I wrote this back in 2014, but waited to retire to publish it.
Professor Edward Schlosser wrote an interesting piece in Vox about, in part, the power his students have to call the shots these days. I can attest that it's at best, defeating, and at worst, absolutely terrifying.
First of all, to clarify, my students are typically a delight, but the current system is fostering behaviours that are a serious concern.
I have had some students, 15-19, insist that we have to do something fun on their birthdays. When I rejected their proposals, it might take several days of arguing at the start of each class before I can convince them it's really not going to happen. I have to help them get their head around the amount of learning that would be lost if we went off-curriculum every time it's someone's birthday. I have to help them get their head around the fact that there are other people affected by the decisions we make. But I also have to, unfortunately, sternly reinforce the novel idea that I alone get to choose what we do each day based on the curriculum guidelines. They don't get to decide because they might choose what's most fun over what's most educational every day. Some people are outraged by that reality.
I have had a few students blatantly rude to me, even lying about me to a VP. When that happens, I call home to discuss the seriousness of it. In the past few years, calling home has become a growing part of my job, even for kids over 18, for work unfinished, for absences, for work of poor quality, for any questionable behaviour. There's no point when it's up to the students to take responsibility for themselves and find a solution to their own problem any more. It's all for the parents and teachers to work out together. We're treating them like children for longer, and they're responding by acting like children longer. Anyway, sometimes when I call home, it's reinforced that the student has a condition that makes them behave like that, and I'm negligent for not reading their files thoroughly (even if I have).
Then my question becomes: if someone does something horrid, but it's due to a condition, is it still his/her fault? With whom does the responsibility sit, or do we just accept bad behaviour because people can't help it anymore because of all their conditions?
It's the Of Mice and Men problem. If someone's out of control, but can't be helped or stopped, what do we do with them? But beyond that dilemma, to what extent are we creating these conditions so our kids get special treatment, because I'm not sure it's unusual that about a third of the kids in my school have some kind of documented problem we must accommodate. By law. This sometimes means test, exams, and even the literacy test is read aloud for them, and someone writes down their answers, and they're considered literate. A ridiculous number of high school grads can't actually write for themselves anymore. They don't have to learn how. They have to be given scribes - their own personal adult to read and write for them. Learned helplessness anyone?
Tra la la.
Anyway, it might not seem like such a horrid thing, lying about your teacher to admin, but it could cost me my job if the VP believed some of her stories. That's a huge concern these days. It can just take one student to undo decades of work in a career. Just. One. Student.
I have had some students says bigoted or racist things in class and interrupt the class with loud and lengthy rants. It would be rude of me to interrupt (although I sometimes do anyway). If I send someone to the office, they'll come back minutes late with a form for me to fill in explaining what I could do differently to ensure that they're able to stay in the classroom next time. And they often have a condition causing that behaviour, so we have to be understanding.
And on the student portion of that form, if there's no pre-existing condition, how often do they write "Distracted by personal problems"? That's the get-out-of-work-free excuse of the day. When I was in school we used, "I had a female problem" to death. What stops us from telling them they have to do the work anyway? And if the problem is really serious, they might have to write-off the term and try again later.
I have a condition. But I started school in the 60s, and I was told by my mom to try to fit in so the kids don't tease me too much. I wasn't entirely successful on that front, so I got spit on and beat up a bit. And I got chalk whipped at my head by teachers for being such a space cadet, zoning out in class like that. Weird. Clearly it's NOT the case that I think any of my students deserve that kind of treatment - at all. But it IS that case that I worked twice as hard in school as the normal kids to overcome my differences because of the attitudes of parents and teachers - and larger society - at the time. The bullying and violence aren't acceptable, but that attitude might warrant a second look.
I spent a year one-on-one with a guidance counsellor working on basic eye contact with people. My default is to look at my shoes when I talk - still, but I got much better at making myself lift my chin and look right at people. Whether or not it's comfortable for me to do that is inconsequential. I was made to take responsibility for how I behave even though it's harder for me to behave "normally," and, because of that pedagogy, I could interact with other people and get my work done as well as most by the end of high-school without ongoing one-on-one support for each assignment. That kind of support makes sense in the early years, but at some point shouldn't people have to be able to show they can do the work on their own? I mean, Helen Keller learned how to read and write, and she had a condition or two to overcome.
Now just suggesting, "I think you can write this short quiz on your own in the classroom instead of going to Learning Services," is enough to get a teacher in trouble for not adhering to the student's IEP. And if they fail the test, we give them a make-up test. And if they're in the midst of failing the make-up, we might get a call from their scribe because the student doesn't have a clue, and he can't study because he can't find his notes, and he would be uncomfortable asking another student for notes. And we might even be asked by the scribe if she could just tell the student all the answers, and have him repeat them back to her for her to write down, and then I could take off a few marks because of this special accommodation. Really.
We're running within a system that drives that kind of rationalization. If a student fails, it's because the teacher didn't do everything possible for the student. If students refuse to work or pay attention in class, at no point is it because the students are lazy or maybe even, dare I say, too weak academically to do the work assigned. Those are horrible things to say even in the face of slothfulness bordering on the absurd, and suggesting either will get the teacher a meeting with admin to discuss inappropriate behaviour in the classroom - the teacher's inappropriate behaviour.
Students today will need to have their behaviours excused forever. We make accommodations for them rather than get them to learn the skills necessary to better work within society. They're not being asked to make significant efforts towards monitoring and altering troubling behaviours because that would upset them. And upsetting people is mean.
This is a startling short-term view - yet another testament to Plato's belief that we are woefully unskilled at the art of measurement: being able to determine the value of things unaffected by their distance. Near events are given far greater importance than distant events, which is why we have an environmental crisis, a political crisis, and a crisis in education.
I had a conflict with my 10-year-old yesterday because I wouldn't let her see her friends or go outside until her room was clean enough that she could escape from a fire without tripping on toys. I'll have you know that I am the meanest mom ever! But I can accept that title because it'll be better for her in the long run to learn how (through punishment of deprivation of all things) to maintain her room now.
My daughter has a whole host of conditions by today's standards, but she still has to clean her room. Because of OCPD, to name but one, she can't just tidy a bit; she has to take everything out and put it all back in. I can see why such a routine task is so onerous for her, but she has to figure out how to deal with her own reality. Being unfettered by chores because she struggles more isn't an option in my house - except, of course, when she completely wears me down. But, theoretically, if made to clean enough, she might find a way to rid the perfectionistic nature of her cleaning, or she might just tolerate losing lots of playtime to cleaning. (Yes, we use CBT too.)
We have to take a long view with kids. And, luckily, my daughter's shrieks of injustice went unheard by any authority over me. She might have called F&CS, but they're pretty backlogged, so I was able to do the right thing by her. I had to tolerate some tears and tumults over the course of a morning, but we both survived. But too many of us are too thin-skinned or sensitive or something to plug our ears and wait for the crying and tantrums and excuses to end and the work to begin.
But at school, we have to keep them happy during each class or the teachers will be the ones to suffer the consequences. We can't make demands of them. I've dumbed down the readings I use because parents have complained about how difficult they are - because they don't learn to really read in school anymore: by that I mean close reading of complex essays. Nothing may be too difficult because it might be hard on their self-esteem if they can't do it. And struggling with the challenge of difficult work isn't their forté.
And somehow that's okay. We are accepting to a fault.
Most worrisome, I have had some students take issue with my lessons because of the "ecology bullshit" I discuss. During one class a student demanded that I stop talking about this immediately, and I told him, lucky for him, I was finished with the topic, and we moved on. Climate change upsets people, so we shouldn't discuss it in school. For some reason, genocide doesn't upset any of the kids, so we continue to show them the most gruesome videos without complaint - so far. What I had discussed was in the curriculum, so I felt pretty safe, but it still gave me pause. Like Professor Schlosser, I worry that I'll teach something that one student can successfully argue shouldn't be taught or said in a classroom, and I'll be gone. Is it just me, or does that feel a little like a means to keep teachers from really teaching anything controversial of importance? And I don't write under a pseudonym, so I'm pushing the boundaries a little here - maybe more than is wise, but it's important we turn this around. But I have a condition that makes it so I don't always understand what's acceptable, so it's okay, right?
Clearly this fear teachers face will not make our education system world-standing, nor will it make our students responsible, well-educated adults. It might mean classes are more entertaining and less unsettling, challenging, and provocative though. But getting students to enjoy school and getting students to enjoy learning are two different things. It's the latter that should be our goal.
Professor Edward Schlosser wrote an interesting piece in Vox about, in part, the power his students have to call the shots these days. I can attest that it's at best, defeating, and at worst, absolutely terrifying.
First of all, to clarify, my students are typically a delight, but the current system is fostering behaviours that are a serious concern.
I have had some students, 15-19, insist that we have to do something fun on their birthdays. When I rejected their proposals, it might take several days of arguing at the start of each class before I can convince them it's really not going to happen. I have to help them get their head around the amount of learning that would be lost if we went off-curriculum every time it's someone's birthday. I have to help them get their head around the fact that there are other people affected by the decisions we make. But I also have to, unfortunately, sternly reinforce the novel idea that I alone get to choose what we do each day based on the curriculum guidelines. They don't get to decide because they might choose what's most fun over what's most educational every day. Some people are outraged by that reality.
I have had a few students blatantly rude to me, even lying about me to a VP. When that happens, I call home to discuss the seriousness of it. In the past few years, calling home has become a growing part of my job, even for kids over 18, for work unfinished, for absences, for work of poor quality, for any questionable behaviour. There's no point when it's up to the students to take responsibility for themselves and find a solution to their own problem any more. It's all for the parents and teachers to work out together. We're treating them like children for longer, and they're responding by acting like children longer. Anyway, sometimes when I call home, it's reinforced that the student has a condition that makes them behave like that, and I'm negligent for not reading their files thoroughly (even if I have).
Then my question becomes: if someone does something horrid, but it's due to a condition, is it still his/her fault? With whom does the responsibility sit, or do we just accept bad behaviour because people can't help it anymore because of all their conditions?
It's the Of Mice and Men problem. If someone's out of control, but can't be helped or stopped, what do we do with them? But beyond that dilemma, to what extent are we creating these conditions so our kids get special treatment, because I'm not sure it's unusual that about a third of the kids in my school have some kind of documented problem we must accommodate. By law. This sometimes means test, exams, and even the literacy test is read aloud for them, and someone writes down their answers, and they're considered literate. A ridiculous number of high school grads can't actually write for themselves anymore. They don't have to learn how. They have to be given scribes - their own personal adult to read and write for them. Learned helplessness anyone?
Tra la la.
Anyway, it might not seem like such a horrid thing, lying about your teacher to admin, but it could cost me my job if the VP believed some of her stories. That's a huge concern these days. It can just take one student to undo decades of work in a career. Just. One. Student.
I have had some students says bigoted or racist things in class and interrupt the class with loud and lengthy rants. It would be rude of me to interrupt (although I sometimes do anyway). If I send someone to the office, they'll come back minutes late with a form for me to fill in explaining what I could do differently to ensure that they're able to stay in the classroom next time. And they often have a condition causing that behaviour, so we have to be understanding.
And on the student portion of that form, if there's no pre-existing condition, how often do they write "Distracted by personal problems"? That's the get-out-of-work-free excuse of the day. When I was in school we used, "I had a female problem" to death. What stops us from telling them they have to do the work anyway? And if the problem is really serious, they might have to write-off the term and try again later.
I have a condition. But I started school in the 60s, and I was told by my mom to try to fit in so the kids don't tease me too much. I wasn't entirely successful on that front, so I got spit on and beat up a bit. And I got chalk whipped at my head by teachers for being such a space cadet, zoning out in class like that. Weird. Clearly it's NOT the case that I think any of my students deserve that kind of treatment - at all. But it IS that case that I worked twice as hard in school as the normal kids to overcome my differences because of the attitudes of parents and teachers - and larger society - at the time. The bullying and violence aren't acceptable, but that attitude might warrant a second look.
I spent a year one-on-one with a guidance counsellor working on basic eye contact with people. My default is to look at my shoes when I talk - still, but I got much better at making myself lift my chin and look right at people. Whether or not it's comfortable for me to do that is inconsequential. I was made to take responsibility for how I behave even though it's harder for me to behave "normally," and, because of that pedagogy, I could interact with other people and get my work done as well as most by the end of high-school without ongoing one-on-one support for each assignment. That kind of support makes sense in the early years, but at some point shouldn't people have to be able to show they can do the work on their own? I mean, Helen Keller learned how to read and write, and she had a condition or two to overcome.
Now just suggesting, "I think you can write this short quiz on your own in the classroom instead of going to Learning Services," is enough to get a teacher in trouble for not adhering to the student's IEP. And if they fail the test, we give them a make-up test. And if they're in the midst of failing the make-up, we might get a call from their scribe because the student doesn't have a clue, and he can't study because he can't find his notes, and he would be uncomfortable asking another student for notes. And we might even be asked by the scribe if she could just tell the student all the answers, and have him repeat them back to her for her to write down, and then I could take off a few marks because of this special accommodation. Really.
We're running within a system that drives that kind of rationalization. If a student fails, it's because the teacher didn't do everything possible for the student. If students refuse to work or pay attention in class, at no point is it because the students are lazy or maybe even, dare I say, too weak academically to do the work assigned. Those are horrible things to say even in the face of slothfulness bordering on the absurd, and suggesting either will get the teacher a meeting with admin to discuss inappropriate behaviour in the classroom - the teacher's inappropriate behaviour.
Students today will need to have their behaviours excused forever. We make accommodations for them rather than get them to learn the skills necessary to better work within society. They're not being asked to make significant efforts towards monitoring and altering troubling behaviours because that would upset them. And upsetting people is mean.
This is a startling short-term view - yet another testament to Plato's belief that we are woefully unskilled at the art of measurement: being able to determine the value of things unaffected by their distance. Near events are given far greater importance than distant events, which is why we have an environmental crisis, a political crisis, and a crisis in education.
I had a conflict with my 10-year-old yesterday because I wouldn't let her see her friends or go outside until her room was clean enough that she could escape from a fire without tripping on toys. I'll have you know that I am the meanest mom ever! But I can accept that title because it'll be better for her in the long run to learn how (through punishment of deprivation of all things) to maintain her room now.
My daughter has a whole host of conditions by today's standards, but she still has to clean her room. Because of OCPD, to name but one, she can't just tidy a bit; she has to take everything out and put it all back in. I can see why such a routine task is so onerous for her, but she has to figure out how to deal with her own reality. Being unfettered by chores because she struggles more isn't an option in my house - except, of course, when she completely wears me down. But, theoretically, if made to clean enough, she might find a way to rid the perfectionistic nature of her cleaning, or she might just tolerate losing lots of playtime to cleaning. (Yes, we use CBT too.)
We have to take a long view with kids. And, luckily, my daughter's shrieks of injustice went unheard by any authority over me. She might have called F&CS, but they're pretty backlogged, so I was able to do the right thing by her. I had to tolerate some tears and tumults over the course of a morning, but we both survived. But too many of us are too thin-skinned or sensitive or something to plug our ears and wait for the crying and tantrums and excuses to end and the work to begin.
But at school, we have to keep them happy during each class or the teachers will be the ones to suffer the consequences. We can't make demands of them. I've dumbed down the readings I use because parents have complained about how difficult they are - because they don't learn to really read in school anymore: by that I mean close reading of complex essays. Nothing may be too difficult because it might be hard on their self-esteem if they can't do it. And struggling with the challenge of difficult work isn't their forté.
And somehow that's okay. We are accepting to a fault.
Most worrisome, I have had some students take issue with my lessons because of the "ecology bullshit" I discuss. During one class a student demanded that I stop talking about this immediately, and I told him, lucky for him, I was finished with the topic, and we moved on. Climate change upsets people, so we shouldn't discuss it in school. For some reason, genocide doesn't upset any of the kids, so we continue to show them the most gruesome videos without complaint - so far. What I had discussed was in the curriculum, so I felt pretty safe, but it still gave me pause. Like Professor Schlosser, I worry that I'll teach something that one student can successfully argue shouldn't be taught or said in a classroom, and I'll be gone. Is it just me, or does that feel a little like a means to keep teachers from really teaching anything controversial of importance? And I don't write under a pseudonym, so I'm pushing the boundaries a little here - maybe more than is wise, but it's important we turn this around. But I have a condition that makes it so I don't always understand what's acceptable, so it's okay, right?
Clearly this fear teachers face will not make our education system world-standing, nor will it make our students responsible, well-educated adults. It might mean classes are more entertaining and less unsettling, challenging, and provocative though. But getting students to enjoy school and getting students to enjoy learning are two different things. It's the latter that should be our goal.
