I’m a teacher, pretty damn proud of
that fact. Yes, the smell of new
textbooks, the sound it makes when the binding is cracked, Ticonderoga brand
pencils, Trapper Keepers; it all does it for me. Yet, nowadays, I have noticed that I don’t
just teach, I learn. I can be
taught. I can listen. I can take criticism. If my lesson sucks, tell me. Does that mean I can tell you about yourself
as a student? I sometimes feel
underappreciated, I feel worthless, and I get pissed off. If I think about this to myself, I will often
get a sudden urge to blurt out in front of room 214, “Do you know how late I
stayed up last night doing all this work for you and now you throw it in the
garbage can …”, it wouldn’t be the first or last time. I work my ass off to teach my students. But I also understand that I am meant to be a
learner, because I love learning. How
cliché? Aren’t we meant to be life long
learners as educators? Here’s the catch
though … I learn from my students.
Most of the teachers around me don’t teach me much, but the students do.
They have taught me how to care in a
manner I have never cared. I have
learned to buy extra snacks for my teacher desk drawers because someone is
always hungry. They always need pencils,
Band-Aids for too tight shoes, boy advice, girl advice, parent advice, and
college advice. They still cry. They’re still sensitive. They know what they want. They know who they are. They know what they believe. You just want to hug them. Girls talk about girls and say mean things when
you have thought they are friends … and then they turncoat on each other. It’s sad and makes me first of all disbelieve
I was ever that way, even though embarrassingly I know I was. Secondly, and more importantly, they have
taught me they are tough on the inside, but also outside. They’ll get through and think back “How
silly” just like I do all the time.
What I just said, I have known. Here is what I am learning now. Students.
Don’t. Care. I don’t understand. They teach me just how apathetic and ignorant
they are. They blame everything and
everyone around them for their lack of “whatever” except themselves. This is not one of those stories where I tell
you how I walked up hill, both ways, in the snow, with wet shoes to school and
I appreciated it. I never walked to
school. I never had holes in my
shoes. The worst was standing outside in
the snow – it was cold – but snow is cold.
I did carry textbooks, big heavy ones.
There was no such thing as a classroom set. We carried our books from class to class to
class because we went to our lockers in the morning, and afternoon, and we
never questioned that. Kids have really
grown a set to question our expectations in their everyday scholastic lives.
Students believe themselves
entitled. Entitled to whatever they
want. Now, before you get all hot and
bothered under the collar, get your panties in a bunch, take a chill pill … I’m
generalizing. That’s right, profilin’. Every student is not this way. There are still the ones who care, who value
and appreciate their education. However,
I challenge you to show me a teacher who cannot say they have seen this plain
truth in the flesh. Students. Don’t.
Care.
If our students are passing, that is
all that matters. Passing. And I’m talking passing. A 59.5% is passing in the school district I
teach at. A 59.5% rounds to a 60, that
is the lowest D- you can earn. And I do
say earn. Grades aren’t given; at least
not in classroom 214. Kids will try to
negotiate with me about having homework?
One such situation; a boy asked a buddy to do one side of a worksheet
and he would do the other side. They
could switch answers. This same student
then negotiated the other side with someone else. Did he do any work? NONE. What happened to the dignity, the
prestige, the honor of earning a really high grade and being proud of your own
hard work in the matter? I remember
sitting up for hours studying APUSH, doing a French Cultural project, don’t get
me started about Calculus … but I did it because it was expected. I was a student. My job was to learn. When I went to school I could not stand in
front of a Smart Board and take a picture with my cell phone instead of copying
the notes from the board myself. I wrote
until my hand hurt … literally. I was afraid
to miss something. I fell asleep with
textbooks in my lap in the middle of the night.
I started the coffeemaker at 10pm.
My parents were in bed asleep. I
could not imagine failing … let alone a B or [gasp] a C. When did this become OK? When did it become acceptable to not do your
best, but just pass? All is well if you
pass. Don’t get me started on getting
paid for good grades.
Is it all a show? Do they actually care, but just want to act
“cool” and seem as though they don’t. I
can’t tell. I don’t know. I have had too many students tell me they
would rather take a 0 then do the assignment or try again to think it is all a
show. How disappointing.
And that is what it is … I’m
disappointed. As teachers, we hold on to
that hope, that dream, that “joy”, that we will have the privilege of teaching
those students (or even a few students, I’ll take a few at this point) who care
about their future. That we can say we
sat across a table from them, challenged them to think, and saw them win that
challenge due to hard work. I wish I saw
every day those students who put in every ounce of effort they can … A for
effort. Those who know they are not the
next D1 athlete, or D2, or D3. They are
not the next HOVA or “creative genius” but they are just an everyday
all-American, drive a 10-year-old Honda student who works their ass off and is
rewarded for their hard work. And they
might not go to Harvard, but they go to a pretty great university, perhaps they
rush, perhaps they don’t. They go to
class because that is what their loans or their scholarships or their parents’
hard earned money is paying for. They
earn high grades by going to classes that actually happen, and do their work,
and are proud of their achievements and they find a job.
Perhaps they become a teacher and
stand in front of a classroom of 30 students who maybe smell, perhaps they seem
sleepy, perhaps they’re high, and will say … this is what Mrs. Walizer was
talking about.
It’s 10:26 pm on a Tuesday night and
I’m tired, but one of my classes did not fair so well today, so I’m rewriting
an assignment to help them. Perhaps not
all of them will end up in the circular file tomorrow.
