Taking Your Deads
When I was a kid we created all sorts of imaginary violence: cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, heroes and villains. The #1 rule was Take Your Deads. If somebody killed you, you had to lie down. It wasn't fair to holler, "You missed me" or "It's just a flesh wound." (That was the BMP Era: Before Monty Python) But it seems to me that many people these days don't take their deads when it comes to education. When caught without the necessary skills, they say, "They missed me" or "They didn't do it right." In other words, "I don't have to take responsibility, I can keep playing."
A recent discussion on DorothyL is on the educational system, with some emphasis on English classes. Being a retired English teacher, I understand all the arguments people make: some teachers don't care, many students emerge from high school lacking skills or even competence with language, and schools look the other way. It may be true, but students everywhere, Take Your Deads. If you didn't care, if you didn't try, if you didn't learn, it's your fault. Not the school. Not the teacher. Not your parents or the school board or the Lunch Lady. Yours.
Too often we take the notion that students are little empty vessels ready to be filled with knowledge through the magic of wonderful teachers in a stimulating environment. No. They are human beings with likes and dislikes, able to choose whether they will cooperate. And they often don't. Even in the most stimulating environment, some students don't learn. Due to home life, due to learning problems, due to attitude, whatever. They don't. Even in the most unstimulating environments, some students do learn. Same factors? Doesn't matter. They do.
I once knew an administrator forced by budget constraints to return to the classroom one hour/day. He was going to show the rest of us on staff that every student matters and can be reached by the right methods. He had a boy in his class who had normal intelligence but refused to put anything on paper. I watched for weeks and months as that administrator tried everything he could think of to get the boy interested. Nothing. In the end he gave up, and the kid sat at the back of the room, not interfering with the class but totally separate from it. Stimulating, caring teacher, one-on-one attention, personalized instruction. No response. His choice.
There's no counting the times students told me that they'd never before heard of some concept, whether it was nouns or onomatopoeia or the five-paragraph essay. I might have fallen into that trap had I not taught ninth grade my first year and then moved to tenth grade in my second. They would claim they'd never heard of it when I knew I had taught it myself. So it wasn't stimulating enough? Maybe. Or maybe it didn't matter in their lives right then to know the difference between "sit" and "set." I can't change the fact that education only matters later on, when you need to show you've got it. Their choice.
So am I excusing poor schools or poor teaching? No. I hated the bad teachers and I hate some of the policies that make it more difficult to help students. But don't let the student off the hook. Another teacher friend had a student who seemed unable to do math. Being a great teacher, she took him aside and began working with him one-on-one. He still said he couldn't do it. Finally she said, "I don't understand why you say that. I can tell you understand what we're talking about, but you say you can't do the problems?"
In a moment of total candor the kid said to her, "If I do these problems, you'll just give me more to do." His choice, but will he tell the world forevermore that the school system failed him? Probably. It's easier than taking your deads.
A recent discussion on DorothyL is on the educational system, with some emphasis on English classes. Being a retired English teacher, I understand all the arguments people make: some teachers don't care, many students emerge from high school lacking skills or even competence with language, and schools look the other way. It may be true, but students everywhere, Take Your Deads. If you didn't care, if you didn't try, if you didn't learn, it's your fault. Not the school. Not the teacher. Not your parents or the school board or the Lunch Lady. Yours.
Too often we take the notion that students are little empty vessels ready to be filled with knowledge through the magic of wonderful teachers in a stimulating environment. No. They are human beings with likes and dislikes, able to choose whether they will cooperate. And they often don't. Even in the most stimulating environment, some students don't learn. Due to home life, due to learning problems, due to attitude, whatever. They don't. Even in the most unstimulating environments, some students do learn. Same factors? Doesn't matter. They do.
I once knew an administrator forced by budget constraints to return to the classroom one hour/day. He was going to show the rest of us on staff that every student matters and can be reached by the right methods. He had a boy in his class who had normal intelligence but refused to put anything on paper. I watched for weeks and months as that administrator tried everything he could think of to get the boy interested. Nothing. In the end he gave up, and the kid sat at the back of the room, not interfering with the class but totally separate from it. Stimulating, caring teacher, one-on-one attention, personalized instruction. No response. His choice.
There's no counting the times students told me that they'd never before heard of some concept, whether it was nouns or onomatopoeia or the five-paragraph essay. I might have fallen into that trap had I not taught ninth grade my first year and then moved to tenth grade in my second. They would claim they'd never heard of it when I knew I had taught it myself. So it wasn't stimulating enough? Maybe. Or maybe it didn't matter in their lives right then to know the difference between "sit" and "set." I can't change the fact that education only matters later on, when you need to show you've got it. Their choice.
So am I excusing poor schools or poor teaching? No. I hated the bad teachers and I hate some of the policies that make it more difficult to help students. But don't let the student off the hook. Another teacher friend had a student who seemed unable to do math. Being a great teacher, she took him aside and began working with him one-on-one. He still said he couldn't do it. Finally she said, "I don't understand why you say that. I can tell you understand what we're talking about, but you say you can't do the problems?"
In a moment of total candor the kid said to her, "If I do these problems, you'll just give me more to do." His choice, but will he tell the world forevermore that the school system failed him? Probably. It's easier than taking your deads.
Views: 17
Comment
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Comment by Peg Herring on June 25, 2008 at 5:32am
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You both make great points, and it's obvious you've been there. I was lucky to teach in a small school, and I can't agree more that knowing everyone is a benefit. I used to have parents tell their kids, "I went to high school with Mrs. Herring, and I know she wouldn't say/do that." (Of course, later on it was, "I had Mrs. Herring for a teacher twenty years ago, and she wouldn't say/do that.") Administrators know the teachers, the kids, and most of the parents. They help poor teachers get better when possible. For instance I've been hired to observe teachers who were struggling and advise them (if they'll listen) as to what might make them successful. So yes, small is better, but even in a small school, and I'm talking less than 300 students, some are not interested in getting an education.
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Comment by robert walker on June 25, 2008 at 3:25am
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Like the war or all wars, education should not be run by politics and politicians but unfortunately it is. Educators haven't a chance. Real educators, innovative ones. Ever notice in all the films about teachers who truly reach students that they always get fired in the end? Allllll but Mr. Chips. If it's Nick Nolte, Sydney Poitier, or Robin Williams they are going to butt heads with administrators and typically lose. Poitier's character stayed on but I wonder for how long in the face of the pessimism of the administration.
Rob
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Comment by Larry W. Chavis on June 25, 2008 at 2:53am
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Peg,
To quote Rob, "right on." I currently teach high school physics and mathematics. In my algebra classes, I get students who can't even add simple fractions. With one voice they all claim, "We've never seen this before." True? Not likely. They - just - don't - care.
Rob, you hit on something that ought to be common sense (which of course bans it from the thoughts of the educational administrators), and that is that not everyone is suited for or wants to become a literary critic, a mathematician, or a scientist. Somehow, we have imbibed the notion that every student must be college-bound, when there are still those who want to take a different track. Why should they be forced into a college-prep curriculum? Makes things frustrating, to say the very least.
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Peg, right on. I agree with all you say here, but I also believe we adults have created bad environments, especially the MALL-sized schools almost every state and county system has created. I have worked in both small schools and large, and when every freshman is known by every senior and visa versa, there are far, far fewer problems in the hallways, the lunch room, and the class room. I belive as you obviously do that "When the student is READY, the master will appear." However, I also believe our school systems which do not encourage a kid's interest and passion but the current trends that say every student MUST be force-fed this reading list that includes teen boys reading Pride and Prejudice or The Scarlet Letter or saying that every kid MUST learn Algebra --well not evey kid is wired to like, enjoy, or get certain materials that are mandated from on high. History for instance. In my high school, we had to cover every event in American history and world history, and we had to take four years of history rather than learn how to do research so that when an adult we could penetrate any historical moment having learned to find, discover, and read about a single historical moment. At any rate, I always took "my deads" even as a kid, but also as a kid, recalling my speech as the president of my class I felt the school had failed me and others on many fronts. For instance, our school newspaper was shut down because of our exercising freedom of speech.
Rob Walker
www.robertwalkerbooks.com
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