“Racist”

I hate this epithet, but I’ve heard it more in the last few weeks than I’ve heard it in most of my life. Where would I hear the phrase multiple times a day? At the local middle school. I guess the kids have stopped saying everything’s gay and have moved on to racist. The kids say it all the time – to their friends, to their classmates, and to their teacher. Anytime someone does something they don’t like, the students call the offending party a racist. It’s disgusting. 

 What disturbs me most about this is the casual way students throw words about, as if their words hold no power, no threat, no agency. Gone are the days when we used to say, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” We know better now. Words have the power to hurt or to heal, to destroy or to mend.

 I had a serious talk with one class Friday. I had heard the word racist one too many times that day, and I had heard enough. I reminded the students that their words have power, and to go around calling people racists (even as a joke) was unacceptable. Yes, they’re adolescents. Yes, they are still learning social skills. But, they are not too young to understand that using words casually can be costly, even dangerous.

Friends can be made with words, but so can enemies.

I’ve lived my entire life in the South, and friends, I know people who are self-described racists. I am, in fact, related to some of them. They spent the 60’s and the 70’s hating the blacks, the 80’s hating the gays, and now they’ve moved on to hating (in their words) the “Mexicans.” These same relatives are devout Christians and patriotic Americans who would give you their last twenty dollars. They’re not bad people, just misguided, uninformed, ignorant.

I love them, but I don’t agree with them.

And I don’t agree with letting students get away with using the term racist against their peers or their teachers without regard or caution.

This may be the most important thing I’ve taught them this year.

Blog Props

I came across Stuff White People Like on WordPress a few days ago. Number 81 on the list is grad school – check it out. I don’t know if it’s funny because I’m in grad school, or if it’s funny in spite of my being in grad school. Either way, I laughed like I haven’t since last June (before I started grad school and still had a life.) The blog’s author uses just enough truth laced with sarcasm to appeal to my cynical nature. Good stuff.

I’ve Got Two Words for You: Puh-lease!

As an assignment for my technology class, I was required to watch Dr. Tim Tyson’s 2007 keynote address to the NECC. While I want to be excited about the use of technology in school, and I want to give him props for implementing podcasts for and by students, I know too well who really does most of the work that goes into the movies for their “Oscar Night” film award show – the parents.

I hate to be the person to burst the creative, imaginative bubbles of my fellow cohorts and our professor, but, the truth is…I don’t live far from the school, and most of my friends’ children attend (or attended) Mabry. Two years ago, my best friend was the designated “parent helper” for the 8th grade film team. She would have the student team over to her house regularly, and just as regularly, the students went outside to jump on the trampoline or down to the basement to play video games. Her own son rarely made any input on the movie. My friend spent hundreds of hours on the movie, so on Oscar night, she was very proud when her (teams’) movie won several awards.

What did the students on her team learn from having the parent helper do all the work? Not much about the topic or making a movie. They learned to take credit for work they did not do.

 I’m sure Dr. Tyson is unaware of just how much of the actual work the parents do. I viewed all the 2007 videos on the www.mabryonline.org, and I was very impressed with the level of sophistication in the storytelling, the cinematography, the special effects, and the sound quality. I just don’t think that the students did the work. Call me cynical. I teach ninety 7th graders at a school with similar demographics, and I’m pretty sure that most kids of this age are not capable of producing the quality movie demonstrated on the Mabry website without a great deal of parental involvement.

With that said, I think that project-based learning is meaningful and memorable for students, and I don’t think involving the family in the process is wrong. I only object to the assertion that the students (with a teacher facilitator) created the sophisticated and advanced movies as shown. Get real.

More thoughts on this topic soon…

One bad day

Just one day later, and it totally sucked. That’s all. It sucked. S.u.c.k.e.d.

One good day

After last week’s exhausting pace, I felt good about the lesson plans I had for the 7th graders today. We began a technical writing unit last week, and today, I had the students write a “friendly letter” to my collaborating teacher’s brother who is a Marine deployed in Iraq. The students wrote letters that we will send to JW and his group. The kids were pretty excited about it, and we told them we would mail the soldiers hot chocolate and popcorn (two hot commodities over there) with their letters.

For the students who really worked hard today, they will get to help me create a video on Movie Maker tomorrow and Wednesday. I think the kids are more excited about learning to use Movie Maker than they are about making a good grade on the letter or making a good impression on the soldiers. I think it will be good for the students to create something they can be excited about and feel good about in class. I can hardly wait to see how fast they catch on to the program.

 Watch for a video clip coming soon!

One sheet of paper

This art contest entry, perhaps my favorite, is in a collection at the Hirshorn Art Gallery in DC. Each entrant was to create a work of art with just one sheet of paper. I think my students would enjoy seeing these amazing, creative, unique artifacts, and I think they would enjoy writing about this interesting exhibit. I can imagine using each example as a writing prompt for poetry.

Two Million Minutes

Here’s an interesting trailer for a documentary about the “two million minutes” students spend in high school. As a future high school teacher, I am interested in seeing the documentary when it becomes available. It raises the question: Do American students take high school seriously enough in a competitive, global economy?

‘Tweens

What a week. In my sixth week of student teaching in a local middle school, I had to complete two administrative discipline referrals for two different boys. One student was suspended (OSS) for three days, and I expect the other student will have to serve a day or two of in-school suspension (ISS) for calling me a bitch.

This was my fear about middle school – I would become some sort of warden-like witch trying to control the 2 -3 students with behavior problems instead of being a guide through literature and language arts for the thirty other students in my class. What makes me sad is that I know that these students, these troubled boys, have bigger problems than a 4’11” English teacher who made a career change in mid-life. One young man was just testing the water – lashing out at the “rookie” because something else in his life makes him feel powerless, opressed, and without a voice. I feel sad for these kids, and I wonder where they will be in a few years.

Having attended a job fair for teachers last week, I was not surprised when the line to talk with a middle school administrator was almost empty while the line to speak with a high school administrator was extremely long. And it’s not just happening where I live. A New York Times article states that more than 34 percent of first-year middle school teachers quit after the first year. After these six weeks, I’m not surprised.

On the upside, the other 90 students I see every day are great – smart, funny, capable – all deserving of a top-notch education. I hope the disruptions become fewer so we can get on with learning.

Technology in the Classroom

Looking through YouTube videos for a class assignment, I came across this hilarious video from the Jimmy Kimmel show. I had not seen any of his “Unnecessary Censorship” clips before – I haven’t seen Jimmy Kimmel since starting grad school. However, this is too good not to share. It won’t help me with my (or your) homework, but at this point in the semester, we all need a good laugh.

Death

Death is always unexpected, especially when it happens to someone so young. I don’t follow tabloid/celebrity news, but I was saddened to hear of the death of Heath Ledger – I admired his work. As my grandmother would have said, “It’s a cryin’ shame.”