EdObserver

I deal daily with the type of student that’s referred to in the education community as “at risk” whether they have an IEP (Individual Education Plan) or not. The “at risk” students are most frequently categorized by the baggage they come to school with: broken homes, busy or uncaring parents, peer pressure, learning disabilities, social and psychological difficulties. But a bigger problem is what they come to school without.

It doesn’t matter what their socio-economic condition is; I have had kids who lived in low-income units, students from trailer parks and students from near million dollar subdivisions. They all come without pencils or pens, without paper or notebooks, and without their homework.

My previous high school of 1600 students used one million pieces of paper in the 2006-07 school-year. The assistant principal responsible for purchases noticed that the number of reams had increased steadily and she did the math. This includes plain white printer/copier paper, colored paper, and composition or lined paper. This is usually unpunched but it replaces the loose leaf paper that some kids still bring to school, but every kid brought to school in the old days.

The paper sits in a tray in the front of almost every class room. It may sit in a tray in the library. It is not in the larger spaces where kids have study halls, such as the cafeteria or in our case, the auditorium balcony. That may explain why you can enter most study hall spaces and see no one working. Or maybe it’s that in the large spaces they don’t have a teacher to borrow a pencil from.

The Derby Begins…

The level of class that includes a goodly number of the “at risk” never starts before a timeout for what I call the “writing stick derby.” Here’s how it goes: 1) Student who never has a pen or pencil asks the teacher for one. 2) If teacher has chosen to participate in the derby, he or she keeps a clear shoebox of pencils to lend. By the way, they are often not returned and by the end of the week there may be none left in the box. 3) If teacher has tired of buying pencils by the gross, he may lend one, if the student gives up something of value – a shoe, a cell phone, an iPod. The negotiation takes precious minutes from class time. 4) If the teacher is a non-participant in the derby, the student asks his best friend, who may be tired of buying pencils that are never returned, or may not have a pencil of his own. 5) Failing with BFF the student tries an acquaintance. No luck? 6) Student goes right for the class’ most serious student (who always comes prepared.)

When I worked in a middle school, our team of 125 students sold pencils as a fund-raiser; they didn’t sell. So we sold them at cost, as a convenience. Not only did they not sell well, but more often than not, when a student came back into class with a new pencil, a friend —yes, friend—would grab it and snap it in two.

Round two of the derby is when the riskiest students ask in every class, every day, where the paper is. I will talk about homework in my next post.

Back in the late 60’s when Miss Austerlitz told us we were never to use that term in her classroom again, she meant the expression, “Shut up.” It was rude, and unacceptable in her math class, in any class. We couldn’t chew gum either. Any time a kid was singled out and scolded, the worst that happened would be a few choice words under his breath – way under his breath. Maybe the kid in the next desk would hear that Miss Austerlitz was a fat windbag, but no one else. Certainly it was never loud enough for Miss A. to hear.

I thought of Miss A. the other day when one of the students in my math class told another kid to “f*** off.” When confronted by the young math teacher, he said “What the f***’s the matter? He made me mad!” Even Miss Austerlitz would have been happy to hear him just say “Shut up.” This was followed by the teacher taking the student out into the hall, having the student walk away, and the teacher finally “writing-him-up” This happens in many classes, two or three times a week.

Sometimes it’s just banter -no anger- just the language of the streets as it was called, student to student, in the classroom. When told to stop, the conversation inevitably turns into a discussion of whether the language is in fact unacceptable.

A little drama in the math class

Student: “Don’t ask me if I would talk to my mother like that, that’s how she talks to me!”

Teacher: “I don’t care what language you use at home, you will not use that language in my class.”

The rest of the students talk among themselves, sometimes discussing whether the teacher over reacted, or they remain enthralled, plugged in to an iPod. In the mean time no one is doing math, or social studies or English. The student gets “written-up.” The student gets a detention, doesn’t miss the bus because he drives to school, and starts over the next day. When we have no rules of behavior with no real punishments assigned, the problems are never solved. More classes get disrupted. More teachers are demeaned. More kids lose interest.

Why don’t teachers demand more of the administration? Why doesn’t the administration demand more of the parents? Why don’t the parents demand more of their kids?

Six years ago when high school students started having cell phones in great numbers, and everyone had a CD player, the school I worked for banned their use during the school day. Four years ago when almost every kid had an iPod, or wanted one, the PTA and the engineering club each ran a fund-raising raffle with an iPod prize. The ban was rescinded and each teacher set the rules for his or her classroom. The English department tried to ban them in all of its classes, but it didn’t work and they too let every teacher decide on their own.

Cell phones were even more problematic. They were expensive; so how to confiscate them and not become liable or be charged with invasion of privacy. And parents argued that they needed to be in touch with their kids, what with work schedules (theirs and their children’s) and all. So the administration allowed their use up until the morning bell, the first ten minutes of lunch — only outside the caf’ — and right after the afternoon bell.

Turning a deaf ear

Both the  iPods and the cell phones became an increasing annoyance to many teachers. How many times can you ask a student to respond, only to find that he or she hasn’t heard a word because they were “plugged-in?” Text messaging on cell phones contributed to even more problems. Up to one-quarter of a class might possibly have their hands under their desks, texting furiously. In one of my classes, two girls were actually texting each other across the room.

Class after class, the teachers had to remind students to take out their ear buds; a lesson was about to start. The kids would only take out one. Then you can’t tell if they are listening or not; they must be questioned; the class is disrupted; and we do this up to three or four times per class. Cell phones under the desk are just as common. Any break in the classroom action and the cells come out, and mad texting begins. If you’ve never seen it, I don’t think you can believe it.

When the school finally banned cell phones—the penalty was immediate confiscation— with parents receiving phone calls to come and retrieve them. The outcry was deafening. Not only were the parents unable to reach their children during the day, but it was unreasonable to think that a parent had the time to come to school over so minor an infraction. So the ban was lifted during lunch, in the cafeteria.

Think about this. If a student were eating lunch with a friend, there would be no need to text. If  students were texting someone not eating with them, it was probably a friend who was sitting in a class. It is insane.

In my current school, in any given class, seventy -five percent of the kids are plugged-in at some time. Wires hang down from everyone’s ears. iPods are constantly being dropped, or being adjusted. More kids come to school with iPods than come to school with pencils or pens. I am serious.

We had a math test today. Eighteen students. Only one girl took the test without music in her ears. Six students had neither pencil nor pen; one took the test with a pen, which cost him two points on his overall score. Some educators even argue that the music helps some students to concentrate. I wish I had something to say. I don’t.

It was a four day week this week because Monday was Presidents Day. My only comment is to repeat something I heard one of the juniors say last Friday: (The teacher iterated the upcoming schedule of lessons, noting that the next class was Tuesday), “That’s right it’s a four-day week. I hate them; there’re always so long!”    Amen.

Some thoughts about a new technology that seems to sweeping the public schools — interactive white boards (IWBs). These are digital, touch-screen, projection systems that are replacing blackboards and “dumb” whiteboards, as well as the overhead projectors that are popular in every classroom. There are a number of brands, sizes, features and software, but they are all similar.

A teacher prepares a lesson on a laptop computer which interfaces with a projector which projects the document, pictures, videos or interactive presentations on to the white board. A digital pen allows you to write on, erase and manipulate the contents of the page. There is the potential for a fully integrated lesson for every class. And they can be used merely to write on, in real time, in multicolored script for emphasis.

We put them in our school this year, covering the primary blackboard in the classroom, so teachers would be forced to use them. Math classes were first, science second, and the teachers seemed to like them. The kids didn’t; which seemed odd. Give them a new cell phone and they program and customize it in an hour and talk about it with all their friends; but this was different. They had no time to fool around with the smart board, or customize it, or get proficient with it. And when high-schoolers go up to the front of the classroom to put problems on the board, they don’t want to find that they can’t erase a mistake, or their writing looks hideous in purple, and most of them rejected the use of the smart boards outright. Most of them have come around after one semester.

I expect that will be the case with our English and Social Studies teachers who have been dragged kicking and screaming into the second phase of installations. One of whom was so opposed to mandatory installation (covering the primary blackboard) that she turned all the desks around to face the small secondary board in the room. Sure enough, the installers were tricked into installing the gizmo over that blackboard. Yesterday I passed her room and she was giving a totally integrated lesson, including a video, projected on to the new IWB.

Once the decision was made to buy this new technology, which requires a laptop computer, a ceiling mounted projector and the white board (at a cost between $3,000 and $6000); it was essential to require their installation as the primary classroom board. It is also essential that the school offer the training necessary for teachers to become proficient, feel comfortable, and use as much of the system’s capabilities as possible. Then we can start assessing whether our technology dollars were well spent and whether teachers really want to participate in a new world of education.

Tom Hopper, a social studies teacher at Chippewa Middle School in Okemos, MI who is proficient in the use of a smart board, demonstrates how an interactive whiteboard works.