As an Education Minor still serving as an undergrad, I hadn’t, before writing this blog, yet worked in a single classroom as a teacher or intern. The closest I had previously come, came in the form of those classes I occasionally taught while at the 377th MI Army Reserve Component. I recently spoke with Doctor Kaplan about how best to remedy this situation in preparation for my upcoming career as a teacher and creative writing instructor. Doctor Kaplan pointed me towards a fellow classmate, a graduate student whom I shall refer to as J.T. J.T. allowed me to observe him in action, teaching at a school I shall refer to as CHS.
After arriving at CHS, I checked in with the front desk and went in guided search of J.T., who worked as a floater, meaning that he hadn’t a designated classroom. Because of this, he must move from one room to the next between classes. He must carry all his files, books, and other equipment with him in a cart, ferrying them from one room to the next. Fortunately, all the English classrooms are in the same building, and J.T. is an English teacher.
In J.T.’s first class, he taught a ninth-grade, English class. He instructed them to read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Or, at least, he tried to. The class, half of which hadn’t arrived, made little to no effort to read the book. Most outright ignored the novel, leaving it closed on their desks or in their book bags.
Between J.T.’s first and second class, he had what is referred to as a “Teacher’s Planning Period.” He and I retreated to his office for this period to discuss what I could expect from the rest of his students, each of whom I would meet throughout the day. J.T. shared his office with three other teachers. He told me that he used to also share this office with a pair of sickbay cots, which had, at the time, served as his desks. He also told me that it had taken weeks for him to even receive this much. Prior to recently, he hadn’t an office at all.
His second class closely resembled his first. A ninth-grade, English class, half of which hadn’t arrived. J.T. explained that many of the absent students hadn’t arrived for one of two reasons. The first was that the Junior ROTC program was conducting a field trip. Many of the students enrolled in ROTC ditched class to participate in such trips. These students planned a career in the military and had discounted all other aspects of their education as unimportant. These students didn’t seem to understand that they would each have to complete the ASVAB before they joined the military. The ASVAB would test them on their skills in such subjects as math and English. Their scores would limit which jobs they could obtain while in the military. Without a good score, they might easily discover themselves limited to dodging bullets on the frontlines.
The second cause for the heavy absences was due to an unofficial Senior Skip Day. None of J.T.’s students are seniors.
In J.T.’s second class, what few students who had arrived also refused to read To Kill a Mockingbird. They said that the book bored them, that they couldn’t force themselves past the first page. I write novels, and I hope to one day publish them. I now know, more so than ever, that my every line must captivate my audience.
While one or two students pretended to read the book (they never once turned a single page), most didn’t bother to put up a front. They chatted amongst themselves, inspected their nails, and argued with their teacher. J.T. repeatedly tried to make Harper Lee’s novel relevant to their lives, but the students fought him every step of the way. These same students felt the same way about Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.
These kids start with the classics before they learn to read anything modern, written in their own language, about subjects with which they can immediately identify. Starting with the classics sends the wrong message to students that they are not smart enough to grasp what they read. It builds a negative self-image that haunts them and disinterests them from future reading.
The cafeteria at CHS closely resembles a fast food joint, in its shape, set-up, and menu. For “food,” the students choose between pizza, spicy chicken wraps, or hamburgers. J.T. demonstrated the kindness of forewarning me against the burgers. While milk is an option, most students grab a sports drink loaded with high fructose corn syrup, sugar, and other nastiness. There are alternatives to the lunchroom. There are snack machines filled with candy bars and a takeout window where students and faculty can grab chips and candy.
Just over half of the tenth-grade class arrived for third period. Some of these students were not tenth-graders. Several were seniors retaking Sophomore English for the second (sometimes third) time.
To my relief, most of this class actually read there novel, though many of them were behind in chapters from where they should have been. One student’s cell phone rang. The teacher caught another student texting. J.T. gave the latter student the option of surrendering her cell phone or going to the principal’s office. If she chose the former, her parents would have to come to school to retrieve the phone. The student took her chances with the principal.
After the third period, J.T. and I spoke. He showed me several papers that his students had turned in to him yesterday. Suspecting these papers as frauds, he typed into Google random lines taken from the papers. His face failed to display the slightest hint of shock as each and every one turned out to have been copied, pasted, and printed off the internet. Next, J.T. tried this method against a paper just handed in to him. In seconds, he located the stolen paper, in its entirety, on the internet.
Just as despair set its claws into me, we arrived at J.T.’s fourth and final class of the day. This ninth-grade class couldn’t have been any different from those that preceded it. While these students were anything but quiet, though they couldn’t seem to sit still to save their lives, they actively dove into Antigone. They exchanged fascinating questions, challenging what they read, and comparing it to those events that took place both in the real world and in modern forms of entertainment. J.T. never attempted to silence his students. Rather, he encouraged their input. By some teachers’ standards, this final class might have appeared as the most rambunctious. Such teachers would be right, but I hope such teachers wouldn’t fail to also observe that this class accomplished far more than the quieter classes before it, in which little was accomplished beyond fingernail-inspecting and text messaging beneath the desks.
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