STOP DOING THAT TO ME

Well, I am halfway through my 25th year of teaching school.  Halfway through what has been one of the most difficult years I have encountered as a teacher.  I have often said that "when I stop learning, I'll stop teaching".  Unfortunately, in this case, what I am learning is troubling.

I teach Television Production and Broadcast Journalism.  This year I added two units of Career Preparedness.   I keep one period of ISS (In School Supervision/Suspension).  I learn something new everyday.  Some useful, some enlightening, some inspiring. However, often it is depressing, aggravating, maddening.

Our educational system in this country is much like our political system.  The rich will be just fine. The very poor will be provided for by a certain amount of government programs and the truly middle class will be left to fight it out among themselves.   

In education, the bright, achievers will be just fine.  The really struggling students will be assisted by IEPs and 504 plans and the average student is pretty much left to figure it out on their own.

This is not about getting help to those who need it.  I am very much in favor of those programs; whether they be socially or educationally.  But what this is about is the unwillingness of those in the middle to help themselves.

There is is a fear that our society has created.  It is the fear of failure or even worse, perceived failure. So, often instead of trying and failing, many won't try at all. 

I shared on Facebook recently an article in The Atlantic that touched on this very same thing.

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/08/when-success-leads-to-failure/400925/

The author of the article, Jessica Lahey, makes the point that the pressure of achieving is robbing students of the fun of learning.   I agree with most everything she writes in this article, however, I think there is more to it. It is that some just don't want to learn.  It is not a fear of failing, it is a fear of learning, having to work, having to actually think!

Countless times, this year alone, I have called on students in class with the easiest of questions; only to have the response be "I don't know".  It is not that they don't know, it is that they just don't want to engage their brain to actually try to deduce a reply.  This happens even when I ask a student their opinion; where there is no right or wrong answer.  "I don't know".  I don't know is code for "Stop calling on me." "Stop picking on me"  "Stop doing that to me."

See, here in lies the problem. Many of my students and the students of my colleagues treat education/learning as something we are doing TO them and not something we are doing FOR them! What they and many parents are really seeking is not knowledge, but a grade, a certificate, an honor, a trophy.  It doesn't matter if they learn anything as long as their GPA is not affected. And some could care less about that. Some are only concerned about passing. 

Some in the political arena want to have merit based pay for teachers based on standardized test scores. Give me a break!  Just as the rich/smart, very poor/special needs people get what they need...so does the teacher of upper level classes.  When you teach an AP or IB student, more often than not, you have the cream of the crop in your classroom.  Great students can make a mediocre teachers look outstanding! In reality, shouldn't our very best teachers be teaching the most challenging students?   And I mean challenging from both an educational and disciplinary standpoint.  Then again, perhaps they are. Maybe those teachers should be making more if we put in merit pay.  

But I do take the successes of  my students personally.  If a student has a low grade or fails my class I feel as if I have failed.  I have failed to present the material adequately, appropriately, entertainingly enough.  I feel that it is a reflection on my ability to teach. Is it me or is it them?

One saving grace is those who thrive and succeed and become passionate about learning. Thank God there are success stories!  There are students who light up the room when they enter.  There are students that say "thank you" and are respectful. There are students that are well-behaved and polite.  There are students who want to learn.

Because of them I continue to learn some good lessons. That is why, once this Christmas/holiday break is over I will return to my classroom and will continue to try to do something for them and not to them. 

Thanks for reading.

Jeff

WAS IT IN THE STARS?

I wrote this blog the day after the election.  Now, one day after the Electoral College has officially made Donald J Trump the 45th President of the United States, I feel just as strongly as I did back then. 

How do you blog when you are speechless, without words, dumbstruck?  That is the task I find myself in as I try to sort out how and what I feel about the Presidential election.

 I will not walk away from the fact that I voted for Hillary Clinton. So did 65.4 million other people vs. 62.9 million.*  I will not couch my vote as voting for the lesser of two evils. I will not shrink from the fact that I grew up in a lower-middle class, blue collar, labor union family that backed, supported and voted democratic the whole time I was under my parents roof and beyond. For me, the positives of a Clinton Presidency outweighed Donald Trump's.   Does that make me a "flaming liberal" or a full-throated supporter of Hillary?  Hardly!

Donald Trump won the electoral college vote.  Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.  We are truly a nation divided; more divided than at any time in my life. I don't think Mr. Trump did anything to help that divide during his campaign. He tore through the primaries with brashness and bluster, leaving his challengers in a wake of personal insult and attacks. He conducted himself as a spoiled brat; the little rich kid that did what he wanted and said what he wanted...no matter if it was truthful or appropriate or not.  He carried that same arrogance and willingness to distort facts into the general election.

The man is amazing.  He could be shown a clip of him saying something and then turn around and deny he said it.  And his supporters didn't seem to care.  "He tells it like it is", they would say.

I recently posted on Facebook that the healing has to begin and posed the question whether we would be part of the problem or part of the solution.  Personally, I would like to be part of the solution but first I need to get some things off my chest.

The fact that Donald Trump will be the 45th President of the United States disturbs me less than the tactics in which he got there.  After all the fear, anger and hate speak spewed from this man, he now wants us to all hold hands and sing Kumbaya.  Now that he has won, he now wants to unite us.  Now that the vote has come out in his favor there is no more talk of rigged elections.  Now that he is the President-Elect everyone is supposed to fall in line behind our leader!  But wait, remember what Republicans said when Barrack Obama was elected to his first term?  Essentially they said we will do everything in our power to destroy his presidency!  We will make sure that he doesn't get a second term!

Fast forward to 2016. Did you hear that from Hillary Clinton today in her concession speech?  Did you hear that from President Obama?  No, of course not.  Any reasonable person understands that if Trump fails...we all fail.  Do we really want to perform surgery on ourselves with a rusty scalpel?  We are a nation of self-inflicted wounds! Yet, for some, any Obama defeat was victory to them.

I have heard stories from my teaching colleagues today of  Muslim and Hispanic students coming to school frightened for what the future holds for them, their friends and their families. I have read posts from mothers and fathers struggling with how to tell their children the news of  the results.  I have learned of high school students sobbing out of concern for what might happen to the groups of people that Mr. Trump singled out, attacked and/or vilified.
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There are also those attempting to wave the constitution as a reason for not panicking. "The will of the people."  I understand that.  We live in the greatest democracy of all-time.  Yes, our country will survive; but what will it look like? This is my greatest concern about this election!

We have taught our children that the ends do justify the means. We have made it acceptable to make everything about self.  We have given the green light to brag on ourselves ceaselessly, We never have to show humility because we have the "best words" the "best ideas",  we can cast guilt and doubt by innuendo, We  can say anything we want to get anything we want.  We can step on, frighten, bully and intimidate because that is what it takes to get ahead.  We never have to say I am sorry...and mean it.  Is this really the message we want to send to our kids, our country, the world?

But the die has been cast.  I am humbly reminded that the other half of the electorate, those who are celebrating a Trump victory, feared the future on a Clinton White House.  Many of these people are my friends.  Some are family. So where do we go from here?

We can disagree and still respect.  We can debate and not demean.  We can have dissent without dissension.  Fear is never a good thing and much of the opinion on both sides of this campaign spawned out of fear of the unknown.  Some was based on fearing what we have seen.  Others fear what they convinced themselves would happen.

Now we wait.  We pray.  We hope.  We love.  And we must look inwardly and reflect on what we have become.

We could point fingers.  We could place blame.  Or we can take responsibility.  How did we get here? Perhaps Shakespeare said it best,   "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves,..."

*this information from the Cook Political Report was not part of the original blog.