Try, Try Again

Yikes, it's been a while. I blame that on the increased busyness of recent days... And... well... Actually, that's really my only excuse. I'm very busy and important. Duh.

Back to the teaching stories then. Shall we?

The big thing this week was feeling frustrated about the kiddos just NOT TRYING. I realized when entering grades that at least a third of our kids are failing, and it just killed me. We give these kids all kinds of work time, we're super clear on what they have due and what their homework is, and we make ourselves available before and after school for help if they need it. The kids that are failing are failing because they're just NOT doing their work. Some of them are seriously intelligent too-- but they slack off during work time, don't show up for class, whatever-- and don't get their stuff in.

I told Viola I felt like we were watching these kids stand outside in a blizzard. We holler out to them, "Hey! Come on in! It's really warm in here, there's a fire, and a great spread on the table! Hot chocolate too! Come on in!"
They shrug and shuffle their feet on the snowy ground. "Meh. It's too far of a walk."
So we go out to them.
"Well, here then, take this coat-- I hate seeing you so cold, this will warm you up a little."
They gaze at some point in the distance and seem to ignore us altogether. "Naaah......Don't feel like putting it on."
Exasperated now, we try again: "Well take some SOUP anyway, that should do something to help keep you warm. Come on, all you have to do is lift the spoon to your mouth and swallow."
But they don't, they're not interested. So they do nothing to help themselves, and they freeze in the blizzard, and die.

Dying in the blizzard is the real-life equivalent of flunking out, or having an extremely short list of life-sustaining options after ruining themselves by not trying in school and getting Fs across the board.

Some of them may realize eventually that it's a good idea to walk 50 meters to get into the warm house, but by then, they may have already limited their options. They may have gotten frostbitten by being out in the cold for so long, and there goes a hand.

It just kills me.

Anyway: this week, we were working on writing our Epic of Gilgamesh essays. We gave the kids a work day on Thursday; in preparation for it, they were supposed to bring in a hand-written rough draft. As we guessed, only about 25% of our classes brought in a completed rough-draft, but we sent those kids to the library to work on typing them up. The rest, we let work on the drafts in class. One sophomore, Jeremiah, didn't have anything done, but he wanted to go to the library anyway. (To type up... what?) Viola let him go though, and I tagged along with the typing crew to supervise.

In the library, Jeremiah asked in his typically detached way, "So what are we supposed to write about?"
We have been talking about this assignment for the last several days. I tried to keep from sighing. "Well, did you get the paper about the assignment?" I asked.
He shrugged, and looked at a far distant point. I asked the boy sitting next to him if we could borrow his paper with the essay prompts.
"Here Jeremiah. So here are the different prompts-- pick out one that catches your interest--"
"Okay." He glanced at them. "Okay." And then he started typing.
"Oh... You know what you're going to do...? Okay. Um... great!"

I left him, not really thinking about what he intended to come up with after his disinterested glance at the paper.

At the end of the class, he raised his hand. "Okay, I'm done."
"Seriously??" I asked. He scrolled down on the computer screen, and showed me that he had the required amount. "Wow, great! Go ahead and print it off."
With his signature air of disinterest, he printed it off and handed it to me without making eye contact, then sauntered out the door.

I glanced over the first paragraph and was dumbfounded. It was GREAT. There were some fragments, and he didn't have a clear thesis statement, but his command of language was outstanding-- he used clever, unique descriptors, showed real wit and humor, and expressed himself elegantly. I SAW how quickly he had cranked that out-- to see him just bust out something of this caliber was incredible! And this kid is failing our class!

Yesterday, he came into class early and sat down. I went over to him with his paper.
"Jeremiah." I paused. "This... blew me away."
His eyes darted over at me to see if I was serious. "I'm not kidding," I told him. "There's some organizational work needed, but your grasp of language is outstanding-- there's humor here, your word choice is fantastic... I mean, Jeremiah, this is an area where you are GIFTED. You should be ACING this class, not failing it-- I mean you could do this professionally, the raw talent is there! You need to hone it now, and I want you to start bringing me your stuff so that I can edit it and help you get there... But dang Jeremiah. You're seriously talented."

As I was talking to him, he kept trying not to smile, and his TEETH were showing-- this is a kid that normally looks SO checked out! But he was grinning in spite of himself, and it felt so good to tell him that I believed in him.

I told Viola about our conversation and she said, "They love being told that they're talented. What they don't love is being told that they have to do work..."

That's true-- and it's very possible that Jeremiah is going to come in Monday morning with nothing. But now that I KNOW what he can do, I'm going to keep hounding him all year-- I'm going to chase him with that winter coat if I have to.

---------------
Amusing moment with "Gal Pal":
(Out in the hall)

"So Grace, how come you seem to be having trouble focusing?"

"Well-- it's just my friend is being so ANNOYING right now, and it's just like really GETTING to me... Like, I told her that I liked this GUY...And then, like RIGHT AFTER, she said that SHE liked him... And then she told me she would like DROP ME for him... And like, I knew that she talked about people behind their backs but then I heard stuff that she'd said about ME... And so it's just like so annoying, and it's really making me mad, and I just can't focus on the essay..."

"Oh man... I know that stuff can be tough. Well-- sometimes when I'm really dealing with personal stuff, I just take ten minutes to sort of PURGE it by either journaling about it, or sometimes I'll call a friend... Now, we're in school, so you can't call someone, but why don't you just write down some of your thoughts for about ten minutes and get it out... And then see if you can come back to the essay. Okay?"

(Nodding.)

I'm really sort of loving working with teenagers. :) Even if they drive me crazy. That's... what are we at, now? Week 5? We'll call it Week 5. By the way-- in case any of you had wondered-- all the kids' names have been changed in these blogs.

Brevity Soul Wit

Wednesday is the first day of school with students (EEE!), and Viola asked me to come up with some fun ice breakers/opening activities/tell-us-about-yourself-and-all-your-wildest-dreams activities. I'd just read an article in Time about this new literary fad called "Mini lit," which sounded like a good Language-Arts themed opener.

The basic mini lit gist is this: you write a memoir, book review, short story, novel, essay, etc.-- but you do it in six words or less. Apparently the idea began when Ernest Hemingway was dared to create a short story with only six words. He came up with, "For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn." With the exponential growth of blogging, twittering, and increasingly short attention spans, mini lit has taken off.

So the activity tomorrow (today, if you're reading this on Wednesday) is for the students to write their usual, "What I did this summer," essays-- but in only six words.

This is me trying to do my own assignment:

Europe? Take me now. Home, agh!

Je suis francaise!... Until I wasn't.

Bohemian traveler? ...Diligent student? Yes, duh.

Grad school, tigers, and bears ohmy!

Patisseries? ALSO cheese and wine? Yessss...

Hearts are tricky and elusive, methinks.

This is the problem: hostel boys.

This is the best: Cordier brothers.

Good things bad things crazy things.

Barefoot walking and pink cloud climbing.


Anyway. It's sort of fun. How about you try. How was your summer?? Also, do you love my shameless solicitation for comments lately? I just want to know about you all. :) I tell lots about me, and it's fun to know you all a little more too. Plus, six-word summer vacation essays are fun.

I'll hopefully post a blog about the first day tomorrow evening-- including some of the six-word-phrases the students came up with, if they're funny. :) I'M A REAL LIVE STUDENT TEACHER NOW! Wish me luck!!!