It is 8 pm and the sun is setting; a peaceful shady calm covers the neighborhood I see from my study window. There is no traffic and my body has almost cooled down from the uphill walk in the neighborhood that usually brings some peace to my hectic life and affords me the time to mull the things I have experienced during the day. Some days there are few things to ponder; others, too much to review in thirty minutes. Today is the latter. After two great demos in SI today and a visit to my principal to ask him to support yet another activity that I want for my students, I am thinking about students and how we class them. It seems that scientific defining of genus, phylum, etc. extends to everything--files for the file cabinet; books on the shelf; pets; and yes, children. Tracking has been outlawed for many years; but it is alive and well all over most of the school districts with which I am familiar. At my high school, we have regular, honors, and AP English, biology, chemistry, and so on. Although we also have an "open enrollment" policy, some kids will never see a class above regular. They are shepherded by well-meaning counselors (and sometimes parents) into the lower classes. There they are often work-sheeted to death.
In my school district, all students must be allowed to take a test again if they don't do well the first time. Although they can't make a grade higher than 85, they are still given that second chance. This goes for not handing in work on time--they get an extension. Some teachers give then a deadline: all work for this marking period must be in two days before they marking period ends. Are we doing these children a favor? Are we helping them? I think not. It has been my experience that kids rise to expectations. So I make mine pretty high and ninety-nine percent of the time I am not disappointed. A mother of a college freshman shared this story with me the other day. Her son went to UNC-Charlotte last fall, competent that he would breeze through his classes, including the introduction to engineering class that he was so excited to take. Some weeks into the semester he failed the first test miserably and called his mother to tell her he failed the test and the professor would not allow him to retest. He was devastated, pleaded with his mother to call the dean. This was a tough introduction to the real academic world and certainly a testimonial to Alfie Kohn's book, Punishment by Rewards. The mother asked me to help other students by not allowing retesting and make up work. I am all for helping student--I like reading their work and working through difficult texts with them. But I want them to be independent thinkers--the same as they are when I see them working with little children in arfterschool programs, the drugstore, the pizza parlor. It is as if they change skins from the school house to the workplace. I want to see that workplace attitude in my classroom.
Okay, folks, that's my rant.
I champion this from the rooftops as it's an "argument" I've been making from my 4 classroom walls for years. I agree, we do kids a MAJOR disservice by giving them all sorts of chances.
ReplyDeleteI doubt anyone would argue that a second chance hasn't come in handy for them, or that they've even deserved it, but there's a difference between the second chance being the exception as opposed to the rule.
I wish everyone saw this "tough love" for what it is, instead of being heartless, which is how they see it. :/