Despite the relief that classes are now over, I don’t really like this time of the semester.  As I plow through the stacks of final assignments in a kind of death march, slowly posting the grades up online, students begin to panic and sides of their personalities emerge that I haven’t seen before.  Consider the following exchange yesterday with a student who, until now, has given me no trouble whatsoever:

[Email from me to several students:]

If you are receiving this message, it is because you submitted an essay rewrite to me without the original essay and feedback sheet attached.  As is clearly indicated in the assignment guidelines, rewrites submitted without an original will not be graded.

As it happens, I need to go to my office on Friday.  If I haven’t submitted the final grades for your class by then, and if your original essay and feedback sheet are in my office at that time (put them under my door), I will then look over your rewrite.  As you know, the rewrite was an optional assignment; because of the late submission, I will not do a thorough re-grade, but will give you a small rewrite bonus if you have done a good job.

[Reply from Lia, student in my post-intro class.  The reply is reproduced in its entirety:]

A small rewrite BONUS?!? I did a rewrite to improve my grade, there was no place left under your office door anyway, so my paper would have been stiking out and probably stolen!! Unfair that’s all i have to say. And to add, I think my oral last week was the best i’ve ever done in my life. I wasn’t reading my note sheet because i knew my material and many people told me I did a good job. I’ll bring the original tomorrow, maybe you should hang something on the door for people to put their papers inside.

[My reply:]

Lia:

I am surprised by the tone of your email.  If you were not happy with your oral grade, you were perfectly within your rights to contact me and make an appointment to discuss it, so I could explain the criteria to you.  (You could even have come back to see me on the day I gave you the grade.)  If there was no room under my door for your original, there were several solutions: you could have brought it to the print shop and asked them to put it in my mailbox, or you could have sent me an email saying that you were concerned about leaving your paper and asking what you should do.

It also sounds like you have not understood what a “small rewrite bonus” means – it means that your grade will probably improve, although perhaps not as much as it would have if I had received your original in a timely manner.

In the future, if you have issues with a grade you have been given or any other actions on the part of your teachers, I would suggest that you contact them and ask for an opportunity to discuss the matter.  An angry and accusatory message is not usually the best solution to any problem.  If you wish to discuss these matters further, please make arrangements to do so in person; you are welcome to make an appointment to see me on Friday.

You are also welcome to bring your original to the print shop instead of putting it under my door if that makes you feel safer.

[Lia's reply:]

Miss Curious, I am far from being angry, I just sens that you are not grading me right and I live far from school and there is nothing much to say becuase I read the criteria on the paper and still don’t think it’s right but if that’s the grade you honestly think I deserve then I am disapointed in myself! I have nothing  to add, that is why I don’t need an appointment. And the paper, I didn’t think of the printshop because the print shop is not your office. all I know is I was asked to bring my documents to your office and that it didn’t fit. Now this is what I’m complaining about the fact that I will not get the complete grade I was supposed to get for the rewrite. why? Just because i did my work in time but only kept my original because I thought it wouldn’t be safe to leave it on the floor stiking out. I don’t see why people who did their work would be penelized. Anyways i don’t think you see what I’m saying but happy holidays, enjoy the winter break.  Lia M.

[My reply:]

Have a good holiday, Lia.  Please put your original under my door or in my mailbox tomorrow or any time before Friday.

Because I’ve instructed her to discuss this with me in person, I have not replied to her question of “Why?”  I’ve learned the hard way that perpetuating these email exchanges is a bad idea.  What’s more, the answer is obvious: she was given very clear instructions, and the fact that I’m grading her paper at all is a compromise.

Nevertheless, an outburst from a student always makes me question my actions and my motivations.  Is she right?  Is a penalty justified, even if it’s not really a penalty at all?  (Because this rewrite is optional, the only possible effect it can have on her grade is a boost; this is part of the reason the criteria are so strict, because otherwise they’ll keep trickling in for weeks.)  Am I enforcing this deadline to be fair to everyone, or to teach them something important that has nothing to do with English literature?  Or am I just trying to punish them for inconveniencing me?

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to follow an “online retreat” at Tricycle Magazine on the topic of kindness.  The retreat is hosted by Sharon Salzberg, a famous name in the world of “Insight Meditation.”  One question I’ve been meaning to post in the Q & A, although I haven’t yet managed to do it, is about situations like these.

If I aspire to be kind, if I form that intention and try to carry it out, then what do I do for a student like Lia?  Is it kind to let her give vent to her anger?  To engage in an exchange over email in which I try to explain my actions in a way she will understand?  Or is it kind to be firm, and to set clear boundaries and stick to them?  Could I have changed something in my tone in my first message that would have made it kinder, not only to her, but to the other students who received it?  Or should I just accept her late original and grade her and the others who forgot it in the same way I grade the students who handed everything in on time?

I know that a big part of growth is simply asking oneself these questions, but I worry about myself sometimes.  Sometimes I just want to punish people, and I have to try to separate that impulse from the truth of the situation in order to decide on the best course of action.  Here, I’m not sure.

In the end, I feel sad.  Someone’s going out into the world with sour feelings about me.  I often tell myself that being liked is not my job, but part of me still doesn’t believe it.  And that’s why I don’t like this time of year.  No matter how well things have gone, there’s always a little pill to swallow that leaves a bitter aftertaste.

Image by Zsuzsanna Kilian

Hi Siobhan,
First, let me say that your blog is a great resource. I stumbled on it a few weeks ago and have read almost all of the entries. Your writing is refreshingly articulate, and I have enjoyed reading it.

I’m considering a career in CEGEP teaching down the line. At this stage I have the qualifications (an MA in English), but no teaching experience. My own CEGEP experience was fantastic. I was a Liberal Arts student at — College, where we addressed our teachers by first name and were intimately acquainted with everybody in the program. Knowledge for its own sake was celebrated, and a general atmosphere of intellectual freedom and exploration was encouraged.

I have to admit that while reading your blog has been great, it has contrasted a lot with my own CEGEP experience. When you speak about your students, who call you “miss”, they seem more child-like. It makes me a bit nervous about entering into this career! How much of your job is disciplinary? Would you recommend a career as a CEGEP teacher?

Thanks so much for writing your blog.

-Sonia

Dear Sonia:

Thanks so much for your note.  It’s great to hear that you’ve been reading my blog and getting something out of it.

I enjoy my job as a CEGEP teacher, but I find it very challenging.  There are indeed disciplinary issues, and some of them are serious.  There are also students who struggle a lot with academic challenges.  A Liberal Arts program at — College is not at all representative of the general CEGEP population; I regularly deal with students who can barely read and write in English (or, I suspect, in any language) and whose levels of maturity vary wildly.  In order to really enjoy teaching CEGEP, I think it’s necessary to embrace the challenges of working with such students.

Most of the CEGEP teachers I know who truly enjoy their jobs are people who have previous teaching experience or education degrees.  Working with high school students, in particular, is excellent preparation.  Most of the teachers I know who quickly burn out are those who come to the job  straight out of graduate school and expect to be working with the equivalent of university English majors.   It’s important to remember that English is a core subject at CEGEP – all students must take it, regardless of their program, and many have little interest and weak skills.

I taught in other venues for a number of years before becoming a CEGEP teacher.  CEGEP teaching has many advantages over other teaching jobs – we have long holidays, we have a lighter workload than secondary teachers, and we are not expected to research or publish like university professors (although our colleagues are usually excited and proud when we do!)  But as far as the teaching itself is concerned, most of my satisfaction  comes, not from the celebration of “knowledge for its own sake” or opportunities to encourage “intellectual freedom and exploration” – most of my students have little interest in these concepts – but from seeing students in difficulty overcome obstacles, or from seeing the occasional talented student really shine.

All CEGEPs are different, so you might be able to find a place with a similar atmosphere to the one you experienced as a student.  If your general goal is to become a CEGEP teacher, however, I think it’s important to examine whether the challenges of CEGEP teaching really interest you.

If you’d like to know more about some of the stages I went through in relation to my job, you might want to check out a series I wrote for the TimesOnline’s education blog, a series called “How I Saved My Teaching Career.”  You will find the first post, and links to the rest, here:

http://timesonline.typepad.com/schoolgate/2009/05/introducing-guest-blogger-and-teacher-siobhan-curious-and-her-first-post-how-she-saved-her-teaching-.html

Good luck!  I hope you’ll think it over some more and come to the conclusion that’s right for you.  Any job is hard, and a CEGEP teaching job is a really good deal as jobs go, if teaching is what you want to do.  I’d be happy to know about the decision you come to, or any other questions you have.

Yours,
Siobhan

Image by srbichara

After receiving kind mentions/nominations for the 2009 Edublog Awards from both Sarah Ebner of School Gate and Victoria Westcott of Classroom Canada, I’m delighted to find I have a couple of free hours tonight to do my community duty and point out some nominees of my own.

Best individual blog: Joanne Jacobs never fails to inform me and get me thinking.  And I’m always amazed by her prolificacy!

Best individual tweeter: It’s been ages since I spent much time on Twitter, but whenever I do tune back in, I can count on Larry Ferlazzo to point me toward a couple of things I want to see/read/do.

Best resource sharing blog: Larry Ferlazzo again.  Thanks Larry!

Best teacher blog: This is a tough one, but I’d have to say So You Want To Teach? is the one I go to when I really need a boost or some concrete advice.

Best elearning/corporate education blog: I’m not sure what the “corporate education blog” means – a corporate blog or a blog about corporate education?  I’m going to assume that it’s the former, and that would make it a toss-up between Classroom Canada and School Gate - don’t make me pick just one!  Ok, if I have to, I’ll go with Classroom Canada, because Victoria has already nominated School Gate…

Please check out the Edublog Awards link above and post your own nominations.  The nomination period ends tomorrow, Dec. 8, and then the voting begins.  And good luck to all the nominees!

Is education primarily about growth?  What exactly is “growth,” and does it always equal “education”?

The philosopher John Dewey defined education as an accumulation of experiences that stimulate both growth and the capacity for further growth. In Experience and Education, Dewey tells us, “…the educative experience can be identified with growth,” and further clarifies that we must understand “growth…in terms of the active participle, growing.” However, he specifies that not all experience is educative: “Any experience is mis-educative that has the effect of arresting or distorting the growth of further experience.”  He goes on to say, “…when and only when development in a particular line conduces to continuing growth does it answer to the criterion of education as growing.”

According to Dewey, growth is a process of change or evolution, but it is not, in and of itself, a positive thing.  We can grow in negative ways, and such growth can limit our ability to grow in the future.  Such growth is not educative.

As a student, for example, I can have experiences that lead me to be dependent for others on my learning.  If my early teachers teach me that “learning” involves parroting material I learn in textbooks, then I will grow in that direction, and when I leave formal schooling behind, I may have difficulty learning in other contexts; I will have a limited capacity to think independently and to learn creatively from non-textbook-generated experiences.

When our students arrive in our CEGEP classrooms, they have each had a unique set of experiences.  Some have had many experiences that have been conducive to growth.  Even if they are not yet cognitively ready to be thoroughly “independent” thinkers (and Baxter Magolda would say that most of them are not), some have nevertheless been well prepared to become such independent thinkers, because they have been asked to grapple with challenging, open-ended tasks in the past, and have received some sort of satisfaction or reward for their efforts.  They may also have models – parents, older siblings, teachers, coaches – who have demonstrated for them how to be learners, who have modeled curiosity, hard work, creativity, and excitement about new knowledge.  These students arrive already knowing how to learn.

Some of our students, however, have been stunted in their growth; they have grown is directions that cut them off from further evolution.  They are easily frustrated and angered by difficult questions and tasks.  They want to be told what to think, or else they are infuriated when their ideas are challenged.  Some shut down, and stop coming to class, or to school altogether.  Perhaps this is because “growth” is a frightening prospect for some of them – growth inevitably involves leaving old ways and knowledge behind, and for some students this may seem daunting or impossible.  Or is it, in some cases, because their previous experiences have not equipped them for the kinds of analysis and critical thinking we ask of them, and we are not providing them with new experiences that will help bridge that gap?

Let’s imagine, for example, that I return a student’s first paper, and that student has failed.  Let’s imagine that the student becomes frustrated and angry, and accuses me of “grading too hard.”  I’m likely to become irritable and defensive in such a situation, but if I step back, I may be able to surmise that this student has never learned how to deal productively with failure – his past growth in this area has led him to an impasse.

It is my job, as his teacher, to teach him how to learn from failure – to provide him with an experience of failure that leads to learning.  What can I say to him that will turn this experience from a negative to a positive one?  That is, how can I transform this experience from a blow to his self-esteem into an opportunity for growth?

How can failure help us grow?  For one thing, it can give us the impetus to ask important questions.  If I understand this, I can communicate this to the student.  I can ask him, “Why do you think this paper should pass?  Why do you think it failed?  What comments have I made that you don’t understand?  Look over the first page of the paper, and then ask me three questions.”  It’s possible that this student has never been given the opportunity to ask sincere questions about his failures, nor has he received sincere answers.  Students who learn from failure almost always have this skill, and it’s a skill that is fairly easy to demonstrate, if not always easy to absorb.

Other qualities – the willingness to take risks, an openness to new ideas, an ability to identify what one doesn’t know, a talent for organization – may seem like innate characteristics, but it would be interesting to analyze the degree to which these qualities are in fact skills that are learned through appropriate experience, and to consider ways that students might be able to learn such skills even if they arrive in CEGEP without them.

If we see an effective education as a series of experiences that induce growth and that lead to further growth, then our role as educators, along with every moment we spend in the classroom, becomes transformed.  We are not just teaching students a pile of material; we are teaching them how to learn, and how to continue to be learners.

Image by Kym McLeod

This post was adapted from a reflection I originally wrote  for a Philosophy of Education course.

The 5th edition of the Carnival of Educators is up at Notes from a Homeschooling Mom.

The latest Personal Development and Well Being Carnival is up at Personal Development and Well Being Blog.

Also, the latest Educarnival is up at Epic Adventures are Often Uncomfortable.

The fifth edition of the Carnival of Educators is up at Notes from a Homeschooling Mom.

Also, the Educarnival v.2, Issue 14 is up at Epic Adventures are Often Uncomfortable.

Go check them out – if you’re going to ignore that stack of papers, why not learn something?

What do you mean, “Why am I failing English?”

You’ve failed EVERY SINGLE ASSIGNMENT since the beginning of the course.  You handed in your first essay 2 weeks late, and you wouldn’t have handed it in at all if I hadn’t asked you where the hell it was.  You got 37% on your last practice essay, but you didn’t ask me a SINGLE QUESTION about why, or even look at the detailed feedback sheet I filled out for you, and then you went ahead and wrote the real essay, and got a 40% on that.

What do you mean, what can you do to catch up?  There are TWO WEEKS left in the semester.  You’ve been failing English since the fourth or fifth week – why are you coming to see me about this now?  Your grades have been posted up this whole time.  The fact that you’re failing English is NOT NEWS.

Yes, I’m sure your other courses HAVE been very difficult.  If you’ve chosen to prioritize your other courses, then that is a perfectly legitimate choice.  We all make such choices.  Most of us also recognize that if we don’t prioritize something, we’re not likely to do very well in it.

Why am I angry with you?  I’m angry with you because you’ve had 13 weeks to deal with this problem, and yet you march into my office when the semester is, for all intents and purposes, OVER, and you suggest that a) the fact that you’re failing English is a total surprise to you, and I am somehow responsible for the fact that you are surprised, and b) I should now be doing something to help you deal with this problem.  THERE IS NOTHING THAT CAN BE DONE NOW, and certainly nothing that I can do.  The time for dealing with this problem has PASSED.

What’s that?  Why don’t I care about your success?

I do care about your success.  I care about it very much.  I’ve been sitting here in my office, and standing in your classroom, caring about it, all semester.

You’ve been so busy not doing your work, you haven’t noticed.

Photo by Dominic Morel

When Yannick walked into my office on Thursday, his first words were, “Miss, do you remember me?”

I did.  He’s in my Travel Literature class, but I hadn’t seen him in almost 2 months.  He hadn’t written any of his required blog posts.  He’d showed up to do his (half-assed) oral presentation, but had never submitted his bibliography.  The major essays had been due the day before, and I’d heard nothing from him.  I’d assumed he was gone for good, but that is often a foolish assumption.

“I’ve been away from school for a while,” he said.  “I’ve been having some problems.”

I gestured for him to sit down, and he explained.  He’d visited Academic Advising that morning.  He’d told them what was going on, and why he’d missed so much school, but they’d told him that there was no official remedy for his situation, because his difficulties were not medical.  His only hope was to speak with his teachers, see what he could do to complete his semester, and try to pass four of his courses, because he’s on academic probation and if he fails this term, he’s out for good.

“I’ve seen my other five teachers,” he said.  “Two of them say there’s no way.  The other three told me what I need to do if I want to pass.  So that just leaves this course.”

Yannick is a handsome and confident young man.  He reminds me a little of another handsome and confident young man I taught a few years ago, one who spoke with the assurance that of course you were going to do whatever he asked of you.  And people did, especially girls, who allowed him to cheat off their tests and, I heard, signed his name to attendance sheets in courses he skipped.  (He eventually failed my course for blatant, unrepentant plagiarism.)  Yannick’s air is a bit less presumptuous, slightly deferential but not obsequious.  It’s an effective air, but I’ve seen it before, and am mostly invulnerable to it now.

I outlined what the possibilities were.  He wasn’t going to pass his blog project, but there was still time to make up some missed posts and get something more than 0%.  His major paper was going to be late, but I accept papers up to a week after the deadline, albeit with a 5%-per-day late penalty.  His Mock Exit Exam would be the following week, and he needed to show up and do his best with that.  His in-class assignments grade was in the toilet, and that was not reparable.  “It’s not impossible, Yannick,” I said, “but frankly, I’m not optimistic about your chances.”

“But, you see, miss…do you want to know my situation?”

I gave a shrug that I hoped was nonchalant without being insulting.  “You’re welcome to tell me about it if you like.”

And then he proceeded to tell me about his father’s business.  The details of it were confusing, but the upshot seemed to be that his father had dug himself into a hole by importing cars, selling them at auction, but then getting behind on his payments and sales and accumulating debt.  The auction had finally seized their cars and, after some negotiation, agreed to accept a payment of $50,000 to cover the remainder, money the family didn’t have.  Yannick had been working 12 hours a day at the shop trying to help out, but now creditors had been calling and coming to the door, so they weren’t spending much time at home.  The family and the business were crumbling.

“O.K.,” I said.  “I understand that this is a difficult situation.  But you’ve been missing from my course for 7 WEEKS, Yannick.  There are 3 WEEKS left in the semester.  There’s no reason you couldn’t have called your teachers a month ago and let them know that you were having problems.  I have plenty of other students who have problems at home, and they’ve either tried to manage these problems differently than you have, or they’ve accepted the consequences.  It’s not impossible for you to get through, but I think, given the work you’ve done already, that it’s highly, highly unlikely, especially if you have three other courses you need to try to pass at the same time.  If you’re on academic probation, then you KNOW what happens when you don’t come to class and you don’t do the work.”

“Well, the academic probation, that was all me.  I just didn’t take things seriously.  But this, Miss, I’m not bullshitting you.  I can bring you proof if you want.”

“It wouldn’t matter.  Unless you’ve had a medical crisis, there’s nothing the documentation can be used for.  You just need to do what you can with what you have left, and hope for the best.  But there are absolutely no guarantees, and I have to be honest with you, Yannick – I don’t think you’re going to pass.”

“The thing is, Miss, you have to understand.  If I fail out this semester, they’re going to kick me out for a year.  I don’t want to spend a year doing nothing.”

I stared at him for a moment.  Then I said, “Of course I understand that this is difficult, but we have to be realistic here.  I’m not going to GIVE you the grades.  You have to earn them by demonstrating what you’ve learned, and you haven’t been in class to learn anything.  So we’ll see how it goes.”

Then we went over the guidelines for the remaining assignments, and he shook my hand, thanked me, and left.

When he was gone, I put my head in my hands.  For a moment I was angry, although that calmed pretty quickly.  Then I was just sad.  Really, really sad.

This 18-year-old man was once a little boy.  He watched his father deal either underhandedly or extremely unwisely with his business.  Yannick watched his father make bad choices, and then try to weasel out of the consequences by accumulating debt and, eventually, staying away from his home and refusing to answer the phone.  And now Yannick, not just for one semester but for two, has made his own choices, and has ignored the consequences until it was no longer possible to ignore them, and has reached the point of trying to make those consequences go away by pleading with others to fix the problem.

How could I be angry about this?  Where would this boy have learned any other way of dealing with the world?

And then I thought about his father, and what kind of a father or mother he might have had.  And then I thought about all the bad lessons I might have taught my children, if I’d decided to have any.

The trouble with trying to be compassionate is that it doesn’t mean you can be easy on people.  On the contrary, I think – although I’m not sure – that the most compassionate thing I can do for Yannick will be to make him face the consequences of his choices, and recognize that they WERE choices.  I have no desire to punish him.  I certainly don’t think I should assume I know what’s best for him, or what will make his life better or easier.

But if there is one thing teaching has brought me to believe with all my heart, it’s that we all – students, teachers, parents, children, politicians, criminals, cats and dogs – need to learn the principal of cause and effect.  If you spend more than you earn, you will go into debt.  If you don’t go to class, you will fail your courses.  And if your family business is going to hell in a handbasket and you can’t go to school because you’re working 12 hours a day at the shop, then maybe a year away from school is exactly what you need.  Not that that’s any of my business.

I don’t know.  Am I crazy here?  It isn’t my job to un-teach the lessons he’s learned his whole life – it’s my job to teach him how to read and write about literature, and evaluate whether he’s learned THOSE lessons.  He’ll pass or fail on the basis of that and nothing else.  But earlier in my career, I might have been tempted to make allowances and exceptions.  Now, I don’t think that any more allowances or exceptions will do him any favours.

Image by Ashley Voortman

Issue 13 of the Educarnival v. 2 is up at Epic Adventures are Often Uncomfortable.

Today might seem like a bad day.  But it isn’t.

1.  I’m getting a cold.  However, it shows no signs of being the swine flu.  What’s more, I have a warm bed to curl up in later tonight.  I’ll be going to work today, but if I feel really sick tomorrow, I can stay home.  Having a cold is not so bad when you have these things.

2.  I’m very busy right now – the semester is ending, I’m behind on my marking, there don’t seem to be enough hours in the day.  I’m busy because a) I have a job and b) in three weeks time, my classes will be over and won’t begin again for six weeks.  It would be ridiculous to complain about these things.

3.  One of my classes is irritating.  One of the students, Ahmad, is particularly unpleasant and difficult.  This is causing me some anxiety.  However, Ahmad’s unpleasantness highlights two things: a) my other two classes are not difficult; in fact, they’re delightful, and b) Ahmad reminds me of difficult students I’ve had in the past, when I had no idea how to cope with them and their difficulties.  I can’t do anything about the fact that Ahmad is a difficult person, but I can manage his behavior much better now than I could have a few years ago.  This is, in part, because of the difficult students I’ve met in the past.  My dealings with Ahmad may make me better equipped to handle future difficulties.  As much as I wanted those past students to disappear, I’m grateful to them now, and I will be grateful to Ahmad one day, too.

So the truth is, today’s a pretty good day.

(I’ve just now realized that Adriana may have planted the seed for this one.  More gratitude!)