That fine line

As a teacher, I often find myself walking that fine line between what I believe to be morally right (i.e. what will prepare students for success in their future) and what I'm asked or told to do.

Last night, another teacher challenged me in front of a group of colleagues, including administration, at a meeting.

She said, "The other day, I had a student bragging that he turned in a paper that was due in February and got a 50% on it. And I just wonder, what lesson is he learning if we just accept work late for credit?"

This is a student in my AP Literature class.

Immediately, I knew exactly who she was talking about: A student who I had to nag and nag and nag to finish his paper because, without that 100 points, he was failing my class. A senior. Failing. If he doesn't pass my class, he doesn't graduate. For some reason, this is the paper he blew off. Unfortunately, it was worth too significant a portion of his grade for this to the paper for which he earned a zero.

So, I asked myself: Is one paper worth failing him?

He did most of it, albeit two months late, so, for the record, I gave him a 40%. Nothing to brag about, but enough to bump his grade up enough to pass, and enough to acknowledge that some effort had been put in.

I work in a blue collar, rural district, where the median income is $27,000. Many of these students don't have college aspirations. Many students are military-bound or intend on immediately entering the work force.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

The problem, however, is that many of these students - and many of the teachers with whom I work - do not see English as a valuable course. Students oftentimes will "opt out" of curriculum by failing to complete work because it's "boring" or "not relevant" or insert-colorful-adjective-here.

Last night, at the same meeting, a Tech Ed teacher asked me why a student who's going into auto repair would need to read a novel and analyze it. Much to my surprise, he - like the aforementioned music teacher - challenged me, on the spot, to defend my job.

This teacher also doesn't believe that he should be teaching reading or writing in his class at all, even though reading a textbook or an instruction manual is very different from reading a novel. He has stated multiple times that these are skills the English department should be teaching students.

This is not an uncommon belief.

The English Department at my school is expected to teach all reading and writing in the school day. We are implored to teach all the different kinds of reading and writing that students would need for their other classes. This is not only impossible, but also not my job. If a teacher requires a student to be able to read an instruction manual, then s/he should be teaching relevant vocabulary as well as the skills necessary to comprehend and process that material.

The state says that students need four years of English in order to graduate. Isn't that enough justification that what I'm doing is important? Why do English teachers have to constantly justify their purpose?

And why, when I make one decision to show mercy on a student, am I asked, in front of administration, by a music teacher who writes students passes to leave their Advanced Placement classes to "set up for a choir concert," to justify my decision?

Sometimes, there is a fine line between ignorance and hypocrisy.