Reflections, continued
Do Kids Know How to Play Their Parents?... continued from REFLECTIONS page.
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So here's what I'm talking about: a parent being presented with the facts about what his kid did and refuting those facts based on the additional "fact" that 'My child does not lie to me'.
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What?? Since when do kids not lie to their parents? They lie all the time! Especially if they know their parent has said something to a teacher along the lines of "I can tell when my child is not telling the truth. So he doesn't lie to ME.
No, he's just become a really, really GOOD liar. That's all. ​
​When did parents start getting amnesia about what it's like to be a kid? Kids learn to lie because it gets them out of sticky situations. They learn to say what their parents want to hear because it gets them good things, like praise, candy, and video games.
So back to the story: This particular boy was standing around with two of his pals, giggling while watching one of them write something on a sticky note. It was a study hall situation and they would be dismissed within five minutes, so I didn't mind too much that the boys were having a moment of levity instead of doing something....productive. It was only when a girl in class - someone who was not feeling well and had been resting on her desk - got up to leave that I saw the sticky note reading KICK ME!! on her back. I hastily walked up behind her and removed the note. I didn't let her know what the note said because she is one who walks a delicate emotional tightrope every day and I didn't want her to have a melt-down immediately. She was so sleepy that she didn't demure at all when I said it was just a piece of lint on her back.
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For about two minutes, I waffled on what to do, as old students left the classroom and new ones filed in to take their places. It definitely would be easier to ignore what the boys had done and throw the note away. Less paperwork...I wouldn't have to notify parents...I could adopt the view that it was just a harmless prank. Then I thought about all the other 'harmless' pranks this school year alone that had escalated to monstrous proportions.
And I decided I would not leave it alone.
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At lunch time, I spoke with all three boys separately, and was able to discern that one of them had concocted the idea, one had written the note, and no one knew who had placed it on the girl's back. I wish I had been able to get one of them to admit to that, but, sadly, I failed. Even so, I felt I had enough information to submit what is known in our school as a Minor Referral. I wrote up the forms, contacted the parents via email, and submitted the paperwork, with sticky note attached, to my assistant principal. This took about 25 minutes of my 40 minute lunch period. Oh, subtract at least 7 minutes, as well, for the interviews that preceded the paperwork follow-up.
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Within a half hour, two of the mothers involved wrote back to me that they were, in effect, appalled at the actions of their sons and would discuss the ramifications of bullying at home. (I would not have gone so far as to call this 'bullying', but the parents jumped on that word instantly.)
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The third parent was a different story. She initially wrote a brief 'thank you' to me. Later that evening, when I checked my email, I saw a much lengthier email, to the effect that she had discussed the incident with her son and he had assured her that he was not involved at all. He knew what the other two had planned but had not been around when it was happening. Her exact words were "he disputes your claim that he was involved with it. He told me that he saw what happened and let you know what happened and he is surprised that you are claiming he was part of the plan."
My jaw dropped as I read this. I had clearly written to all parents that I had seen the boys standing around the sticky note, giggling as one of them wrote on it.
My question to parents reading this is,
WHY would I spend my 'free' time making up stories about kids just to cause them trouble?
When this mom tells me she believes what her son says to her, she is also telling me that I am, in fact, a liar.
The mom's final comment in her second note to me is that she is "requesting a thorough investigation for a resolution and correction on the false accusation".
What is the world coming to? Certainly not a good place in the education of our kids for moral conduct, that's for sure.
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Can anyone truly wonder why teachers burn-out at such high rates these days?
Motivation:
The Elusive Ingredient
continued from REFLECTIONS page
Most experts in child psychology lecture us on the detriments of enticing kids through fear. I'm not sure those experts know what they're talking about. A healthy dose of fear might give middle schoolers the incentive to get busy doing what they're supposed to do.
Consequences seem to have gone out the window, and I blame administrators, who have gone off the deep end in kowtowing to parents who would rather coddle their kids than lay expectations on them.
In my classroom this year, I can name at least 5 kids who seem not to care about their studies but who also have fooled their parents into thinking that they do. If my principal would, just one time, hold a kid accountable in front of his parent, and let the parent know that it's unacceptable for this kid to be messing around constantly, life would get a lot better for everyone else in the class. But that doesn't happen. School principals are the newest politicians in our culture: they behave as if parents hold the key to whether or not they keep their job. As such, they throw platitudes at everyone, as if they are courting votes in an election.
​ Once I got my lesson started, I had to deal with kids who would rather doodle than learn, make off-task comments than participate, and play (secretly) on their tablet than participate. And sometimes, it's just easier to let the unmotivated ones do those things so the rest of my students can get their education.
Try to imagine, however, if all my students were motivated to do well in school. If they knew that participating would enhance their ability to learn. If they cared whether they learned because that would have a bearing on their choices in life. If they moved heaven and earth to make every day a good experience because they know they need to for their future.
It's not a pipe dream. But it would take a shift in the education paradigm. Instead of placing the entire onus on teachers, most of the responsibility to learn would be placed on students. And how do we do that? We make it worth their while. We offer motivation through the incentive to do well. We make their test results matter to them. We make teachers more important in a school than principals. And we remove the kow-towing to parents that interferes with a teacher's ability to implement expectations in her classroom.
On Test-taking:
Eenie-Meenie-Mynie-Moe
as a multiple choice technique ?
continued from REFLECTIONS page
As I walked around the testing lab, I saw students choosing answers randomly, students counting off Eenie, Meenie, Mynie, Moe to select an answer, and students staring at the monitor as if comatose. It was frustrating, because the results of this test are supposed to give me a good idea of who needs more help in certain areas. But how can I trust those results when I witnessed how little effort was put forth by many of my students?
And who can blame the kids, really? I saw some of those problems on the test, and the multi-step processes necessary for solving them kind of gave me a headache. I can’t imagine being a kid taking the test, knowing that the results won’t affect you one bit. I wonder how many adults would tackle a test like that seriously without the assurance that a strong result would give them more money in their job or advancement in their career.
Perhaps it's time we as a society stop kidding ourselves: the only way to get an accurate measure of what a student can do is provide incentive to actually try. Our kids currently skate by elementary and middle school, and even high school to a point. The first time they are held accountable for the results they achieve on a standardized test is when (or if) they take the SAT or ACT. Until that moment, nothing matters to them. Only to us, the teachers whose salaries and even job security depend on those tests. On what planet does this concept even remotely make sense?
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I think again about people who make way more money than I do feeding me and everyone else the line that the only thing that matters in successful instruction (and therefore, successful testing) is how engaging I make the material and leaves out the part where students actually take responsibility for their own education.
And it makes me ill.
