“You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.”
~ Beverly Sills

Why I worry about the Common Core and this relentless testing: Some of these kids HAVE given up and are no longer trying. You have to think there is some chance of success in order to try. Inappropriate tests make kids feel stupid and defeated.

Eduhonesty: Too much disappointment may doom our less resilient students. We have to test but we need to shift away from (or de-emphasize) tests we know students will effectively fail. If the kid doesn’t speak English yet, exempt him! Or give him a test related to his English-language learning instead. If the kid’s in special education due to learning difficulties, give him a simplified version of the test.

For adults out there: It’s a lot like regularly having job reviews that are testing you on skills you don’t and can’t possess. Then the Powers that Be make sure you know you failed, supposedly to encourage you to do better.

Hmmmm. The above observation makes me think of some Charlotte Danielson teaching reviews I know of.

The difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is how
you use them.”

~ Unknown

I am working in a poor, academically-disadvantaged school. But some students seize learning. These students will manage in college because they keep working no matter how many obstacles crop up in this battered, old wreck of a building with its lack of air conditioning and frequent staff turnover.

I wonder how to tap this drive. What motivates these students? It’s not just smarts. The halls of this school are filled with smart kids who are letting learning slip through their fingers, unconcerned with any future or even present goals.

Studies show that people who defer gratification to receive a larger reward later do better in life. But what makes that kid decide to wait 20 minutes to get two pieces of candy instead of one? Most importantly, can deferred gratification be taught somehow?

The high school algebra books that my students have to carry probably weigh around 5 pounds.

Heck, I’ll go weigh one.

Correction: My blue Algebra 2 book weighs 6.4 pounds. Algebra 1 is only slightly lighter. I carried three textbooks out to my car at the start of the year, my home set. These books together weigh 15 or 16 pounds or so.

If we want to know one reason why the homework is not getting done and the books are not getting home, or from home back to class, I’m sure I know part of the reason. Students don’t want to carry these books around. If their locker is near class, they’ll grab the book during a passing period. But if that locker is across the school, the book’s such a big pain that they often don’t bother. Teachers and administrators say, “you should carry your books with you during the day.” But we don’t allow them to have backpacks in the classroom for security reasons. That means they have to carry the books in their arms. My shoulders hurt after carrying three books downstairs and to my car (I’m a bit of a wimp.) so I can see their point of view.

These books are simply too heavy. If they must be sold as hardcover books so they will survive longer, they ought to be broken up into three or four books. Carrying home over 1,000 pages of algebra when you only need three is a recipe for unfinished homework. For that matter, what algebra class is going to finish over 1,000 pages of algebra in one school year?

Eduhonesty: These books are absurd.

I also wonder if these books do not represent another piece of subtle discrimination against our impoverished and urban school systems. Middle-class high schools rarely require uniforms. They frequently allow students to keep their backpacks during the day. Uniforms and backpack-rules are features of schools with gang problems and high levels of security. But in the absence of a backpack, there’s no good way to carry 20 pounds of books.

He just got here from another country. He speaks almost no English. I was forced to make him take the same English-language standardized test as everyone else with no translation or even extra time allowed. I was told extra time had to be asked for in advance. We checked on test day just to make sure there was no extra time. That time might have benefited a few students whose English is improving. For C., more time would have been irrelevant I suspect. If you can’t read the test, more time to be unable to read the test does not do a whole hell of a lot of good. I reassured C. that the test would not affect his actual grades, told him I was not allowed to translate for him due to the test rules and cut him loose. I want to give C. credit. He did his best. He was minimally disruptive, despite a few complaints about the kid behind him touching his chair. Spending a whole morning doing something you don’t understand for reasons that are unclear to you has be very tough and this is an energetic kid. I have to remember to sit down and thank him for his effort on Monday.

Eduhonesty: America is filled with new immigrants taking these school and state tests despite the fact that their total English-language vocabulary is often less than 1,000 words, sometimes much less. Testing these kids on materials that they can’t read is purest stupidity. We wallop the kid, adding to his or her sense of hopelessness, and learn nothing for our efforts.

My advisory was pleasant today, despite the morning of testing. Not everyone reported the same. I gave them candy and played music. I figured they deserved the break. My last district had banned parties because they take away time from our relentless academic push. I thought that was a mistake (and I staged a couple of “cultural celebrations” which were remarkably like parties) because kids are not adults or robots. Especially in these unmotivated and undermotivated times, a little goodwill can go a long way. I can get kids to work for me who will not work for themselves. But I need leverage, rapport to fuel those efforts.

Eduhonesty: Push push push can push kids right out the door. The desperate fight for points needs to be leavened with earned rest — especially since many of America’s students don’t understand what they are working for. That test that administrators are panicking about? A number of their constituents don’t give a damn about any scores, having sensibly detached themselves from their personal test results as a direct consequence of never scoring well in the past. If we want to keep those students in the game, if we want them to give their best on the next of the endless tests, we need to reward them for their efforts along the way.

That will make two and one-half days that have been all testing so far. We are not even to the middle of September. We have two more iterations of this particular test to go, and who knows what other testing. MAP testing may or may not have been cancelled for the year — and MAP testing was the only standardized test that gave me useful, timely data.

He’s a behavioral problem for sure. He talks and talks. Lectures slide off his back like water off that proverbial duck. But today I was able to sit with C. and help him with his math (heroic of me considering how sick he seemed, sniff, sniff, sniff) and C. was so happy. He’s a new arrival from another country and hopelessly lost. Kids like this need intensive tutoring. I wish we had the staff and money to provide C. with what he needs.

But in the meantime, I will sit with C. whenever possible and do what I can. He will have to do an enormous amount of work, especially since he arrived in this country in high school. I will show him that I care, that he is not adrift in this universe of incomprehensible conversations and inexplicable expectations.

The classroom will be in the nineties by afternoon, maybe in the morning. My patience is challenged in those temperatures, the same temperatures that lead bookless students to nod off at their desks (that locker’s a long ways away when the hallways are 85 degrees or more). I keep trying to push the train forward while students stare blankly and ask to get water. A few go to the nurse.

I have to remember to keep my personal cool. I also have to plan lessons that don’t require books and that can be conducted around the fallen, those who will not wake up no matter how much I sing at them.

Tired. I just printed up my PowerPoint, six slides to a page, as I realized it was going to be too hot to operate in my room tomorrow. My funny PowerPoint is going to be somewhat wasted. But in this land of no air conditioning, that ninety-some degree forecast calls for strategic planning. I plan a bunch of handouts and very little lecture. I am so tired of this weather. But handouts are the best I can do in those temperatures.

The chocolate and I should have oozed into puddles by the end of the day.