Future Leaders of the World

I just finished grading a batch of problem-solution essays written by my twelfth graders. They were to pick a societal problem and propose a detailed solution — this was in reference to our in-depth study of the British Restoration and Eighteenth Century, during which various issues such as poverty, women’s role in society, scientific thought, and government’s obligations to citizens were explored thoroughly in both fiction and non-fiction. 

I am not sure if I should approach this seriously or humorously, so I am just going to present the information throbbing in my brain for readers to do as they will with. I did have many students write adequately thought-out responses, but about seventy percent of them fell into line with examples like these (and I have edited for mechanical problems and rambling issues): 

* One young lady claimed that the debate over abortion could be eradicated if only we would ban legal abortion altogether. I’m pretty sure I have tens of millions of people who would still debate it, sweetie (more on this essay and issues it brings up in a later post…).

* A young man (who sits near her in class, come to think of it) asserted that the problem of underage drinking would be solved if only the legal drinking age was lowered. With a chuckle and a scratch of my head, I suppose this is TECHNICALLY correct… if we got rid of speed limits, we would TECHNICALLY have no speeding violations, either. Just egregious violations of common sense and reverence for human well-being. 

* Another young man wrote (this one I can’t even find mildly amusing, just downright scary) that the biggest problem facing America today is that Barak Obama is about to become president and take away our guns that we need to protect ourselves in the event that we are attacked by the terrorists that he is not going to protect us from. His proposed solution to this perceived crisis? Democrats need to stop disagreeing with republicans. And according to him, if this does not happen there will be rioting and killing. I am kind of curious though… if “our guns” are taken away, will all of this killing be done by strangulation? Stabbing? Hmmm. Maybe I can joke about this after all. 

Anyhow, feel free to comment. I think this demonstrates for me (and all teachers) how important it is that we do our best to model problem solving and logical thinking for our students — in many cases I believe that that is my primary role as an English teacher. I do not only teach literature and writing in a technical sense, but it is my responsibility to use the writing process as a way of cultivating a REASONING process, and reading as less of a transactional experience that an exercise in interactive critical thinking. It honestly frightens me when I see what a large percentage of high school upperclassmen have no sense of logical cause and effect or of thinking for themselves — so much of what I hear from them when we attempt to discuss ISSUES sounds like it has been regurgitated from crappy internet sources or even crappier TV “news” programs. 

Any teachers out there care to comment on how they work to combat this? 

“Put DOWN the paintbrush and keep your hands where I can see them…”

I’m pretty sure I heard CJ say that sometime in the past week. I got this crazy itch to paint, and I had to get it done… I’ve had paint samples hanging on a few of our walls for over a month, trying to decide what would look good. It was time. 

There are several funny stories of painting (including various things that mysteriously got painted despite the tape and/or drop cloths I meticulously placed over them), but I’ll let him relate those to everyone as I’m sure he’ll embellish them to make them sound more amusing than they really were. 

So anyway, here are the results. The dining room, in a lovely shade of sage green. Pardon all of the crap on the table; I swear it’s clean most of the time but I’ve been using it to make bridal shower invitations and such the past few days. The lilac walls are in my girlie room, where as you can tell I have not put everything back together yet. I did get rid of the futon I’ve had since college (I don’t even want to think of the various things it was exposed to…), hoping to get a nice cozy IKEA chair when I get sick of a folded-in-half futon cushion on the floor as my reading/lounging spot. 

 

 

And finally, here’s where YOU come in: what color should I paint my bedroom? I started out with about 20 different shades hanging up, and over the past two weeks have cut it down to the finalists pictured below. 

At the moment I’m leaning toward the more muted-looking blue-green one that’s third one from the bottom in the first pic, but second from the bottom in the other (I’m posting two separate photos in different lighting situations to give a better idea of what they look like). Input, anyone? I’m totally up for suggestions and criticisms. 

I really like the metallic one, but I don’t think the landlord would appreciate it when calculating how much of our security deposit to return to us when we leave this place someday. Also, it doesn’t look too metallic when it’s hanging on the wall in normal lighting (it actually looks kinda dark), but with the flash it looks a bit gaudy. I think I’ll save that one for a bathroom someday. 

 And now for the bummer of the day, I can’t figure out how to edit photos after I’ve already inserted them. And of course, I know this will look different as an actual post than it looks as a draft. So if my commentary on these pics is nowhere near the pics themselves, I am truly sorry. Maybe this sumer when I have more time I will figure such things out. Speaking of time, here I go to make an attempt at finishing my seniors’ grades, as tomorrow is their last day of class…

Leaders…or rather CHEATERS of Tomorrow

Please envision this little scene from my classroom today (my “Arrrrgh” class period of the year, no less.):

We are going over a vocabulary practice assignment that was last night’s homework, due at the beginning of class today. I frequently do this unannounced so that the kids will give it an honest shot (would YOU actually try hard on your homework if you knew you were getting the answers the next day?) to ensure that they can correct their crappy answers and salvage their homework for future use as a study guide.

We are almost to the end, and a student we’ll call “Kid X” makes an audible comment to another student twenty feet away on the opposite side of the room (we’ll call him “Kid Y”):

“Hey Kid Y, you actually got most of these right!”

To which I, with all of my teacherly wiles, snap back at him “.Excuse me, how do you know what his answers are?” Kid X looks at me, dumbfounded. I can see the thoughts She can’t possibly know that I copied his answers. She’s just a dumb teacher here to entertain me for fourty-five minutes between study hall and football practice flash across his fifteen year old face. “Um, just ’cause I know what he put.” Smile. Dimples. Glint in the eye. All his female peers fall for it. His mom falls for it. Hell, she emails me twice a week basically asking me to powder his ass after he uses the restroom without a pass and shows up to class late.

“Note to self.” I say aloud, being sure to make eye contact with both of them.

It’s not surprising to me that kids cheat. I have been teaching four four years, and I have witnessed and intervened in a myriad of cheating scams (most spectacularly, last year a kid turned in the ENTIRE lyrics to the song “Asshole” by Dennis Leary, copied in prose form, as his American Identity essay. Dumbass.) , but what has surprises me, dumbfounds me, and downright disgusts me are the following three things:

(1) They don’t think it’s wrong. They have no concept of intellectual property, academic integrity, or any of that. I try to teach them about it and challenge them to think about it, but there is very little groundwork for me to build on. They see people do it all around them, they are inured to it.

(2) Even those of them who think cheating is wrong don’t seem to understand what exactly constitutes “cheating.” About 80% of kids polled for the school newspaper which I am now the adviser of say that copying homework is not cheating. This is a huge problem. Are all of my colleagues inundating them with pointless work with no value other than simple completion (as the kids I’ve talked to about it have reported)? I HIGHLY doubt it. Are the kids being lazy and whiny? I regret my negativity, but my observations make me see that that is the more likely case. In addition, between texting and emailing, cheating has gotten insanely easier since my not-so-long-ago high school days. Oh yeah, and then there’s trying to get kids to write REAL research papers without just copying and pasting crap from Wikipedia and other junk websites. i actually had a kid turn in his senior research paper as “chunks” of five websites, each “chunk” still in the original font from the original website. Jesusfuckingchrist. At least he did the citations correctly.

Finally, (3) PARENTS ENABLE IT. Encourage it. Sometimes, unforgivably, even participate in it (sometime I’ll tell you the story behind THAT). In the five instances in which I have had to contact parents of cheating kids, four times I was told by the parents that it wasn’t a big deal and that I should offer their precious little offspring another chance to complete the assignment. And while I’m on that tangent, I’ll point out the number of parents who call off students from school when they have a test they have not studied for, or just “need a day off” (even if he/she has already had one or two of those by Thursday of that week). This is part of why I don’t think I’ll ever have children of my own. If I somehow end up like one of these parents, I’ll have to kill myself as a matter of principal.

And with that, here is a personal revelation I have had over the past two weeks or so: I am officially a crabby teacher these days. I think a great deal of it has to do with my very different new job (which, as soon as I am calm enough, I will settle down and explain to everyone), but either way, here I am, wasting my entire evening typing in my underwear about how nuts my job is driving me. I do not want to be this kind of teacher.   Statistically speaking, if one in my profession reaches this status within the first two years of his or her career, he/she will switch to another career promptly. But I’ve missed that easy-out window. I know I am here for the long haul. I am still positive most of the time, and I still avoid all of the teachers’ lounge bullshit bitching. But I swear, this job is starting to eat my soul. I totally understand how something like 20% of all new teachers get out of it by their fifth year.

 Any advice from veteran teachers on (a) how you handle the RAMPANT cheating problem in our schools, and/or (b)  how to NOT become the grouch moping in the teachers’ lounge, spewing daily hatred for the kids he/she got into this profession to help?!