Another week down at Institute, with only about a week and a half remaining to somehow be placed on the right path to becoming a “highly qualified” teacher. Now, while the amount of learning here has progressed at an amazing pace — even exponential — I don’t know how I could catch up to the level expected of effective classroom skills. However, there have been some amazing (and funny) moments over the past week. When the light comes on for a student, when a student delivers exactly as you had hoped, or begins to take ownership of their classroom it’s a thing to behold.
I encourage you to check out the WordPress of a fellow corps member, Ms. D’Cruz as she’s known in the classroom, for these great insights into the classroom and school.
My theme today, however, is a more skeptical view of some of the assumptions or thinking traps made within education, to contrast with the view I took last week about the hidden issues to people who do not have even the smallest two week exposure to urban public education Institute has afforded us. There are three of these thinking traps I’ve begun to see in the way we perceive our students and their performance; assigning causes to behavior or too often listening to what we need in the classroom as teachers instead of what students need to be successful.
The “Easy” Classroom Trap: Over the past week we have seen a lot of attrition from students who could be considered the behavioral cases at the middle school where we teach. Unbeknownst to Teach For America teachers, the Atlanta Public Schools policies on suspensions and expulsions can take effect quickly and unexpectedly. This week at least four students in my class of 25 were released for the rest of summer school. On Friday, police came to the school to arrest a 13-year-old student on felony arson charges for detonating a smokebomb in the school bathroom on Thursday.
It’s a trap, then, for teachers to want the “easy” classroom without the “hard” students. However, the easier classroom actually presents less of an opportunity rather than more to have a transformational impact on the lives of students. Those who most frequently are removed from school (and perhaps join the school-to-prison pipeline) are the ones who most need to be in school. For while the content in the classroom is important, the growth and values shared with students are the truer measure of impact.
The Students Deserve More Trap: The classes in summer school are largely composed of students who have not passed a section of their standardized Georgia tests — either math or language arts — and must retake the test over the summer term to be able to advance to the next grade. Consequently, most students come in (minus extenuating circumstances which prevented their passing the tests) needing a lot of remediation and academic intervention. Their very low reading levels and struggles in classroom participation do not mean they are bad students or unwilling to learn, and there are in fact ways to break the little locks which they keep across the gates of their engagement and interest in the classroom.
Yet one solution to breaking these locks is most certainly not the short-term route of giving students falsely high scores on their assessments and/or crafting easier assessments to give them the false impression of success. I have found myself succumbing too often and trying to give students the quick boost of a 100% score. Not showing students the work they must complete to be successful and create a sense of urgency could have the side effect of slowing their progress toward these objectives.
The Parent Trap: No, this is in no way related to our beloved movies of the past, but the relationship parents can have with their students. We have been taught a very linear correspondence between increased contact with parents and “influencers” on the lives of children and the investment the students feel in the classroom. The logic goes students have constructive relationships when they are present and are in agreement or at least compliance with these influences. However, the assumptions prove false in some cases: this week I called a mother of a student who upon learning he had been absent the previous several days threatened to harm him or send him to his abusive father if he did not go to school.
While I know and we have learned this week about the different communication codes between parents and children of different backgrounds, it is still important to note the teacher must be an advocate for the student and think about what is best for their psyche at all times in the classroom in becoming a more focused and motivated student. Calling parents may not always be the best solution, though it frequently is a good one.
These three traps have all cropped up in different ways for me, and can carry me down an untested way of thinking as surely as the Chattahootchee River pictured above can pull you down on a canoe. I’d rather like to think of what I ought to do instead in terms of the old John Mayer song about coming to Georgia:
“Still “everything happens for a reason”
Is no reason not to ask myself
If I am living it right
Am I living it right?
Am I living it right?
Why Georgia, why?”
