Debating

What I found on my board after school

Today, my fourth period class handled a debate surprisingly well. Even though it got off to a rocky start, Ms. K, a teacher they’ve just hired for the new ESL class (woohoo! It’s about time!), came in to help me out (since the ESL class hasn’t actually started yet, which worries me…). It was funny because my fourth period is usually the really chatty one – I have the most Hispanic kids in that class, and they like to TALK. And fight. So as I was moderating the discussion over whether or not Roosevelt should keep block scheduling, they were talking (as usual). Then Ms. K starts on this whole spiel about respect, and respecting teachers and peers, and how Ms. Chen is much too nice and they’re lucky I’m so patient. Rene (who is talking), joins in and agrees, stating that I’m his favorite teacher.

Miss K: Well then you should show her that by being quiet-
Rene: I was gonna bring Ms. Chen an apple, but I ate it for lunch!

Rene, who is an extremely smart kid, constantly cracks me up, and I often find myself having to bite my lip to prevent myself from bursting out with laughter at what he says. For example, he always likes to point out how he’s a “bad kid” and he likes to make his friends do bad things and get in trouble. And how he’s from the streets. And how he’s really gangsta. Sometimes I wish I could record some of the things he says.

Me: Rene, you need to elaborate on this part.
Rene: Miss, could you elaborate on what you mean by elaborate?

Me: Rene, you should take away this “kind of.” It makes your paper less strong.
Rene gives me a confused/blank look.
Me: Like, if I said, “Rene is ‘kind of’ a good student,” that’s not as convincing as if I said “Rene is a good student.”
Rene: (with a big grin) Awwww, yeahhhh, Miss, Imma gonna take that out!

And there are other times where words just go beyond me. He is so blatantly honest, whether he isn’t listening or he feels like “being bad.” I love it, even though he drives me crazy sometimes.

But I digress. (For shame…I wouldn’t score highly on the Focus/Coherence strand for the TAKs test.)

So the debate about block scheduling served as a well-needed reminder of why I’m here suffering (at times) the way I am. They brought up points like how kids get bored in an hour and 30 minutes, and teachers don’t fill up the time properly and teach (I was an exception, they said!). They said even though block scheduling should theoretically give you more time to learn things better, a lot of their teachers would just move in and give more and more bookwork, and when asked to explain they would tell the kids to come to tutoring. But get this – they wouldn’t be there for tutoring, and as one kid said, “You see them running off to eat! I seen ‘em!”

Then the kids started bringing up things like uniforms and having more after school activities. Since they were so into it, instead of completely telling them they got off topic, I took it as one of those “teachable moments” and had them write a persuasive essay of their choice about what they would change about Roosevelt.

It’s sad to see how disheartened a lot of them are. These kids are more than aware of Roosevelt’s substandard quality and a lot of them had really excellent ideas for change. All I can say is when I submit these essays to the administration, they better be read, and not just end up as another lost pile of papers, as is much too often the case.