Do one thing everyday that scares you.
Several weeks ago, before Spring Break, several teachers in the English department with me got together to brainstorm how we should structure this coming 2 single week remediation blocks of time our school was putting in place starting April 15th. We had a lot of options combined with a lot of restrictions. Make it fun! But don't let kids get out of hand! Make it educational! But don't let kids be bored or fall asleep! Relate it to state standards and the testing format and the individual student needs in your room and the school climate as a whole and whatever you do don't - don't - ask for help funding any of it. Typical edu-babble stuff. But the heads that came together settled on a pretty good plan: take the AP Language students in my classes, for whom the end-of-course reading test was a breeze and ask them to help work in a one-on-one fashion with some of the kids in other 11th grade English classes, for whom the reading test was a literal barrier to graduating high school. Create the best and most powerful form of teaching and learning known to man: the personal kind.
I have to admit that I worked for a good week on how I would approach my kids to ask for their help. I didn't want to deceive them into thinking this would be easy or every minute would be barrel-of-monkeys fun but at the same time I thought this was an opportunity in the most up-close-and-personal way anyone could ask for that we could bridge the single biggest divide at school. Once I realized that my kids would benefit from this too, the appeal wrote itself.
It was melodramatic in places but never dishonest. "What if that hour a day," I remember saying, "is the longest period of time in their entire day that someone listens to them in a positive way and helps them?" That might be over-the-top but no one who works in a public school in this country could refute its essential truth. See, in the end, I hoped to dispel the stereotypes that tend to get built up in schools on both sides of the divide. I wanted to tear down the sense that some of my students labor under ("Well, they're all just lazy over there") as well as misconceptions other students have about them ("Well, they're in AP classes because they're just plain smart"). This goal would be combined with the more academic one: helping students who otherwise might not pass this standardized test to actually pass it.
And that was my greatest appeal. To my kids: "You hate this standardized test and you have every right to. But you are not the ones it is out to get. So what if you foiled not just this test but the suits and ties in Richmond who made this test and sit so smugly in their offices thinking no average level English kid could pass this test? What if through your effort and your attention and your work you helped that student whom the test knows can't pass it... to not just pass it but blow it out of the water?"
It worked. I had double-digit signups in all my classes. Then I got nervous. What if it didn't go well? What if personalities clashed? What if a series of infinitesimal things added up to a gigantic failure?
worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum
So this week we started. Monday I spent 5 minutes with my kids fielding some questions and generally going over how things would work. It was all very structured: icebreaker activities, a little bit of reading comprehension but nothing deadly dull. The first half was the getting-to-know-you bit and it went... well. Actually, better than that. It was like kids from different sides of the country or even other countries were meeting for the first time and finding... they had a lot in common. There were some great conversation starters.
One question went like this: Which administrator really gets on your nerves? Two students from different classes would pair up and something like this emerged:
"Hey I'm Kylie."
"I'm Jaron."
"So, what answer did you give to this one?"
"I said Mr. Brown."
"Oh, really, like, why?"
" 'Cause he always up in everyone's business when he don't need to be, you know?"
"You mean like dress code?"
"Yeah."
"He busted a friend of mine last week for that. So stupid."
"Yeah, one time he told me..."
And there they went. Two students who normally wouldn't even look at each other in the hallway much less smile or converse found pretty neat common ground. Those kinds of conversations typically morphed into ones about classes and subjects and friends and family and home and...
It was working; it was really really working.
Tuesday was the next test. Would these somewhat forced friendships stand up over more than a single hour? Would the kids want to work together again? Tuesday was a bit more academic with tiny bits of test prep thrown in. Average level kids read a passage, got some help with pronunciation and vocabulary, then together with my AP kids banged away at some main idea and tone questions. There was prodding and questioning in the right places: "Why do you think he phrased it that way?" "What point is she making?"
I rewarded the kids who got top scores with candy (always a winner with teens) and dangled the reward before those who came close. Another chance; another little passage and this time, you can do it! 90% or bust kids! All of that went really well. I don't know that we changed comprehension levels or reading skills or anything so grand. But the average level kids spent an hour working on skills without the fear that an adult was watching of grading or judging. It was just two kids with a common goal. (That goal being candy; I mean, let's not kid ourselves here.)
As the period closed down, I let them stop about 5 minutes early. "Take a break," I said. "Chat it up; bell will ring soon. Enjoy your candy."
Then, as I was passing a pair of students, I overheard them talking, probably picking up the fragment of a conversation from earlier.
"So, you were saying..." one of my kids prompted.
"Yeah, like she was all screaming at me and I wasn't gonna take that so I walked out 'cause don't no body scream at me."
"Where did you go?"
"Naw, it was late and I didn't want to go like all the way to my aunt's house so I slept in the back seat of the car while my mom cooled down."
"Just like hung out there?"
"Sorta. I mean, her boyfriend showed up so I didn't go back in the house until like 2 in the morning but whatever. Ain't like she never thrown me out of the house before."
I snatched a quick glance at my kid and her face, her expression will be forever imprinted on my brain. I will never forget because it spoke volumes. It said:
My God. It's you. I know all about you but only because I've read about you or heard about you from my teacher's. I'm a doctor's kid and I've never not been allowed in my own house at night. But you're here in front of me and not in the words on a page or in a newspaper article. I'm not trying to visualize you or imagine anything about you because you are here in front of me telling me this story and I can't believe my god you exist here in this school in the classroom right next to mine and somehow I never knew and you're here. It's you.
My student didn't say any of that out loud. The bell rang a few moments later and the other girl smiled and hurried out. Another bell to another class to another teacher. Nothing this kid hadn't dealt with before.
Except someone sat and listened to her in the most positive and re-affirming way for possibly the longest period of time anyone would that entire day.
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