Are Students Okay? No. And it's not the pandemic.
As teachers, we are working harder than ever, and, in this pit of exhausting overwork, we also have this great capacity to make meaningful and lasting changes. I implore you to engage that train of thought as you read.
Education has been desperately in need of change for a long, long while - long before any pandemic.
In my class recently, we have watched these two videos: "Don't Stay in School" and "I sued the School System."
Watch them - if you haven't already stumbled upon them.
The titles of which sum up the message: school is not focusing on the things that matter to students.
These videos were made in 2015 and 2016, respectively - long before any global pandemic happened upon us.
No one has really listened.
As an educator, these videos infuriate me. Why would I work so inexhaustibly hard only for students to wake up in the morning dreading school, not finding value in it, and literally wanting to be anywhere else.
This video is hardly even scratching the surface of the complaints about school I hear throughout any given school day.
And, as a teacher, that's hard. It makes me angry.
After watching the second video in class and having a conversation with a group of 6th graders - 6th graders - I heard a student say, "Imagine waking up and actually being excited to go to school."
I sit in an office with my door open, down in the middle of a hallway classrooms every morning during my intervention block of teaching.
Students pass by alone on the way to the bathroom. Teachers muffle their lectures.
And it's quiet.
All the classroom doors are shut.
I wish I could accurately say this is because of the virus weighing us all down.
This isn't a new issue.
I'm not an expert. Wait. No. Actually, I kind of am. I didn't get two degrees in education to not be considered an expert.
Here are my suggestions for changes - not only for our current times, but for the times long beyond when this virus has stopped amplifying the issues within the educational system.
And these suggestions I must even begin to follow and think through myself.
Change is hard.
What do the students think? Feel? Wonder? Fear?
Let them talk.
Long before this pandemic, I would walk down hallways and see rooms where students are in rows, sitting quietly and listening to a teacher.
The students cannot speak and are ridiculed when they do. The expectation is: sit still, listen, and somehow try to learn.
Far too often, sitting in my little office, I hear the voices of teachers echoing through the halls. Far too often, they keep talking and keep talking and keep talking.
"Does that make sense?"
"Do you have any questions?"
"Let's move on."
"Oh, I hear no voices, we are good to go."
In a system that has muted them, getting them to speak up becomes nearly impossible.
Are you giving out new expectations for whatever this year throws at us next?
I know what doesn't get students on board: lecturing a list of expectations without any input from the students: What are you afraid of? What are you worried about? What concerns you?
Do you even know why these things are in place?
There's an old teacher motto that says - paraphrasing, of course: "Your students should do more talking than you in order to do the best learning."
For my classroom, on a lot of days, I know that paradigm isn't true.
Stop giving tests.
I was taking a test with an online student for a class recently over Zoom. We didn't know an answer. We googled it. We're online, who cares?
We found an exact copy of the entire test online with the answer key, questions, and work shown. Things really are changing at a rapid pace aren't they?
Education, my friends.
I'm sure the student I was working with was really learning the content there.
Sitting in class, reading a novel: "Oh, yeah, read this story, answer some questions, write a paragraph. It's the biggest grade we have had so far."
What, exactly, is the skill that this is teaching them?
Why, exactly, should that student care?
How, exactly, does this test matter at all?
There are so many more ways to assess student knowledge in a more applicable way. With the development of student interest and engagement in the world around them, there are so many ways to assess math, reading, writing, history, science.
And the real beauty of it all? You can put that work on students with a simple question:
How can you show me what this unit has taught you?
Activity: Draw a path on the board and make
C O N N E C T I O N S
Recently, in my class, I asked students to draw a path on a piece of paper: a path through a forest, under a bridge, to the underworld, in the ocean, through the clouds.
On and beside the path, draw some things you would see: a tree, a bush, a squirrel, road kill, fish, bats, demons, a shark, dolphins, walnuts.
On one side of the path, write your current topic of study: fractions, The American Revolution, DNA, commas, industry, art history, data collection...
On the other, something that students want to learn: taxes, cooking, dance, businesses, home economics, gaming, creating a successful YouTube channel, streaming, video creation...
Automatically, these two topics are now connected on the path.
How do you get from one side to the other? The things you see on the path naturally: the trees, the bushes, the squirrels.
What's the step you can take from one side to the other?
It doesn't have to be accurate or right or realistic or researched.
The joy is in the journey; seeing beyond what you see in front of you.
Will this change what they are learning currently? Not one bit.
But, it will allow them to think about how things could matter. Embrace the curiosity of it all.
And it's fun.
Why can't they have some fun?
Here's a link to the slideshows I create - because resources and a picture of the balloons we made about what we are curious about: Part I and Part II.
Slow down. Do you always drive on the highway at 75 miles per hour?
The speed at which content and skills and knowledge are constantly thrown at students and forced to digest and recreate within weeks is an amount of new information I would be exhausted to take in for 8 hours day.
It's okay not to go full speed down a highway.
We all have standards.
We all have new grades to prepare them for.
We all have tests the government forces us to take.
We all have content to get through.
But, getting through all of that by the time you want and have planned is like flying full-speed down the highway at all times.
Do you ever stop for gas?
Do you ever get stuck in traffic on the way somewhere?
Get a flat tired and need to make adjustments?
Take time to slow down and walk around town?
Take an exit and go shopping?
Get off the highway to simply go home?
Students shouldn't be forced to drive at 75 miles per hour all day in every class at every moment.
It's okay to take your time. You have permission.
Especially now.
Give Grace
What's your late policy?
If you were tell someone why you have it, what would be your answer?
In my head, why put up more barriers to a student feeling success when an assignment is done late? If it was done late, there is a reason.
Whether it be a simple mistake, a more serious matter, not understanding the material, not wanting to do it, not finding value in it, whatever.
The sole fact that this student goes back in order to complete a past-due assignment is a huge step forward in the right direction, and any impediment to that fact is only working to push against that student's ability and desire to do work in the future.
There are already enough impediments in a student's life; let them turn in that essay a day late or the math worksheet in two weeks after you did in class.
Especially now.
Especially if they have the courage to ask for the support.
It's easy to sit on a keyboard and complain and think and beg for things to change; clearly, it's one of my favorite pastimes.
I'm just trying to engage some thinking. That's quite literally my profession.
Thoughts? Feelings? Opinions? Complaints? Fears? I'd love to hear them all.
