She said she didn't want to be in the program because her boyfriend didn't want her in it. This is a program that will help her fly. Literally. She wants to be a flight attendant. I don't understand, but I do. I know how easy it can be to be so dependent on someone that you lose sight of yourself, your worth, and the quality of your own life. And she is just seventeen. She comes in for extra credit, and she has a 96%. She is bright. Thinks critically. Is almost fluently bilingual if she didn't get nervous sometimes and feel like she doesn't know the English words. She knows lots of them. Many more than the beginning of the year, anyway. My heart breaks for many of my students. It is important to be doing meaningful work in one's life, in these times. I am grateful to have a job, and one that I truly believe matters, if only to a few.
Right now I am going to grade this stack of composition books, this mixture of dreams spilled on paper and drill-and-kill mandatory assignments for "literacy across the content areas." I think in teaching, sometimes, it is more important to inspire than to score. Not everyone agrees.
I am almost in my 5th year in education, 6th if you count my anthropological study of the No Child Left Behind based educational software company where I worked in Potrero Hill to put me through the credential program. A student teacher wandered into my room today to ask me for advice about motivating a kid who won't turn in anything. I told him what I've done in the past, but what I was really thinking was about my friend at my old HS where I taught who said he would make a deal with kids like that. "I'll give you your F right now. Just come in and put your head down and don't bother anybody. You are not allowed nor required to participate." Half way through the term, the kid would wise up and start shaping up.
Today I answered a student who said "The library is for nerds," with "Do you want to be a nerd or a failure? It's your choice." She marched off to the library. I think my hormones are getting to me.
2 comments:
=D "Do you want to be a nerd or a failure?"... I should save that for if Soluna gives me any grief when she's older.
ahahhaha
I had a student last year who couldn't keep it together. It was his first quarter in college, and I could tell the kid just wasn't ready for all the responsibilities. I invited him to office hours almost every other week, and by the end of the term it was obvious he was going to fail my class. I felt the whole burden of that "F" on my shoulders, for some reason. At some point during our last conversation, after we looked at all his scores and the number of his absences, I actually said, "I'm sorry." And, to my surprise, he said the first mature thing all quarter. He looked me squarely in the eye, and for once I saw a young man and not a kid. He told me, "Don't be sorry, Larrah. It's not your fault; it's mine." For some reason, I wanted to share that. Teaching--for me, and I can see for you, too--is such a personal vocation. I firmly believe good teachers will always make their work personal.
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