Friday afternoon revelations

While having a drink (a hot tea, actually) with the teachers at their usual Friday-afternoon bar spot, I had a revelation. Perhaps I should begin with how it got around to that.

We were talking about a variety of things: teachers who stand in the hallway and talk instead of teaching their classes, students who have given up and decide to attend class and do work for other classes they have a slight chance of passing, vice principals who play favorites with some students while doling out the harshest punishments to other students, and accountability. This last topic was one that lead to my revelation.

In the topic of accountability, we were discussing how the administration's idea of holding a teacher accountable is by looking at their class grades. For example, an untenured teacher could possibly be fired for failing an entire class. At first, everyone was like, "Absolutely. The teacher must be doing something wrong if the entire class fails." (Surprisingly, these were teachers talking.) But then I told them I have a bunch of students who just won't do anything, no matter what I try to do. Those who have given up or just don't care. Why should I be held completely accountable for their behavior? What about student accountability? Then my comrades explained that the administration was going about holding us accountable in the wrong way. Instead of basing it solely on the class grades, the administrators should visit some of the classes and see just what the teachers are doing to try to get these uncaring students to care. That made a little more sense than just being let go because of failing students. And just to clarify, I'm not passing the blame onto the administration. I do believe I'm doing all I can do as a first-year teacher to get these students to give a damn. But I stop short of holding the figurative gun to a kid's head. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

Anyways, I'm going off on a tangent here.

So, in this discussion of students who just give up and how it's impossible for any teacher to have a class full of F's, I decided to break out my gradebook and show them how it was possible. They looked at my gradebook and proceeded to tell me how off I was in assuming they were all failing.

I guess I got so caught up in the poor quiz grades that I failed to see that in fact, very few of my students were actually failing on their own accord. A few students were failing because they never did/do any work or put any effort toward learning the material, but a significant amount of the failing students failed because they had like 14 absences from school and never took the time to make up their work. Not because they didn't give a damn, but because they missed so much work that they felt it was impossible to ever catch up on their own. Now, I offer help everyday after school and have a board filled w/ students' names and missing assignments, so at least that step is taken to ensure they know when they've missed work. The rest is up to them actually showing up to complete that work.

More importantly, while looking through the grades, I realized that there were a lot of students with B's and C's. Sure, there are only 3 A's in a class of 27, but those 3 students work harder than anyone else and are the kind of students that will get anything you throw at them. The ones who have B's and C's (and even D's) are a mixture. Some could easily get A's but get C's because they never study. Some study their asses off (and these are the ones I feel the most sympathy for) and get C's and D's. What I didn't realize until just then was that it's actually a great thing that some of these kids can retain at least 70% of all the stuff that gets thrown at them. At the pace we're forced to move at in our schools, it's a wonder any of them retain more than 50%. The fact that they can retain 70% is actually quite impressive. Up until now, I failed to realize that.

I grew up as an honors student. One who got all A's (or freaked out at a B), played sports, got involved in many activities, and turned out to be "very well rounded".

As a teacher, I forgot one big thing: Not everyone is like me. Not everyone is a great student. Not everyone can get A's all the time. For some people, getting a C is the greatest thing that ever happened to them. I failed to realize that.

I should be thrilled. My students can study hard and ask questions and still get C's (whether is just retention problems or test anxiety I don't know). It may be a C, but it's their best work (for the ones that do try), and I should be happy about that. It may take a lot for me to accept that from them, but from this day forward, I'm going to try my hardest to appreciate those who try (I already do, but I'll appreciate them more) and continue to give them the support that they need.

I'm not saying that I'm going to lower my expectations, but I will accept their best effort as just that - their best effort. That will also be my best effort.