So, here’s the
situation, testing has once again laid waste to lesson plans. Because of an important State Test that
determines how well high schoolers read English, I have to spend more time in
the test administration room than I was originally scheduled to do. My mind is elsewhere. My own personal son is home ill with the
bubonic plague again for like the fourteenth time this school year, so I not
only have to worry about whether he has passed away or not before I can make a
doctor’s appointment, I have to worry that my congested nose and throat are the
same plague taking hold in my buboes. I have not had the time I planned on for
lesson planning as I am walking in the door for the start of second period.
“Mr. B, what are we
gonna do today?” asked Girly-Go-Getter
who always has to have challenging work in front of her, or her parents will be
knocking on the school door with subpoenas in hand for a little friendly
lawsuit.
I shrug. No time to prepare, right? Am I supposed to teach out of my head or
something?
“Let’s watch a
movie,” says Slow-Poke Rodriguez, a cartoon Mexican mouse who is so politically
incorrect he probably does have a gun
in his backpack.
“A movie?” says I, “You
want to watch a G-rated
probably-a-cartoon movie not from Disney (because they sue teachers for using
their property without licensing agreements) because you haven’t seen any
movies in class at all this week during testing?”
“We watched movies
in all our other classes,” says Bad-Donkey Jones who is bipolar and mildly
schizophrenic. (He has a special form
from the counseling office that forbids me from punishing him or even talking
mean to him in any way, which I would never do because I am old and he can
probably kill me with one hand anyway).
“No movies,” I
said. “Teachable moments only.”
“Aw, gawd!” say
several students at once.
“Praying to me won’t
help,” I answer, only partly in jest, “I am not God. If I were, there’d be lightning.”
“So what will we
do?” asked Girly.
“Let’s talk about
thinking skills again.”
“Aw, that’s soooo
boring!” croon several.
“How does that help
us pass our tests?” whine the rest.
“It may never help
you pass a test,” I admitted humbly. “But
it is a key to success in life.”
“How?” says
Slow-Poke, assuming that if he keeps asking questions, I will wear down and
show him the movie Shrek again.
“Okay, let’s take
the thinking skill of questioning.” General groans in response, especially from
Rodriguez who realizes that the selected strategy is his fault.
“You can’t use
questioning on the State test!” says Girly.
Actually, you can, but I look around at the mostly
vacant stares and nodding heads with earphones in both ears. Oh, yeah, there is at least one that only has
one ear plugged, and he will contradict me if I tell them all they are not
actually listening, that he can
listen to two things at once. I don’t
really feel like giving any more praise to the lovely State test anyway.
“Maybe you can’t
use questioning as a thinking skill on the State test,” I craftily admit, “But
the State test we all love and honor so much is mostly about spitting out facts
and figures and spotting spotty spelling.”
Some of the actual listeners chuckle when they notice the rhymie little
alliteration I slipped in there. “Is
that the only thing you need to know in life?
Facts, figures, and spelling?”
“It sure, hmm, ain’t!” says Jones. I try real hard to make my eye twinkle to let
him know how much I appreciate the way he fluffed over the spot where he could’ve
used his favorite f-word.
“When you have a
question in Science class, especially on lab days, what do you have to do?”
“Aw, gawd,” says
Jones, “You need to make up all that stupid hypothesis sh… stuff, and find a
procedure or something.”
“You mean, in
Science class you have to come up with an idea to answer the question and then
test that answer?”
“Yeah,” says
Slow-Poke, “You gotta do stuff just like that.”
“So you need to
answer questions by asking more questions?”
“Questions like
what?” says Jones.
“Hey, that’s a good
one right there,” I say. Fortunately,
when they all laugh at that, Jones doesn’t think they are laughing at him.
“You have to ask questions like; what
questions do I need to ask to find each possible answer, and what experiment could I do to tell me one
way or another how good my possible answers are?”
“Yeah,” says Jones,
“Learning to ask questions is about all we do in Science Class.”
“That’s what Mr. P,
the Physics teacher says Science is always about,” declares Girly, “finding the
right questions to ask.”
“Well, good,” I
say, exhausted beyond belief. “I have
now taught Mr. P’s lesson for him.”
Everyone laughs
again.
I look at the
clock. Fifty gazillion hours to go
before the dang bell! How do you fill
it?”
“Okay,” I say to
Slow-Poke, “so you want to watch Shrek one
more time?”
That, of course, is
the entire essence of being a public school teacher.
.
