Urban Education Is…

Posted on March 27, 2011 by Mark E.P. Roberts

Two weeks ago, on Thursday and Friday, teachers in my building attended a mandatory morning program on reaching students with Asperger’s syndrome.  I have three in my various classes, and, based on my experiences, the different proclivities described could not be universally ascribed.  In fact, the best advice I heard came from one specialist who repeated a truism clearly dear to her profession, “If you have met one child with autism, well, you’ve met one child with autism.”

The respect for individuality prescribed at those meetings applies equally well to all urban students, teachers, and administrators.  Of course, these three ingredients play a critical role in any school setting, but, when it comes to teaching, urban education is the only kind I know.  So I want to respond directly to a question raised by a visitor to this blog.  She asks, in effect, “What makes a good urban teacher?”  The answer requires a context as large as the world these students inhabit.

Whenever someone I know moves to a new locale, I always tell them, “A place is the people you meet.”  The scenery, natural and man-made, shapes the landscape, of course, and weather, modes of transportation, jobs, and recreation all impact the experience, but the living–especially in a city–rises and falls with the people with whom you interact.  Nowhere is that more evident and problematic than in our urban schools where change is seemingly the only constant upon which one can rely.

My high school has undergone significant staff turnover in each of its six years of operation.  In fact, I think only nine of the original crew remain. Some left of their own accord after fulfilling their two year obligation; two retired, and some were removed against their will.

From what my more seasoned colleagues tell me, urban education is almost always a building in flux, especially now.  Adults come and go, and professional relationships are difficult to maintain.  Tiny pockets of mutual interest do develop based on subject, or age, or classroom proximity, but I do believe a vibrant, cohesive, school-wide culture is often elusive in an urban school.  The uncertainty surrounding testing results, teacher tenure, and administrative longevity only contribute to a sense of apprehension.

Fortunately, the cure is never far from sight.  As a teacher, you arrive on your first day, receive a room assignment, and then, between meetings explaining the latest building initiatives, you navigate into and out of that room where you will devote nearly all of time and energy.  You hang your learning aids and class rules, arrange the desks and areas, and inject life and personality into the place where the work occurs.  There is never enough time to review and refine lesson plans, purchase that flowering mum, and imagine fully the year you hope will unfold.

Soon, your students arrive, as hopeful and anxious as you.  In most urban schools, they tend to be a homogeneous crowd, at least at first view, but the secret is never to be fooled by the things they share.  They are as unique as the people who populate their separate worlds.  In fact, the one seal that truly binds them is their profound reliance on those attachments–most of whom you, the teacher, will never actually meet.

These children see themselves in the faces around them more than any other group I have known.  Within the building, they lean on one another for sustenance and reassurance.  They form their own families and are fiercely loyal and protective.  Your role as teacher is not to somehow join that family as a surrogate, but rather to lure its members to some golden destination they may or may not believe they can reach.

You must understand exactly where you are going and why, or they will not follow.  You will need a map and sweet inducements for the rough times.  You must be willing to take a slight detour or two, as needed, to refuel yourself and your students.  You must keep your sense of humor in your pocket at all times, especially when delivering a stern message.   You must never conceal your joy in the progress being made and the sights being seen.  You must promise yourself you will  never take the classroom personally–only the learning taking place within it. This last one is the toughest border to cross.

Lastly, you must recognize that the things they carry with them into your room are often too bulky for the spaces you have provided.  Your students  are growing not only as scholars, but also as human beings.  You are someone they will look to for answers to questions you may never hear, but only sense in their movements, enthusiasms, moodiness, and fears.

If the students are any like the ones I have known, you can expect the usual disruptions of modern life spilling into their work.  There will be divorces and separations, the loss of grandparents, uncles, and aunts, the sibling consuming too much attention, the mother’s new, demanding boyfriend, the falling out with friends.  There will be parents who are stable, and others who are not.  There will be blended families and broken promises, new jobs and sudden layoffs.  A few students will seem angry some days for no reason; most will be restless at times.

Like most kids, they will put a brave face on the hunger in their insides.  There is more wanting in these schools than America will admit.  Strength is a necessity in hard times, and these children are as strong as tungsten rods.  Your job is to keep them focused on tomorrow no matter their yesterdays.  But you must never be maudlin or patronizing.  You are not a missionary, but a teacher.  Your job is to prepare them for the world they will enter, not excuse them because of the one they might have left.

There will be those whose ambitions outflank their skills, but you must never tell them that.  Instead, emphasize that goals without sweat are daydreams, nothing more.  Your job is to strengthen their foundation while you have them and then build upon it as much as you can, as high as you can.  Remember you are not alone in this endeavor.  There will be teachers after you, and family and loved ones always around.  Most will build; a few detract.  You cannot control the outcomes of others.  Your job is to make your moments count.

If a place really is the people you meet, your job is to be that good place they turn to for solace, growth, and understanding.  Teach them like your future depends on it–because it does.

–teachermandc

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Lessons Learned

Posted on March 6, 2011 by Mark E.P. Roberts

Last week, preparation dominated my classroom.  In English III, we are about to begin reading The Great Gatsby. Working together and in groups, we first explored F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life, and then the “Jazz Age” he christened.  We talked about suffragettes, Prohibition, and the Roaring Twenties.  I worked to emphasize the national mood following World War I, the dramatic shift in tone and texture as the American Dream retooled.

I tell them the second decade in every century is always dramatic and agenda-setting.  “You will be in your late twenties, strong, independent, and ready to ride the wave coming your way,” I say.  They beam at the promise.  Then I describe the black community in the 1920s.  We talk about jazz and the Charleston sweeping the landscape.  I tell them about the Harlem Renaissance and the swagger of the New Negro.  I share with them stories my old college professor Ewart Guinier weaved.  He made the sights and sounds of the era come alive for myself and the others in his seminar.

The students now seem eager to read the book and decide for themselves how truthfully it captures the carnal energy and reckless optimism preceding the Great Crash.  I call them up one by one to receive their copy of the book.  I remember how much I loved getting new novels in high school, and my students are no different.

Some start reading right away, but I caution them not to go past the first chapter.  I need one more lesson to turn their focus to characterization, point of view, setting, and the novel itself.  We will continue to discuss the concept of wealth and the pursuit of happiness in America, then and now.   They have already had one Warm up statement–Money is the root of all evil–and they are split in their opinion. The money chase can corrupt, they agree, but it can also liberate.  “It’s not the money, but the people who have it,” one male student offers.  It should be an interesting few weeks.

In AP English Language, we are moving across the country to Chicago in the 1930s.  The challenges confronting the nation are different, and the worlds of Bigger Thomas and Jay Gatsby could not be more dissimilar.  For AP English, we will anchor the text with nonfiction essays about the book and its impact.  In fact, our first reading will be author Richard Wright’s lecture “How Bigger Was Born.”  For me, the greatest challenge here will lay in transporting my students into the mind of a character uniquely defined by his time and circumstance.  I have a CD of 1930s tunes to help set the stage, and I will begin each discussion with a different track.  What do the lyrics reveal about the time?  What particular worries and dreams plague this character?  Is he fully formed, or just a fragment of some truth?  Only then will I ask them to articulate who and what Bigger might look like today.

Finally, the star of the week was my Debate II class.  We had a tournament on Saturday.  Ten schools participated, mostly charter.  A Youth in Government regional conference being held across town decimated the ranks of all the schools, and we began the day with a little under sixty debaters in total.  My top two senior teams had been excused to attend the conference, and I grew worried that my school would not do as well as it usually does.  Happily, my remaining debaters did not share my concern.

We debated three topics:  the possible effect establishing the Republic of South Sudan will have on civil unrest in the old Sudan; the practical implications (or not) of Mayor Vincent Gray’s “One City” campaign, and the efficacy of President Obama’s Race to the Top educational initiative.  This last topic is, of course, frequently in my thoughts, and I enjoyed watching the students examine issues ranging from selective funding and national criteria to standardized testing and nagging “achievement gaps” they had no idea existed.

While watching a few debate this topic in person, I grew fascinated by their ability to cogently attack many of the underlying assumptions guiding educational policy these days.  In the end, my debaters did just fine.  Watching their faces at the end as so many names were called to receive medals and trophies was a thrill.

I think these experiences build them in ways even I, their teacher, cannot foresee.  One young lady, a shy tenth grader, blossoms before my gaze into a confident strategist who will never be anyone’s pushover.  Another who sometimes sabotaged her logic with too much emotion is now a crafty debater who knows now how to modulate her passion as she frames her arguments.  When she took the top speaker award for the first time (defeating a perennial winner by two points), I turned to her mother (who arrived just in time to watch the final round) and nodded my head. The work was bearing fruit, and we both knew the sweet taste would only awaken her thirst for more.

Teaching is about lessons learned, especially the ones that linger long after the closing bell has rung.  Authentic assessments involving real life applications are, to me, the best way to determine what a student has or has not mastered.  As the young lady with the winning medal argued in her debate, “It is ridiculous to try to even measure all I have learned in high school by two three-hour, fill-in-the-bubble tests taken in the tenth grade.  My education is more than that'”

I cannot overstate my joy in watching my students rise to the occasion and the expectations placed before them.  As we near the end of the third advisory, I know the year will soon be done.  There seems to never be enough time to impart all you want.  There is always at least one chapter unread, one thing you meant to cover but could not.  But moments like the ones I enjoyed last week remind me that the true impact of my job would take years to measure no matter how I reached.

As I tell them, “I don’t know where life will take you, but, however you land, I want you to be the one people turn to when thoughtful action is needed and rallying words are required.”  They always grow quiet at that point, silently signaling how much they want it too.

–teachermandc

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Pillar to Post

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Mark E.P. Roberts

This week was short and sweet.  Students in all my classes arrived prepared to learn, and our school finally had its first bona fide Black History assembly.  My students all wanted to know how the Carnegie Corporation and Education Writers Association (EWA) conference went, and I appreciated their interest.  No one actually said it, but I could tell they were proud of me.

I began blogging on the first day of school this year.  Naturally, I also commenced visiting other blogs for both inspiration and ideas.  My oldest daughter suggested I start leaving occasional comments on entries that intrigued me.  I could use comments to both build traffic to my blog and share my ideas on a host of topics related to education.

I followed her advice and have gathered here a sampling of my comments over these past few months.  But first I want to share something written by another reader of Valerie Strauss’ The Answer Sheet on washingtonpost.com.  The day was January 26, and I had left a brief response in the morning to her entry “Things I’m sick of hearing.”  Her post, in the form of a multiple choice quiz, took a humorous swipe at some of the standard attacks lobbed by education “reformers.”  I suggested an additional item and ended with my usual request for her readers to also visit my blog.

There was nothing special about my comment, but when I checked my blog later that evening, I learned that well over one hundred readers had visited that day–my highest single day total to date.  It was only after I revisited Ms. Strauss’ site that I stumbled upon this comment, which both humbled and electrified me:

“Anyone who argues against cookie cutter curriculum where students and teachers alike are asked to perform like robots – no real dialogue as a teacher can only address the learning point in a 5-10 minute sound byte followed by 20 minute independent student work time where students demonstrate understanding of the teaching point… concluding in a 10-15 minute share out time.

A) should read the teachermandc.com blog as it reveals that there are teachers out there who still are inspiring students to love learning and are managing to teach despite the enormous influence of poor quality “top-down” curricular models.

b) Should read a good number of his entries that reveal the importance of socratic style teaching in developing critical thinking skills (and yes teachers need to hop off the “scripted curriculum” to engage students and make it applicable to their lives to enhance understanding.

c) In particular pay attention to the entry… “Sticky Truths” and then read the entry “Gratitude and Impact”. Do we really want to stop unscripted but real classroom dialogue connected to curriculum such as we see here in teachermandc? Do we really want to stop this quality lesson planning in favor of scripted sound bytes that act more like a dog and pony show to show evidence of curriculum coverage for school district heads rather than evidence of real learning? Really? Real reformers should be angry at how scripted/mandated teacher methodologies are prevented good teachers from teaching – in fact de-professionalizing the teaching profession.. destroying education for students and then falsely blaming teachers!

Thanks dcproud1 creator of the teachermandc.com blog for such an insightful blog… brings me back to my own days as a student who loved to learn… I was fortunate enough to have teachers like you. And thanks to school closings for allowing me time to read the always insightful Valerie Strauss blog!

Posted by: teachermd | January 26, 2011 12:53 PM

I do not know teachermd, but I want to thank him for his warm words.  Here is the sampling of comments I have made:

Coment on: Courtland Milloy: Rhee needs to take a look in the mirror at 9/26/2010 8:23 PM EDT

If Rhee does indeed exit DCPS, it is my hope she is capable of learning from her mistakes. Without community engagement throughout ALL of the city, nothing meaningful can transpire. The notion that Rhee and Rhee alone knows what to do and how cannot be sustained by her history here.

Comment on: D.C. school chief Rhee’s next move probably toward the door at 9/19/2010 11:33 AM EDT

I just finished teaching my students a lesson on logical fallacies. There certainly are plenty in evidence here. The notion that a post-Rhee world means educational Armageddon is as preposterous as the assumption that parents who voted against Fenty either want the worst for their children, or are simply too dense to understand the issues.

I have to applaud Ms, Williams-Bolar, in part, for her initiative. As a public school teacher in an urban school system, I am often dismayed at parents of color who sheepishly send their children to the worst schools, do nothing to agitate for improvements, and then appear shocked when they later discover their progeny are woefully behind academically.Still, I cannot accept the suggestion here that illicit activity is forced upon us by a cold-hearted system. Perhaps the considerable energies spent on circumventing the system here could have been better used demanding change in the neighborhood school. Perhaps this concept of getting-by-at-any-costs perpetuates the self-destructive behaviors we see all too often in our communities–especially in our inner cities. In my classroom, I try to instill in my students an appreciation for honor and hard work. It has never been “easy” being black. Fortunately, many of our ancestors did the work anyway.To me, reading books, growing your mind, and preparing yourself for a productive life far and away beats robbing some poor pizza delivery man trying to do right by himself and his family. Unless and until we start teaching the children that, too many of us will continue to make poor choices which doom both our present and our future

I totally agree that this documentary’s failings lay in its search for a silver bullet. I am a high school English teacher in the DC public school system. Next door to our school is a charter school whose test scores are dismal. Yet many parents continue to enroll their children. Why? I suspect it is because the building (a former public school) is self-contained and deemed safer than public school. The structure of the school is not nearly as important as the content contained within. Until we look at the curriculum, surface solutions will continue to fly.

I want to end with a remark I left on one of my favorite blogs, Conducting the Inner Light by lodesterre (another favorite is The Reflective Educator’s An Urban Teacher’s Education). My comments were in response to an October 12th post entitled, “I’m sure this was for the children, too.”  They are followed by a contact list of those edubloggers and journalists at the EWA, as generously provided by Mark Anderson on his Manderson’s Bubble blog.

“Inner light” is one of those goals easier voiced than gained. The DC public school system is not perfect and needs improvement. We can do better, and I believe we will. What we don’t need now (and never have) is a leader who considers collaboration a weakness and listening a crime.

Somebody say, ” Amen.”

–teachermandc

EWA Participants:

Here’s links to the journalists’ sites that were in attendance:

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That Man Behind the Curtain

Posted on February 20, 2011 by Mark E.P. Roberts

As my generation used to say back in the ’70s, my second period AP English Language class “is a trip.”  On Thursday, half of the clan found the funds to attend a college fair, so I put aside my planned follow-up lesson on Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” (where they will compose their own satirical proposals) and instead handed them a vocabulary review exercise.  While working, we got to talking about their progress this year.  All agreed they had learned a great deal, but most attributed it to their own efforts.  “What about me?” I asked.

“What about you?” one replied.  We all laughed.  I love this class because they are so challengingly honest.  I have nicknames for them.  There is “Ms. Bag Lady,” a thin, energetic wisp of contradictions who hides both gems and junk in her large purse.  I have “Mr. Pretty Boy,” whose improvements in writing are only matched by his temper-fueled outbursts at any perceived slight.   A key member of the group is “Mr. Detective,” who has taken it upon himself to expose the mystery of me, the “man behind the curtain.”  “So where do you claim you graduated from college again?” he asks.  And what was the year?”

“Ms. No Neck” becomes defensive whenever I challenge her on too many missed assignments, but I can see how hard she is working to control herself when speaking back to me.  Just before she launches a classic hand-on-the-hip, invective-filled roll of her head and eyes, I always yell, “Check the neck,” and she now does.  “I appreciate all the things you called me in your head, but didn’t say out loud,” I tell her.  Whenever she smiles,  I know it will be a good class.

On Thursday, I also reminded my students that the Education Writers Association (EWA) and the Carnegie Corporation of New York had invited me to attend a workshop in New York City.  My students know I started a blog this year, but I will not give them the name.  Mr. Detective has, thus far, been unsuccessful in discovering my cyber self.  Naturally, he insists on verifying the original email asking me to share my thoughts with expert journalists, policy makers, and high-profile bloggers from around the country.  I show him part of the communication, but only after deleting all references to my alias.

“Ok, I believe you,” he announces.  “But why would they invite you?  You’re just our teacher.”

Therein lies the rub.  Of the fifty-five or so in attendance, I believe only thirteen would be returning to a classroom on Tuesday, and none from the featured panelists (though many have taught in the past).  Still, I relished my involvement and remain flattered by the invitation extended to me by Linda Perlstein of EWA.  Not only did I get to ride the Acela for the first time, but I also was able to put a face to the words of many bloggers and journalists I both admire and read.  I learned a few things too.

Mostly, I thought of my students as the conversations bubbled throughout the day.  We began with a video presentation on the stated goal of an “excellent teacher for every student in every school.”  Of course, “every” is a lofty word, and I remember some union practices limiting collaboration time, class size, and length of school day being cited as barriers to top performance, though, according to the data, right-to-work states were also found wanting in many ways.

Data played a key supporting role all day.  One presenter announced that the average teacher in America has only been on the job for 10 years or less.  During the question and answer portion following each discussion, I did manage to challenge the belief that experience is a de facto negative in education, unlike in medicine, law, or a host of other professions.  At times, I talked too much.

The conference focused on three key areas of exploration:  Education Schools (Teaching Teachers), Teacher Recruitment and Hiring (Bringing in the Best), and Professional Development (Learning on the Job).  In addition to outlining stubborn barriers and current trends, each panel was also designed to assist journalists as they strive to objectively cover issues in education for their audiences.  Finally, during the last session, teachers met directly with these journalists to answer some of their questions and provide suggestions for underreported topics worthy of coverage.

After perusing my notes from the sessions, I want to share with you a few facts and statements that held my eye:

— Elementary school teachers are currently drawn primarily from the bottom 50% of college students, unlike the top one-third pool in more successful countries.  I find this statistic startling, even as I publicly deride the latest tendency to hoist homogeneous nations like South Korea, Finland and Switzerland as examples of our goal.  Our diverse history warrants more consideration and reflection than that.

–Interestingly, 96% of education schools and programs are not attached to nationally recognized selective schools.  On these less selective campuses, education majors tend to be the least selective students.  Too many of these candidates end up teaching in our most problematic schools.

–For all the cache Teach For America’s (TFA) highly educated recruits bring, they, along with Teaching Fellow programs, account for only 10,000 of the 240,000 new teachers each year.  Education schools do matter, and I was happy to hear they are now working to emphasize practicums and instruction over theory.

–Often school system recruitment methods must emphasize “keeping the really bad ones” out, as opposed to luring the top candidates in, an interesting dynamic.

–Less than 8% of teachers are African American.  Only 4% are Latino (no word on principals).  Perhaps in response to the “elitist” label often attached to TFA, spokesman Spencer Kympton points out that Teach for America has double the  national percentage of teaching minorities in its own recent recruitment classes.  In addition, he notes that 40% of all their candidates have “low income” backgrounds.

Clearly, we cannot solve this “cultural divide” solely by bolstering minority recruitment.  We need great teachers, whatever their pedigree.  Still, I would love to see more new teachers whose life and friendship choices prior to entering the profession demonstrate a capacity for open exchange and empathy beyond their neighborhoods.  Without wider experiences, how are new teachers to truly “see” the miracles. and not the stereotypes, unfolding before them?  The first minority person with whom a teacher engages should not be his or her student.

–Accomplished schools require a strong mission, a good leader, and a committed faculty with high expectations.  No mention ever of the role of parent involvement, and I still remember my days as a public school parent leader struggling to be heard.

–The best professional development occurs when teachers assist in planning it.  Professional respect and inclusion are still elusive for too many teachers who “heeded the call.”

At the end of day, while meeting with journalists, I mentioned my concerns about reporting which merely mimics the “talking points” distributed by savvy school systems.  I, along with my teaching peers, also cautioned against relying solely on test scores to measure teacher effectiveness and/or student achievement.  Personally, I have students who scored “advanced,” but are clearly deficient in some critical areas, especially writing and grammar (which most of these exams do not bother to test).  I also have students who are performing well above the “below basic” and “basic” labels they have been given.

Specifically, I mentioned a question on DC’s 10th grade standardized test from a few years ago.  I had worked hard to teach my students how to both recognize and craft figurative language and other figures of speech.  We spent classes analyzing the role metaphors and similes play in stimulating the “lazy reader.”  We noted the elements of literary surprise in the work of authors ranging from Lorraine Hansberry to J. D. Salinger.

We composed lyrics and personal essays which incorporated these tools.  Then, on the exam, the required skill assessment rested on an obscure Lord Tennyson passage with a key reference to “skiffs,” a term whose meaning my urban, land-bound students could not discern from context clues.

Of course, most got the question wrong.  Given the national experience and the high percentage of minority students in public schools, why did the test manufacturers choose this passage to measure the students’ ability to appreciate figurative language?  At times, I think these children are easy marks for an industry fueled, in part, by a persistent “achievement gap.”

While heading back to my hotel, I did celebrate much of the day’s discussions.  Everyone wants to see all of our nation’s students succeed–unlike in the past.  Yes, questions about what “success” resembles persist.  Still, new teachers from a host of backgrounds will enter our classrooms next September, ready or not.  Regardless of the route they took to get there, these teachers will find a daunting challenge before them–how to push today’s multi-tasking youth beyond the boundaries too many young people have accepted as truth.

I kept thinking all evening about my students.  Sooner or later, they and their parent and guardians will have to be escorted into the circle of consideration if the discussion about reform is to truly become complete.  Until then, I intend to show off the tee-shirt I purchased ablaze with the New York City skyline and words from Jay-Z and Alicia Key’s “Empire State of Mind:”–

“These streets will make you feel brand new. Big lights will inspire you.”

Education and practice remain the avenues to invention, especially of self.  For the time being, I am the “big light” in my classroom, that man behind the curtain pretending to be a wizard.  I am joined in this adventure by my students who have so many dreams, no matter what their test scores say.  Rather than teach to the test, I teach to the dreams.

Ms. No Neck will never be America’s Next Top Model if she cannot answer questions from Tyra Banks using proper English.   Mr. Pretty Boy will never hurdle his way into the Olympics if he continues to dodge whatever emotional challenges confront him.  The characters and ideas we encounter in literature and essays will help Ms. Bag Lady discard personal weight she should never have had to bear.  Crisp, succinct writing (and thinking) will assist Mr. Detective as he seeks to unravel, decipher, and defuse the turbulent racial history he inherited.

The fact that they know I expect each of them to pass the AP English Language exam in May is part of it, but not most of it.  The most-of-it part is that they expect it too.  I did not give them that; it was there all along.  Like the teachers I met on Friday, and the ones with whom I share a  building, I just help them find the courage to dream the dream out loud–and then claim it.

–teachermandc

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Tumbling Walls and Other Obstructions

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Mark E.P. Roberts

“Self-determination” is such a powerful word.  Like all hybrids, it blends two components into one, and here the result outshines its parts.  With the outbursts of freedom and “people power” still resonating over the Tunisian and Egyptian sands, it is impossible not to recall our own American moments of seismic correction, particularly in the realm of civic and civil rights.  Too often, we ignore the transformative rush inherent in our own swing from a nation governed, in effect, by the propertied few to the one we uphold today, despite our occasional bouts of misguided, nostalgic yearnings.

As a nation, we have never been so diverse, and our cities and towns bustle with activity, even in these hard times.  Our young people explode with a creativity beyond their years, and many of us adults must struggle to keep pace.  In our schools, the challenge now rests in harnessing that youthful energy—the same energy that helped topple legalized segregation and sexism here, and Mubarak abroad–without extinguishing its unbridled power.

But the tools we use to measure the worth of our young people seem to suggest they are inadequate and losing ground, especially in our urban settings.  In an effort to halt this decline, we turn and point our fingers primarily at the schools and teachers which produced them.  Poverty and class culture play a role in this story, of course, but not as much as teacher unions would have us believe.  Besides, we cannot fire parents or end poverty, but we can hold educators accountable for their craft.

To that end, we now have a juggernaut of educrats, reformers, philanthropes, consultants, test manufacturers, researchers, politicians, consultants, publishers, and activists clamoring for radical reform in the way we teach our children (incidentally ensuring a nice stream of cash to reward all these thinkers for their brilliance).  Some have gone so far as to decry anything connected with the teaching profession we have known, including education schools, unions, tenure, and public school systems in general.

As observers of former Chancellor Michelle Rhee learned first-hand here in DC, the new dogma places data at the epicenter of education.  Unlike in most professions, educators with experience have become a handicap, the symbol of a failed formula.  Today’s teachers should be newly-minted, inexperienced, and naive.  Armed with a crash summer course in instruction and a healthy respect for standardized results, this moving flotilla is all we need to take our schools back, one classroom at a time.

It matters little if many of these inspired recruits abandon their posts after a few years.  We can always harvest a new crop.  Stability equals stagnation in this brave, new world.  The numbers alone will tell us who learned and who did not, who can teach and who can not.  The numbers will tell us what schools to close and which to consolidate.  Data will reveal which principals should be fired and what public schools should be privatized and chartered.

Statistical analysis will determine how teachers (instruction providers) should be paid, based on the value each contributes to the end product, formerly known as the student.  Classrooms are now learning laboratories, and curriculum only matters if the assessment says it did  Art, music, and physical education are expendable, and no subject should be offered that does not have a standardized test to which teacher performance can be tied.  It is the total reliance on measurable accountability which makes this latest model so tidy and enticing.

It reminds me of a similar breakthrough in the 1970s.  Once again, DC Public Schools became eager recipients of cutting edge policy.  I can just imagine the meeting when the innovation was first introduced.  I see a man in a gray suit and dark tie pointing to a slew of colorful charts encapsulating the findings of an army of highly paid researchers.

“What we have discovered,” he states, “is a remarkable twist on an old problem–how best to prepare our students for the demands of a workplace that is very much in flux.  For too long, we have isolated our students in small pockets, force feeding them facts whether they liked it or not.”

His voice rises slightly now, betraying just a hint of emotion.  “Just as we have done with the introduction of whole language and the new math, we must now decompartmentalize our schools and take education to the student, rather than the other way around.  We must start with that most venerable symbol of our past mistakes–namely the building itself.  We must take the “room” out of classroom.  We must tear down the walls!”

I am sure it made for extraordinary theater.  Why hadn’t anyone thought of it before?  By freeing students from the confines of a single room, thoughts could float and soar throughout the entire building.  Removing walls would force teachers to “meet their students where they were”–whether on the floor, or in desks arranged in a circle.  Without “artificial barriers,” learning would occur not as the product of regimen, but rather as the natural outgrowth of trial and error.  Teachers would merely serve as guides.  Students would teach themselves.

While it might only be pure speculation, I would like to think that at least one teacher sat in the room during the presentation to District officials and administrators.  I picture a woman in a dark blue skirt and a pale blue collared top.  She clears her throat while the others feed on the possibilities of a school without walls.  She politely asks,”But what about the noise? It seems to me it would be nearly impossible to teach without something separating the children by grade or subject.”

The gentleman in the suit curtly gives her one of those I-can’t-believe-you-can’t-see-it looks and then speaks to her as though she were a child.  “Don’t you see?  We do not need to separate children.  What you see as noise, we see as discovery.  Imagine an entire school buzzing with the sound of students bouncing ideas off one another.  No, what you hear is not noise, but a symphony of learners practicing their instruments.  Of course, teachers will need some additional training on steering the children to meaningful discussions.  But we are confident that will be the easy part.  We just need to shift the way we see things.  We need to prepare these children for the 21st century.  We need to trust their natural instincts.  We need to see walls as obstructions and tear them down.”

And so it was.  The District spent millions constructing new schools with no classrooms at every level of instruction.  A rebuilt Takoma Elementary School received color-coded flooring to facilitate transit and exchange.  A newly-erected Dunbar Senior High School showcased a narrow, towering, windowless maze of gathering spaces with no limits, or sound barriers, or walls.    Teachers who objected to boundaryless instruction were promptly labeled tainted and out-of-touch.  Reformers hailed DC for its foresight and initiative.  Consultants worked overtime trying to make it work.  But it failed; the experiment failed.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.  I predict this latest model of teacher-as-assembly-part will meet the same fate as the open classroom movement, now discredited as yet another horse turd from the feel-good ’70s.

I know there is much room for improvement in the present system.  Too many children are being left behind, especially the ones who look like me.  A better way must be found.  I just do not have a great deal of faith in the construct that a room full of policy makers light years removed from the classroom can produce a magic bean.  We need parents, students, and teachers also involved in formulating solutions to a complex problem.  Until then, I intend to watch my step lest I step in something unintended while keeping my eyes on the prize.

P.S. During last summer, the system finally relented and erected walls at Dunbar.  In December, DC unveiled drawings for a brand new structure to be built on the former site of this historic school.  The drawing sparkled with lots of glass, atriums, and walled classrooms.  The estimated cost is $100 million, a small price to pay these days for enlightenment.

–teachermandc

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The Gathering

Posted on February 6, 2011 by Mark E.P. Roberts

Grades were due last week, and report cards mailed on Friday.  I hate grading.  I know assessments are important.  I use them to determine whether or not my students mastered the skills in question.  They help me refine lessons or even reteach to get the point across. Most times, they serve as a valve forcing students to do work they would much rather ignore.  All teachers do it.  The part I detest is the underlying judgment students attach to grades.  I hate to join a chorus of past “not-quite-good-enough’s,” but, unlike some teachers, I do not hand out A’s like candy.

My grading philosophy seeks to reward effort, but does not confuse it with excellence.  If students do all the work assigned both in class and at home, they cannot fail, no matter how poorly they do.  My rationale is that practice leads to growth, and I want to encourage my students to try new things–especially in writing.  I want them to move beyond the “censor,” that bird of self-doubt sitting on every shoulder questioning commas, and diction, and style.  First draft essays rarely receive a grade lower than “C-” from me.  It is the baseline from which we grow.

Most students accept this dynamic.  Through successive edits (usually two), the work tightens; silly grammatical errors fade; verbs improve; and a clear voice emerges.  Once deemed “wall worthy,” the essays are displayed in the room.  Presently, I have over fifty papers on the walls, and students regularly stop to read the work of their peers.

Where I get into trouble is at the upper regions of the grading scale.  I only give “A’s” for superior work, work that could survive scrutiny at any school.  My AP English students, in particular, seem both challenged and annoyed by this standard.  When they receive a high mark from me, they know they have earned it.  But when they do not, they revert to form.  After a history of receiving somewhat inflated grades, they can become attitudinal and sullen.  This is especially true at report card time.  To use their term, they become “pressed.”

Some rant; a few curse.  I keep telling them to chase the knowledge and not the grade, but every time I say it I can see myself aging in their eyes.  I provide all my students with a detailed listing of their marks on all assignments.  If they failed to turn something in, they receive a zero. It is the only way to fail.  The system seems reasonable to me.  “Life doesn’t care if you stubbed your toe,” I say. “Life doesn’t care if you inherited a bad day.”

After grades disseminate, I always get email and phone calls from a few frantic parents.  Their not-so-little-one always received the highest marks in English, they remind me.  They want to know what we are doing wrong.  I always stumble a little at that part.  I try to explain that the student’s work is improving, but has not yet reached the standard I have set.  I try to reassure them I have the well-being of their child or grandchild at the very tip of my mind and intentions.  Sometimes it works; sometimes I am summoned to the principal’s office to explain myself.

What students and parents often forget is that, for most of us, high school is the last chance we get to have a boardroom of adults huddled on our behalf.  My students take eight classes.  If we assume at least five of their teachers care what happens to them, then throw in a counselor, or administrator, or staffer, and we have a group of seven or eight advocates working for their benefit.  “Where else,” I ask them, “are you going to fiind a group like that in your lifetime?”

Excluding family (which usually wishes us well), adults are lucky if one or two colleagues actually care about what happens to them.  Elementary school can be magical, but typically the number of teachers and other adults circling a child are few.  Middle schools see the number expand with course offerings and specialization, but even there the mass of eyes hovering overhead is lower than that of high school, especially mine.

Ideally, the cadre of teachers instructing a student work hard to cajole and inspire, to delineate and demonstrate from a wide range of vantage points.  From science to history to language, high schools teachers are the last ridge before the plunge into workplace demands or college anonymity.  Rather than view us as co-conspirators, I urge my students to see teachers as useful guides whose real compensation rests primarily in their personal and intellectual achievement.  We are psychiatrists, social workers, coaches, mentors, surrogate parents, next-door-neighbors, barbers, beauticians, and kin.

“I want you to succeed,” I say.  “Not the way a stranger might wish everyone well.  I mean you, in particular.  And your other teachers want that for you too–even the ones you don’t like.”

At that point, many protest and lob a name or three, despite my known rule against criticizing any teacher other than me. There is always that colleague who seems meaner than required, or the one whose eye during instruction is clearly on the dismissal clock.  Interestingly, they almost always include the one who gives high grades if they just show up and administers ten-question multiple choice exams.  Even they know there is no profit in that.

When the heat of facing a disappointed parent dissipates, the students who threatened to leave my class invariably return.  I like to think they do so because they know they are learning.  But I know it is sometimes because switching classes this late in the school year is next to impossible.

I have no experience with suburban or rural schools, but I sense urban students are short-changed by the system armed to protect them.  On the DC CAS standardized test, for example, students are not required to know grammar or language conventions, and the writing component consists of two, single paragraph responses.  Too many of my students do not have to contend with teachers like my own who insisted we exceed the minimum in everything we did.

I  wish someone had told me that way back in high school.  I might have cherished my moments in class more if I had known that strange gathering of men and women poking my edges and assessing my work were not enemies, but champions whose whispered admonitions and rallying expectations would later sustain me on more than one stormy night without a cave in sight.

–teachermandc

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Mercy, Mercy, Mercy

Posted on January 23, 2011 by Mark E.P. Roberts

My mother loved Cannonball Adderley’s “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!”  From the opening chords of Joe Zawinul’s arresting composition, the tune tackles you with the composer’s plaintive Wurlitzer electric piano and Adderley’s triumphant alto sax.  Whenever my mother heard it, she stopped everything and began popping her fingers in a rhythmic back-and-forth move we later christened the “Nana Dance.”

My favorite part is just at the beginning, when Adderley introduces the song to the live audience.  He says, “You know, sometime we’re not prepared for adversity.  When it happens, sometimes we’re caught short.  We don’t know exactly how to handle it when it comes up.  Sometimes we don’t know just what to do when adversity takes over.” I know exactly what he means, and so do my students.

We had a very good week.  My English III students finally plunged into The Crucible, and when we set up a mini-stage in the class for them to perform the final act, the entire room took on the air of theater and important business.  Later, they identified lines from the many characters with great alacrity, and, on Thursday and Friday, they energetically charted and debated who was round or flat, dynamic or static.  We enjoyed one another, and, in the end, agreed to disagree on whether or not the preserving of John Proctor’s name justified sacrificing his life.

Mostly, we talked about adversity, about hardships and tempests.  In 1692 Salem, greed, envy, high honor, and faith fed an ill wind that led to nineteen hangings.  Students, of course, had difficulty understanding how “spectral evidence” and dream states could carry such weight in a court of law.  But they had no trouble calling Abigail Williams a “b” (the popular euphemism we borrowed in lieu of profanity), and they experienced no difficulty in articulating the central conflicts in this fact-based play.

We decided that adverse conditions are  just a part of life, as necessary as breathing. There is some comfort in lifting adversity to a necessity.  It means a life lived well must have its share of dry spots.  Without hardships, how are we to measure growth, much less attain it?  Like all dynamic characters, how are we to change without obstacles?  “In life and in literature,” I tell them, “struggle produces results.”

I have always loved winter, that ready metaphor for life’s crucibles.  My students always seem fortified when I reassure them that no one is immune to difficulties, not even the rich or well-connected.  I remind them that, whatever their circumstance, there will be triumphs and defeats, delights and disappointments.  “Mercy, mercy, mercy” is an ephimeral request everyone makes at one time or another.  What differentiates us is not whether we stumble, but how we respond.  I want at least a few things I teach to find a place in their medicine bag when they bunker down and wait for spring.

In AP English Language, I administered the timed argument question from the 2009 exam.  Adversity was again the star.  The question cited the Roman poet Horace, in part, and then asked students to challenge, defend, or qualify his assertion.  The quote read, “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.”

Unlike some past prompts, this one rang clear, and the students dove into it.   After annotating the entire question,  I asked volunteers to share the list of appropriate examples I insist they make before they write.  I had never seen them so confident.  The list grew as more and more examples of adversity’s saving grace filled the board.  Interestingly, almost all chose evidence drawn from their own cultural groundings.  Movies like Precious or Malcolm X competed with sports heroes like Michale Vick and Donovan McNabb.  Luminaries plucked from the Civil Rights Movement wrestled with books like The Color Purple for top billing.   It occurred to me, midway through the exercise, that standardized test results would no doubt rise, and achievement gaps shrink, if students could always feel so at ease with the validity of their knowledge.

Clearly, the notion that the things we lack provide some kind of character advantage comforts us. The urban students in my classroom have all heard about who they are not, or what they do not possess.  So many of the educational reform flags waving throughout the nation bear their likeness.   They are the mishaps requiring correction.  They are the  miseducated stymying growth.  They are the misfortunate darkening the skies.  Without a radical disruption in the way our nation approaches education and teachers, some say, my students will become the wreckage on the side of the road–good for a slight diversion, but nothing more.

Of course, I wish their grammar skills were stronger.   I wish they read more and texted less.  If I could gift them anything, it would be overseas travel, great books, and jazz.  Maybe the things they lack are growing them.   Perhaps the hardships they face–of which I strive constantly not to be numbered–are teaching them.  But I do not have time to wait around and see what their generation yields.

So I focus instead on the things they own now, not just adversity, but also aplomb, curiosity, intellect, and “swag.”  I choose to build from there.  Thus far, it seems to be working, and I’m glad.

–teachermandc

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The Man with the Golden Voice

Posted on January 16, 2011 by Mark E.P. Roberts

“I don’t like her,” one young lady in debate class says about the ninety-year-old mother of Ted Williams, the homeless man with the golden voice.  Williams was recently “discovered”on the side of the exit ramp off Interstate 71 in Columbus, Ohio.  Journalist and web producer Doral Chenoweth III saw his sign, which read:

I HAVE A GOD GIVEN GIFT OF VOICE,  I’M AN EX-RADIO ANNOUNCER WHO HAS FALLEN ON HARD TIMES, PLEASE! ANY HELP WILL BE GREAT-FULLY APPRECIATED AND THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS YOU, HAPPY HOLIDAY.

Chenoweth stopped and lightly challenged Williams to demonstrate his talent.  Williams complied, as if on cue, and his crisp baritone was, indeed, a heavenly gift.  Video posted on The Columbus Dispatch and then YouTube propelled this unknown panhandler with the famous ballplayer’s name back into existence.  Appearances on national programs like The Early Show and Entertainment Tonight ensued. Job offers followed, and his new agent estimates Williams could earn over one million dollars doing voice-overs and the like.

A televised reunion with his mother, whom he had not seen in a decade, aired on The Today Show, followed by a larger gathering on Dr. Phil with five of his nine children, now grown, who have only a dim memory of their distant dad.  At fifty-three, Williams also seemed a bit shell shocked as he discussed his past forays into addiction and petty crimes.

“Why don’t you like her?” I ask the student.  “She’s his mother.  This must have been hard on her.”

“She just didn’t seem like she was too happy to see him,” the young lady explains.  “She kept saying, ‘Please, don’t disappoint me.'”

I remind my students that we, the public, are only privy to a small piece of a larger story.  Surely we have considered the complicated and twisting pathways that lead to a life holding a handwritten sign on the side of some road.   In the Bible, the Prodigal Son only returned home once.  Would he have received the same lavish reception if it had been his nineteenth time?

We make a list of traits and circumstances that might sabotage a life journey.  It is a familiar catalog:  addiction, mental illness, incarceration, abuse, short-sightedness, fear, laziness, ignorance, shame.  Then I ask my students to suggest remedies for these human frailties.  Treatment, parole, education, employment, confession, family, and faith are all prominently mentioned.

We discuss Mr. Williams’ recent admission of  a relapse, and his subsequent decision to enter rehab.  “How many of you think he will make it?” I ask.  A few hands go up.  “How many of you think he will fail?” I continue.  More are raised.  “How many of you think this could happen to you?”  Almost all lift their voice in protest.

“Not me.  Never,” one popular male student says.  “Did you see his hair?”

“And his teeth?” laughs another.

Then I get that look on my face that tells my students a speech is coming.

“I think all of us have a moment like Ted Williams is having now,” I say.  “Not one of those big, happy moments, like graduation or your first real job.  We get those, sure, but we also have to deal with other times when something shakes us so hard we have no choice but to stop and consider the weight of the thing.”

Then I move to the point of the exercise.  For a few classes now, we have been preparing to debate the topic of gentrification in DC.  It has been easy for students to obtain data on a host of positive trends in the city since the 2000 census.  Tax revenue is up, along with the population.  New retail and shopping options abound (ten new supermarkets alone in as many years).  All areas of the city have grown in population and housing options.  Crime rates are plummeting.  The newspapers report a white majority is projected by 2014.  There is a sense of forward movement in the city.

It has proven more difficult to argue against gentrification.  Displacement of the poor and a reduction in affordable housing and homeless shelters are chronicled, but my students do not see themselves directly in the path of these consequences.  Some bemoan the loss of “Chocolate City,” and claim a lack of connection with the newcomers walking dogs in their neighborhood.  But most nod when one girl confesses, “I want to live in one of those apartments downtown.  They look nice.”

“What would have happened if Ted Williams lived in DC?” I ask.  “Forget the television part.  I mean before, like those men you see sometimes off the 395 overpass.  The ones with the signs.  What do you think happens to them?”

“They die,” one offers.

“Maybe.  Maybe not,” I respond.  “Maybe we need to think about gentrification differently.  Think of how it shapes city policy and resource allocation.   Many like Mr. Williams, who has a criminal record, have a very difficult time reintegrating into the community.  Who wants them?  Who will hire them?  Where do you go for help?  In fact, why would any city want to help its poor who pay little taxes, need assistance, and often don’t vote?”

It’s always fun once you open a window in a classroom.  Our discussion weaves around a number of issues, both political and personal.  A few have relatives lost in one cave or another, and all know of at least someone scarred by poverty.  Most conclude the city should stay just the way it is now, a blend of ages, races, and incomes.  None think it better to reside in a place where everyone lives the same, or owns the same.  “So argue that,” I say.

I end the class with another story.  I speak to them about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s last speech on April 3, 1968, the day before his assassination.  Against the advice of many of his closest associates, he had come to Memphis to rally against the pay scale and work conditions of sanitation workers.  We used to call them “trashmen,” the lowest of the low.

King stayed in his hotel room that evening.  He was tired, and he asked Reverend Ralph Abernathy and others to handle speaking duty at the Mason Temple that night.  But the crowd insisted.  They wanted to hear Dr. King, and he, once informed they would not relent, left his room to join them.

In the speech, he spoke about economic justice and human dignity.  He talked about the time he almost died after being stabbed ten years earlier, about how he didn’t sneeze, about progress, connection, and his own death.  He talked about the mountain top and the promised land. Colleagues later said they had never heard him so prophetic, and Dr. King was so drained at the end of his speech that he had to be helped from the pulpit.

I read the last paragraph of his speech aloud to the class:

“”Well,  I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life — longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything, I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

The next day, when he died, DC erupted, I remind the students.  I tell them about the riots, and the looting, and the neighborhoods ablaze.  Some are only now regaining their past glory, though the faces of the residents have changed.

“Gentrification,” I say, “is complicated.  Like most things–even addiction and recovery, pain and redemption, fragments and foresight–sometimes it just depends on who you talk to, and whether you’re looking down or up.”

“So,” I ask, ending with the learning reflection exercise now mandated in all classes, “what did we learn today?”

–teachermandc

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Sticky Truths

Posted on January 9, 2011 by Mark E.P. Roberts

I yelled at some of my English III students on Friday.  I wasn’t too emotional about it, and my voice only rose a decibel or two, but I let them know their work effort disappointed me.  I had assigned Act I of The Crucible over the two-week Winter Break, along with ten Study Questions related to it.  But only a handful complied, and most failed the quiz I had promised for the first day back.

As usual, I offered a second chance, reassigned the reading, and promised to give them the same quiz again.  I explained that I understood how holiday breaks sometimes get away from us, and I announced I would simply average the two quiz scores in order to lift their performance.  I was very magnanimous about it all and felt certain we would be back on track in no time.

During the lesson that class and the next, I strove to make the play more appealing to their modern sensibilities.  We had already done a number of pre-reading exercises to set the stage, but clearly more was needed.  So, in that first class back, I had seven students play the role of accusers while nineteen were forced to stand, condemned to death for refusing to confess to invisible crimes.

We talked again about crowds and the vise of “group think.”  We discussed the incredible power the accusers–young white girls and one black slave–must have experienced in such a harsh, hierarchical society.  We went on a “field trip” to the library where I showed a power point presentation on hysteria I borrowed from an online lesson plan.  We shared the things we feared, and then we discussed the 1950s and the communist scare.  I told them stories about students hiding under desks during drills.

We reviewed what we had learned about the Puritans and their angry God.  I thought I had done a pretty good job of building interest in this play with the funny name, and I was confident most would now embrace the work.  During the second lesson, I focused on conflict.  ‘Without conflict, there is no story; there is no pulse,” I told them.  I had students identify the struggles and hidden motives driving the main characters in Act I, but first, as promised, I readministered the reading quiz.  It turned out almost half failed again.

I delivered a small lecture about giving this famous play a chance.  We read selected passages aloud, especially the “jucier” parts involving the willful Abigail and her lust for the married John Proctor.   I assigned Act II, reminded them there would be a reading quiz, and also asked them to plot the conflicts in one of their favorite television shows using  the “somebody wants….but……so…..” model we learned.

On Friday, our third meeting in the new year, it became clear to me that too many had again ignored the homework.  A few flocked to the board to outline their plot lines for shows like Meet the Browns, or Family Guy, and they aced the multiple choice quiz.  But others sat with that sterile look all teachers dread.  These were now two Acts behind and fading.

I stared at the class for a moment, and then I let loose.  “This is unacceptable,” I barked.  “I do not accept this notion that asking you to read twelve pages of mostly dialog is too much for you to handle,” I scowled.  “I will not allow you to become stereotypes in this classroom.  I will not insult your intelligence by believing you cannot possibly be expected to read about some white people from 1692.  Yes, they might seem different from you and me.   But life is life, and we can always learn something from the experiences of others,” I said.

Every eye was on me.  I had their attention, and I knew my next words would be critical.  “Listen,” I continued in a softer tone, “you are all college bound.  You are eleventh graders.   But showing up is not enough.  You have to do the work, whether you want to or not.   I want you to be the type of adults who arrive prepared and ready to contribute.  Don’t become observers in your life.”

Then I told them about Cornelius Dupree, Jr., the black man exonerated that week after enduring thirty-one years behind bars for a rape crime he did not commit.  I built the story slowly, beginning with the night he and a friend were innocently walking to a party.  Perhaps they were telling each other jokes, or deciding which girl to dance with first.  A week earlier, a young couple had been carjacked, robbed, and the woman raped.  The police who stopped Dupree and his friend that night said they “fit the general description.”  Young Cornelius was only nineteen years old at the time.  He had no idea how his life was about to change.

Based solely on the eyewitness testimony of the victims, Dupree was convicted and sentenced to seventy-five years in prison.  I asked my students to consider his state of mind on Day Two, Night Five-Hundred and Six, Day Three Thousand, Night Ten Thousand and Seven.

According to one inmate who served two years alongside him, Dupree not only maintained his claim of innocence, but also exhibited a “quiet, peaceful demeanor”–even after the Texas Court of Appeals refused to review his case three times.

“How does someone do that?” I asked my students.  “How can the certain knowledge of your innocence not burn you alive with anger and hate?  How was he able to press on?  How would you feel?”  After a brief discussion, I unveiled the horrible punch line.  “Twice.  Not once, but twice, Mr. Dupree was offered parole,” I said.  “After his twenties and thirties had evaporated in a prison cell, he was offered a chance to feel the sun on his back and the wind in his stride.  But he refused it.”

I asked the students to guess why he might have turned his face away from the glare of freedom.

“Because he didn’t do it,” one male student volunteered.

“Yes,” I exclaimed.  “They wanted him to enter some sex offender program.  He would have to admit guilt.  Just like John Proctor in The Crucible, he would have to sign his name to something he did not do, something he did not believe.”  I then asked for a show of hands.  “How many of you would have signed that paper anyway?”  Eight hands went up, including mine.

“You see,” I ended, “The Dallas district attorney cleared Mr. Dupree this week after DNA evidence, which just happened to have been stored away for three decades, proved his innocence.”  I then reminded them of their homework assignment.  “I want you to read Act III and see if we can figure out how someone can choose death and dying over telling a lie about truth.”

Then I wrote on the board what Mr. Dupree said when asked to explain why he had not taken the parole offer years before and simply acknowledged guilt:

“Whatever your truth is, you have to stick with it.”

I understand my students are my truth now, and I intend to see them through this play.  I purchased the DVD, and I will show Acts I and II next class, so they can put faces on the many characters .   But I will only show the movie to parts we have already read and dissected in class.  I will maintain my pace and my expectations.   Based on the look on their faces as they exited the class, I am certain they will all respond this time.

As one towering male student said, “Dang, man, what got into you today?”  Then he reached out to shake my hand, and we smiled.

–teachermandc

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2010 in review (a blog report I received)

Posted on January 2, 2011 by Mark E.P. Roberts

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Fresher than ever.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,400 times in 2010. That’s about 3 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 16 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 12 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 135kb. That’s about a picture per month.

The busiest day of the year was October 17th with 77 views. The most popular post that day was Try to “Rhee-member”.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were conductingtheinnerlight.edublogs.org, thegrio.com, Google Reader, google.com, and anurbanteacherseducation.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for teachermandc, teachermandc.com, teachermandc.com., teachermandc.wordpress.com, and teachermandc blog video.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Try to “Rhee-member” October 2010
6 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

2

The Things They Carry August 2010
2 comments

3

About August 2010

4

Optimism Ain’t Easy October 2010
4 comments

5

“Education Nation” Recommendation September 2010
1 comment

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