I think all week about my own growth, my reflections, my beliefs, my students, my children, my life.
My life.
I remember being little and looking in the mirror and looking into my own eyes until I looked like a stranger; I recall saying my name aloud until it sounded foreign, weird, inaudibly bizarre as the syllable (for there was only one in my case) fled from my lips, disappearing moments later into the ether of silence. I wondered if what I saw as purple matched the version that other's had, and questioned whether apples tasted the same to everybody, and--if not--how would we ever know?
And then I would consider my life. I would question myself, my existence, and the indistinguishable it-ness (the essence of just being it) of what it meant to be me.
My life.
So somewhere in the midst of my week (in all its itness, because, like, what else could it possibly be?) I find something to blog about. But this week was different. So many things stimulated and inspired me. Flooded, inundated by ideas and visions and possibility, yesterday came and went without me knowing what to write. Truth be told, yesterday was also one of the busiest spans of 24 hours I've experienced, but nevertheless I spent the day feeling as though the vessel holding that gorgeously impossible broth of ideas in which my brain floats was brimming with a meniscus that was sure to overflow.
But it didn't, and here I am. At a desk. Writing. And because I can't write everything, I'll have to just embrace the spirit of this blog and write something and spend 30 minutes doing it.
It doesn't usually work this way, but today I just need to answer a question, posed to me via Twitter during my time in Austin, Texas at the AMLE (Association of Middle Level Education) conference:
While I was a student in the course, and assuredly not the teacher, here is my memory of 6-8 grade Latin.
Above the huge marble fireplace in my middle school Latin classroom there was an oversized chart made of graph paper. Each student's name was written along the left side of the chart. Every time a student finished a chapter in our Latin textbook we would fill in a box on the grid. Now, normally, students would progress through the textbook en masse, with teachers delivering lessons and students achieving various degrees of mastery along the way. Karen, my Latin teacher, however, was different. She felt that one-on-one Latin instruction was preferable and that each student should teach themselves the text, leaning on her for support when it was needed. Everything had to be completed, and corrected if necessary, until it earned a grade of 100%. Once a student earned 100%, they could move on.
If a student finished four chapters in a marking period, they earned an A.
Three chapters earned a B.
Two chapters resulted in a mark of C.
And one chapter earned a D.
Oh, and if you had a perfect score on your end of chapter translation you earned a cake. Like a real cake. Like a whole, big Pepperidge Farm personal cake. To eat. During Latin class.
One quick look at the chart, though, in--say--the spring of 1997 would have quickly alerted a classroom visitor to two clear realities:
1. Will McDonough had four colored boxes filled in next to his name.
2. Two girls in the class were closing in on chapter 30 and would be starting the Latin II textbook by the end of the year.
Yes, that's right. I earned a B during my first trimester of 6th grade and a D during my second trimester.
Now here's the thing: I was a bright kid. I was earning mostly Bs and As in all my other classes. But I didn't care about getting 100% on anything. I would often finish the chapter, but never correct anything to 100%. I was so excited to see what the fortis legatus was going to be doing in the next translation.
Furthermore, we were tessellating the walls with original tessellations in math class; we were building hot air balloons out of Ty-Vek in Science class; we were memorizing lines for Bye Bye Birdie; we were memorizing Emily Dickinson and reading Hamlet in English; and we had just returned from a trip to Quebec City where we'd practiced our French; I'd just mastered a between the legs dribble on the basketball court!
School was so fascinating. So inspiring. So Alive!
And then there was Latin class. Latin class where a perfect translation could earn me a cake?
Where the entirety of class was spent reading a textbook?
Alone?!?!
I was a raging extrovert. I loved my friends. I was curious beyond measure.
For anyone who was self-motivated and felt deep wells of satisfaction at constructing the perfect translation, this was great. I'm sure those two girls loved their cakes and their perfect notes and their achievement. But those carrots didn't work for me.
So, with two minutes left in this blog, why was I so quick to praise this practice on Twitter if I didn't like it?
Well, I think self-pacing is great when it works. I think students should be able to progress at their own pace, and to master material. What I don't like, though, is the public nature of the graph; the awarding of baked goods; and the one-dimensional teaching model. If a curriculum can be self-paced and dynamic, I'm all for it. But I am a firm believer that middle school needs to be an experience. That it can't just be a student and a textbook and the pursuit of perfection. As Chip Wood remarked, middle school should be a little like summer camp and a little like the Civilian Conservation Corps of the Great Depression: active, project-oriented, and always with a unifying goal of the entire group.
We've got to meet students where they are as both thinkers and learners: as thinkers, they are students who are developing toward adolescence, but as learners they are each unique by that very same ubiquitous it-ness that makes their lives their own.
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