subject. I could list that one another dozen times and still not say it enough.

I’m really, really thankful I teach a non-tested subject.

This last part is particularly cheesy. But if you’re reading this right now – in an email or on the blog – all the way to the end coming up right here, then I am thankful for you. More than all that other stuff I said, actually.

I mean, don’t tell those other people I’ve been talking about, but I’ve always kinda liked YOU best. We have a… special thing, don’t you think?

Thank you so much for recognizing pathos, pith, and powerful pedagogy when you find it. Your love for me proves your enduring wisdom and insight – qualities far too rare in this broken world. Keep doing what you’re doing, as well as you’re doing it. And thank you for doing it – seriously.

We’d be lost without you.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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Hetalia: Axis Powers (Toast With A Big Boot!)

October 15, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

So a few weeks ago a student who doesn’t otherwise say much came up to me excitedly after class. Something we’d mentioned in class prompted her to ask me if I’d ever watched something called “Hetalia.”

I had no idea what that was.

“It’s an anime cartoon in which all of the main characters are nation-states, mostly during World War II…”

OK, strangely I had at least heard of this before. Last year there was a lunch table committed to daily sharing of… whatever one calls ‘fan fiction’ in the anime world. Mostly it was this “Hetalia.” I remember two girls quite dogmatic about Pakistan deserving a main character.

I didn’t argue. I barely even knew what they were talking about.

After a few moments of excited discussion, the student went to her next hour and I didn’t think much of it. The next day, however, she showed up with a DVD case of – you guessed it – the first two seasons. Inside were multiple post-it notes explaining where to find the parts she’d mentioned yesterday, but encouraging me to watch the entire thing for proper context.

I agreed, but I confess I was not overly excited about the task. Sure, it’s not asking much – I wouldn’t have to go anywhere, or do anything really, other than watch 30 minutes of cartoons. FOR THE CHILDREN.

Nevertheless, I put it off for a couple of weeks until guilt got the better of me. I put in the first disc.

What. The. $%#&?

It wasn’t a question of whether I liked it or didn’t so much as my having no idea what the crap monkey flight pink was going on. It was fast, and loud, and grating, and musical, and soft, and allegorical, and funny, and satirical, and juvenile, and multi-layered, and – and then suddenly the first episode was over.

I should watch a few more. FOR THE CHILDREN.

I’m hardly an authority on this show even after 20 episodes, but as far as manic animated chaos goes, it really is rather educational. That’s not the biggest thing I learned watching, however.

For the rest of this post to make sense, I encourage you to take five minutes and watch one episode – Hetalia: Axis Powers, Episode 3. Seriously, what else you have going that’s SO important you don’t have five minutes? FOR THE CHILDREN?

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If I were to quiz you over this episode, how would you do?

On the one hand, none of it’s particularly difficult. On the other, unless this sort of animated frenzy is already your thing, you were probably a bit lost part of the time. Confused by some of the visual and sound effect choices. Annoyed here, bored a moment later – hopefully amused once or twice.

But until you’ve watch a half-dozen episodes, the whole thing’s rather bewildering. It’s not until I watched some of the early episodes again after making it through fifteen or twenty others that I caught half the stuff that seems so obvious to me now.

Because although I like to think of myself as reasonably bright, this show is in a language I simply don’t speak – and in this case I don’t mean Japanese. It’s a media format that’s really not my thing, and to which I’ve only rarely been exposed. Consequently, someone more familiar with similar shows – or even the comics on which they’re based – might find me a bit… slow. Unappreciative. Perhaps whiney or defiant, depending on how many of my initial reactions I spoke aloud.

You see where I’m going with this now, don’t you?

I had the luxury of going in with a rather low-pressure purpose – to be able to tell a student honestly that I’d watched a few episodes. I was additionally fortunate in that the primary storyline involves content with which I’m at least generally familiar – a kind of ‘World War II for Dummies’.

Had I gone in with limited time and less prior knowledge, knowing I’d be assessed on my understanding and appreciation of the content, artistic choices, and maybe even production realities of the series, I’d at the very least have enjoyed it less. Any confusion I experienced would likely translate into either frustration with the material or with the entity requiring it, or perhaps I’d turn that negative mojo inward as one more indication I’m simply too stupid to pick up on this stuff as it flies by.

Watching this show is how my students feel when I ask them to read a great novel for both content and theme, to explore metaphor and the use of language and imagery, or to unravel the roles various characters play in a grander narrative. My experience was somewhat comporable to what happens to them the first time they’re expected to analyze a legitimate historical document, or figure out Causes, Triggers, and Results for major events. It’s not that these things are unreasonable or hard – it’s that they’re not their world.

I’m familiar with the basic structure and literary devices books like Lord of the Flies or The Grapes of Wrath. I have the background knowledge to appreciate the tone and subtleties of True Grit or follow the allegory of Animal Farm. Heck, on a good day I kinda get Shakespeare’s wordplay – from sheer years of exposure and repetition if nothing else.

But they walk in cold, and often against their will. Even if they’ve read books before, they’re confronted with new varieties not following the rules of all that’s gone before. It’s easy to become annoyed, or lost, or simply apathetic as they have less and less idea what’s going on or what’s expected of them. They’ve never been asked to see people as countries or elements of human nature or wonder why pigs would be in charge and want so badly to claim they’ve built a successful windmill even if they haven’t. Take away context, prior knowledge, and intrinsic motivation, and how great is YOUR favorite poem, novel, or short story?

Exactly.

I’m glad I watched some Hetalia. I don’t know if I love it, but I ‘get it’ enough to at least enjoy it. Totally worth it the first time I brought it up and was able to talk about it with minimal competence to the student whose enthusiasm first sucked me in. I was able to confess my confusion while still offering her enough feedback to clearly demonstrate I’d invested myself into something important to her, then gladly let her explain the parts on which I was still a bit unclear.

What Hetalia are you assigning to your kids, perhaps with increased frustration they’re not naturally engaged masters of the form? And what Hetalia are you taking on in order to better glimpse their equally rich and valuable worlds?

What’s that? Just one more? OK – if you insist…

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Teachers Are Weird

October 7, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

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It should probably come as no surprise that most teachers are a little weird.

We work for relatively little money in a sporadic and unpredictable flux of appreciation and condemnation, trying to teach Enlightenment values and curriculum to youngsters who rarely seek or appreciate the knowledge we impart – and we LIKE it.

It’s unusual to find a particularly gifted teacher who isn’t noticeably dysfunctional in some essentially related way. Many of the best supplement their sincere drive to reach broken children and save academic souls with a desperate inner need to prove to their own doubts and insecurities that they are, in fact, tolerably swell at this intellectual (and yet holy) calling. Recurring bouts with self-loathing make bountiful fuel for late-night lesson planning and weekend grading marathons, and there’s nothing like constant second-guessing of oneself to promote patience and flexibility with all sorts of teen falderal.

Similar irrationalities lead many of us into an unspoken conviction that not only are we humble martyrs taking a bludgeoning for the future, but that in so doing we’re making a daily decision to refute the sorts of lofty, respected, and embarrassingly profitable gigs to which lesser beings have succumbed. As if at any moment, we could in a moment of weakness or rebellion cast off our dry-erase markers and group discussion rubrics and take up that executive position at Microsoft, accept that endowed chair at Cambridge, or go on that book tour for the novel we’ve so selflessly never gotten around to writing.

But no! Instead, today we will again set all of that aside to TEACH!

What? Oh, er… And to monitor at the pep assembly! And collect those home language surveys the state requires of the SAME families every year as if they’ll get tricky one day and switch up their home language just to screw with us!

We vent endlessly about the attitudes of our students, the blind bureaucracy of our superiors, and the suffocating pampering of parents determined to permanently cripple their young, then get giddy when struck by some odd new idea how we might better connect with that weird kid who we’re pretty sure keeps writing “c***sucker” on our mouse pad.

We condemn pointless torture of children over minutiae when the state requires it, but take great pride in not letting them go pee for asking ‘can I’ instead of ‘may I’. In the first case we’re defending their right to grow up at their own pace and find their own way towards becoming their own unique person; in the second we’re holding the line because there are proper ways to say and do things and they just need to learn dammit.

Our intentions are noble both times.

We’re endlessly committed to the emotional and intellectual growth of young people we didn’t raise, can’t realistically control, and with whom we cannot ethically or legally mingle beyond the confines of school functions. We derive immense satisfaction and fulfillment from relationships in which strong, clear boundaries are the defining, terrifying feature, and in which any realization we ‘need it’ or even ‘like it’ casts immediate aspersions on our motivations, maturity, and emotional health.

We resent criticism from the community, reject the faux-accountability efforts of lawmakers, and bristle at student complaints regarding our pedagogy or expectations, then fill Twitter and our edu-blogs with condemnations of anyone doing things differently than us, lamenting their lack of accountability, and figuring if they had merit at all, their students would seem much happier and self-motivated.

We clamor to be treated like professionals but deluge our administrators with dilemmas and complaints better suited for kindergarten playgrounds. We retweet clever graphics proving we all work 120-150 hours a week and if we were paid babysitter’s wages we’d be millionaires, then take eleven ‘mental health days’ a semester without leaving sub plans – all with far less guilt than when the new lesson we tried didn’t go as well first period as it did third period after we changed that one part and why-does-first-hour-always-get-shortchanged-I-suck-so-bad…

If we do our job well, most of our kids will cease to need us at all. If we’re especially successful in our efforts outside of class, our profession will rapidly cease looking like anything currently familiar. A real burst of progress could render us suddenly obsolete. But not really. Well, maybe. Oh god, could it, you think?

It’s bizarre if we think about it too closely, so we don’t. Teachers tend to drink a great deal, or binge-watch trashy TV shows.

Our coaches spend an additional 173 hours a week coaxing a hundred kids at a time to at least break a sweat in their quest to become the next Lebron James or the new Tom Brady.

They drive team busses to towns with names like “Crack’s Flat” and upon returning watch hours of game film – GAME FILM – of bewildered 13-year olds running around butchering the holy name of football. They referee little league games throughout 108 degree weekends so their OWN kids can play – adding these proceeds to the eleven cents an hour windfall they enjoy for coaching.

A select few educators decide that even the occasional moments of enlightenment or rapport shared with their students is simply too much fulfillment for one individual to deserve, and nail themselves to the absurdity-laden cross of a degree in public school administration. This allows them to deal almost exclusively with the worst-behaved, highest maintenance elements of the school population – after which they try to fit in STUDENT discipline issues as well.

They commit themselves to innumerable evening activities and a steady stream of only those parents unhappy enough to call THEM instead of whichever teacher is ruining their child for life THIS time. They sacrifice any remaining energy enduring interminable meetings with folks carrying longer titles but much shorter job descriptions, then hurry back to catch that one long-term sub and explain yet again why the lesson plans the pregnant teacher left really ARE a pretty good idea to follow – or at least try – please just this once – oh god don’t make me find yet another warm body…

For this we rebrand them as ‘Instructional Leaders’ without the slightest intention of cruel irony. They let it slide because they know someone has to throw themselves into the barrage if their teachers and students are to have the slightest chance.

And they do. God bless them, the good ones do.

So yeah, we get a little too anal about following the rules exactly during our Academic Team competitions, and the signs we make for our annual protests get a little snarky and rely too heavily on lame puns. We tend to get homely and fat and careless about proper hair care, and we chant and cheer for the most awkward things – often badly.

We’re cynical and bitter, but still ‘retweet’ and ‘share’ sappy motivational edu-memes much too freely. Waaayyyyy too many of us are still excited by the idea of test reviews via Jeopardy on the Smartboard or playing that Billy Joel song about not lighting Marilyn Monroe on fire.

We’ll trade our biological young for free notepads, and we grab extras we don’t even need, telling ourselves they’re in some way ‘for the children’.

We always want donuts.

You’ll have no trouble finding far less needy, frustrating, bewildering adults in the professional realm, should you wish to look. But they won’t be lined up at your door, clamoring to teach.

Because teachers are weird.

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Learning R.E.M.

September 15, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

I had a rather sheltered childhood.

I grew up listening to K-Tel Goofy Greats and Wacky Westerns albums, along with a few Kristy & Jimmy McNichol records and a rather extensive Osmonds collection. For me, “Crazy Horses” was just about as intense as it got. *weeooowwwww* *weeooowwwww*

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Eventually, in a period of angsty rebellion, I turned to local rock radio and discovered Supertramp, Foreigner, and Fleetwood Mac. Once again, I thought I’d peaked in ‘whoah.’ I owned Pink Floyd’s The Wall on vinyl, cassette, and 8-track; to this day can probably sing every line, badly and melodramatically, while waiting for the worms to come.

When the 80’s struck, music got weird. Driving around hearing “Safety Dance” and “She Blinded Me With Science” proved beyond any doubt I lived in an age of wonders and limitless possibilities. MTV introduced me to The Cure, Hunters & Collectors, The Bolshoi, and Mojo Nixon. I was as alternative as an immature, overly-sheltered geek could be without leaving his bedroom in the days before internet.

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And then I met Sandra. We worked part-time at the same department store, although she sold ladies’ undergarments while I vacuumed and emptied trash. Sandra was the single coolest most knowledgeable underground alterna-chick I’d ever seen. I wanted more than anything to have some sort of cred with her.

She’d lived on her own for years and frequented the local music scene, while I lived at home and practiced the bass. When she asked what kind of music I liked, I took it as the highest form flattery and perhaps – oh hell, was this some sort of test? An initiation ritual?!

“Um… the Go-Gos, I guess…” (I knew a total of two Go-Gos songs, which I did genuinely like. Mostly, though, they were an all-girl group – not so common then – and I was playing the odds this might work in my favor.)

“Yeah!” she said with what seemed to be not-entirely-forced enthusiasm. “I loved them before they were signed. Have you heard their indie stuff?”

I didn’t know there was ‘indie stuff’.

I later learned that while in this case Sandra was being completely sincere, this basic assertion was a great fallback for discussing any artist in mixed company…

“So, you into Death Cab For Cutie?”
“Sure – although I loved their early stuff better.”

This could be varied in intensity, depending on what you were going for…

“You like Cold War Kids?”
“Yeah, but they were so much better before the big record deal. Have you heard their indie stuff?”

Or, if you’re feeling particularly feisty…

“Have you heard the latest One Direction?”
“Bah. They were better before they sold out to the machine and signed with that big label. Their indie stuff was awesome.”

Ultimate dis. Automatic indie music cred.

Sandra’s favorite band was, she insisted, The. Best. Band. Ever. OhmygodseriouslyhowcanyounotLOVEthem?!

Also known as R.E.M.

Needless to say, it was off to the local record store to grab some new cassettes. Life’s Rich Pageant and Fables of the Reconstruction played in my car for two days straight. I was committed.

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The problem was… I didn’t get it.

At all.

I didn’t hate it – but I didn’t really understand this… this… strange new music.

The lyrics never seemed to actually MEAN anything, even on those rare occasions I could tell what the hell Michael Stipe was singing. And I was COMPLETELY lost as to what they were going for musically. I didn’t… I mean… it’s just…

I didn’t really like it very much.

At the same time, I’d never had anyone so worldly, so knowledgeable, so damn cool, take a real interest in my thoughts and opinions about ANY music before. Even my guitar teacher when I was a kid shook his head in patient dismay every time I’d bring a recording of some Shaun Cassidy tune I wanted to learn – and my parents were PAYING him to like me.

So I listened, and I tried to ‘get it’. Enough to say something intelligent about it to Sandra, at least.

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Eventually I realized there were tracks I liked more than others. I came to accept that they called on a ridiculous variety of emotions, conveyed by strings of words I didn’t fully understand on a literal level – and that this was all apparently quite intentional.

Go figure.

And I remember when it registered that some of the most intense tracks were, well… slow. And pretty. But NOT ballads. I didn’t know that was even possible. I thought “slow and pretty” equaled “ballad” by definition. But not here. Not these.

R.E.M. was writing about strangely familiar experiences in enigmatic ways and with a more complex humanity than I was prepared to understand. They used their words and their instruments very differently from either ‘classic rock’ OR the Osmonds, and it wasn’t easy to get my brain around.

Partly I simply lacked the exposure and intellect to be easily reached by their art; mostly I lacked the motivation – until other considerations nudged me through.

I don’t know when it stopped being for Sandra and started being because I genuinely loved it, but it happened. By the time R.E.M. was scoring radio time and having ‘hits’, I was almost developed enough to be mildly disappointed they’d be remembered for “The One I Love” rather than, you know – the cool stuff.

“R.E.M.? Yeah, ‘Stand’ is catchy… fun video – but I really like their older material, before they got popular…”

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There’s nothing wrong with choice, or some degree of autonomy, even for the young and uninformed. And, to be fair, those of us in academia have a reputation for sometimes being a bit… elitist about the things we think are important and the knowledge we consider, well… legit.

Valuable.

Essential.

Worthy.

But even setting pretense aside, SOME STUFF IS BETTER THAN OTHER STUFF. We can debate specifics, but the idea that some history is more essential than other history, some science more useful than other science, etc., isn’t so very controversial, is it?

You’re welcome to enjoy Twilight, but it’s not great literature. Lord of the Flies IS, even if you don’t fully ‘get it’ or like it right away. The History of Alien Sex-Abduction may be a legitimate topic to pursue, but with all due respect to the History Channel, a basic understanding of the Progressive Era is probably a better use of time and resources. Even math is –

Well, I’m sure math is good, too. Right?

How #amazeballs would it be if we could be Sandras? Validate our students’ understanding of the world, accept their paradigms regarding what is or isn’t worth knowing about it, or pursuing in it, and yet… find non-punitive ways to woo them towards parts of OUR canon as well? The stuff WE KNOW is… bigger? Valuable? Essential? Worthy?

They may need help learning the language of new subjects, the logic of new ideas, but they’re quite capable. I’d like to think they may occasionally discover they like some of it – maybe even want more.

First, though, we must somehow earn their interest – to persuade them it’s worth the struggle. We must give them a reason to try our R.E.M. – whatever that may be.

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A Pre-AP Mindset

August 10, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

I considered breaking this post into two parts – the first full of disclaimers regarding my lack of standing to officially throw around terms like “AP” or “Pre-AP”, and the second to say whatever it is I’m about to say.

I’ve opted to go a bit more basic, but you’ll have to take my word for it that nothing I say here reflects official anything. I’m a fan of the College Board (yeah, yeah – big picture, folks), but I certainly don’t speak for them, or anyone else for that matter.

I teach what we in these parts call “Pre-AP” History. My region’s use of the term this way is tolerated but not encouraged by the folks who own the copyright. For those of you unfamiliar with Pre-AP, the official definition can be found at http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/preap/220773.html.

I’d like to talk unofficially, however, about Pre-AP mindset. About approach. Maybe even grit.

I don’t mean the students’; I mean the teachers’.

See, in my part of the country, you commonly find Pre-AP classes offered in core subjects as early as 6th or 7th grade. They fade when actual AP classes become an option, generally around 10th grade. These Pre-AP classes logistically replace ‘Honors’ or ‘Gifted & Talented’, but the goals and strategies are substantially different. Or, at least… they should be.

This is where I may get a bit preachy.

It’s the time of year when rosters are being created and teachers are finding out which of their classes will be huge this year and which merely large. It’s when teachers from the 7th grade offer to fill in teachers from the 8th grade on ‘certain’ kids, and teachers from the 8th offer to do so for the 9th.

You see the pattern.

I can’t think of anything more horrifying than going into a brand new year with new students and pre-labeling them based on choices they made with an entirely different teacher a full 8% of their lifetime ago.

Wait – actually, I can. It’s a similar conversation that goes on throughout the school year. My apologies to those I may offend, but it’s one that turns my stomach. Sometimes it just pisses me off.

“This kid just shouldn’t be in Pre-AP.”
“Half these kids are only in here because their mommies want them to be around the ‘good kids’, not because they belong.”
“I’m sure she’s trying, but she’s just not Pre-AP material.”

My favorite are the tones of voice when someone’s complaining about their district’s “open enrollment” policies –

“All they have to do to take Pre-AP is just sign up, or Mom or Dad puts them in! That’s IT – no matter whether they’re ready or not!”

I certainly understand how difficult it is to lead a class through an advanced curriculum and facilitate higher level thinking skills when some members of that class lack the knowledge, know-how, or mindset to follow along. Since time immemorial, teachers have been fighting the sand trap of ‘teaching to the middle’ – losing the low, boring the high, dragging half the middle bravely towards adequacy.

It’s not really what we signed up for.

But think about what we’re saying when we utter these words. We’re labeling young people in our care – in our GRASP – as fundamentally flawed, as less-than. We’re condemning them for not arriving ready to successfully leave our class and move on. We’re judging 13-year old students for their background, their knowledge base, and their maturity.

We’re going to go to Teacher Hell for that sort of thinking. I’m serious.

OMG, this new 9th grader isn’t a good student? He’s not READY for advanced coursework? He’s not any GOOD at playing school? He’s immature, or ignorant, or annoying?

THAT’S WHY WE MAKE THEM COME TO SCHOOL.

Of course they’re clueless. If they were mature and capable they could stay home and take this stuff online, save the district zillions of dollars. If they were ‘ready’ for advanced coursework we could simply promote them up a grade or two and let them get on it.

But we drag their sorry behinds through the door as best we can in the hopes that YOU can cajole them. Inspire them. Trigger them. Reach them. Lift them up. And – check THIS out – some of them, for whatever reason, have landed in your PRE-AP SECTION(S)! That means they, or someone in their world, have given you the green light to stretch and inspire and challenge them well beyond whatever you manage in your ‘regular’ classes!

It means you have permission to treat them like they’re smart. Like they have potential. Like they have value.

I realize that a lazy student may fail in Pre-AP, but… won’t they fail in a ‘regular’ class also? Do we HAVE a level of class in which you don’t particularly have to do anything? If so, we have a much bigger problem – we’ll still end up in Teacher Hell, but for very different reasons.

Pre-AP is a chance to find that spark, to focus on it and stir it up, in kids who may not understand what it means to play ‘smart.’ It’s an excuse to set aside some of the state standards over trout fishing and Reba McEntire to instead push our little darlings to think, and to ask questions, and to wrestle with point-of-view or how to write an effective argument.

Pre-AP is not about screening out kids from AP a few years earlier than otherwise; it’s about recruiting those who might never see themselves as AP material to begin with.

Yes, that’s more work. It’s frustrating and it’s not fair. Welcome to public education – have you been here long?

There are arguments to be made for why AP itself must maintain a certain inflexibility. And we MUST wrestle with how to avoid yet again neglecting our top academic students as we spend all of our time and resources on those less willing or prepared. I realize that what I’m advocating is not so simple as a group hug and a rousing speech about equity.

But I’ll risk a few more rainbows and unicorns to shout from this particular soapbox one more time.

If you’re “tracking” kids based on their school performance before the age of 16, you’re doing it wrong. If you’re decreeing what they are and aren’t capable of based on their maturity and mindset as of 13, that’s just ignorant.

You might as well visit new parents in the district and critique the value of their homes, check their tax statements, and ask how likely they are to divorce in the next decade. You can tattoo the child’s forehead based on that.

Hell, skip that and let’s just assign coursework based on ZIP Code. It would certainly save some hand-wringing.

Or, we can see every kid in front of us, in whatever level of class, as having possibility. If discipline becomes an issue, deal with discipline. If prior coursework is essential, work it out. And if they’re just hopelessly stupid, well… that may prove tricky.

But let’s not get our panties in such an ongoing wad because too many hungry people keep showing up at the restaurant without their own silverware, or too many sinners keep taking up valuable pew space at church. Let’s consider being glad they’re there at all, and start figuring out how to justify their presence by what we can DO starting NOW rather than how to dispose of them based on our convenience or whatever’s gone on in their worlds before.

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