While I’m conducting a quality review of a failing urban school, a teacher catches my eye. “You really have to visit my class and see what I have to put up with every day,” she says. “These kids are awful!” When my schedule allows, I oblige. I’ve played this game before, but maybe, just maybe, this time will be different.
Nope.
I sit, I watch, I listen. When the opportunity allows, I talk with the kids, but this class isn’t giving me that chance. Nearly all of the students are totally unengaged in the lesson. The teacher is sitting at her desk with her paper under the document camera. The projected image reveals the way she is squeezing her work into a worksheet already crowded with numerous math problems. She is solving one problem while explaining what she is doing to an inattentive audience. The kids are whispering, passing a few notes, tossing pencils to each other. A few of the students are actually trying to pay attention to the teacher. There is no violence, harassment or other severe behaviors. They are just passing their time. The teacher gives me a sideways glance as if to say, “See, I told you they were impossible to teach!”
I see it differently. I’m watching a painfully dull lesson that has little or no relevance to the students. The teacher is doing nearly of the talking and usually answering her own questions after a few milliseconds pause. At her best, she focuses on three students who are actually paying attention and ignores the fact that everyone else in the room is totally unengaged. Some of the students have already finished the entire worksheet, while others are totally lost. The teacher never told them what they were supposed to be learning or why. She is presenting a math problem utterly without context. The worksheet provides insufficient room for the student to demonstrate their thinking, try multiple approaches, or otherwise engage with the content. No matter – the teacher has explicitly told them to do it her way and no other way. Her reasoning is clear: “Because I’m the teacher and I said so.” I’m actually amazed at how well the students are behaving. I’m sure I’d be much worse if I had to sit through that every day. Day after day. Hour after hour.
I catch up with one of the students at lunch in the cafeteria. I tell him that it’s my job to gather perspectives, and that there are no wrong answers to my questions. Even though he’s obviously pleased to be asked for his opinion about the class I saw, I’m a total stranger. He needs to test me. “Man, that is some dull, stupid shit,” he says. He looks at me questioningly, wondering how I’m going to react to his profanity. I smile at him, close my notebook, put down my pen, and lean in a little closer. Less official, less threatening, more confidential. He gets the message – it’s his world, not mine that I’m interested in. Any remaining inhibitions are gone, and he really gets going. I love this part of the job.
In his own words and in his own way, and with the contributions of a growing number of friends who have gathered around, he confirms that what I observed in class was typical, not only of that teacher but of most of the teachers in the building. He likes most of the teachers well enough, so doesn’t give them too much trouble, but he knows that he and his friends aren’t learning much. Because the content seems so irrelevant, the lack of learning doesn’t worry him. He doesn’t use the language of education, or even adult language, but he knows exactly what is going on. Teacher-centered instruction totally without context. Ineffective use of technology, poor lesson planning, and total lack of differentiation for students of different abilities or learning styles.
Afterwards, I catch up on my notes and brace myself for the next class, hoping for better. On my way, I pass by the teacher from the morning. “Thanks for being there!” she says. “Now you know what it’s like!”
Indeed I do.
“Thanks for inviting me,” I reply.
Perspectives and Information on Education (PIE) 