A rant, in prose form.

Today, I am doubting my decisions again. Yes, it is May 6, 2008, and I did the same thing last week, and the week before that, and the week before that, I’m certain. Except for spring break, obviously. That I enjoyed spring break that much, probably in itself makes me a terrible person. I don’t have to teach you right now, just worry about you. That’s all. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.   

 

I get my 20-2’s every morning at the same time. Class starts at 10:10, and the whole class has essentially trickled into their seats by about 10:25. Nothing is teachable at approximately 11:25, sometimes earlier. Sometimes Not at All. Class ends at 11:33, after I stop physically barricading the door with my body and let them surge past me to attend to other more important social emergencies such as smoke breaks, getting high, or making out with significant others. This is much more important than their education and more important than say, mastering in particular, the English language for the Working Class.

 

They are incredibly aware of the streaming that occurs in the school, and the social mores that are attached to either I.B., dash one academic, or dash two non-academic. Alberta learning, in a bid to be entrepreneurial and open-minded about the education of youth, has made ‘non-academic’ common vernacular for all core classes that were formerly 13, 23, 33, etc.

 

English 20-2 mirrors English 20-1 in all ways as far as learning objectives go, but rather than go a mile into the breadth of literature study like the academic classes, they go about a centimeter in depth. The working man don’t need no damn poetry analysis or no Shakespeare neither for that matter. Hells, we don’t even need to know how to spell, because when we graduate, no one is going to care.

 

The fun part about this, is that you come with all these stupid notions of what is ‘appropriate’ for you to learn, and what isn’t, from the first day you step into my class. In dash one, things are more interesting, because there is the promise of a theory adventure. However, Dash two; everyone forgets that they need adventures too.

 

When taking a walk through the library of any Albertan school to peruse the English resources, there is a noticeable difference as to what is available for dash one students as potential literature studies, and what is available to dash two. Dash one gets books that are first year comparative literature level fiction (i.e. fascinating and intriguing, and yes, fun to investigate and learn from), where dash two…it’s not even a question of “ability” in the choice of their novels or texts. Adventure books. A lot of non-fiction. John Grisham crime novels. Old tired texts, from old tired movements of literature. So tired, that even youth that we presume don’t pay much attention, understand that they are getting the “treatment,” whether from the stale “Lord of the Flies”, “Of Mice or Men”, or Tennyson’s “A Streetcar Named Desire”, before being unleashed on society. You as a teacher, are doing something easy for you, because of the stigma attached to the class, and they know this and act accordingly.

 

Of course you hate reading. Of course you hate school. I get it. If you read enough age-inappropriate and flaccidly limp non-fiction novels in your youth, you too can grow up and be a plumber with no imagination.

 

Not that long ago, the curriculum warranted a second look. Changes were made for the better, things were made more straight forward and streamlined. Although the discrepancies in learning objectives are harder to see, the favor that the academic students procure financially is not. The literature available to the academic stream outnumbers the literature available to non-academics 3 (and growing): 1. Money and interest seems to be hard to garner to the cause of the dash twos because there is always the fear that it will be a wasted effort.

 

A wasted effort. The quality of education that the non-academic stream receives lowers considerably as soon as they are streamed in grade ten. Arguably, it varies little even as the years pass from grade ten to grade twelve. A common catchphrase overheard is the term “busy work.” They are doing something for 80 minutes, every period you have them, and optimistically, this keeps them occupied if you stay on top of your unproductive game for the whole year. Having any kind of scruples is not a good thing for someone thrust into teaching non-academic stream English. Reading comprehension questions, multiple choice, multiple choice, multiple choice, and really short un-demanding short answers, set a teacher up for maybe achieving the dreaded end-year goal of getting these students through a final that is promising to kill them with a personal response, a persuasive essay, and a visual response, as well as multiple choice.

 

For a class that is treated like no one expects a lot from them, their final does not ever seem to reflect this, as it is more intensive than the academic stream. Dash ones are expected to do the same amount of m/c, though on a different level of analysis, and one critical essay. They don’t even need to bring in quotes, so it is essentially so that the dash two level gets the nearly bullshit proof test, while the dash one level is a highly subjective free-for-all by comparison, if only considering the written portions.

 

But, for reasons I may not even understand given my inexperience, this still looms as something to be accomplished before the final hits them. I have to teach them how to do this, and while it’s not impossible, I am still concerned about the time. 

 

The thing is, I can’t teach you guys anything, if you’re just going to sit there and do nothing with all the force of a hurricane. My umbrella is inside-out, my knees are knocking, and I’m waiting for a deux ex machina.

 

There is never a deux ex machina when it comes to teaching dash two non academic students. Instead, I have to be as interesting as ADHD. Instead, it’s not enough to simply get along with your students. In fact, where in one situation, relating to one’s students is a bonus, in a non-academic class, this ability is a detriment. Because they love that you can relate to them, especially with music, especially with life experience, especially with vernacular or joking around. But, as great as it is to get along with the kids that always get the short end of the stick, I still can’t teach them very well, although it’s not for lack of trying.

 

For every dash two kid that ends up in my class, I know that each one of them has been told something bad to get there. If you stay in a dash one stream, you’ve never been told something like, “doesn’t have the adequate skills to advance,” or, “does not have focus,”, “behavior is inappropriate for class”, “has poor work ethic”, “low cognitive abilities”, “is lazy”, “is unproductive”, “attendance is sporadic at best”, “low performing in…”, “does not contribute to discussion”, “poor writing abilities”, “poor language skills”.

 

Students ideally should always be given constructive criticism, but the message that most dash two students get is that they’re different, and that there’s something wrong with them to be placed there. A lot of it is social, but a lot of it is psychologically impairing as far as future instruction goes, as it often gets internalized to an extreme that ‘I can’t learn. I’m not smart.’

 

Thus, they hear ‘is different’. Is apathetic. Dumb or numb.

 

There are lots of different things to consider when evaluating student ability that are pretty damn holistic, but in a lot of ways, also stinking in common sense.   

 

“How do I reech theez keedz??!”  -Mr. Cartmendis