Crevices

This is going to be one of those “Helen is thinking out loud” pieces,

As it is now April and the gaps that my students have start to reveal themselves

In full. This time I’m not just thinking of them as gaps, but crevices they fall into

And it takes me a while to figure out that is where they are….in the darkness.

It started when I gave my Global Perspectives kids a tracker for our major

Project, one that they were to highlight each step as they finished it, and it

Would provide the next step. It is online, so the idea was I could look any time

And see where they were. But what I found instead was two things:

Barely anyone was using it, and I kept getting asked what to do next.

I cannot say how many times I replied: What does your tracker say?

I cannot say how many times I begged them to follow the tracker.

Most of the time, I had to remind them where it is on Google Classroom.

To be clear, I’ve used these kinds of trackers before with great success.

What is different now? I have no idea.

With my intensive reading students, I’ve dutifully followed the iReady

Curriculum, adjusting as I saw fit, but in general trying to find the best in it.

It wasn’t until the district gave us “drill down” lessons from the ELA curriculum

That I discovered something I had not seen to this point: The kids are having

Problems answering the standardized test style questions correctly, and

If you give them the answer and ask them to tell you how they can determine

The answer is right, only a few can choose words and phrases that support.

The big emphasis in reading and ELA and other disciplines are teaching 

“The standards.” We are supposed to point to the standard on the board,

Refer to the standard over and over…but as I knew long ago when we tried

This, and I know now again, telling the kids about the standards doesn’t really

Teach them a thing. Instead it teaches them to tune out. It’s worthless information.

Reading and ELA are skills-based classes, not content based. Everything we do

Is just about answering standardized test questions, something we used to avoid

Doing until well into the school year. But now it begins Day One.

Back in the day, we had a saying that the three Rs of education were

Relevance, Relationships, and Rigor. Although I am not a fan of the word

Rigor (too much like rigor mortis), I do believe RELEVANCE has to come first.

The curriculum is boring and does not engage them, the activities are dull and

Sometimes indecipherable…it goes on and on.

And that is where the curriculum is lacking. We are all just walking a barren

Terrain and every once in a while a kids falls into the crevice and they don’t even 

Know what to do to get themselves out of it. They don’t have the skill, somehow.

And very often, they just don’t bother to ask for help, or even accept it when given.

This came to light this past week. My GP students completed their research and a

Planning sheet, and now they are supposed to be putting together their presentations.

It wasn’t until this week I discovered that some didn’t understand what to put in 

The presentation. I’d say, What did you put on your planning sheet?

(Of course, the tracker TELLS them to use their plan to create their presentation,

But since they aren’t using it, they don’t know.)  They keep asking questions like,

How many slides do I need? (My response: I don’t know. How many do you need

To tell the story of your research findings?) They ask How long should it be?

Same answer. How long will it take? I remind them again that they are speaking

To their peers, that they need to make the information digestible, keep it in their

Own words. They were to take Cornell Notes on their sources, and the purpose

Was to help them get to that point. But many did not even know to refer back 

To their notes to make the presentation happen. I still find it hard to understand

This disconnect. It isn’t like it isn’t on the tracker, hasn’t been reintroduced

Repeatedly in class, and isn’t on the FAQ page I made to help them look for 

Answers to common questions.Too many of them simply do not know how to connect things, 

Or even how to use provided resources. Everything has to be spelled out and

Walked through for them, or it may not get done.

(I will give a shout-out here to the few kids in each class that CAN do these things.

But it is far too few.)

Then it hit me…and I’ve been guilty of this as well. Very often, teachers create

A skeleton slideshow for presentations and tell the kids what to put on each slide.

Apparently, this cohort of 7th graders don’t know any other way to approach it.

Again, some were hiding in the dark, not telling me they didn’t know how to start,

And wasting precious class time sitting there “trying to figure it out,” which

Is clearly a gap with this generation — the idea if they stare at something long

Enough, they will figure it out. That’s what they’ve done with video games all

Their lives, so they do not believe in relying on any kind of instruction, verbal

Or written. They would rather tune out and see if they can pull it together.

Of course, it’s also not lost on me that most of these kids are unenthusiastic

About the whole project, even though they were encouraged to choose a research

Question they’d be interested in. But I find too many of them, after weeks of work,

Cannot even tell me their research question.

How did we get here? I have no freakin’ idea.

But I will say here what I say to teacher friends and even ones that work at the district.

Our curriculum is failing our kids. I was not taught to teach they way I’ve been

Cajoled into, and once again, I see some successes, but way too many failures 

With the way things are.

So once again, I have arrived to the place I always arrive, and more alarmed than

Ever about the ways things have degenerated. This happens every damn year!

I am going to get the main things done in the next couple weeks, and then I’m going

To do it my way. I hope to write here with happier news when I do. I am getting close

To retirement, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let these kids keep falling in the crevices!

We will walk the terrain together, I will help them avoid the holes, but honestly

Teaching the skills now that they don’t seem to have is a tall order.

All I can do is what I can do.