Higher Education

“What if I can’t make it to college?”

The counselor was doing annual academic planning with my sixth grade students when one of the boys flagged me over to whisper his question. I sat down next to him. I know school is a struggle for him.

“Well,” I told him, “college is like a key. It will open some doors for you. When you get older, we want you to have as many choices as possible so that you can do the things that will make you happy. That’s why we’re saying college is important.

“But, I mean, what if I just can’t? What will happen to people who don’t go?” he asked with more than a small note of discouragement in his voice.

“Don’t worry; there are other keys, too,” I assured him, “but you still have time to work hard and do what you can to get ready for college. AND your teachers will help you—that’s what we’re here for.”

Reductive

Our state's Standards of Learning were first approved in 1995 and testing on them began in 1998. Originally conceived as a minimum standard, once the test results were used as a yard stick to measure the success of schools, success on the test became a focus of many districts. Things really got rolling in 2001 when the No Child Left Behind act was passed by Congress and federal funds became contingent on the passing rate of students. Race to the Top, the current administration's policy has not alleviated the focus on these high-stakes assessments; in fact in many ways it has strengthened it.

Here's a conversation I overheard today:

Is that on the SOLs?

No.

Then why bother?

Cause and Effect

Recently, many of my students missed a couple of questions on their quarterly standardized predictor test which were about "author's organizational pattern." Looking at the test, it seemed that they were more confused by the terminology rather than unable to tell if a passage was organized chronologically, so I gave them a guide to the patterns that our state thinks they ought to know (chronological, sequence, comparison/contrast, cause and effect, problem/solution, and generalization), and then pulled a few passages from a Common Core Standards sight that would allow them to practice.

Here's one:

One day Dino the Dinosaur decided to go for a walk to the watering hole. It was a sunny day and the sky was blue and clear. Dino was thinking about his girlfriend Dina when he saw a pack of wild lizards and animals running through the plains in a frenzy. Dino tried to ask the critters why they were running, but they just kept running. Dino scratched his dinosaur head and continued walking toward the watering hole. Soon after, Dino heard a loud thumping noise like the slow beat of a drum. The earth shook and fruit fell from the trees, but Dino was so deep in thought over his girl Dina that he didn’t even notice. The thumping grew louder and louder as Timmy the Tyrannosaurs Rex approached Dino. Dino kept thinking about his girl Dina until the moment Timmy ate him.

The choices were A) Chronological, B) Cause and Effect, C) Sequence, or D) Problem/solution

The majority of students chose B, and when I asked them why, they explained that the cause of Dino's death was that he was distracted.

They have a point.

Going Viral

Every Monday my students have a vocabulary quiz, so for the five minutes before, we do a "stand up, hand up, pair up" review. One of the key components of this activity is the greeting before the actual questioning. For example, "How was your weekend?" is a common start.

Such pleasantries take only seconds, but they are an incentive for kids to participate, and they build community and relax the learners before their assessment. They also make the review a seemingly lower stakes activity.

I, too, participate; it is delightful to connect with my students on a personal level while assessing their mastery of the material. You would be surprised at how few students have consciously figured out that if they pair up with me, I will ask them a question straight from the quiz and make sure they know the answer before they leave my company.

It doesn't matter though, because every week I observe those kids who do come my way asking their peers the same question that I have asked them... and making sure that they know the answer.

And so my work is done.

Chapulines

A few weeks ago we heard an interview with Stefan Gates on The Splendid Table radio show about eating bugs. The idea of using insects as protein has gained some traction over the past few years, especially as a way to ease the world's hunger problems, but Gates arrived at the issue from a different direction; his interest lies in what the foods we eat reveal about us, both as individuals and as cultures. As for insects, he says this:

On one side, insects are perfectly edible. They're nutritious, and they've got a long and noble history in cooking. But reactions to them, especially in the West, especially among people I know -- and myself, to be honest -- are often violently negative. I wanted to find out what this means. Why are we disgusted?

Um, because they're bugs?

While this was my first reaction, upon further consideration I had to acknowledge that there are things I eat and enjoy that are distinctly bug-like, say, crabs, shrimp, and lobster. I also must reflect on my experience of inadvertently consuming giant water bugs with gusto. (True, they were pulverized.)

So last night when we all sat down to a really fun dinner of small plates at Chef Jose Andres' Mexican restaurant Oyamel, I found that I couldn't resist ordering the Chapulines, or grasshopper taco. Fortunately, Emily was with me, and we knew that if we didn't like it, there would be plenty of other delicious bites for us.

Honestly? The taco was good. It was served on a 3 inch house-made, soft corn tortilla with guacamole. The grasshoppers were tiny, and they had been deep fried and seasoned with chilis. Perhaps I was imagining it, but I swear the flavor reminded me of those giant water bugs-- tart and fruity, almost like apples.

And? I was not disgusted at all.

Good Class, Bad Class

"I'm taking a film appreciation class," Josh told us last night. "It's like my English for this semester."

"That's really cool," I said, and we talked for a little while about film theory and some of the many, many movies we have seen together.

"Well, that sounds really interesting," I said at the end.

"It is!" he answered. "But even if it wasn't, it would be way better than any real English class."

Miscue Analysis

The math teacher showed me a placement test that our new student took today. One problem had an array of circles and squares. Find the ratio, the directions read, circles to squares.

No numbers had been written in response to the question, instead? He had circled two squares.