Not Done

It happened. I assigned something. Gave class time to work on it. Conferenced on individual progress. Gave descriptive feedback. But when the good copy was due, very few handed it in. I asked them, “Did you think I was joking? We wrote it in your agenda every day this week!” I was devastated. In that moment when most kids were looking at their shoes rather than at me, I suddenly found myself questioning everything about my competency as a teacher. Did I not offer enough choice? Did I not explain the assignment properly? Was the assignment too hard or did I not offer enough time? Not interesting enough? Could I have provided a better critical path and more tools like graphic organizers and checklists? Did I not chunk it? Perhaps it was my scaffolding of concepts? Should I have done mini lessons? What happened? I went into reflective practitioner overdrive all in the span of 30 seconds when I, standing before the class, basically empty handed (re: 2 completed assignments), felt like a failure. I was speechless.

My brain whirred. What should I do? How should I handle this? If I get mad and shout and make them feel bad will they ever do anything for me again? Will they shut down? On the other hand, if I don’t react, they’ll have gotten away with being completely disengaged and disrespectful. Where is the accountability if I don’t react? I asked my associate teacher, in front of the students, “What would you do in this situation? I’m stumped!” “Detention.” she said coldly. “Tomorrow, first nutrition break.” At that point, many students stood up and started complaining. The excuses started to flow. “I forgot.” “I left it at home.” “Can I hand in my draft copy?” “My printer is out of ink.” Others rushed to hand in what they had and claimed it was a good copy. “Is this your best work?” I asked as I collected crumpled paper. One had a dusty footprint on it.

I don’t want to make a grand sweeping statement about student engagement here. But I am tempted to blame something on a societal level other than myself and other than my students. They are typically okay. A bit chatty and easily distracted, but they generally try (most things) and do complete assignments (when its toward their report card mark).

Maybe I didn’t consider my students enough when creating the assignment. It was to write a song about a social injustice. We did a whole class on injustices in society and we listened to protest songs and then analyzed them. They were to work in pairs. They had 200 minutes to write a short song. Nada.

On their way out to gym I asked a few of them - put them on the spot really, and for that I feel a bit guilty - why they hadn’t completed their good copy. “I don’t know,” they said. “It was hard and I didn’t like it.”

I am not looking forward to detention.

Photo via Flickr http://bit.ly/gtP6JI