Just Another Writer

Photo: plasticrevolver

When I was a kid, I lived in the country, and we had one television channel. I wasn’t allowed to watch most of what was on it, and as far as computers went, well, we had a Commodore. If you’ve never heard of that, then that means I’m older than you are.

To entertain myself, I would get magnets and go outside in the driveway to find asteroid dust. I didn’t know about iron being a component of rocks back then. There was also a game I would play with a friend which involved getting as close to the bull in the pasture as we could before he got mad, and then running away. We also would go to the town dump and pretend like we were the last survivors in an post-apocalyptic world.

I taught myself how to crochet and sew, and I read a lot. My mom taught me how to cook and gave me free reign in the kitchen.

My best friend and I invented green housing! We used to dig huge holes in the ground and dig tunnels (hallways) between them.

I’m remembering these things because yesterday, one of my students asked me to get him a book on origami.

“I decided to teach myself,” he said.

I responded with something nice and encouraging, I’m sure.

“I’m going to teach myself because that’s what people do when they’re in boring places like prison.” He looked at me, perhaps for a response to his comparing my classroom to a prison.

I told him I would get him the book, and I did. He has just finished a science fiction one, which he says is the first book he’s read since 8th grade. He’s a senior, and he does not have a reading disability. Blows my mind.

Sometimes I think sitting a cubicle in alternative school being bored is the best thing that can happen to some of these kids. It’s a chance for their creative side to reemerge. They become curious, and start asking questions that we can Google and find out the answers to. They ask to do art projects. They ask to learn how to sew. Two boys even wanted to learn how to crochet after they saw me doing it at lunch one day.

Kids really shouldn’t have to be in jail or an alternative school to become interested in learning, though. Just think about what would happen if we got rid of all of their forms of entertainment. I realize that Grand Theft Auto 4 is not going to go away, but what if households had a “no electronics” day every week when kids could become bored enough to find something to do? To create something? To become curious?

I think it could change the direction of the world, really.

Photo by: Life As Art

I knew I shouldn’t have written that post about how satisfied I’ve been with my job. It was inviting trouble as surely as moving to a Section 8 neighborhood will invite people to steal your television. Yes, lightning did indeed strike, and I have to say that once again, I’m pretty darn invested in making sure I keep making an online income.

My boss is leaving.

She announced it yesterday. She got offered a plum position at the university because she is so darn wonderful. We were in a staff meeting when she announced it, and tears instantly filled my eyes. Everyone looked as though they had a bad case of allergies.

I went home and had an anxiety attack.

You see, good public school administrators are very hard to find. Excellent ones who share one’s philosophy practically NEVER come along, and that’s what we had. I’m simply not going to comment on possible replacements because that might invite bad luck. Really, really bad luck.

At lunch today, next year’s scenario was all we could talk about. It seems like next year could be like one of those
reality TV shows. You know, emotionally disturbed kids, kids trying to sneak in drugs and weapons, an exceptionally opinionated staff and a polyester suit-wearing robotron in charge. Of course,
reality shows are never as horrible as what I’m imagining.

Okay, perhaps I’m overreacting just a bit. Still. I’ve got to keep my options open.

Photo by uberculture

Last week, we had a meeting at work, and someone suggested that our school needed to have more parental involvement. You could see eyes rolling all around the table. You see, we have parental involvement, it’s just not the kind that we’d like to have. The type of parental involvement that I most frequently experience is a woman wearing a long t-shirt and slippers getting in my face because I wouldn’t let her child into our disciplinary alternative school with his pants hanging down to his knees. Other staff members share similar experiences. Here are a few of mine–I know that you guys wouldn’t do any of these things, right? Right???

Example 1:

Yesterday I had a phone conversation with the college-educated mother of 15 year-old budding sociopath. He has a father at home too, in case anyone is wondering. Here is a highlight from the conversation:

Parent: “Well, I really don’t want his 18 year-old girlfriend picking him up from school, but he argues with me about it so much that I give in once a week. I figure that way he won’t pester me so much. I really wish that you would tell him that your school won’t allow his girlfriend to pick him up. It would make things a lot easier.”

Me: “Okay, I’ll be the bad guy if that helps. I’ll let him know today.”

Of course, you can imagine who the kid is really angry at right now, and it’s not mom. Mom and dad play the “good guy” role. They may be scared of him, actually. He’s a pretty intimidating kid. The thing is, would he be so intimidating if mom hadn’t allowed him to bully her into letting him have his own way for years? Possibly not.

Example 2:

I had another student whose parent never knew where he was–for days. The only time this parent showed concern was when he was about to be expelled. You see, if he didn’t attend school, she wouldn’t receive his disability check. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, it is possible for nonworking parents of kids with disabilities like ADD to get checks from the government, at least here in Texas. There are a lot of requests for special education testing…

Example 3:

Our rules state that students cannot wear grills to school. One of my students asked me numerous times what would happen if the grill was permanent. I told him to ask the principal, because I thought that he would not be able to attend school unless it was removed. He went and did it anyway. Sure enough, the principal told him that he had to have it removed.

The kid’s parents, who had paid for the damn thing, were immediately right up in the principal’s office complaining about how much it was going to cost them to go and have it removed. It was all the school’s fault, you see.

In spite of these things, I have signed a contract for another year. But forget about the whole parental involvement thing. I like the kids much better.

Photo by Yo Spiff

I’ve been working on a theory lately.

According to the Foundation for Child Development’s “2006 Child Well-Being Index”, children’s educational achievement levels have largely “flat-lined” since 1975. They had been declining prior to this, and from my perspective, they’ve done more than flat-line, they’ve fallen down a very deep well.

At the risk of oversimplifying what is apparently a very complex issue, I’m going to tell you what I think is a large part of the reason for this decline.

Xerox machines.

Yup. Mimeographing was popular in the 70’s, and then came the ubiquitous copier. Now, instead of having to copy notes off of a chalkboard, students often have the notes handed to them, already copied. Instead of having to write questions and answers out of a textbook, they are provided with the ever-popular worksheet, made possible by Xerox. Instead of copying math problems off of the board and figuring them out on paper, they are provided with, yep, worksheets that often have part of the problem already completed.

I could go on and on.

I have so many students who I believe have brilliant minds, but they cannot read or write at what would have been considered a third grade level 40 years ago. Why should they know how to write? They haven’t ever had to do it, at least not in an academic manner, aside from the occasional research paper that they either purchase, plagerize or painstakingly write with one hand while the other is being held. They are, however, quite proficient at writing with MySpace syntax, proving that practice makes perfect.

Here is what I see many of my students do if I give them a typical fill-in-the-blank or multiple choice worksheet. They flip through the book, looking for keywords as fast as possible. They are impatient. They bubble in the correct choice and turn in the paper 10 minutes later. It may be correct. Did it help them learn to read or write? No. Did they learn the content? No way!

I keep thinking about schools in economically depressed parts of the world that manage to turn out students who speak, read and write proficiently in more than one language. Lots of times, all these schools have to work with is chalkboards. Many are lucky to have books! But still, learning occurs. Shoot, even in the war-torn country of Afghanistan, you can find many youth who can read the Koran and have memorized it. While this education may not exactly be comprehensive, my point is that the teaching methods have been effective. Would we have had plane-crashing fanatical terrorists attack us if mullahs had handed out Xeroxed copies of the Koran with a couple of fill in the blank exercises? If we want to cripple a country, perhaps we should send them a copier.

I’ve got college on the brain. I have several seniors in my class right now, which is pretty unusual. The counselors in my district don’t do a whole lot of counseling, so it turns out that all but one of these kids have not even taken the SAT, even though they are interested in going to college. So I am running around like crazy gathering up FAFSAs and other paperwork, and generally providing information about college. Most of my students don’t know what things like “B.A.s” even are. We’re working on that.

Some of the best information that I’ve seen about choosing a college turns out to also be the most accessible to youth. Kettering has the most hilarious “Stickman” videos. The one above is about choosing the right college. It is definitely a departure from the usual recruiting material. It is so good that I plan on sharing it with my class. I’ve already put it on my class blog. Since my kiddos a departure from the usual alternative school routine, I’m sure it will be viewed many times.

Since I have since realized that it would have been nice to have gotten a degree in something that makes money, I talk to my students about careers that can bring in the green, like
mechanical engineering. I make sure to note that Criminal Justice is not a money-making field. Nor is teaching.

One of my students knows what’s up. He’s read the
US News Best Colleges guide, taken the SAT several times, and has already been accepted to one university. The others, well, we still have a lot of work to do. One of them is absolutely brilliant, and it is a crime that no one told him how to apply to college. He is someone who would do well at any college he chose

A school that’s been making the news is Kettering University. They got the number one ranking for industrial and manufacturing engineering in US News and World Report’s America’s Best Colleges Guide for 2008. They are definitely worth checking out. Don’t forget to watch the videos while you’re there. They are so cute!