Student Koan #14

When I was little, my dad married me to my teddy bear. There was a priest and a whole ceremony and everything, so technically, I’m married.

Student Koan #13

During a test on pronouns, November 10, 2010:

Student: Can I use “his” for my cousin?

Me: Is your cousin a boy or a girl?

Student: No, ‘e’s Chinese.

Grammar

During the last week of class, I was reviewing with my 10th grade class, in preparation for the finals.  I asked a question, and a couple of the kids volunteered to answer, but I called on a kid in the first row, who did, in fact know the answer.

This did not, however satisfy the rest of the class. One kid in the back called out, “Come on, I rosed my hand first, why didn’t you call on me?”

I responded, “You raised your hand.”

“What’s the difference?”

Student Koan #12

May 9, 2011:

If Jesus never had any children, how do we know which people look like him?

Student Koan #11

April 28, 2011

“Ummm….I got some hand sanitizer on my quiz, but it’s not drool, so don’t freak out when you touch it.”

After seeing the look on my face, she continued: “I’m just letting you know now so things don’t get awkward.”

Guillotine v.2

Last week, the Teacher L_______ did his role-play of the French Revolution with the students. These are things overheard or witnessed during that event.

Student Koan #10

After referring to me as “The Nebulizer:”

I’m sorry I accidentally used your superhero name, but it’s just a superhero name; I promise The Nebulizer doesn’t mean something bad.

Boredom

This is a speech I gave about a week ago. It’s a follow up to my “I’m the smartest person I know,” speech, which I redid two weeks before that. Our boys varsity basketball team was playing in the league championship that night.

It’s good to see you all again. I wanted to read two things for you. The first is by Rainer Maria Rilke, the guy who wrote the Panther poem from the last time I spoke. I know it’s boring to hear the same poet or Bible verse over and over again, and I know that school is boring and chapel is the most boring part of school, but I’m doing this because of two pieces of advice I got when I started teaching, which were of course completely contradictory. One person told me to be funny, zany, unpredictable in class, because students are lazy and perpetually bored, and I would have to trick them into learning. Teaching, this person said, is a form of entertainment.

Then, another person told me that if I said something coherent, students would respond, that teachers who see themselves as performers are just getting in the way of understanding. So today I’m going to put this to the test. I don’t have any tricks or jokes. No scary videos or wacky boasts about my intelligence. I’m just going to show you something I think is true and trust you all to respond to it. Undoubtedly people will fall asleep, but people slept through my last speech and even the French Horror movie last year.

The poem is from Rilke’s Book of Hours, which is a collection of prayers, and this prayer has at its heart two paradoxes, two sets of ideas that seem contradictory but turn out to be true. In this prayer, Rilke introduces two paradoxes of his own, one that all things in the universe, from the biggest to the smallest are filled with God’s life. Second, that the most miraculous things in the world, are often the things we don’t notice.

I find you Lord in all Things and in all
My fellow creatures, pulsing with your life;
As a tiny seed, you sleep in what is small, and
In the vast, you vastly yield yourself.

The wondrous game that power plays with Things
Is to move in such submission through the world
Groping in roots and growing thick in tree tops,
Like a rising from the grave.

Camels v. 1.2

One of my colleagues had a conversation yesterday with a boy who is failing his class. He tried to meet with the kid to discuss the grade a couple of times, but the kid never showed up. Finally he cornered the boy after school last week and sat him down.

Teacher: You’re failing my class.

Student: I know, but I don’t know what to do about it.

Teacher: Well, you’re getting 2 or 3 out of ten on every reading quiz, so I think the problem is that you’re not doing the reading.

Student: You’re just assigning too much work. I don’t know how you expect us to get it all done. I have a busy schedule, and there just isn’t time.

Teacher: Okay, take me through your day. What things do you have to do.

Student: Well I’m here at school for six hours a day. Then I have practice. Then there’s a forty minute drive home. Then it’s dinner time.

Teacher: And then?

Student: Then it’s 6:30.

Teacher: Okay, so you do have time when you could be doing the reading.

Student: No, I just told you I’m busy all day.

Teacher: What about after dinner?

Student: I told you, I’m busy. That’s when I watch TV.

Camels

Why do my students think they know stuff? Who told them this? I think I blame happy hippy educators for building self-esteem when they should have been building grammar knowledge.

I gave this speech again last week. and it’s a pretty silly bit of fluff, I’ll admit, but the point is that we don’t know everything, and we need advice. Most people at school got it and responded pretty well.

But I had a girl come up to me afterward and tell me that I should let other people have their opinions. Now this was the point of the speech, and I agreed with her, but I started to wonder afterwards. Why should I let my students have their opinions? Why should I allow them to express themselves in class? Do they have anything worth saying? And furthermore, why do they think they have something to say? Why do they think they know things?

The students seem to enjoy school and my class in particular, but if they do, if they agree that it is good to go to school, isn’t the point of school to teach you things you don’t know? Why then do kids give me their opinions of literature? “It’s boring,” they whine. Or, “I couldn’t relate to it.” Isn’t the entire point of the class that they don’t know how to appreciate good literature? Isn’t that the point of education? By signing up for a class on English, you are implicitly declaring, “I don’t know what to think about literature, and I need help.” Or at least your parents are declaring that.

Education assumes that you don’t understand something, but you want advice. Why are my students confused about this?