Education: A Ghost Town Waiting for Citizens to Rise Up

My head rattles a lot with words of things I want to say or need to get out but don’t. I do that more and more. It is my insides that churn up what I think I think until I can think no more but it goes nowhere. Maybe that is why when people ask me if I like my new job I say, “I don’t know."

When I ask my students what I think should be thought provoking questions or things they might have a passionate opinion about, I often get, “I don’t know.” And I cringe inside. I often say to them, “Make it up! Practice having an opinion because people will want to know what you think your entire life.” In my quietest moments I think, “Does what I think matters if it is not the popular opinion?” or “Will what I think change anything or help anyone?” And on and on it all rattles around hitting with sharp edges on my insides where I feel pricked with a thousand cuts bringing me to a slow death.

The tumbleweeds of hope that stop the maelstrom of rattling raging rocks blow in and break that rage down into dust. I think, “I have a story that means something that can inspire or help those that need more to latch onto right now.” I often think this outside my classroom and then I stand in front of my students and the tumbleweed blows on by momentarily delayed by the rocks in the road but then it is gone. I am stuck between those rocks and a very hard place called school.

Who is being educated this year? Me as a new teacher or my students? I would hope both. I long for both to be true and thriving. Then I read that because of the pandemic and time we are in those students aren’t being educated or are stuck or can’t progress or have done nothing but regressed. I hear and feel how hard it is for the teachers. I see the behaviors that seem to not make sense to me of why things are happening amongst the high school population that I have been with now for four years. I saw these students as freshman, which was the last whole year where they were uninterrupted, and yet education has continued in some fashion or another. Education is still happening and did happen virtually, maybe not perfect, but teachers were teaching. Not everyone had perfect connections or Wi-Fi and so yes, not all things were equal, but where are we now? We have been back in the classes some for a year and a half and some for less time, but we have been there.

As teachers, at least in special ed, we keep being told to slow down, don’t give them much work, keep it light, be super patient, and just be happy when they are in the classroom. I do agree those qualities help special ed teachers even during the best of times. Yet, when I do that, I am told I am doing still too much. I give one maybe two assignments a week. Those assignments take ten minutes of teaching time to teach and then it should even with the weaker students only take ten or fifteen minutes to do. Our periods are fifty minutes five days a week. I have usually one longer assignment that I’m giving them a month or six weeks to accomplish that they can work on in class also. I’ve had to extend those assignments for two to three more weeks and students still are not getting those assignments in at all. I have students come constantly late to class or skip class altogether. I have students that sit and talk to friends or on their cell phones for entire class periods when I’ve given it over for them to get their work done and use me as a resource to help. I gave the whole last two weeks of the quarter over for them to work and I still did not get students that turned in anything during that time. So, how am I not giving them enough time or I should slow down more?

I talk to them about creating better habits and using their time in class that to work on the small assignments and they scoff at me openly. I check on them and ask if I can help them and give them choices and they make none, do not accept or ask for help, and they resent me checking-in. I cut down the bigger assignments begging for them to just turn in what they have done. I walk the ones that are habitually late through what we are working on and give them a one on one lesson just to find out they can’t hear me because under that hood they have their ear buds in and have not heard much of anything I’ve said and don’t want me to repeat it all just tell them what to do or to write or to say and want to make no decisions about it. They look at me blankly and ask, “How do I get all the points?” It isn’t about what it is or the content as that is barely registering in their question. I continue on trying to get through with the material and they look back at me with dead eyes as it clearly doesn’t matter to them at all. I was told by a teacher this fall that it didn’t matter what I taught as nothing we teach them in high school will really matter to them as an adult. This is where the raging rocks that rattle around inside me heat up and I think, “What am I doing here?”

What I learned in high school classes was important to my life and I disagree that what I teach in an English class won’t matter to them as adults. I talk to my students about how they write or comprehend stories, directions, give opinions, and if they can analyze a situation that is extremely important as it is monumental in getting through the stuff life throws at us. If we can write or articulate a thought these things matter a lot in life. They flatly argue with me that what I have to give as a teacher or school or anything they are learning in any class does not matter.

I have been told that special ed students are not going to ever use these things in life and I say, no, everyone uses these tools or should know how to use them. How else does one keep growing, learning, and making good life choices if one does not learn to think through situations and opinions in school? School is good practice for the stuff of life!

It is all about SEL,(social emotional learning), right now in school to make up for “lost time” it is the big ongoing conversation in the past couple of years. I purport that we as a society have lost time, somewhere along the way, in social emotional learning and I’m not just talking about the pandemic. When I stepped into being a para in 2012, I was initially shocked how schools functioned compared to how I grew up. The lower elementary grades seemed to have all the structure and discipline and the further I went up the chain, the students challenged authority constantly and listened less. This is a gross generalization as not all students were in that same bucket, but there was a vocal minority, often in special ed classes and in some gen ed that really were just coming to school but not absorbing the social norms, the material, or good habits in general. After being cussed at for years and longing for not only a more polite school environment, but one where longing to learn was the norm for students instead of fleeing from it, somehow, I still stepped into the role of a special ed teacher. I think I thought I could make a difference, but it feels like a tiny droplet in the preverbal bucket.

When I was in school, I was not given the choice of most assignments or how to do them. I was expected to come to class on time and not leave until given permission to do so. I did not speak unless I put my hand up and was recognized by the teacher. When there was a question asked or discussion initiated, it was expected that I would join in or have an opinion ready. When there was a deadline, I met it or paid the consequences of not meeting it, but I didn’t complain about it. I did not blame the teacher even when I thought they were not the greatest teacher in their subject or seemed unfair in how they graded things I put great effort into, and they judged them unworthy. I looked at what it was and found out what I needed to do to get better at whatever it was and asked questions about it. Sometimes it was a hard swift kick to the gut, but I continued on and didn’t give up. I worked at learning, and sometimes with teachers that were not great or hadn’t found their sea legs yet, that was hard, but I did it. I knew that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t get anywhere in life and that is what motivated me.

From doing these things I learned to do things I don’t always like to do and succeed. I found nuggets of facts, thoughts, and emotional strength from pursuing learning by choosing to engage in what I was given and not asking for something else. I was made stronger. I said please and thank you and I discovered the heart and lives of some fascinating people that taught me and sometimes I hardly knew the people that taught me, but I mined the material and words they brought to the classroom for some substance that I could build my life upon. Not everything was gold, but I sifted for the nuggets as that is what I was taught school was about. This is how I’m instructing my child and I see he does take this to heart most of the time. In this, he is highly unusual too, but I am thankful that he digs deep to find some gold in his high school education. At home, I am constantly teaching him about social norms and emotional shifting sands.

In many of their classes they are daily given time in class to work on assignments and they sometimes simply stare at nothing and look vacant. With my students, I wander over and ask, “Are you okay?” They look at me and nod. Sometimes they come in sit down and fall asleep just after the bell rings. I get class started and go over and wake them to no avail as I ask them to please sit up and get started. These are the ones that sleep nearly every day in class---the whole class period and when they are awake, I ask if they are sleeping at night, if there is a problem, if they are some place safe etc.… They mostly tell me they just aren’t sleeping or sometimes they admit they were up all-night playing video games, or they don’t answer at all, but they never apologize for sleeping every day and they expect me not to disturb them and sometimes they cuss at me for disturbing their rest. By one teacher, I am told to let them sleep. In my head I reply to this, “Every day? Then why hold class?” I struggle as the rocks heat up white hot, yet I know that some students are houseless and cannot sleep anywhere else, some have terrible home lives and do not feel safe sleeping at home, but are these students those? All of them? How does one tell them apart---one in crisis and one unmotivated to be here?

I looked out one day in December at my English class and four out of six students were sleeping. The two that weren’t sleeping had air pods in and were staring at their phones and did not have their Chromebooks out working. Two more students waltzed in more than half-way through the period, and I told them what we were supposed to be working on and after I left their side, they got out their phones too and ignored me until the bell rang. After they left, I let out a sigh as hot tears slid down my face as I wanted to shout about the wreckage I’d just witnessed.

The next day I started that same period with reminding them of our pact to respect each other in how we conducted ourselves in class and asked them not to have their cells phones out and to use this time given to work on assignments due as it is a gift. I often say this in my classes as it is true, I was given no time to work in class on assignments more days than not when I was growing up and homework was the norm. They are given time in class to do the work and it is carefully calculated that they could do all the work in class if they would do it. That way there is no homework. There is if you are sleeping or super late, but otherwise not. That day a student instead took that opportunity to tell me I didn’t respect them and no they were not going to put their phones away and they could use that time for whatever they wanted. I felt powerless and impotent and angry.

When I think about it, this is what virtual learning has been, time for them to do whatever they wanted. They could come to class or not. They could listen or be totally doing something else—cameras off and muted, and many students did not turn in work, listen to teachers, or slept through the whole thing. We had more than one student that occasionally forgot to mute their microphone and you could hear the video game they were playing while in class. Sometimes we also heard a parent yelling obscenities, or the younger sibling that they were taking care of while they were attending class or how isolated they sounded when they did speak. Whatever the reason, many were disengaged and don’t see the point to school and the virtual reality is that they gave up on learning. It breaks my heart even as I feel the pressure within me build where my thoughts loudly reverberate in a cavernous hole inside me, I shout to the heavens, “On a human level we should all be made of stronger stuff and get beyond this point!” Here I am facing a blank slate of second semester wondering how best to make a difference and how I can wake up my senior students that sleep through class and on the surface don’t seem to care about much. Underneath, I know there is so much more to it and the spark for learning, social norms, and interest in life needs to be inspired somehow. I am excited at the possibilities but exhausted just thinking about it and I struggle to capture those fast-moving tumbleweeds of hope rattling around my western thoughts on traditional education.

Perhaps, my thoughts should turn eastward borrowing from Tao Te Ching, the founder of Taoism, not to live in the past as that brings depression and not to live in the future as that brings anxiety, but to dwell in the present peace of now. He also says to give out of the now. Or as my pastor ends each service with, “You go nowhere by accident…” I always think of the verse in Ephesians 6: 7-8a from The Message, “ Don’t just do what you have to do to get by, but work heartily, as Christ’s servants doing what God wants you to do. And work with a smile on your face, always keeping in mind that no matter who happens to be giving the orders, you’re really serving God.” God is the big boss in all of this and has put me here on purpose is what I believe which is what melts the rocks of rage helping them form into a useful stronger structure for the rest of this year thinking, “My students may come in late, sleep, still not give up their cell phones, but I will continue to teach, give, forgive, and hopefully inspire through compassion by whispering sparks of learning that will ignite in them today, tomorrow, or somewhere down the line as they recover or discover who they are right now.”