By Michael O'Leary, Conval High School, Peterborough, NH
In the spring of 1993, Dr. Kevin Ryan, a professor at Boston University, spoke to the high school staff. His topic was character education, but it was something he said about students and wisdom that caught my interest. He said that in 1965, over 70 per cent of students looked to preceding generations for wisdom. He concluded that, by 1992, over 70 per cent of students looked to their peers for wisdom.
As a classroom teacher, I immediately started to think about the implications of this. How did students perceive me as their teacher, when most of them looked to their friends for guidance, for knowledge and for wisdom? What solutions could I offer them if I were perceived as tangential to their "real" life?
I believe that students have to give their permission to be taught. Part of students' motivation to learn is the acknowledgment that teachers have the moral, ethical and academic authority to present the world to them. If students do not give teachers permission to teach them, the teacher must fight for relevance in their lives, strive mightily to get their attention, and bend over backwards to elicit any real work from them.
As I looked around my classrooms, I began to see many of these behaviors, although muted and seemingly benign. Yet the casual nonchalance of rejecting a homework assignment as being too time-consuming or beneath them wore on me. A colleague's remark that school has to become "bigger" in their lives jarred me. That was exactly correct; learning must be "bigger," more important. I began to examine what I could do to impact my students' lives.
I first looked at myself-how I approached students and what kind of classroom culture I created by the way I spoke to students, assigned activities, and conducted my classes. Was it a culture of honesty and respect? Was it supportive? Was it challenging? Was it fair? Were control issues more important that what was learned? What was the relationship between learning and grading?
After thinking about what kind of a culture I would like as a student, and what kind of a classroom culture I would want to have for my children, I chose to create an honest culture, to take the mystery out of education, to let students know what I wanted for them in the classroom, why I wanted it, and how they could help make it happen. I opened myself up to them and, if they chose to disregard me, at least I tried. At least it got their attention, and many responded, apparently wanting the same culture in which to learn. I learned that I was a real threat to the very dysfunctional, who wanted me to be invisible to them or to retreat to officious record-keeper. And that has happened. I don't mean to say that all classes have responded to me, but I give every class the chance. I give them my phone number, my e-mail address, and my fax number. I tell them to call me if they need help or have questions. I haven't been besieged by calls, but a few have called, and I have been able to help them. At the very least, my students know I will not make fun of them, be sarcastic, or embarrass them, and they know I expect to be respected as well.
I next looked at my assignments. If I wanted to engage my students in their education, which, by the way, is one of the school's student expectations, then how did my assignments do that? I had pretty standard assignments. Yet I found that they did not engage students in making connections between the subjects of my assignments and their own lives. In fact, the way my assignments were phrased now seemed to put the mystery into education, rather than taking it out, and to obscure and devalue connections to their lives.
My answer was to write out each assignment, with the challenge clearly stated, the over-arching questions identified, the assignment logically and clearly written, and the quality standards enumerated. Here was the honest assignment, with the question "Why" answered, in context, with clear quality standards by which it would be evaluated. No mystery, no hidden agenda, just the students and the work.
As often as possible, I offered students options, even if only whether to type or hand write, but more often to choose from ten different assignments.. I wrote quality standards for assignment and each option played to a different learning strength. I asked students to purposefully connect new material to other literature or disciplines, to connect lessons to their own lives.
I debriefed all assignments, even tests and quizzes. How did it go? Was it fair? How could it have been better? Did it cover the material well? Was the discussion a good one? Why or why not? What can I do to make the discussions better? What can you do?
I bowed to Kevin Ryan's information and structured a lot of my assignments as group assignments. I chose not just small-group, cooperative assignments, but large-group, collaborative assignments. If they get wisdom from each other, let's tap that vein. How wise could they be? How well could they solve problems together? How well could they govern themselves? I graded individual work, but they worked in groups.
I next looked at my grading policy. Did it engage the students? Did it challenge them? Did it offer them choice and control of their grades? Was it logical and fair? Did it serve learning or was it more for accountability? Did it allow students to choose not to learn or did it demand quality work on each assignment?
I returned to William Glasser's A, B, Incomplete grading philosophy from his book, The Quality School. It demands that students do at least minimal quality work on each assignment, while allowing for students to redo papers, quizzes and tests on which they did below B- work. It also allows for students to redo work they did successfully (B- or better) but upon which they want to improve. The combination of changes in the way I treat students, the way I assign homework, and the way I grade has allowed me to address the fact that students see their peer group as sources of wisdom. I don't offer my opinion unless I am asked or unless I need to correct a statement of fact. While I feel my classes are better for it, I don't pretend to have found the total answer here. I have classes who do not respond to my style, my grading program or my assignments. I have classes where the majority of students don't seem to look to any group for wisdom and passively attack everything educational.
But I have had great feedback from students who care about school and from parents who see the logic in the grading policy and like the way the assignments steer students toward internalizing their learning. In fact, the most appreciative of parents are the ones who feel their students are underachieving and that teachers who allow their children to be satisfied with C, D or F work are setting too low a standard. I post my grades weekly and have very few parents call to complain about a grade. If parents do call, they end up agreeing that it is fair and necessary for students to do quality work.
I don't know how others reacted to Dr. Ryan's talk, but it had a great impact on me, and I feel better for making the changes. In a way it helped me reinvent myself as a teacher, and a lot of positive things have come from that. It is frightening to think that students today seek wisdom from their peers, most of whom have no more experience or learning than they. It is up to preceding generations to find a way to share wisdom as well as facts. I hope the changes I have made will do that.