Monday, February 14, 2005
A Pair of Broken Hearts
It was Valentine's Day at Underwood High School (or "Valentimes" if the announcements are to be believed) and love was in the air. In my classroom, love manifested itself in the form of a test. Not just any test though. Following hot on the heels of the now legendary open-note, open-book, group midterm was my new and improved open-book, open-index card test on dynamics!
30 multiple choice questions, 10 true/false with students expected to correct false statements. A bonus word problem worth an additional 10%, not to mention an extra 5% added to any student who attached their 3 x 5 index card to the test.
While this setup would seem favorable to student success, some students refused to take advantage of the opportunity. Many students complained it was too hard because I didn't tell them which pages to look on. (I did refer them to this magical thing called an "index" however which was rumored to contain clues to the location of any subject in the textbook if one could only decipher its mystical scrawls.) Sometimes I wonder if I should just give them an answer key and be done with the whole thing...
Of all the argumentative and disruptive students today, all the noisemakers, troublemakers, test-stealers, answer-copiers, and other assorted knuckleheads, one stood out in my first period class. This student, a particularly "clever" so-and-so thought that it would hurt my feelings if he chose to ball up the exam rather than take it. When I politely asked him if I could throw out his paper, he refused. Grabbing the ball of paper in his fist, he said he'd throw it out as he left the room so that I could "dig it out of the trash" myself. Understand...this is a student with an average in the 40s before throwing away his first major exam for the marking period. That brought him down to a 28. Honestly, though I ended up calling his house and reporting the incident to the Ninth Grade Academy offices, it was very difficult for me to restrain myself from laughing at the idiocy of his malice. "Go ahead," I felt like shouting. "Throw out your paper. Give me less work to grade. Make it harder to fail you and ensure your attendance at summer school!" Yeah, I was shattered... The whoel thing merely confirmed what a colleague had said about that student. Whatever he's doing at Underwood, it is not to do school.
Anyhow, I had the opportunity to break some hearts on my own later in the day when the Ninth Grade Academy asked me for a favor. Remember those students (74% or so) who failed two or more subjects and needed remediation for fear of failing the ninth grade? Well one remediation option is a program known as Credit Recovery where students basically take an extra 3 hrs. of class per week in a given subject and their previously failing averages are brought up from F's to D's. Or at least that's how it is supposed to work. In any event, between the 3 physical science classes there are a lot of failing students and they need to find someone to supervise two sections of Credit Recovery. Right now however, I'm opposed to the idea. Part of this is selfish: I don't want to give up my afternoon time teaching students who have already shown absolutely no interest in the subject. Part of this is pragmatic: I have enough difficulties in my classroom management to have to deal with a whole new set of students who, on the whole, would likely be more argumentative than my current group. And part of this is based on principle: I dislike the Credit Recovery concept, for a simple reason...it perpetuates the belief that students do not need to put in time to pass their classes the first go around. After all, there's always Credit Recovery. Or Summer School. Or this that and the other... There is no accountability, and that burns me up. This is why tomorrow I will have to break some hearts when I tell them that barring a significant incentive package on their part I will not teach Credit Recovery.
And now to bed.
It was Valentine's Day at Underwood High School (or "Valentimes" if the announcements are to be believed) and love was in the air. In my classroom, love manifested itself in the form of a test. Not just any test though. Following hot on the heels of the now legendary open-note, open-book, group midterm was my new and improved open-book, open-index card test on dynamics!
30 multiple choice questions, 10 true/false with students expected to correct false statements. A bonus word problem worth an additional 10%, not to mention an extra 5% added to any student who attached their 3 x 5 index card to the test.
While this setup would seem favorable to student success, some students refused to take advantage of the opportunity. Many students complained it was too hard because I didn't tell them which pages to look on. (I did refer them to this magical thing called an "index" however which was rumored to contain clues to the location of any subject in the textbook if one could only decipher its mystical scrawls.) Sometimes I wonder if I should just give them an answer key and be done with the whole thing...
Of all the argumentative and disruptive students today, all the noisemakers, troublemakers, test-stealers, answer-copiers, and other assorted knuckleheads, one stood out in my first period class. This student, a particularly "clever" so-and-so thought that it would hurt my feelings if he chose to ball up the exam rather than take it. When I politely asked him if I could throw out his paper, he refused. Grabbing the ball of paper in his fist, he said he'd throw it out as he left the room so that I could "dig it out of the trash" myself. Understand...this is a student with an average in the 40s before throwing away his first major exam for the marking period. That brought him down to a 28. Honestly, though I ended up calling his house and reporting the incident to the Ninth Grade Academy offices, it was very difficult for me to restrain myself from laughing at the idiocy of his malice. "Go ahead," I felt like shouting. "Throw out your paper. Give me less work to grade. Make it harder to fail you and ensure your attendance at summer school!" Yeah, I was shattered... The whoel thing merely confirmed what a colleague had said about that student. Whatever he's doing at Underwood, it is not to do school.
Anyhow, I had the opportunity to break some hearts on my own later in the day when the Ninth Grade Academy asked me for a favor. Remember those students (74% or so) who failed two or more subjects and needed remediation for fear of failing the ninth grade? Well one remediation option is a program known as Credit Recovery where students basically take an extra 3 hrs. of class per week in a given subject and their previously failing averages are brought up from F's to D's. Or at least that's how it is supposed to work. In any event, between the 3 physical science classes there are a lot of failing students and they need to find someone to supervise two sections of Credit Recovery. Right now however, I'm opposed to the idea. Part of this is selfish: I don't want to give up my afternoon time teaching students who have already shown absolutely no interest in the subject. Part of this is pragmatic: I have enough difficulties in my classroom management to have to deal with a whole new set of students who, on the whole, would likely be more argumentative than my current group. And part of this is based on principle: I dislike the Credit Recovery concept, for a simple reason...it perpetuates the belief that students do not need to put in time to pass their classes the first go around. After all, there's always Credit Recovery. Or Summer School. Or this that and the other... There is no accountability, and that burns me up. This is why tomorrow I will have to break some hearts when I tell them that barring a significant incentive package on their part I will not teach Credit Recovery.
And now to bed.
