Catching the Apple

For a few semesters now, I’ve taught a course known as College Success, a class that equips students with the skills and information they need to achieve their academic goals.  Our catalog describes it this way:  “A course designed to empower students to reach their educational, career and life goals. This class introduces students to a wide range of strategies, techniques and self-management tools commonly recognized to lead to success.” 

This semester, we started by reviewing a wide range of study skills: test-taking strategies; memorization methods; time management skills; reading comprehension and retention; note-taking practices; and even classroom civility, which involves effective communication. 

One day I brought a plastic apple to class, and the students and I played catch with it for a few minutes. While tossing it around, we discussed the two primary roles in any communication exchange:  the sender, who conveys information, and the receiver who, well, receives it. Then I made what's probably an obvious comparison:

“Communication is like our game of catch: The one tossing is the sender, the apple is the information, and the student catching it is the receiver."

"Sometimes, a student tosses the apple, and it's the teacher's task to catch it.  Other times, students are the ones catching the apple.  And during class, the apple is the subject matter being covered."

We then talked about the many kinds of “apples” students encounter during their college courses, and the variety of ways in which the apples will be "tossed" — in the form of assignments, lectures, videos, classroom discussions, and handouts, to name a few.

Depending on a student’s preferred learning style, some information is easier to “catch” than others.  A visual learner watching a video, for example, often engages instinctively with that method of delivery, while an auditory learner may prefer a lecture.

What happens, though, when the apple is tossed in a way that makes it a little more difficult to catch?  What happens when the instructor’s delivery, or perhaps the medium in which the subject matter is conveyed (like via a reading assignment, or through a Power Point lecture) doesn’t align with the student’s preferred learning style?

In other words, if the apple is tossed in a way that makes it a little tougher for a student to catch, what then?

Our education system has done a less-than-admirable job of equipping students with the skills they need to catch the more challenging "tosses" they will encounter in the classroom.

In fact, many of today’s students seem to feel that if the apple is tossed in a way they don’t prefer, or if it’s a little difficult to catch, the teacher — not the student — needs to adjust.  And it's our educational system that has reinforced this response.

I'll be the first to say that educators should present subject matter using strategies that can connect with a variety of learning styles.  When we “send” information, we need to consider our methods carefully and take our students into account.

And just about everyone agrees:  it’s a great feeling when the toss makes it easy for students to grasp the information being conveyed.  Teachers like it, students love it, and the world of education calls it “effective student engagement.” 

But what about when the delivery is on the challenging side?  What if the apple is tossed in a fashion that makes it a little tougher to catch?  The world of education often views this kind of experience as “ineffective.”  And what's the remedy?  The teacher is urged to toss the apple in a way that makes it easier for students to catch.  

This is problematic in at least a few ways.

First, when we demand that teachers always make the toss easier for students to catch, we are leading students to believe that the only information worth knowing is the kind that is easily understood.  And we're cultivating their expectation that their employers — not to mention everyone else in their lives — will accommodate their preferred learning styles. 

This sounds to me like we’re telling our students a lie about the world, not to mention setting them up for disappointment and frustration at best, and maybe even outright failure.

What’s more important, though, is this:

When we teach our students to expect the information apple to be tossed in a way that is easy for them to catch, we're telling them that it's not really important for them to learn how to learn.

We're also sending the clear message that students just aren’t capable of doing the hard work required to make different kinds of catches.  

We aren't just lying to our students about what to expect from the world.  

We're lying to them about the importance of learning.

What troubles me the most, though, is this:  
We are lying to students about what they can expect from themselves.

Ideally, every student’s goal should be this: to learn to do whatever it takes to get hold of the apple. 

Students don’t always like to hear this.

Neither do some parents.
It complicates the world of education in significant ways.

But it's worth it.  If you don't believe me, maybe you'll listen to Google's Laszlo Bock, who's quoted in a recent issue of New York Times as saying this: when Google considers potential employees, "the No. 1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability, and it's not IQ. . . . It's the ability to process on the fly.  It's the ability to pull together disparate bits of information."

In short, "It's learning ability."  

In the end, a good education isn't one that settles for tossing the apple of information in ways students prefer.  A truly valuable education is one that teaches students how to catch all kinds of tosses. 

Learning this skill makes everyone uncomfortable sometimes.  It requires what a colleague of mine refers to as “productive struggle.” 

More on that soon.

The Science Project (and other homework nightmares)

Parenting can be a real drag sometimes, especially when your child has one of those big homework assignments.    

You know:  a project.

These special assignments come in all sorts of flavors.  Maybe it’s memorizing a famous monologue (dressed in an appropriate costume, of course).  Maybe it’s the dreaded sixth grade science project.  Maybe it’s hand-writing every step of all thirty items on last night’s homework, then doing it all over again tomorrow night. And the next night, too. 

It doesn’t matter what the subject is:  when my kids bring home tough assignments, something inside me dies a little bit. I might even wonder:  Is all this hard work necessary?  I mean, really?

I haven’t asked those questions out loud, since my kids would gleefully pounce on my ambivalence. But it could happen at some point, since I’m relatively new to the heavy homework years.

If you know me, you may be thinking, "if that's how she feels, it totally serves her right."  And you have a point, because I'm not only a mom, I'm also a teacher.

So if I'm feeling overwhelmed by my children's homework load, it's only fair:  my parent-self is merely reaping the bitter fruit of what my teacher-self has sown. 

I've earned my motherly misery fair and square.

And to some degree, you are right.

Because I’m not just any teacher; I’m the one who requires students to complete The Very Worst Assignment.

I am an English Teacher.

And I assign The Research Paper.

And, of course, successfully completing this homework assignment requires a hefty to-do list. 

There’s the research. 

The reading. 

The notecards. 

The documenting. 

The writing. 

The revising. 

The printing. 

The proofreading. 

The correcting. 

The reprinting. 

Then the dreaded grade.

As an educator, I know just how hard essay-writing can be for students.  So making that list gives me the hives every time.

As the parent of a middle schooler who just completed his first "real" research paper, I have a new (and hard-won) appreciation for the challenges such assignments bring to the home-front.

And (believe it or not,) I still recall my own senior research paper.  I'll skip the dramatics, but if you imagine piles of angrily wadded up paper, multiple nights of insufficient sleep, and bleary eyes shedding tears (lots of tears), you have the right idea. 

My mom still likes to mention it from time to time.  

Let's just say it wasn't pleasant.

So I get it:  schoolwork ain’t all fun and games.

Not for parents.

Not for kids.

And (truthfully) not always for teachers, either.

All of this begs the question:  If requiring students to complete projects creates so much misery, why are we still doing it?

Teaching and Truth-Telling

"Our course syllabus states that if I see or hear a phone during a class session, I will ask the owner to leave.  Because I have seen your cell phone out during today’s class, you need to leave immediately and quietly, and you will receive an absence for today.  Before returning to our next class session, you must meet with me during my office hours.  Please email or call to set an appointment time.”

This message is on a slip of paper I handed to a student yesterday. It was our third class meeting.

On Day One, we reviewed the course syllabus. I made sure to emphasize the importance of students leaving their cell phones off and stored away.  Despite these instructions, this student kept his iphone in plain sight—alternating between setting it on his desk and making good use of it.  At one point during class, I spoke with him privately about needing to put it in his backpack.

On Day Three, he repeatedly composed text messages during our class-wide discussion.

Our topic?   The value of a college education.
The course?  College Success.

He announced that this was his second time to take the course, since he stopped attending last semester after three weeks.  On his student information form, he listed one of his other teachers as “witch.”

And I lost count of how many times he said, “I don’t really care” during class.

But as his fellow students were moving into groups, I discreetly gave him the above-mentioned slip of paper.

Suddenly, he started caring.

I’m not certain of all he said, but I definitely heard “drop this class,” this before he slammed the door--hard.  We all heard that.

Later, I received an email saying how unfair I am.   The subject line for his parting words?  666.

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That was yesterday.

Today, do I regret my actions?

Should I regret them?

Earlier in my teaching career, it’s likely that I would have said “yes.”

If someone had described yesterday’s events to the teacher I was two decades ago, I might have said I had sympathy for her.  Secretly, though, I would’ve believed that the teacher could have—no, should have—handled the situation differently. I would have thought that her inability to engage the student, shown clearly by his unwillingness to comply with her expectations, was an obvious indicator of her need to significantly adjust her approach.

I would have believed she needed to be, well, more.
More welcoming.
More winsome.
More relatable.
More patient.
More articulate.
More flexible.

More willing to meet the student right where he was.

I would have put an invisible black mark by her name—a reminder that I would not be modeling my teaching after hers.

I would have viewed her as something other than the kind of teacher I wanted to be. And I would have worked hard—really hard—to avoid coming anywhere close to a situation that would call me to dismiss a student from my class.

That was then.

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Now, I’ve taught off and on for around two decades, mostly at my current community college.  And I love teaching.  Love my students.  Love challenging them to learn, grow, sharpen their skills.  Love watching many of them do just that.  Love the opportunity to perhaps make a small contribution to that process.

But I’ve certainly had my share of classroom challenges:

The student who seems fiercely committed to sabotaging my efforts at helping him learn.

The student whose dogged determination to do good work is overbalanced by significant deficits in foundational academic skills.

The student who mistakes my concern for her as a person with my intention to give her a good grade, regardless of the quality of her work.

The student who resents the whole notion of needing a college degree in order to qualify for a job.

The student whose general disenchantment with our educational system causes her to mistrust anyone claiming to possess knowledge that she might benefit from exploring, learning about, developing.

Such individuals appear in my classroom more rarely than those who are academically prepared, personally motivated, trusting of the educational system.  But the more challenging students do arrive on a regular basis. And though their presence adds a level of difficulty to the experience of teaching, I also believe each one of them offers something important to the classroom.

Why?  I suppose it has to do with my own belief—rooted in my faith—that each student, regardless of his or her abilities or attitude, has unique and vital gifts to offer his or her world.  My world.

So even during moments when a student’s actions make it difficult to view him or her from that perspective, I do try.

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I’m sure the student I dismissed yesterday did not experience my actions as caring.  The email he sent later made his perspective abundantly clear.

But that doesn’t mean his perspective is accurate.

As I tell my classes each semester, I am charged with what I consider a hefty responsibility:  My role as their teacher is to nurture the knowledge and skills that will help them achieve their goals on the job and in life. And each student has something—often many somethings—that he or she will need to learn in order to reach those goals.

This need to learn more isn’t a deficiency. It’s merely a fact. And regardless of whatever “shortcomings” my students might have, I’m confident that they are capable of good things, that they have something valuable to offer their community.  So when a student is selling himself short, or robbing herself (or others) of the opportunity to learn, I’d rather that student hear it from me now, instead of from a used-to-be-employer.

Some will suggest that I should have politely ignored his behavior.  Twenty years ago, I would have said the same.  And what if I had taken the high road, courteously turned a blind eye? Wouldn’t that be the more magnanimous response? 

Consider this:

Pretending along with this student that his actions are acceptable seems a bit like being an accomplice to a behavior that is likely to hurt him in the long run. If malevolence is wishing or acting in a way that will bring ill on a student, that kind of “magnanimity” seems terribly short-sighted, and maybe even selfish:  By turning a blind eye, I’m not taking the high road; I’m taking the easy one—and at my student’s expense.

I have to wonder how, where, and from whom this young man came to believe that such behaviors are going to work for him on the job and in life.  I can’t answer that question (though I have a few theories); however, I certainly don’t want to reinforce that idea.  If I do, I am selling him a lie.

Sometimes telling the truth is going to create discomfort. For all of us.

It certainly did yesterday.

A few decades ago, I would have seen that discomfort as a cue that I needed to be more as a teacher, or perhaps expect less from my students.

Today, I see it differently.

Motivation

[The following paragraph--an excerpt from a paper debating whether Pellissippi should provide laptops to students--is by Gus Green, who just completed my English 1010/Freshman Composition I course.  It appears in its original version--as he submitted it to me.] 

               Computers would enhance educator’s abilities to communicate information, improving student’s success.  Often, teacher’s ways of presenting information in class does not effectively educate every student because of people’s varied learning styles.  For instance, I still have to review material in multiple ways to remember everything because the teacher talked the entire class or only wrote notes.  These ill thought out approaches don’t accommodate for the three different styles of learning,  including visual, auditory and kinesthetic.  Visual learners comprehend best by seeing written notes and writing content down (Ellis).  Auditory learners absorb information best by hearing it and talking out lout (Ellis).  Kinesthetic learners digest work the most by doing hands on activities or building three-dimensional representations (Ellis).  The addition of computers would help with engaging all the different styles.  In a recent research project teachers got encouraging results integrating technology into a New York school system.  During the experiment, fourth grade teacher Sarah Kougemitros used computers to aid her teaching by “blending online learning with traditional teaching” which “motivated” her students (Martinez).  Her kids read from a computer but had the choice to read it themselves or listen to a recorded version.  With the computer’s flexibility more students understood the material. This looks like a simple success but it helped aid students who normally “would zone out and not be engaged” (Martinez).  If integrated, computers would contribute needed interaction in Pellissippi classrooms creating an engaging learning experience.

Works Cited

Martinez, Barbara. “Blending Computers into Classrooms.” Wall Street Journal (online). (2010). ERIC.  Web. 17 Nov. 2013.

Ellis, Dave.  Becoming a Master Student. Ed. Dave Ellis. 13^th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2011.42-44. Print.