I AM TIRED... SICK AND TIRED!

I have grown completely and utterly sick of hearing about a decline in academic standards and student work... that overused, over-abused and utterly false statement is something I simply cannot tolerate anymore. I just got sent e-mail to the author of the Concord Review to see if some of my students work could be published in his journal. I like the fact that the review is dedicated to students producing high level academic work and I really value his contribution to academics (clearly a BUT is coming); at the same time, on his blog he references a the "decline" in student work. Educators since Socrates have made this claim. I cannot speak to the reality of these words in any other classroom or at any other period in history but I can say that my students do more work at a much, much, much (muchness anyone) higher level than I EVER did in high school and quite frankly at many times in college. I can say that half the courses I took in college had required reading (but did not require that you read it), had one major written work (if you can call 5 pages major) and gave two to three tests based entirely on notes from lecture. These tests were the most academically challenging, as they required on the spot generation of blue book essays. Rarely was I presented with reviewed, academic journal articles or primary sources outside of those I used independently for term papers. Now, I had a great college experience and am by no means complaining; as difficulty goes, my college experience was far more academically challenging and engaging than my high school experience. I graduated a mere (can I still say mere 10 years later?) DECADE ago and can say with certainty that my students work harder, are more motivated and possess greater skills than I ever did. I have gone back and looked at high school writing that I produced via emails from my parents and you know what? My students are doing more and they are doing it better. I recall writing one or two three page, five paragraph papers in all of high school; I wrote one as a junior and one as a senior and only in English class. (How dare I write in History!) Our students are better than we were, do they need to get better? Yes. Do they need pushed to do so? Yes. Do they need encouragement to make it? Yes. But they are not falling behind, they are in the lead and as far as I can see, they are pulling away from the pack.

Extra sessions

I just decided in the past week to finally begin offering a extra sessions of my world history course for juniors before school. On Monday mornings we will be doing a more fun oriented set of projects focused on getting anyone behind caught up and giving motivation and further, less academic more "just for fun" type activities for those who just want to do the work. Right now we are working on lyrics for re-worded songs made to cover the history we have gone through in class. On Wednesdays we will be doing high level enrichment-- we will be focusing on a variety of reviewed scholarly journal articles. currently there are about 20 students signed up for the monday reviews and 30 signed up for wednesdays... If everyone shows that will require setting up a different room for the classes or multiple sessions. I cant wait to get this started. At this point, we can squeeze in an extra 24 full hrs of instruction before the end of the year.

Article reading

Students are currently reading an article put out by Montana State University's Department of Economics. The ARTICLE attempts to convey a cause and effect relationship between landforms, available crop production and levels of democracy. I see students sitting in a classroom in January taking on something written for an audience with reading skills and historical and economic awareness far beyond their own. This shows a level of motivation I could only dream of! So far 100% of students are taking it on and they are experiencing different levels of success. My developing readers are reading to pick out descriptions of Sparta and Athens. My proficient readers are trying to pick out how exactly the relationship between agriculture and government system occurs and my advanced readers are reading it from the economics standpoint can you understand the factors that drive this formula. I am quite happy with the way things are going.

Why I am not a deadline guy...

I hear quite often from teachers about how students just don't get their homework done. I completely agree with them. I think my homework is ridiculous - I mean, think about it, once or twice a week I ask them to do writings at home that go for a couple pages and must take quite a few of them two hours to get written. When they come back I would say that overnight homework assignments have a 50-70% completion rate. Today the over the holiday assignment is due and I believe it is pulling about a 60% completion rate. I will collect most of the leftovers tomorrow and will have to put in some serious legwork running down the last 3-4 of them over the next week.

Now, I am a monster for common ground. I completely understand and fully appreciate the views of colleagues who would argue that I make a bad problem worse. However, I also recognize the importance of getting work done. You see, students are kids, the ones I deal with are adolescents, and the nagging thing about adolescents is they are notorious for not being long term and big picture thinkers. They invariable will lack discipline on some level and have this tendency to do things that are contrary to their own self-interest. They have some growing up to do... literally! I guess I am just a believer that they will make mistakes and have to. Now, is that an excuse to not do work? NO! What I mean is that they will take zeros to avoid work. My system at least results in EVERYONE having to do the work. Is it flawed? Yes.

Why else Mr. Warner?

How about this one... 42.8% of our students qualify for free/reduced lunch. That means a strikingly high number of students are living in some form of poverty. If I were to list traits of people in poverty it would once again point to the tendency to not get work done when there are other forms of instant gratification available. As my father says, "It shows a lack of self-discipline." He is right. I need to work in their game because what we are doing is important. They need to do the work I assign because it is important... what is the alternative? Not doing it at all? Okay, then I give you a bad grade and you still don’t get it done. You perform worse on the exam, don't build any skills and perform worse on state testing... Clearly a recipe for success! How about your teacher chases you down and you do the work and yeah, it’s late, BUT it requires you to think critically, problem solve and learn. Now the exam comes and you do a little better.

I look at teaching like throwing a ladder down so someone can climb a tree. The ladder doesn’t start from the ground, you need to start from the top and work to the student. I build my goals first and then design my exam for the unit first. What goes on the test is what I want to be able to guarantee my students know. Then, I build assignments that fit the skills and knowledge necessary to pass the exam. Following this, lessons come out- the purpose of each lesson is to ensure students possess skills and knowledge to accomplish the assignments, which tier them to success on the exam. Am I teaching to my test? YES! I should be because the test matches my big ideas, state standards and my unit goals.

So… Is my class easy? I hope so… If you put in the legwork by doing the work right and doing it well, then you should learn. That is, if I am qualified to do my job… and I certainly hope I am.