Yesterday, I unwittingly performed an experiment in "Madness & Literature," my Senior English elective, when I administered a reading quiz.
It was a two-question quiz. Question 1 read, "I asked you to read Chapters 6-8 for today. How much reading did you complete?"
Out of 21 students, 4 said that they had done all of the reading; the remaining 17 confessions ranged from a blunt "none" to "up to page 99, just before the end of chapter 8."
But one student wrote: "Read through Ch. 6 Wed night, didn't have time for 7-8 last night due to Cold War paper and Econ half-test today."
That "due to" jolted me for two reasons.
First, I hadn't asked "How much reading did you complete and why?" So why did he and a few others attempt to explain their negligence? Guilt? Hope for leniency? The desire that I understand the context for their negligence? The simple assumption that I would want to know why?
Second, the student didn't write "due to poor time management" or some other reason involving self-blame.
As my simmering anger started to boil, I caught myself. True, the vast majority had not done all of their homework, which meant poor quiz grades for them and a severely limited class discussion for me.
But the intensity of my reaction made me wonder: was I missing something?
I went back to that "due to." Couldn't he have written, "due to the fact that you assigned too much reading"? Or "due to the fact that you hadn't quizzed us through the first two weeks of class, so I thought I could get away with not doing all the reading"? Or "due to the fact that I don't really like this book and I don't see why you assigned it"?
I'm not sure any of those is correct, but stopping to think about other possibilities allowed me to see that getting angry at the students was also an easy way to exclude myself from the picture.
Anger occasionally has its place in the classroom, but often it forecloses other opportunities.
So next time you get angry, ask yourself: are you content feeling righteous, or are you curious to know how that anger might lead you to be a more effective teacher?
http://teaching-excellence.blogspot.com/
It was a two-question quiz. Question 1 read, "I asked you to read Chapters 6-8 for today. How much reading did you complete?"
Out of 21 students, 4 said that they had done all of the reading; the remaining 17 confessions ranged from a blunt "none" to "up to page 99, just before the end of chapter 8."
But one student wrote: "Read through Ch. 6 Wed night, didn't have time for 7-8 last night due to Cold War paper and Econ half-test today."
That "due to" jolted me for two reasons.
First, I hadn't asked "How much reading did you complete and why?" So why did he and a few others attempt to explain their negligence? Guilt? Hope for leniency? The desire that I understand the context for their negligence? The simple assumption that I would want to know why?
Second, the student didn't write "due to poor time management" or some other reason involving self-blame.
As my simmering anger started to boil, I caught myself. True, the vast majority had not done all of their homework, which meant poor quiz grades for them and a severely limited class discussion for me.
But the intensity of my reaction made me wonder: was I missing something?
I went back to that "due to." Couldn't he have written, "due to the fact that you assigned too much reading"? Or "due to the fact that you hadn't quizzed us through the first two weeks of class, so I thought I could get away with not doing all the reading"? Or "due to the fact that I don't really like this book and I don't see why you assigned it"?
I'm not sure any of those is correct, but stopping to think about other possibilities allowed me to see that getting angry at the students was also an easy way to exclude myself from the picture.
Anger occasionally has its place in the classroom, but often it forecloses other opportunities.
So next time you get angry, ask yourself: are you content feeling righteous, or are you curious to know how that anger might lead you to be a more effective teacher?
http://teaching-excellence.blogspot.com/
"The desire that I understand the context for their negligence?" The fact that you write a blog about your class as an incubator for pedagogical discussion, a fact that can't be news to your current students, suggests you're the kind of teacher who is "asking for it", asking for the explanation implicitly. You have this kid who told himself, I'm going to read those 2 chapters, and then didn't, and justified it because they just weren't as important as the other assignments. Let me tell you something I justified a decade ago at the temple of deo and patria. I believe in sleep. I've always had trouble sleeping and greatly value it. I had friends who completed their assignments at Regis and would say "I stayed up until 4am and then took a train the next morning at 6am." Ya know what? Good for you. Regis is the kind of unique school where students have to make constant negotiations with their experiences. Travel, not going to the high school your middle school peers would attend, a strangely gendered place, etc. etc. I realized freshman year, wow....there are lots of people here who are just way smarter than me, and I'm not going to make some silly effort to "be the best". I'm going to be "my best". I'm at Regis, Regis is the ticket....not being perfect at Regis. I have that luxury that a public school student who needs to fight for a high class ranking doesn't have. So let me focus on learning rather than performing, on reading random poetry and philosophy, caring about my extracurricular activities, taking classes at colleges during the weekends and summer, and if I need to sleep at midnight and I know my friends who are going win Heitefus (sp?) and other accolades are going to stay up another 3 hours....well, that's them and I'm me. I think its good you explore your reaction to your students, and I think, given your background in psychoanalysis and your experience as a Regian in that kids shoes 20 years ago...me thinks the anger derived from a feeling that you wouldn't have pulled that, that you did your work, had a four hour round trip commute, and it was hard. Just a thought. That deep down, your reactions to your students at Regis, a space with a very unique culture that you experienced, are rooted in your own experiences then and now. And I'll close with that and ask one thing....I was thinking of something recently, which was my utter befuddlement as your student that you professed a love of WWF or WWC or whatever, wrestling, something I found fascinating given....lets just say, you have a degree in art history right? Nuff said. Just, a post on bonding with your students utilizing shared interests that in some way addresses this amazing biographical fact.
ReplyDeleteLet me address the last thing first: when I taught you, I was 23 years old, which is to say I was in the twilight of my adolescence. In that context, it shouldn't be especially strange that I studied Art History, English, and Philosophy, but also like professional wrestling. It would be strange if I still liked professional wrestling (I don't). But on the other hand, I do like Adventure Time on Cartoon Network. So what does that say?
ReplyDeleteAnd incidentally, I hope I don't burst your bubble when I confess that I didn't always complete my homework at Regis or Georgetown! It's good to remind myself of that fact as often as I can, not to shrug off what my students may do, but to figure out a better way of addressing it.
Anyway, as for Regis students "negotiating" with their experiences at a challenging institution...it's true, that happens. But it happens at every school. When I was still in college and was teaching Art History at Banneker, a DC public high school, I wasn't assigning a whole lot of homework, but I still got excuses about why students weren't doing it ("I had football practice," "I thought it was due next week," "You didn't really explain how to do it, so I didn't know what I should do," etc.)
The only difference between then and now is that back then, I would have let my "righteous" anger be the last word (which meant ultimately I reached that many fewer students), whereas if I were still teaching at a DC public high school now, I might be curious to know whether my anger was more important than figuring out what was behind the excuses. (In fact, I originally planned to title this post "Excuses, Excuses.")
All of that said, I'll give some thought to bonding with my students over shared interests. Beyond the Yankees, I'm not sure what that might be right now. But I'll keep thinking...
Something I found interesting: "when I taught you, I was 23 years old, which is to say I was in the twilight of my adolescence. In that context [...] ." I'm not sure if I read Adam's comment correctly, but it seems to me that you're giving context (like your students) when he didn't specifically ask for it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway.
Two things you said jolted me: "The simple assumption that I would want to know why?" along with "Beyond the Yankees, I'm not sure what that might be right now. But I'll keep thinking..."
While the first is a different context, I must say that as a teacher I always felt you a bit distant. Looking back, I'm not sure if I can say I felt your care or concern very often. I had confided something (albeit a small something) in you a few years back during my time at Regis and past that time I never was asked, "How's it going with _____" or "How did things turn out?" that show that you care more about students than the sum total of what they take out of your classroom.
You mention that you don't know what your shared interests with students might be. What about them? You mention you teach seniors--what if you were to ask them, individually and organically, how their college process is taking shape? what colleges they're considering? how they're enjoying their last year at Regis? what courses they're taking? This could all happen in the hallway or English Remorse Center rather painlessly.
An afterthought:
ReplyDeleteI didn't have the most extensive contact with you either. Other students, I'm sure, felt differently. This is just what I felt personally, whether a construction of my mind or real.
Matthew, I suppose the attempt at humor in my comments about the twilight of my adolescence failed.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, I'm sorry that I never followed up with you on the issue you shared with me some years ago. For what it's worth, I'd love to hear about it now (offline), if you're interested in sharing.
I think your students felt the need to justify their failure because they understood that the purpose of a quiz which questions not their interpretation and analysis of an assignment but rather their integrity and study habits inherently intends to uncover some failure, and hopefully its source. By accounting for it, they might be attempting to offer you a response you can understand, rather than the alternative which involves even greater frustration of both parties. I also would not discount the desire to console themselves and make excuses (worthy or not)for their behavior.
ReplyDeleteHowever, your understanding of the issue and of your own role in it is inspiring. I'd like to know your opinion on converse perspective: anger on the part of your class. Your students, filled with righteous ire, might convince themselves you wrote the first quiz question out of spite, supposing that you could uncover the quality of their reading/annotating merely by reading their response to the literary question, and anything more was deliberate embarrassment.
Not that I have any desire for you to transform your English class into a psychological experiment, but I wonder how many of your students would have admitted to not completing the assignment, had the subsequent question been omitted? Would your students, whose excuses were mismanagement of time, be better prepared for another such quiz if you explicitly announced the quiz in advance?
Those are excellent points, Anonymous, and when I adopt the students' point of view (which is to say, your point of view), I can see how that first question might seem like a provocation. It just so happens that I always put that question first on my Senior English quizzes, but since this was their first quiz, they would have no way to anticipate it. So really I should have explained why I put it first, then ask the question about the reading.
ReplyDeleteQuizzes are always unnannounced, because otherwise certain students would only read when they knew they had a quiz. (With a class of 23, it's not really possible to cold call on every student to check on his reading and at the same time have a productive discussion.) It is a curious question, though, whether students would have answered honestly had the quiz consisted of only that first question and no reading question.
The key to what you're getting at is understanding the students' perspective, too. Just because they may be angry doesn't make their mismanagement of time acceptable, but unless I inquire about what motivates them or de-motivates them or what gets in the way of their doing the work I need them to do, I suspect the anger on both sides can only continue to build.
In other words, it's about communication.
Well, I gave quiz #2 yesterday and most students seemed well prepared for it, so we'll so how things go from here...
Very interesting, I absolutely agree with your methods and analysis. I hope your students continue to meet your expectations, while still providing you--and consequently us--opportunity to learn from them.
ReplyDelete