"What is money?"
"Money is money."
"I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know what Christmas is."
The same student had said this earlier, but was ignored in the free-for-all then. This time, when he repeated the evocative confession word for word, a few protested incredulously, but the teacher cut in again overtop of them, mistaking speaker for subject, summary for style, in a lesson on opening paragraphs of O. Henry’s 'Gift of the Magi' and Poe’s 'Cask of Amontillado.' In theory the lesson, read straight from the book, would have been covering style and symbol, incorporating earlier lessons on diction, syntax, imagery, and point of view. In practice it was a catastrophe, as you have it here.
When I arrived before the bell, the teacher betrayed apathy toward my presence and disgust with the class, mustering the dregs of resentment against the para I was subbing for.
"I'm here for so-and-so," I said, "--or rather, she's in the BI room while covering for the teacher who's out today while I cover for her. So just let me know how I can help."
"Oh, she doesn't do anything, just sits there on her phone." It's what she had been doing when I talked to her in the BI room; I got the sense she was the softball coach, and might be doing something related to that important job.
I made a non-committal sound of commiseration, looking around the classroom, and repeated my intention to do something to help the teacher if she would only say what that might be.
"I don't even know which kids she's assigned to work with, since no one has bothered to tell me." An appealing glance to another para who had come in; they conferred briefly. "She mostly hangs out on that side of the room. If you see kids off-task or whatever...just stand over by them if you see they’re being a jerk."
Between the dull workbook and this husk of a teacher, the lesson was seemingly designed not only to be incomprehensible, but to drive anyone away from ever stepping into an English class or picking up a book again. The entry task invited students to write about a symbol in their culture and its importance. No guidance was given, aside from the example of the american flag.
The lesson proper began with a description of the two textbooks/workbooks and their provenance. Evidently the slim one they had been using was a pilot curriculum specially provided for this fortunate school, whereas they would now be using the thick normal one from here on out. I could weep to imagine how much all these books and the hours spent by pseudo-experts in compiling and marketing them must have cost. The students' eyes glazed over.
Then suddenly the teacher was saying to copy the definitions of literary terms from the pages' sidebars into some section of their notebooks--another lengthy sidebar, which the teacher totally ignored, dealt with using semicolons--but giving no time or explicit direction to do so, she moved straight into the instructions for reading. These bid the students circle imagery which stood out to them and underline sentence fragments. Providing an inadequate explanation of both terms, though the class was plainly confused, the teacher went about reading aloud the first passage without any context, reading or rather mumbling expressively but with no feel for the rhythm of the prose, giving no vocabulary helps for words or phrases actually appearing in the passage, such as ‘imputation of parsimony,’ but pretending the definitions of those literary terms were copied down and thus understood--or proceeding with indifference to the students’ understanding.
It would have been the simplest thing in the world to use the projector to show a painting of the Adoration of the Magi, or to show a Carnival scene, to at least begin to take seriously the lacunae in the students' comprehension preventing them from encountering these stories, and to enrich their pathetic day of school.
The closest she came to addressing any of this was her anecdote about the football game, and implying that they all wanted the newest iphone for Christmas, despite protestations to the contrary: I don't know what Christmas is (completely earnest); or, (only half-mocking) No, I want Jesus’ love.
The heathen tried again, attempting to speak more in the teacher's vein: "Look, think of it like this: how much do you pay for gas?"
He was ignored again. The next step in the lesson, having plowed through the reading, was for students to write a few sentences imitating one of the opening paragraphs, taking into consideration all that stuff they had just learned about style.
No one knew what to write about. The other para took dictation from one perversely cheerful boy:
"My dog was old and fat! She fell down the stairs..."
With the removal of X, who had already gone on a break once, walking the halls with his minder, and kept kicking his desk legs, trying to give random fist bumps, the teacher seemingly gave up following the book. She handed out blank sheets of lined paper to everyone, and the lesson abruptly shifted to a two paragraph essay on classroom behavior--meaning 10 sentences.
And the student who had walked in late and couldn’t find his Springboard text/workbook, and so proceeded to break and then to throw the pieces of a broken mechanical pencil, slinging insults across the room at his friends, was the first one finished, having found the book in his backpack all along. The teacher plainly disliked him, did not deign to praise his work, and he grew frustrated. Sentences and fragments, scolding, shushing, sullen silence, heads down--is that how to teach writing, much less any enjoyment in writing?
Ms Y speaks: "We live in a world of political correctness, right or wrong--rethink how you talk about your buddy, no joking around, because if someone takes offense, even if that's not what you think you meant--look, this school has got a Zero Tolerance Policy--anything perceived as bullying, harassment, derogatory statements, mandatory reporting, so just about everybody would be suspended for something you've said in here. You can’t hit delete, just don’t hit send--you never know what devices are capturing all this stuff--saying or doing something inappropriate on the job will get you fired. Learn now, because you're in high school now, you're not going back to 5th or 6th grade...Nobody knows what they do in middle school. Not much. You have not made one inch of progress, if you were not nice then, you're probably not nice now. Nice and respectful will get you anywhere. There was this kid from the South I taught once, he was the most obnoxious but everything was "Yes, Ma'am." I said you don't have to call me ma'am. "Ma'am," he said, "I'm from the South, and we call everyone "sir" or 'ma'am." He was obnoxious, but his politeness smoothed all that over. Other places might fit your personality better--we don’t want you to leave..."
"What if the customer is rude?"
"The customer is always right. If you're a waiter and there’s no tip, you know you sucked..."
All this was picked up by students and satirized immediately, demonstrating a fair grasp of spoken style, at least. The angry boy shifted some desks that were askew and said, "Yes, ma'am," when the teacher told him to get back in his seat until the bell.
--To be continued with some notes on the rest of that day, up at the middle school that afternoon and then at Gonzaga for the Art Spiegelman talk that evening. As an alternative, here's our discussion of what a better lesson would look like, taking "The Raven" as an example.
"I'm here for so-and-so," I said, "--or rather, she's in the BI room while covering for the teacher who's out today while I cover for her. So just let me know how I can help."
"Oh, she doesn't do anything, just sits there on her phone." It's what she had been doing when I talked to her in the BI room; I got the sense she was the softball coach, and might be doing something related to that important job.
I made a non-committal sound of commiseration, looking around the classroom, and repeated my intention to do something to help the teacher if she would only say what that might be.
"I don't even know which kids she's assigned to work with, since no one has bothered to tell me." An appealing glance to another para who had come in; they conferred briefly. "She mostly hangs out on that side of the room. If you see kids off-task or whatever...just stand over by them if you see they’re being a jerk."
Between the dull workbook and this husk of a teacher, the lesson was seemingly designed not only to be incomprehensible, but to drive anyone away from ever stepping into an English class or picking up a book again. The entry task invited students to write about a symbol in their culture and its importance. No guidance was given, aside from the example of the american flag.
The lesson proper began with a description of the two textbooks/workbooks and their provenance. Evidently the slim one they had been using was a pilot curriculum specially provided for this fortunate school, whereas they would now be using the thick normal one from here on out. I could weep to imagine how much all these books and the hours spent by pseudo-experts in compiling and marketing them must have cost. The students' eyes glazed over.
Then suddenly the teacher was saying to copy the definitions of literary terms from the pages' sidebars into some section of their notebooks--another lengthy sidebar, which the teacher totally ignored, dealt with using semicolons--but giving no time or explicit direction to do so, she moved straight into the instructions for reading. These bid the students circle imagery which stood out to them and underline sentence fragments. Providing an inadequate explanation of both terms, though the class was plainly confused, the teacher went about reading aloud the first passage without any context, reading or rather mumbling expressively but with no feel for the rhythm of the prose, giving no vocabulary helps for words or phrases actually appearing in the passage, such as ‘imputation of parsimony,’ but pretending the definitions of those literary terms were copied down and thus understood--or proceeding with indifference to the students’ understanding.
It would have been the simplest thing in the world to use the projector to show a painting of the Adoration of the Magi, or to show a Carnival scene, to at least begin to take seriously the lacunae in the students' comprehension preventing them from encountering these stories, and to enrich their pathetic day of school.
The closest she came to addressing any of this was her anecdote about the football game, and implying that they all wanted the newest iphone for Christmas, despite protestations to the contrary: I don't know what Christmas is (completely earnest); or, (only half-mocking) No, I want Jesus’ love.
The heathen tried again, attempting to speak more in the teacher's vein: "Look, think of it like this: how much do you pay for gas?"
He was ignored again. The next step in the lesson, having plowed through the reading, was for students to write a few sentences imitating one of the opening paragraphs, taking into consideration all that stuff they had just learned about style.
No one knew what to write about. The other para took dictation from one perversely cheerful boy:
"My dog was old and fat! She fell down the stairs..."
With the removal of X, who had already gone on a break once, walking the halls with his minder, and kept kicking his desk legs, trying to give random fist bumps, the teacher seemingly gave up following the book. She handed out blank sheets of lined paper to everyone, and the lesson abruptly shifted to a two paragraph essay on classroom behavior--meaning 10 sentences.
And the student who had walked in late and couldn’t find his Springboard text/workbook, and so proceeded to break and then to throw the pieces of a broken mechanical pencil, slinging insults across the room at his friends, was the first one finished, having found the book in his backpack all along. The teacher plainly disliked him, did not deign to praise his work, and he grew frustrated. Sentences and fragments, scolding, shushing, sullen silence, heads down--is that how to teach writing, much less any enjoyment in writing?
Ms Y speaks: "We live in a world of political correctness, right or wrong--rethink how you talk about your buddy, no joking around, because if someone takes offense, even if that's not what you think you meant--look, this school has got a Zero Tolerance Policy--anything perceived as bullying, harassment, derogatory statements, mandatory reporting, so just about everybody would be suspended for something you've said in here. You can’t hit delete, just don’t hit send--you never know what devices are capturing all this stuff--saying or doing something inappropriate on the job will get you fired. Learn now, because you're in high school now, you're not going back to 5th or 6th grade...Nobody knows what they do in middle school. Not much. You have not made one inch of progress, if you were not nice then, you're probably not nice now. Nice and respectful will get you anywhere. There was this kid from the South I taught once, he was the most obnoxious but everything was "Yes, Ma'am." I said you don't have to call me ma'am. "Ma'am," he said, "I'm from the South, and we call everyone "sir" or 'ma'am." He was obnoxious, but his politeness smoothed all that over. Other places might fit your personality better--we don’t want you to leave..."
"What if the customer is rude?"
"The customer is always right. If you're a waiter and there’s no tip, you know you sucked..."
All this was picked up by students and satirized immediately, demonstrating a fair grasp of spoken style, at least. The angry boy shifted some desks that were askew and said, "Yes, ma'am," when the teacher told him to get back in his seat until the bell.
--To be continued with some notes on the rest of that day, up at the middle school that afternoon and then at Gonzaga for the Art Spiegelman talk that evening. As an alternative, here's our discussion of what a better lesson would look like, taking "The Raven" as an example.
This was incredibly depressing to hear about and I'm so sorry you had to witness this horrible person ruin what could have potentially been a great lesson for those kids. It was clear they craved learning something that day...
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