Three things have happened recently that have made it very clear to me that 1) Macomb is very different than Ann Arbor and 2) I have a lot to learn about a lot of things.
The first two incidents were at parent teacher conferences a few weeks ago:
1. A C is average, right?
I have a student who is in both my English class and one of my German 1 classes. He's a great kid. He comes to talk to me, likes to joke around, and he was the one who started my nickname in one of my classes - he calls me Fraunie (sounds like frowny - Frau Nagle -> Frau N -> Fraunie - this has caught on with a few students). Anyway, I really enjoy having this student in my classes, but he's failing both German and English. He's failing simply because he's just not doing his homework or projects and he's not studying for quizzes and tests. I have offered this student extra help several times - I've almost pleaded with him to come meet with me before or after school, but he just won't. I made him his own special agenda to use to keep track of assignments, but that hasn't worked yet. I so badly want this kid to pass my classes, so I was really happy that his mom came in to conferences. I told her how I believed that her son could do well in the class if he just started doing some simple things and how he's very intelligent and how I would help him in any way I could. I told her all the ways we could bring up his grades from failing to at least a B (this was still early on in the semester...that's looking less likely now). After I told all of this to her, she said, "Well, a C is average, right? I think my son is a pretty average kid, so I'm fine with a C or a D. He doesn't need a B."
I had no idea how to respond. When I was student teaching in Ann Arbor, many students (and their parents) would freak if their grades went below an A, and anything below a B was simply unacceptable for most students. I don't think I ever would have heard a parent say that in Ann Arbor. Don't get me wrong though, there are plenty of students at LCN who have stellar grades and work very hard to keep up their grades. I was just so surprised to hear that a parent wasn't even willing to push their student to achieve above a C.
2. We live in America.
Also at parent teacher conferences, I saw the parent of one of my students in German 1. This kid is super excited about German. He'll yell good morning auf Deutsch across the hall to me every single morning. He asks a ton of extra questions about how to say things in German. He's actually interested in the grammar we've been doing so far (very rare in a student). He has a ton of German music on his ipod now, and he tries to learn the words so he can sing along. This kid is just so excited and passionate about German, even after just a few months of learning it. Anyway, this kid's dad came to conferences. He sat down and the first thing he said to me was something to the effect of, "I'm not very happy that my kid has to take German. I mean, we live in America, and he's not gonna go anywhere outside of America, so he doesn't need to learn about other languages or cultures. There's no point to him learning to speak German." I so badly wanted to respond with something like "Well, the point of him taking German is so that he doesn't end up as close-minded as you, sir." ...but that probably would have gotten me in trouble, so I just said that his kid is doing really well in the class, so it'll boost his GPA. I then ended the conference by saying that I hope his kid takes all four years of German and that I'll be encouraging him to travel to Germany with us.
I've never heard an argument against learning a world language like that before, and I don't think I ever would have heard that in Ann Arbor. I believe very strongly that learning a language isn't just about learning what words mean or how to write a sentence. I think everything we do needs to be soaked in culture, so that my students can learn about history, art, music - so they can learn to think critically about different ways of living and different ways of thinking. That, to me, is why studying a world language is so important. It helps you realize that there's a whole world outside of yourself with a ton of opportunities and experiences just waiting for you. I am going to do everything I can to make sure this kid stays in German class.
My last story happened just the other day in one of my German 1 classes.
3. What we don't know
I have a student in my class who transferred to the school three weeks into school. He never came in to catch up on what he'd missed those first three weeks, even though I told him to come in during lunch several times. He never comes to class with his book or his binder, rarely takes notes, and frequently talks with his classmates when he should be doing classwork. However, he has been doing fairly well on quizzes, considering his lack of attention in class. This tells me that he's clearly bright, just not very motivated yet. The hour that I have this student is split up by lunch (we have one half of class, then they go to lunch, then they come back for the last half...annoying, but that's the way it is). About two weeks ago, this student started skipping the second half of class almost every day. I started marking him absent and letting a vice principal know about the problem (still don't know if the VP did anything). Then, the other day, I sent this kid out into the hall and wrote him up for yelling "faggot" in the middle of class (never an ok word to say...also, this was the first time I've ever sent someone out in the hall). Then, I didn't see this kid for two days. The day he finally came back to school and ame to my class, I asked him where he'd been (assuming that he had been skipping again). In a very different tone of voice than he usually uses with me, he told me that his family had been evicted from their house and had moved into a motel (I later verified this with his counselor, and it turned out to be true).
What are you supposed to do in a situation like that? Here's a kid, who's usually a nightmare to have in class, sharing a piece of very personal, difficult information. That got me thinking - how many of his motivational and behavioral problems in my class have been him acting out because of this hard thing he's dealing with outside of school? What else is going on in his life that I don't know about? What's going on in my other students' lives that I don't know about? How are those things affecting how they are in class? My interaction with this student was a very sharp reminder that I only see an hour of my students' lives per day for the days we're in school. I'd say I know a lot of my students well, but there are some students about whom I still know very little. I don't think I should be more lenient with my students just because there might possibly be other things they're dealing with, but this was a reminder that some days, once in a while, it's ok to give a student a break.
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