ACE – Mysteries and Manners

7 Quick Takes Friday – Louisiana Edition – (5/16/14)

May 16, 2014

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So Tom asked me what the highlight of my day was yesterday.

I have two:

1) During Maria’s 7th hour class, which is pretty huge, I got to walk around and help some of the kids. These are current sophomores, so I never taught them when I was at this school, but they seemed to accept the fact that I knew what I was talking about. So when I knelt by their desks when they raised their hands, their surprise was quickly replaced with matter-of-fact questions. “Yes ma’am, I don’t get this.” “Thank you, ma’am.” “Can you come see?”

In Colorado, some of them (especially the boys) call me “Miss.” “Yes, miss.” “Okay, miss.”

2) After the Mass last night, we stood outside the church talking to one of the parents. Most people had left by then. All of a sudden, the door opened and one of the graduating seniors walked up to me, gave me a quick hug, and left almost before I had time to say hello to him. He had not come up to me earlier when most of the others had. In fact, I haven’t talked to him much since his sophomore year when he and the “three musketeers” used to hang out in my classroom using my trashcan for paper basketball.

So great. I’m so blessed to have known these kids.

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Myriad conversations with students I had here in LA and in CO have come to mind when I read this really great article from a college professor’s perspective on the ridiculously challenging art of grading. It’s very applicable to secondary (and, I’m guessing elementary) school as well.

“Confessions of A Grade Inflator” by Rebecca Schuman

A taste:

Where did students get the gumption to treat a grade as the opening move in a set of negotiations? As a professor, there is little worse than spending an entire semester attempting to connect about a subject you find both interesting and important, only to have them ignore everything you do until the moment their GPA is affected. And then, of course, it’s war. (Schuman)

Schuman admits that she inflates her grades, and explains why she feels she has to do this. When I first started teaching I was determined not to do this.

And then I realized life is a bit more complicated.

This is what I think grades “mean”:

A = Demonstrates exceptional mastery

B = Exceeds expectations

C = Meets expectations; that is, achieves the lesson goal.

D = Does not meet expectations; that is, does not demonstrate ability to do what I taught them to do.

F = Earns failing grade.

This is also the description I put on all my rubrics and the description whispering in my mind as I grade all my tests.

But then there is also this:

A = Demonstrates exceptional mastery for this student.

B = Exceeds expectations for this student.

C = Meets expectations / demonstrates achievement of lesson goal – at the level this student is capable of.

D = Does not meet expectations / This student does not adequately use whatever gifts she has been given to demonstrate achievement of the goal.

F = Earns failing grade / This student demonstrates profound lack of understanding of lesson plan goal or profound negligence. Basically, he did not really try.

Because, you know, Honors Student A writes an “A” essay that looks VERY different from ELL struggling student B — and yet Student B may have “demonstrated exceptional mastery” with the lesson goal within the context of her particular challenges and current skills.

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“Ms. Shea, Teacher X doesn’t teach writing like you did. She says ‘A is B because of 123’ is too basic, middle school stuff.”

“Yeah but I still used it!”

“And I used the format you taught us anyway but she took points off!”

I cringed.

Yes, I know ‘A is B because of 123’ is the basic middle-school formula for thesis statements. But I teach it to my high school kids as a starting point because they need it. You have to learn to walk before you can learn to run, people.

Once they master that version, I try to get them to leave it behind as soon as possible. “You don’t need this formula any more. I want you to write a thesis statement without using it. Change the words.”

I think that’s one of the downfalls of one teacher having the same kids 2 years in a row. They got used to me, and no matter how many times I told them “this is just ONE right way to write an essay. There are others,” they seem to believe that their new teacher (the third this year) is wrong and I am right.

I encountered this a lot during my first year. “But Ms. X always said…” “We never did it this way before…” “We used to listen to music every Friday, can’t we go back to that?”

Sigh.

One of the things you have to teach students is how to be a student. For better or for worse, that means being flexible enough to adapt to different teachers different expectations.

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Maria is doing something really cool right now.

It’s a simple idea, but I’ve actually never done it.

I’m totally stealing this from her.

She has a series of questions on the board. The kids are answering them in groups. But here’s the catch:

They have to receive teacher approval on their answer to every question before the assignment is considered complete.

So this is what happens:

They work in their groups. One of them brings up the paper. “Ms. Lynch, is this right?” She will look at it and say, “Try again. Look at the second part of your answer.”

This starts to happen more and more.

“Good job, you got it!”

The groups begin to feel competitive. They begin to walk more quickly to Ms. Lynch. Then they run.

“Ms. Lynch, Ms. Lynch! Is this it?”

“Almost. Try again!”

They run back to their groups and scribble furiously. They laugh in frustration.

I love it.

cutest_disney_chip_beauty-and-the-beast — “You guys gotta try this…!”

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This is the song I sang before I came to teach in Louisiana:

Actually, it’s also the song I sing before I do anything scary – like when I went to college, flew to Italy, began ACE, moved to Colorado…

Look. It’s me and my guitar. And the bag I bring with me when I move all around the country.

…

…And this is what I said after my first day of school here in Louisiana:

(and, let’s be honest, almost every day after that):

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“Week before last I went to Wesleyan and read “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” After it I went to one of the classes where I was asked questions. There were a couple of young teachers there and one of them, an earnest type, started asking the questions. “Miss O’Connor,” he said, “why was the Misfit’s hat black?” I said most countrymen in Georgia wore black hats. He looked pretty disappointed. Then he said, “Miss O’Connor, the Misfit represents Christ, does he not?” “He does not,” I said. He looked crushed. “Well, Miss O’Connor,” he said, “what is the significance of the Misfit’s hat?” I said it was to cover his head; and after that he left me alone. Anyway, that’s what’s happening to the teaching of literature.” (Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being)

Love

May 2, 2013

*Note: All student names have been changed.

I’m not a Mom. I hope to be, someday. But I think I know a little bit—a very little bit—of what that kind of love will be like.

My first year of teaching was easily the hardest experience of my life. I won’t go into all the details, but half-way through the year, I was seriously considering leaving my school and the ACE program. Exhausted, discouraged, and completely in over my head, I sat at my desk as my seniors came in to take their final exam.

And then I began to look at them, one by one. There was Maria, who had intimidated me so much on the first day with her bored eyes and sarcastic remarks… and who, later on, asked me to teach her and her classmates what plagiarism really was so that they could be ready for college. There was Jonny, who had a habit of giving up on everything difficult… and who had formed a new habit of actually finishing his essays. There was Lars—big, obnoxious, flirtatious, inappropriate—who had finally decided that Mr. Wickham in Pride and Prejudice was a jerk, and he didn’t want to be like him after all.

There were also the ones who had been easier to love from the beginning: Gary, with his stubborn agnosticism and insistence upon questioning, Selina, with her gentle attentiveness and surprising perspicacity, Peter, with his hunger for knowledge and something to finally challenge him, and Catherine and Ashley—who came into my classroom one day, arm in arm like Austen’s ladies: “Let’s take a turn about the room! Ah yes, it is so refreshing!”

I looked at them all as I sat at my desk, and I felt astonished. So many of my college friends were finding love, getting engaged, having babies…

tumblr_lxaz6viggB1qzili5o1_500 — (Also getting more awesome at grading and lesson planning while driving to school.)

… but I had found a different kind of love.

I think I understand The Reverend Mother’s words a lot better now in The Sound of Music when she tells Maria that she needs to “climb every mountain” in order to find

A dream that will need

All the love you can give

Every day of your life

For as long as you live.

I think I get that now.

Nothing else I have done has required more exhaustion and work and anxiety from me—and nothing else has given me so much love in return. Not thankfulness in return, necessarily—I think really good moms know they will and never can be truly thanked for all they do—nor understanding in return, either. I’m sure that a large percentage of my kinds don’t even like me.

(As I mentioned to my pleading junior class a couple of weeks ago – “I’m not here to be liked. I’m here to help you learn.”)

But I can’t help myself, to be honest. I love them—their comments, their nosiness, their complaining, their messiness, their mistakes, and their little triumphs. And I’m so grateful to God that he has given me my kids to love.

Go listen to Reverend Mother here, and don’t settle for anything less.

Notes from my First Year of Teaching

April 1, 2013

Here are excerpts from notes I wrote during my first full year of teaching (last year).

1. circa September 2011

“Come see Ms. Shea! Come see!”

I remembered that the other ACE teachers at my high school in rural LA had mentioned this verbal phenomenon to me before my first day of school. Instead of saying “Could you come and look at this, Ms. Shea?” or “I need to show you something, Ms. Shea,” or even “I have a question, Ms. Shea,” my sophomores, juniors and seniors consistently say, “Come see!” –even if they don’t actually want to show me something.

As I remember, the theme of the opening April ACE retreat was the invitation of Christ – “Come and see” (John1:39). Little did I know then how often I would hear that invitation in the classroom from my students! I am not sure if this phrase is particular to the local area or to all of Louisiana, but I think it is a daily gift that reminds me of my purpose as an ACE teacher.

I came to Louisiana with a lot of ideas about what it would be like—small, rural Southern towns conjure up a lot of Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor-esque images for northern English majors like me. Seeing the ramshackle houses on cinder blocks alongside my school, the black and white neighborhoods distinctly separated by streets, the bizarre Daiquiris drive-through stations, the flat, steamy landscape rich with both sugarcane and humidity was enough to bewilder me the first few days and to make me feel further from my own cultural comfort zone than ever. But one of the most important things I am discovering, with the help of my students, is the simple necessity to come and see—to put aside whatever cultural preconceptions might hinder me from really appreciating this strange, beautiful place and my strange, beautiful students.

2. circa October 2011

“She had observed that the more education they got, the less they could do. Their father had gone to a one-room schoolhouse through the eighth grade and he could do anything.” (Everything that Rises Must Converge, Flannery O’Connor)

This quote may seem rather discouraging to teachers but I think it describes with painful accuracy the challenge of getting students to take responsibility for their own learning. I have found myself falling into the trap of doing most of the talking, most of the working, most of the thinking in the classroom—and if I continue I will not only burn myself out, I will also have failed to engage my students.

Part of this failure of engaging and providing feedback for my students seems to be the direct results of my efforts find realistic and efficient ways to do both. I have started to create guided notes for my students so that during direct instruction they don’t just sit and listen passively or (on the opposite end of the spectrum) try to copy down everything from a power point presentation or lecture. Giving them a concrete task to accomplish during direct instruction helps engage them and even encourages their participation since they know what information they need to discover. However, the drawback to these guided notes is that students tend to want to listen only for the right “answer” so that they can copy it down, rather than ask intelligent questions and engage the subject more for its own sake. I have found that students are so focused on getting the right answer that they are not concerned with learning how to think critically and independently—I want to find ways to push them toward that. This is very difficult, however, since many of my students resent the ways that I try to push and challenge them already.

[…] But honestly, I feel overwhelmed standing in front of so many students. Sometimes I feel like I can really see the ones who are struggling or who are disengaged, but I don’t feel as though I have the time or energy to find a way to bring them back in since I feel like I am barely making it through lesson plans. I feel frustrated because I know there are so many things I could be doing better, or so many other “methods” I could try to help my students, but at the same time I still feel like I am in survival mode and I am just trying to get through the day. Unfortunately, I am afraid that this sense of being totally overwhelmed is both caused by and starting to result in the students working less and me working more.

But as O’Connor says, “To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.” Somehow, I need to set high expectations for myself and for my students while at the same time realizing that teaching is much more about love and consistency than it is about visible success.

3. circa December 2011

Student A said to me a couple of weeks ago, “Ms. Shea, at first I thought you were really scary. You were so serious! But actually you’re very nice.”

I smiled and silently remembered that the reason I looked so serious all the time the first four or five weeks was because I felt sick every morning from being so nervous. Gradually, however, as I got to know the students I found myself smiling more and engaging in conversation with them—I found myself sharing, every once in a while, a little bit about my own past experiences. The fact that I have a second-degree black belt and used to teach marital arts received a particularly enthusiastic (albeit slightly apprehensive) response.

Sharing myself with my students at times (I am still rather shy and hesitant about this) I think has helped them feel more comfortable with me and more willing to take risks in the classroom—good risks, like volunteering when no other hands are raised, or arguing for an unpopular perspective. I think that knowing me better has even helped the students who I sometimes have to keep after class—a part of them sees that I am a real person with a real history; that I care about them, and that my “real” black-belt, Red Sox fan, Texan and twin-sister self is not separate from my identity as the teacher and authority figure.

The wonderful thing about this is that the sacramental view of reality—God communicating Himself to us through created things in tangible, sometimes even mundane ways—means that these simple acts of mutual trust are potentially vehicles of His grace. Occasionally I even see the fruit of this grace—like when Student B was leading prayer and suggested that all of us mention something that we would really like to improve in our lives. The honest and humble responses of each student created a special moment of shared trust and even vulnerability—the answers ranged from “patience” to “improving my attitude at school.” It was a little moment, but I think it really reflected the respect that the members of the class had developed for one another.

4. circa June 2012 (coming full circle)

“Come see, Ms. Shea! Come see!”

This is the second or third time I have written a reflection about this phrase in my spiritual life, but ever since I joined ACE it keeps coming up! As the 12 Steps of ACE spirituality indicate, this is the first invitation of Christ to his disciples in the Gospel of John—“Where are you staying?” “Come, and you will see!” It is also the first invitation of Christ to all of us ACE teachers on April retreat. There’s a beautiful Providence at work in the fact that “come see” is a daily phrase of my students in rural Louisiana. It can mean many things—but for my students, it usually is their way of saying “I need you!” So it has always been very moving and strange for me to hear similar words coming from the mouth of Christ: “Come and see, I need you.”

In the computer lab as I move across the room from student to student, trying to encourage them and push them along in revising their essays, or in my classrooms amidst the hum (sometimes the chaos) of group activities, or on my way to lunch in the cafeteria, I constantly hear that phrase. “Can you come see, Ms. Shea?” “Ms. Shea, please come see!” And no matter how exhausted or stressed I am, I love hearing those words. They always bring me back to April retreat and my first moments of hopeful enthusiasm in ACE. They have served as a reminder again and again this past year of Christ being somehow in my students. It feels like I keep being nudged or woken up, whenever I fall into the sleep of discouragement or exhaustion or frustration—I’m invited to open my eyes again. “Yes, I’ll come see.”