Is it Friday Yet?

All middle-school teachers have had some version of this experience.

You are in the middle of a dynamic lesson where what you have planned has come alive in a way that you didn’t expect.  The faces of your students are knotted in concentration. The mesmerizing glow of laptops and phones has, for a moment, lost its magic and the devices lie abandoned in pockets and book bags.  Hands shoot into the air as students wait patiently (and not so patiently) to speak.    

In the back of the classroom you see someone slowly lift her arm.  She is slumped down into her chair with her meticulously highlighted hair fanning out against the whiteboard.  Her down jacket is zipped halfway up as if she hasn’t decided if she is going to go or stay.  Her very posture communicates a subtle, yet stylish, distain for your class, or the idea of school in general . . . the distinction really doesn’t matter.

As is often the case, this is a student who has strong skills, but for whatever reason, has been disconnected from your lessons.  Until now she has been immune to all of your usual tricks to get students to care about literary devices or the factors leading to The Civil War.    Humor is met with a smirk, flattery goes ignored, and disappointed sighs do not penetrate her diamond-studded ears.

But there is her hand. You wait a moment before acknowledging it for fear that she is just stretching.  Finally, you call on her; excited that she may have finally connected.  Thrilled that she may, at long last, be interested in something that you are talking about.  You say her name, imagining future classes where she earns perfect scores on quizzes and completes extra credit projects just because she wants to.  You wait for her to speak, practically holding your breath in anticipation, and she says.

“Can I go to the bathroom?”

The Story of an Hour

I'm not sure how I got through Columbia Prep and Princeton without learning more about white people.  I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that it was the 90's and diversity/multi-culturalism was very much in vogue.  

This year I have had to play catch up in order to teach my overwhelmingly "traditional" curriculum. Although, at times it has been hard to connect to the material, I have discovered some gems.  I found "The Story of An Hour," by Kate Chopin by flipping through an anthology of short stories for Middle-School students.  I used it in my 6th grade class to review literary elements for their Language and Literature final exam.  Initially, students had to read the story and find one example of foreshadowing and one example of irony.  We ended up having a competition in which students read the story multiple times in an effort to to figure out why the main character died.  We had a really interesting discussion about why Chopin had to kill her main character in order to get her story published.

"The Story of an Hour" is a good tool for teaching plot, irony, foreshadowing, symbolism, and theme to Middle and High-School students- but it is also a great story for any woman in search of herself.

Read it here.

My Classroom is a Monarchy!

This is the fist time in my teaching career that I haven't taught black students or had the flexibility to design my own curriculum.  Consequently, this has also been the first year that I haven't taught novels by people of color (or with female protagonists for that matter).  I miss teaching The Bluest Eye,  but this new environment has forced me to learn and grow.

I definitely miss this class!

I believe that the purpose of education is, in part, to develop empathy by exposing students to the inner worlds of others.  Even if I am not going to be able to do that through Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Huston, or Sherman Alexie, I am determined to work social justice into my curriculum somewhere!

All private schools talk the talk about the importance of diversity, and this year the theme at my school has been socio-economic diversity.  That is my way in! And here's why it is important:

One day early in the school year the 6th graders and I were discussing the gubernatorial elections and looking at various social and political issues.  It surprised me how economically conservative, yet socially liberal many of my 6th graders were (students at The Storefront tended to be the opposite).  I ended up being disturbed by the conversation because some of my students' opinions about why people are poor would make the staunchest conservatives cringe (they are lazy, they didn't take advantage of their education, they have too many children, they waste money, etc.)  It is disconcerting to hear such stringent political views from kids who are still carrying baby fat.  Here is an except from one of our conversations:

Fabulously Dressed Teacher: Why are people poor?
Student: Because they don't work hard and didn't do well in school.
Fabulously Dressed Teacher: Well, you didn't do your homework today; does that mean you are going to be poor?
Student:  No way, my family is rich.

Obviously, this is me.

There was clearly a disconnect.

In response I decided to show them the documentary The Queen of Versailles, which is about the family of David and Victoria Siegel.  The start of the film shows the family lavishing in the excess provided by their billionaire lifestyle, but then slowly deteriorating as the economy does.  Students love this documentary because it's really character driven and it unfolds like a Greek tragedy.   I love it because it illustrates how all of the stereotypes that they associate with the poor apply directly to this family as well.

Photo: Magnolia Pictures

Students get excited about researching "where are they now" stories about characters in documentaries and this film provides lot of opportunity to do so.  The Siegels are now suing the filmmakers for defamation and have been attempting to do damage control with a reality show.

Photo: New York Times

In Social Studies we have been learning about different forms of government (monarchy, oligarchy, tyranny) and the development of democracy in Ancient Greece.  We have also looked at the difference between direct democracy and representative democracy.

This week I am going to have my students read the following article.  Afterwards, students will:

1.  Define irony (review of a concept from English class)
2.  Identify two examples of irony in this article
(Possible answers: Siegel said that he would be forced to lay off workers if Obama was elected, but has ended up richer than ever.  Siegel criticizes a system that "gives to the unproductive" when that statement describes many of the members of his household.)
3.  Describe two things that Seigel has done in order to influence the votes of his 8000 employees.
(Possible answers: Siegel put anti-Gore articles in the paychecks of his workers.  Seigel told workers that Obama's election would force him to fire workers.)
4. Discuss the following questions:
-Do Seigal's actions go against the ideals of democracy?
-If  Seigel's company, Westgate Resorts, was a country; what type of government would it be?  Why?
-If our classroom was a government, what type would it be?  What kind of crown would the queen wear?

Just kidding about the last question (kinda)