I have two students in an honors class whose grades had fallen a bit due to circumstances beyond their control, and so for them I broke my rule against extra credit assignments. I offered them each a chance to write the dialogue that might have taken place had two individuals from a certain historical event found themselves together in a jail cell awaiting execution.
The papers that came back to me were wonderful. Full of insight. Beautiful synthesis of political ideas and disputes. Drama and teenage humor. I find the kids in the hallway later in the day and ask whether they had known anything about the period of history in question before we had studied it. No, they assure me, it was all new to them.
I sail on to my next period, on top of the world. Such a brilliant teacher. Have I gotten through to these students or what? I am preparing them for the state graduation test, for college, nay, for Life Itself. I am a Genius.
With a level of enthusiam I have seldom experienced before in the context of grading papers, I pull out the next set of tests. I furrow my brow and crinkle my eyes in confusion. I have asked a question about a political philosopher. I am reading an essay about the invention of textile machinery 100 years later. I cannot think of a single connection between my question and my student's answer. That's because there is not , in fact, a single connection.
So much for genius Teacher of the Century.
(Walked 1.5 miles today).
5 comments:
Nothing like teenagers to bring you back to realilty! lol.
Very funny! Teenagers will do it to you every time. Pennie
Last Tuesday I was going over the end of part five of Crime and Punishment. With about 15 minutes left in the class, I found myself thinking, "Hell, I'm even boring myself." The next day, I apologized to the kids--and had a better plan than pure blah-de-blah.
Some kids get it, some don't. You are definitely a genius, the person who wrote the textile essay is not.
teaching is oh-so-humbling....
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