My students don't care about standardized testing

The day my students’ standardized testing scores are linked to my salary is the day I quit teaching, for good.

Today, I proctored the ACT Aspire test for a group of 11 freshmen. The ACT Aspire is basically a pre-ACT test. I’ve talked to my freshmen extensively about the importance of trying their best.

We began the English section at 8:03 a.m. By 8:06 a.m., one of the students had finished and submitted his 60 question English exam.

I walked over to him and said, “How are you done?”

He smiled. “I didn’t try. This doesn’t matter.”

My blood boiled as I walked away.

Four minutes later, another student had finished his English test in a record seven minutes.

These students do not know - or care, probably - that Melissa and I attended countless meetings because their fall scores were low. We discussed how to combat lack of motivation, how to increase writing in freshman English, incentives we can offer, etc.

Etc.

Etc.

I had heart-to-hearts with my students about being motivated to do well. I’ve told them that whereas their scores don’t directly affect their grades, they can affect their placement next year. They can affect whether they need interventions. They can affect our school as a whole in ways they can’t even comprehend.

But, on the test day, none of that matters. Instead, it’s a quick one-and-done, rush through, don’t check my answers.

They’re not even allowed to pull out cell phones or use their computers. They have to read a book or stare into space.

I know there are students in my testing room that tried their best and took the test seriously. But these outliers change the whole dynamic in the testing room.

But it’s me who gets the last laugh, and gets to teach the other students a valuable lesson.

Because remember Mr. Three Minutes?

He got bored and became disruptive, so I had him removed from my room. He will face disciplinary action. Plus, my other students got to see him be removed by an administrator.

And on the math test, they tried just a little bit harder.

The Great YA Debate

This morning on my drive to work, an interesting question was posed on one of my favorite podcasts, Overdue. Overdue is a podcast in which the two hosts, Andrew and Craig, alternate reading a book each week, and then discuss it (and I promise it’s better, and more entertaining, than my description could ever make it sound).

This week, Andrew read Looking for Alaska, by John Green, which was recommended by a listener who also posed an interesting question:

Is it okay for grown-ups to read young adult (YA) fiction? This listener works at a large chain bookstore and sells a large number of YA novels to women in their early 20s to mid 30s. He fears adults flock to YA fiction for the “wrong reasons,” i.e. the “ease of reading level or an inability to deal with adult subject matter.”

As I’ve pondered this question, I’ve come to a few conclusions:

General

1. John Green writes some of the best YA fiction, in my opinion. He is a clever, thoughtful, witty writer who makes even adults think hard about the subject matter. Furthermore, as a high school English teacher with her Master’s degree, even I’ve had to look up the definitions of some of the vocabulary Green uses. In short, comparing most other YA fiction to John Green’s is not a fair comparison.

Relatability

2. Andrew and Craig talked, in this episode, about how teenagers are most impressionable between the ages of 14 and 22 because everything they’re experiencing is for the first time. So, for example, the music you listen to or the books you read during those times in your life, are the ones that stick with you as your favorites. I think this is part of the allure of YA fiction. We, as the readers, get to turn back the clock and experience some of these events all over again, but through the eyes of someone who’s experiencing it for the first time. In Looking for Alaska, the loss the characters feel is raw and new and heart-wrenching. Same goes for The Fault in Our Stars and even Paper Towns. John Green expertly handles these major life events, and puts the reader in the passenger seat next to these characters as they experience raw emotion and, often, pain. His characters are likable, relatable, real: the kind of real teenagers feel, not the kind of real adults project upon them. The main characters are awkward, shy, average. They’re the underdogs. In these characters, we see ourselves: the good and the bad. We root for underdogs. In these characters, we root for ourselves.
3. The supporting characters are quirky, funny, life-changing, extraordinary. We all have those people in our lives. Most of us do not view ourselves as those people. Those people do not often view themselves as those people. In ourselves, we see weakness, awkwardness, faults. By comparison, in others, we see strength, confidence, defining characteristics. The supporting characters in YA fiction, especially John Green’s, are the people we wish we were. The people teenagers think they can still be. The supporting characters provide us with a model for living life fully: experiencing, feeling, hoping, loving. Deeply.

These are a few reasons I think those in my demographic -  early 20s to mid 30s - flock to YA fiction: Young adult fiction offers us a fictional do-over, as well as a model for how to live life freely and fully. In this respect, the lessons and take-aways are universally meaningful.

Safety

There have only been a few times in my career where I’ve been legitimately scared or nervous about what could happen. These moments usually occur when, say, a bullet shell, or a clip from a .9MM are found in a school in my district, or when we have a lockdown because there is an intruder in the building.

On any given day, I don’t think about guns in school or kids going rogue and targeting me specifically, or even one another.

We did have an instance earlier this year where a student brought a blunt tool to school and hit another student across the back of the head. These two ninth graders were fighting over a 7th grade girl. But the offender was promptly arrested and shipped off to a behavior school. And, of course, there are fights.

But these are not events that have ever directly threatened me or a majority of students in the school.

But today I got to thinking.

This morning, I arrived to work a bit later than normal. I usually get to school before 7 a.m., but today I remained in my car talking to my mom about my sister-in-law, who’d just gone into labor.

I walked up to my room at 7:25 a.m., and saw a parent waiting to speak with me. Her daughter was also present. Please note: she did not have a visitor pass, and she had not contacted me about meeting.

I walked into my room, took off my jacket, and booted up my computer. The parent approached me. She introduced herself and then asked what her daughter could do to bring up her grade.

I told her I would need a minute to log in to my computer and log into the gradebook software, and then we could speak more comprehensively in a few minutes.

When my computer loaded, I called her over and told her that her daughter had an 18% in my class, and to bring up her grade, she needed to turn assignments in.

The meeting was positive, and I felt safe.

However.

The fact that this meeting was, in essence, an “ambush” unsettled me the more I thought about it. Here was a woman, in the school building when few other people were present. She was waiting for me outside my classroom door, and she had not signed in at the front office because no one was there yet.

Few people knew she was in the building.

I know that a school is a public building, and I know ours must be opened at 6 a.m. for students who want to run or lift weights. But I couldn’t help but think about the security concern this presents if there are few, if any, adults in the building during this time.

And beyond that, what would make someone think it’s okay to just walk into a school any time of day and expect a meeting with a teacher who’s unprepared and unaware of said meeting?

I know these parents are not common, as most parents would give me the courtesy of a preliminary email or phone call.

But what happens when the exception to the rule sidesteps common decency and security concerns?

Probably nothing, most of the time.

But I can’t help but think about the exception.

My activity is more important than your class

One thing that has long bothered me about the schools in which I work is the emphasis placed on extra-curricular activities.

Now, don’t get me wrong: extra-curricular activities are awesome, and the benefits are numerous. I firmly believe that every student should be involved in something outside of school in one way or another.

And I’m not here to claim that my class is more important than anyone else’s.

But consider this:

English is in fact the only course that requires four credits for graduation. This means English is the only class in which students must take four classes, usually over four years. This is a state mandate. So, to graduate, a student needs 4 credits of English, 3 of social studies, math, and science, 1.5 of physical education, and .5 of health education. Schools, of course, require more credits than this, in the form of electives.

And so, when I get three separate emails like I did last night from an archery coach, asking if there’s any possible way three of my students who are currently failing can be passing in one week’s time so they can attend an archery trip, I get a little ornery. And by that, I mean livid.

Some context is needed: Two of these students are sophomores who failed ninth grade English last year, and so are repeating this year. One currently has an overall grade of an 18.11%. The other currently has an overall grade of a 20.84%. This means that, over the course of this semester, they’ve turned in almost no work. The third student has a 57.32%. She is missing some larger assessments.

I responded, trying to hide my annoyance, with an I-don’t-think-it’s-statistically-possible-in-a-week’s-time. Instead of I-don’t-think-it's, I should have said It’s-absolutely-not.

Because it isn’t.

A semester’s worth of inattention and lack of effort cannot be made up in a week. And I’m kind of insulted the coach followed up with “Are you sure there’s nothing that can be done?” I want to respond with, “I don’t know; do you have a time machine?”

I understand that students who do not thrive in an academic environment sometimes need a reason to come to school and keep their grades above passing. Sometimes that reason is an extra-curricular activity. And yet, taking students out of classes they are failing (and these students are not just failing my class; they are failing others as well) to compete in an archery tournament is not appropriate.

Even if it is a national archery tournament.

This is not unique to archery, or to my school, for that matter.

This happened at the previous school at which I taught, too. There, it was band.

And the problem is not that I say no, that students cannot be passing in a week’s time. The problem is that to many students and parents and coaches and advisers, failing only matters if faced some kind of punishment (beyond the failing grade, that is).

But you know what doesn’t matter? Me failing the student.

Asking me if a student can pass my class in order to be eligible for an activity is a formality. A hollow one, at best. Because my answer doesn’t matter. The fact that I have to spend my time arguing with a coach and a student, numerous times over, does not matter.

Because, ultimately, what always happens, is the failing students get to continue participating, get to go on the trip, get to compete. The student gets to go on hollow promises of turning work in, and lying about the teacher not grading the work in time for the "deadline".

And if we continue allowing students who are failing core classes - especially for the second time - to leave those classes for days at a time to participate in activities, then what are we teaching them?

Hollow promises and idle threats result in the same thing: entitled students who are taught that rules can be broken as long as they are good enough in a sport or activity.

It also sets up a teacher vs. student-and-coach mentality, where I am not on their side and “do not want them to succeed,” which makes them even less likely to try to be successful academically.

Which is incredibly unfortunate.

Are my students incapable of thinking for themselves?

My freshmen are currently reading To Kill a Mockingbird, and my coworker - I’ll call her Melissa - and I decided to try to make it a bit more fun this year (read: less blatantly obvious test preparation). We recently gave students an assignment to write two diary entries from Boo Radley’s perspective.

I graded mine over the weekend, and found one student who cheated (we use turnitin.com, an online plagiarism checker). My student and one of her students had, word-for-word, one of the same diary entries. These entries (or, this entry, if I’m being snarky), also came from an Internet source. For the record, this Internet source is the very top result on Google if I search “Boo Radley diary entries.”

My first response was anger. Are some students so narcissistic that they think they can shirk this software specifically designed to detect this type of plagiarism? Or are they incapable of recognizing this risk and thinking about consequences?

My second response was condescending negativity. I mean, really? Melissa and I gave students this assignment so they could be creative and not have to strictly adhere to the rigorous confines of the structured paragraph they so loathe. And, really? They can’t even do THIS?

My third response was laughter. I think, if students are going to be crappy students, they should at least try harder to get away with it. I mean, the first result on Google? Come on. Dig a little.

My struggle was not a solo struggle.

This morning, during my prep period, Melissa walked into my room and asked me to come over to her room because she had “uncovered a cheating ring.”

She had post-its strewn across her desk. She motioned to them.

“So these post-its have students who cheated off each other. These ones have students who plagiarized from a web site.”

There were 14 names between the post-it notes.

And I began to wonder: Is the fact that information is so readily available to our students at fault for rendering them incapable of thinking for themselves?

I’ve long suspected this. And here is a perfectly plated piece of support for my hypothesis.

Melissa thinks it’s laziness that sparks students to cheat. This might be true, but I’d be more apt to believe it if this were a more difficult assignment that spanned more class periods and days. Like, say, a research project.

But this is an assignment that should, conceivably, take less than 30 minutes to complete. All students had to do was choose two events from the first 13 chapters and rewrite them from Boo’s perspective. It should have been an easy 30 points.

One of my coworkers - let’s call her Carrie - recently took a poll of her 10th grade English students. When asked what might motivate students to NOT cheat, 52% said stricter consequences. This is from a sample size of 75 sophomores, or 51% of her sophomores.

What would stricter consequences for plagiarism in a high school setting look like? And how could we possibly get an agreed-upon policy in place, when other subject-area teachers refuse to acknowledge this as a problem, and some even think this is an example of students cleverly “using their resources”?

My school does not have a strict policy regarding plagiarism. In fact, there is little in the student handbook that even mentions plagiarism.

More often, many student handbooks will lump plagiarism in the category of “academic integrity” without the benefit of a definition, examples, or a list of consequences.

For some students, the threat of if-you-do-this-in-college-you’ll-be-kicked-out-and-they’ll-keep-your-money-too falls on deaf ears. Giving them numerous examples of people who have been fired for cheating or plagiarizing meets the same fate. Because they are not in college. And many do not yet have jobs. The threat is too distant.

But if we aren’t going to recognize plagiarism as a major problem, especially in this digital age, then we will, as a result, also discourage students from thinking for themselves.

And that is a scary thought.

No such thing as a stupid question

"Is Canada a continent?"
"What’s caucasian?”
“Is France french?”

These are only a few questions that I have been asked by freshmen students. Actually, three different students.

After answering the questions with a straight face, no condescension, and even, dare I say, positivity, I went home and told my friends and we all had a good laugh.

But then I became sad. Because, while these are not the students who will one day run this country (I hope), they are students that will become part of a community and a workforce.

What's disappointing is not only that they don't know the answers to these basic questions, but also the fact that they feel no shame in declaring their ignorance in front of the rest of the class.

Like any teacher, I try to make my classroom a safe space where students feel comfortable asking questions without judgement.

But this type of questioning is not an isolated phenomenon.

The first day of second semester, I had a student proudly declare that he had failed first semester because he didn't turn any work in. Other students chimed in with the low grades they earned. They weren't ashamed. They seemed to find it amusing. Some were positively boasting. I wanted to step in, and ask them if summer school was cool, if retaking the course online was cool, if the "F" on their transcript was cool.

But I didn't.

Instead, I sat, both dumbfounded and fuming that these students found this acceptable.

And I asked myself what had changed since I was in high school.

Is it the fact that this community in which I teach is rural, with many students interested in the military or immediately entering the work force rather than attending college? I admit, college was a big motivator for me in high school. Not to mention my mother. I'm not quite sure what she would have done if I'd failed even one assignment in high school, much less an entire semester.

Is it lack of parent involvement? Is it that education has become devalued in our state as teachers have become devalued? Is this our new societal norm?

Or do students simply believe that, if they show up to class, they deserve to pass a course? 

My school is a 1:1 school, which means that every student has a Chromebook to use. In many of them, I see an entitlement that accompanies this: they play games when they should be working; they have their earbuds in constantly, sometimes even when I'm teaching. Though we have a "lids closed when I'm talking" policy, they need daily reminders and sufficient wait time to follow this rule.

How are we supposed to reach students who are used to doing three things at any given time, all of them half-heartedly?

Are these stupid questions?

Just me and my blog

About me: 

I'm almost 30, a female, and I'm in my fourth year of teaching. I currently teach in a rural, Midwestern town, population 9,000ish.

I teach English. I teach mostly freshman, but I do have a few sophomores, as well as an Advanced Placement literature course.


About my blog:

I'm hoping this blog will, above all, help me maintain my sanity.

Teaching in my state is difficult. Teaching everywhere is difficult, I imagine. Like many other employees in many other places, teachers are overworked and underappreciated.

I have 148 students on my roster. I make less than $47,000 / year. I guess that means I make less than $317 per student, per academic year. I can tell you without hesitation that I exert more than $317 in effort per academic year on most of my students.

I say "per academic year" because I'm sure some of you are thinking that teachers work only part of each year. This is - technically - true.

And yet.

I arrive to work daily before 7 a.m.
I leave daily by 4 p.m.
I have 30 minutes for lunch.
And those are only the hours I spend working when I'm physically at work.

For the past few years, I have held a summer job. I also spend a week planning curriculum with other teachers in my department, and I have been required to attend summer conferences, and I have had to plan and organize new courses each summer. And all of this is in addition to the grading I must complete on a daily basis.

My school's freshmen took a state test in October. Their scores were low. Despite the fact that I'd had less than two months with my freshmen, this is my problem to solve as a freshman English teacher. Which means more writing. Which means more grading. In addition to the increased writing feedback I must give, we also have quizzes and vocabulary and daily work, all of which require time spent grading. And finally, there are lessons to plan. I teach three different classes, so I have three different daily lessons to plan.

I do have one prep period: 50 blissful minutes of my day, during which I must respond to parent emails and jump through bureaucratic hoops to keep my license and my job. I can sometimes plan lessons during these daily 50 minutes, but more often, I have meetings to attend or other teachers for whom I must sub. I rarely have uninterrupted time during which to grade; more often, when I'm actually in my classroom, I'm trying to organize my desk and my to-do list into manageable chunks so that I don't forget any of the 87 tasks I must complete by the end of the day (or before lunch, or before study hall).

All of that said, I don't intend this blog to be a place where I vent only my frustrations, but also my successes. After all, I chose this profession.

I hope that writing will prove therapeutic for me, as it has in the past.

And finally, I hope I can allow many of you a look into a typical, high school classroom.