Waiting Them Out

MY STUDENTS “HATE” ME BECAUSE I CRUSH THEIR HOPES
(of being enabled)

One of the most effective teaching practices I’ve implemented with my advisory has been
helping them help themselves. (the empowerment piece)

9th grade

Student – “What does exuberance mean?”
Keith: “Good question, look it up.”

Student reacts adversely, questioning how I got my license to teach. Someone must have
made a mistake because I’m an idiot and don’t know what any of these words mean.
Student never looks up word.

10th grade

Student: “What does tranquility mean?”
Keith: “Sounds interesting, look it up.”

Student groans and screams across the room to see if anyone knows what the word
means. No reaction. Student drops the book and says the book is boring anyway.

11th grade

Student: “What does . . . “
Keith: “What’s up?”
Student: “Nothing, don’t worry about it”
Keith: “Are you sure? Maybe, I can help.”
Student: “Nope, you just going to tell me to look it up and go on about how I need to
learn simple things like this on my own. Then you’ll go on to say that you’ll help me with
other things and blah blah blah.
Keith: “Sounds pretty accurate. Good work.”

Student looks up the word and then asks me what one of the words in the definition
means. I say . . . “look it up.” She shoots a look of death, but I survive.

12th grade

On our first big field trip we take a ferry ride to the vineyard. Student is missing
from the front of ferry. She has wandered off to the cabin because she brought
along a book to read. I get within 5 feet of where she is sitting, but she is so
engrossed in her reading she doesn’t recognize my taking a picture of her.

(If you look closely, you can see she brought her own dictionary)


Keith: “Hey, what are you doing?”
Student: “Looking up this word. I’ve been reading this book, but I have to keep stopping
to understand what the author is trying to say.”
Keith: “ That’s great. If you don’t, it seems like a waste of time.”

Student agrees and they laugh about stories of the past regarding her frustrations of being
challenged.

The End Beginning

What is the purpose of public education?

Whenever the answer to this question seems to be clear, I reflect and find my focus to be too much on a student's social-emotional well-being, so I shift my approach to more 'academics'. Other times, it's too much on the 'work' and not enough on the person.

It feels like there are multiple battles of prioritizing happening simultaneously. One continuous struggle is getting the student to perform for equity purposes. Another focus is keeping up with or making change as time moves on. Equity and advancement (of the individual, group, status, etc..) seem to become the most important (or gain the most emphasis) as long as capitalism rules the way it does today.

The internal conflict (for me) becomes having the desire to move education's value to "in and of itself" and not to just a means. The tricky balance has been how does one do this without compromising a student's ability to further access resources. (ex. Student interested in philosophy is often encouraged to take the class, but don't think about making it a career.) Immediately, this devalues what could have been a student's passion, purpose, etc.