How many chances do we give?

My grade nine student Andy did minimal work in the first half of the semester. He earned a mark of 35% . His attendance was intermittant. In the second half of the semester I encouraged him to attend more regularly and finish the work. He attended, started most of the work, but did not complete much. He was pleasant, often asked to be excused to "go to the washroom", and sat at the back quietly. He was socially connected with a couple of boys in the class and had struck up a romantic relationship with one of the girls who sat on the other side of the room. This relationship did not interfere with the learning environmnent. He was friendly and we got along fine on a personal level. As the semester was coming to a close, I tried the following:
a. I called home, spoke to the dad about my concern and asked for his support in getting his son to come in once a week for extra help at lunchtime.
b. I offered Andy extra help and said clearly this would be his key to success.
c. I registered Andy for the school-wide catch up days.
d. I asked him daily for outstanding work.
e. I gave him mark printouts and highlighted the work still not submitted and made sure he understood what each piece was and what it was worth.
f. I arranged to work with him after classes had ended for as long as it would take to pass the course.
Unfortunately, Andy always had a reason for not coming in for extra help and in the end handed in a fraction of the work a day after report card marks had been entered. He failed the course.
What else would you have done to help Andy?

Everybody pays

A colleague of mine was running a test in her grade 10 French Immersion classroom and one of the highest performing boys repeatedly spoke out during the test. When the teacher warned him of the consequences for disrupting the test environment, he challenged her, claiming she was singling him out unfairly. This was not an isolated event. The teacher felt she was not able to resolve the issue. She called the vice-principal in. He came in during the next test and said that if any student spoke out during the test everyone in the class would receive zero.
Is this an effective intervention? Will this create an appropriate form of peer pressure, or will this unfairly penalize the innocent students?

My philosophy of teaching 26 years into it

My philosophy of teaching

My philosophy of teaching begins on the premise of gratitude. I have been given a gift to share: the joy of encouraging learning in young people. I must unpack the gift and share the contents. Teaching is not about being liked or feared as much as it is about exercising a privilege. I believe in the process of struggling to make knowledge and skills of interest to my students. I teach so they may appreciate learning more than earning the grade. I teach not to earn a wage or to be a loyal member of the collective, but to be an honourable, gracious and giving mentor and teacher.

 

I believe teaching is about being fully present and engaged in the classroom. Presence has everything to do with inner composure and outer connectivity to the students. Personal engagement has two sides: the side of knowing the content well enough to let it go as a preoccupation and to let the moment dictate what to use and how. The other side is passion for the subject, emanating from me as part of what makes me tick.

 

I believe teaching is about accepting people. The behaviours are only symptoms of deeper soul issues. I consciously embrace patience, kindness, dialogue and fairness to all. Subconsciously, I limit these attitudes when I don’t see changed behaviours. Then I have to remind myself that a student’s life is conditioned by more complex things than my singular influence in my classroom. Accepting people means keeping the door of communication and care open day after day, week after week. The student must still be accountable for deadlines and quality of work, but I can make the hard calls like “It’s now too late to recover this grade” in a matter of fact way that sends the message “This is the end of the process and you have fallen short in spite of the opportunities for recovery given.”

 

I believe teaching is about the predictable and the element of surprise. Students gain security and can make measurable progress when certain aspects of the course don’t change, especially standards of evaluation and certain daily or weekly procedures that help them feel comfortable in the learning environment.  But I look for ways to incite interest through novelty and varying strategies. In my class the students cannot say for certain that they will be sitting where they were before, or that the lesson will unfold exactly as it did yesterday.

 

I believe in mastery learning. It is a waste of my time to give a percentage to a piece of work only to have the student ask “ Do I need to keep this?” once the mark is noted. No. There are usually things to work on to improve, try again, perfect and resubmit. Practice and perfect before settling on the final product. This approach makes assessing messy at times, overlapping old and new work, re-entering results a second or third time. But the message I want to convey is: “Your work is worthy of a process of betterment, and my feedback is worth taking into account for you to get to the next level of performance.”

 

Finally, I believe teaching is a work of the spirit. Pointing the way, as Buber would say, has to do with gaining enough of the students’ respect and trust to be able to suggest new ways of thinking about things, looking at other points of view, opening our minds up to the bigger questions of life, and the students are willing to go there with me.

 

In summary, I believe in and am committed to being and becoming a present, engaged, content prepared yet flexible, accepting yet holding to account, predictable yet fresh, a hound for the student’s best work, and an enlarger of the mind and spirit kind of teacher.

 

Sharing one's beliefs in the classroom

For fear of being accused of indoctrination, most teachers stay away from sharing personal religious beliefs in the classroom. So how may  we be true to who we are, be authentic, and still respect a plurality of views? Here are some thoughts based on my experience in public education:

1. On controversial issues, ask questions rather than make pronouncements. Yes, some of your questions will be biased according to your beliefs, but you are allowing for different opinions in response to your question at the same time.
2. Use instructional time for opening up topics for discussion and arbitrating respectful discussion. Then if a student wants your particular view on a controversial issue, you can invite students who wish to stay and keep discussing at lunch or after school. At that time, you may state your position while acknowledging that others have other deeply held positions.
3. Take the initiative to organize voluntary staff prayer, with administrative permission,  before hours, a faith group at lunch, or a "What's your point of view?" group after hours where students can express their opinions and hear students of faith express theirs as well.
4. Be confident in teaching prescriptively and by example the fundamental values we all hold to: honesty, care, respect, compassion, etc.
5. Treat all students as persons of ultimate worth, and this will speak volumes about the genuineness and compelling nature of your faith.

Assume independence or dependence?

It's a grade 12 class. There were two tasks to accomplish today. One was a quiz online. The other was preparation for a dramatic representation of a literary theme. Sadie and Chris chose to work on the drama first, then Chris left for a medical appointment and Sadie starting doing an art project, not something related to today's assignments in my class.
Everyone but Sadie was on task. I thought "she heard the same announcement as everyone else...I guess she's decided not to do the quiz. She must not be prepared." Then I caught myself. Is Sadie being difficult? No! Is she avoiding any task? No, since she and Chris had already done some planning for their drama. My subconscious belief "she's not interested" had to be challenged.
I sat down beside her and asked if she wanted to try the quiz. "What quiz?  was her response. I didn't know there was a quiz!" (Every Wednesday, like today, there's a quiz on the next few chapters of the novel, but I didn't go there). I just said: "Well, since you started in the reverse order with the drama ( what she and Chris were most interested in), perhaps you could try the quiz tomorrow." She agreed.
I'm glad I checked my assumptions.

Janet's Response to August 10 blog

I think, as Christians we are called to exhibit beliefs and values that is often outside of and in conflict with the "norms" of main-stream society. It is difficult to apply absolute standards and parameters to "human development", the "human experience" and the "life situations" that humans find themselves in.  It is important to note that it is GOD who is IN CONTROL and NOT US, and we are called to SERVE and NOT JUDGE.

Who knows why your student "presented" as he did during the school year?  You appear to be saying that his performance during the school year was "sub-standard" and he was deserving of the outcome (consequences) that had befallen him. I think you will find Biblical references which contradict this "behavioral science" (Skinner) approach. Perhaps this was an opportunity for growth on the part of this young student and of a "seasoned" teacher as you. I think, as a person of Faith, you’re called to “give opportunity” period .. no limits, and an agent of society, you’re expected to “respect deadlines”.  I hope that as I continue on in my teaching career, I can live with integrity by honoring my principles, values and beliefs in all that I do.

Giving every opportunity versus respecting deadlines

The following is the first incident of its kind in 27 years of teaching:

I received an email via my workplace email service from a grade 12 student from last semester on August 8th. He let me know that the scholarship money he was hoping to receive from the university he is about to attend was diminished due to a lower mark average than what he needed. He asked me if he could do some extra work this week to improve his average.

Note that during the semester:
1.  he often submitted assignments late.
2.  he did the minimum of what was required.
3.  he did not take much initiative to understand the assignments.

I let him know that I was not authorized to do this sort of thing and that he needed to talk to the school administrators.

This unusual request raises a question in my mind: have we so loosened the grip on deadlines that students feel they can work when they  want and without any reference to faulty work habits?