matching tracksuits

One of the real joys of the year is the eighth-grade formal dance. To see these kids out of uniform, being silly, having fun -- without a care in the world. It's a beautiful thing.

When students don't hand in work for an assignment, we enter a special code into the grade book to indicate that: NHI. "Not Handed In." Some students have not a single NHI in the whole grade book; others have a few more than zero.

That's how it always is; the breakdown is always according to class. It's always predictable:

The on-level classes are a different story. And the inclusion class, which includes a lot of special education students, is a category all by itself. That class alone, which has 27 students who represent 24% of all my students, has 46.29% of all the NHIs. Their NHI/student ratio is almost double the average for the whole group of 112 students whom I teach. One student alone, I calculated, is responsible for almost 5% of the NHIs herself.

P4 and P5 are honors classes. They have relatively few NHIs. Out of about 1300 grades (assignments times students for a given class), they each have in the 70-80 range. That's about 5% of all assignments not turned in. That's relatively high, I think, but they are middle schoolers. The bulk of the NHIs in those classes are from boys who don't really want to be in the class to begin with.

How many of these students will fail the class? None. Not a single one. Even the student who had 40+ NHIs out of 64 assignments. She will pass the class by about one point.

Why?

Because in the district's wisdom, NHIs don't count as 0; they count as 50. In other words, students do nothing and get 50% of the credit. What do they need to pass? 60%. So students can literally do three or four assignments per quarter and pass by the skin of their cliches.

"That's all fine and good," outside critics might say, "but what about when they get a job? What is that teaching them for a work ethic?" Forget about when they get a job; the 50 floor ends when they enter high school. So we've taught them that it's possible to skip most assignments and still pass, and then they'll get to high school and find their 60 in middle school translates to a 32 or so in high school.

Who thought this was a good idea?

We teachers like to joke that we should stop doing any work and demand 50% of our salary. "If the students can do it, we should be able to as well."

The truth of the matter is, though, that even if we didn't have this floor and gave students the grades they really earned, we wouldn't hold them back. Kids get socially promoted all the time, and they know that it's a district (or is it state?) policy that students can only fail once before eighth grade.

"You can't fail me. I've already been held back. You can't do anything to me," I've heard from students.

What about high school? If you fail a class once, will they be reluctant to fail you again? Do they socially promote students? I really don't know. I tell students they don't, but for all I know, they might.

And this is yet another reason the education system in our state is broken almost beyond repair...

One of the sweetest girls on our team drew a dry-erase marker portrait of the four of us.

It's that time of year when I'm of two minds: on the one hand, I'm tired of these kids. I'm ready for new, fresh blood. I know the ins and outs of each kid (sort of); I know what makes them tick; I know how they're going to react to this or that. And I'm ready for a new batch.

On the other hand, I love most of these kids. Every year, I think, "This is the greatest group of kids I've ever worked with. There's no way next year can be better." And it usually is. And so I'll miss them, and a part of me doesn't want to see them go.

But just a slightly bigger part does...

Time to move on, kiddos.

Some days, out of seemingly nowhere, every single class clicks. Every period, kids are focused, doing what they need to do, and doing it well. Doing it thoroughly. And appearing even to enjoy what they're doing.

Where do these days come from? How is it that we're doing almost exactly the same thing we did yesterday and yet everything is different? How is it that the same students are here, even the students who can exhibit problematic behavior at times, and yet we have a totally different result?

The frustrating thing about it is the timing: we have 20 days of school left…

Tonight was the ACE Awards, a local award program that recognizes the kids who might not be in the spotlight all the time but are making a difference. The "unsung heroes," as they're called.

One of the two winners from our school, a sweet young lady named A, is in my English class. You've never met a sweeter, kinder human being. It's an honor to get to work with such kids.

Sometimes, the regularity of my teaching surprises and almost depresses me: am I so predictable? Four years ago today, I wrote about beginning Lord of the Flies with my honors kids.

Beginning Lord of the Flies

And what did I do today? I began Lord of the Flies. We always begin with Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" for a couple of reasons:

• Bragging rights: How many teachers have their eighth-grade students reading Plato?
• Pedagogical purpose: We need to cover what an allegory is, and what better way than to look at one of the most famous.

It's a challenge for the kids, though:

And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette¹ players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

I see.

And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.

I have them draw the image presented in the text, then go around sharing with other groups what their group determined:

Few get an accurate image like this:

Of course, they're only given a few minutes for the whole task...

State testing is coming up, which means the state Department of Education mandates a meeting to cover test administration protocols.

It's the same every year. Nothing ever changes. Ever.

"Can't you test out of it?"

If only...