Welcome to “Scratch,” Part II

A couple weeks ago, Arthur, a young science teacher colleague from Atlanta, stopped me in the Dining Hall after dinner and asked, “How do you re-charge your batteries every day and keep smiling?”

I jokingly told him I had created an afternoon habit of chugging a cold Diet Coke (the taste of America!) after sweating on the stairmaster at the gym (those endorphins really do make you happier!) then checking my email from family and friends in the United States. I told Arthur that that had become my afternoon ritual for re-filling the psychic well after a day of “giveths” and “takeths.” I also told him that there is generally an hour or so in the afternoon where I consciously avoid people simply because I would not have indulged yet in my late afternoon combo of exercise/soda/correspondence that restores my soul.

Like all of my compatriots here, Arthur is trying to make sense of “Scratch.” He saw me smiling at dinner, joking about the adolescent wonders surrounding us—he didn’t see me a couple hours before wondering where I had gone wrong. I had given my first quiz that day—and I was excited to see how well they would do. I had introduced my students to seven different kinds of historical sources, we had discussed them well in class, I had helped open the door to concrete knowledge and abstract knowledge, and I had primed them for that first quiz.

If you read the previous blog, you have already seen some of the stellar answers I received on that first quiz. No, these were not quizzes that would end up on the refrigerators of proud Middle Eastern parents! I did some sighing, I did some moping. Heck, I did a little wallowing. Then I practiced the fine art of my afternoon constitutional.

As I left the gym I pondered the direction I should take with my classes. Should I just move on and give them a speech about “sucking it up”? Should I bribe them? Oh, yes, well, it’s Ramadan, so the candy trick can’t be done right now due to many students’ fasting. Should I plunge into the research paper I had started with them? But they still couldn’t understand what a thesis statement was (“I wrote four questions for my thesis statement, Mr. John. Isn’t that good?”).
As I graded their quizzes, cutting my way through tangled sentences and mangled historical information, my ego took a beating. Whoops. Did I say that out loud??

As you read in their answers, hardly anyone answered a question! They had enjoyed the conversations in class about the sources (many of the sources had lurid or sensational stories, so the vibe was pretty good) but my students had no idea how to embrace the “lessons of history” I had thought were so plain as we traversed through these seven sources! Okay—although one colleague suggested I forge ahead (hmmm…and be oblivious to the “Scratch” I was dealing with???) I wondered…had I taught these historical sources and historical lessons as well as I might have? If we are indeed starting from Intellectual Scratch, we gotta deal with the Scratch, not run ahead and introduce them to more civilizations that will seem more and more like the teachers in all the “Charlie Brown” shows (remember? All the wah wah wah honking that made us laugh as children—and wince as adults?) I needed to go back to the material, I needed to put the quizzes aside, and see if we could make some improvements.

Once I bandaged my little ego (really, I’m a good teacher—well, in the United States, really, honest…) I went back to my roots. As many of you know, I come from a long line of problem solvers. I come from a tribe that can fix everything from broken cars to broken hearts. Let’s look at the problem…

Okay, these students see the study of history as useless. They have only had to define terms and memorize names of rulers and battles. What do they know of the beauty of concrete knowledge? Of the liberation of abstract thought? How can I refine these concepts? How can I clarify my lessons?

Now, granted many of my dearest friends grapple with these issues—passive students, students for whom school has only been an obstacle, students who have not mastered the skills of thinking and writing—all the time. My friends Debbie with her students with special needs, Doris with her WCC students, another Doris with her challenged elementary students, Christy with her underachieving and less-than-responsible graduate students, and many others face this all the time. I salute them. I applaud them even more.

I started the following day with the Latin phrase Per Aspera Ad Astra, across the board, courtesy of my mother’s mother, the Latin teacher. This is my go-to phrase, my mantra: From The Rough Places To The Stars. Even with my bouncy joviality, they sensed they had not done well. I dismissed the quizzes, saying I wanted to re-discover the material, and really work on understanding the concrete and abstract knowledge. I offered them an option to take the quiz again, and would offer 7 times in which to do that. I told them they could not see their original quiz, but that I recommended they take it again. We talked about when we all had been small children, and learned to ride a bicycle—how hard it was to have those training wheels taken off, and how important to get back on that bicycle after we fell down and stunned ourselves and how hard it was to ride that bike without a parent’s gentle touch. We invoked that metaphor a lot in the past couple of weeks!

That night, as I made my rounds in the boy’s dorm, I would sit with each student and ask questions, one-on-one, noticing that they commanded the material a bit more.

This would be the part of the movie when the film score swells, and the boys carry me on their shoulders as they discover their inner-A-student.

Not a movie just yet.

The following night one boy came to me and said he just couldn’t get it. He started to sob, really sob—he was going to fail, he said. He didn’t understand the thesis statement idea, and he certainly didn’t get abstract knowledge. Would he be thrown out of school? We talked a little, then changed the subject and went and cleaned his room. There are times when History just doesn’t need to be done!

In class we discussed the Neolithic Revolution—what did that discovery/invention yield for that society? As I mentioned in the blog, one nice young man offered that it had created “plastic surgery.” Oh, my. Scratch!

I showed up all 7 times for the re-test. About 1/3 of the students came and tried again. The results were a little better. Barely. Each day after school, following the spa treatments of caffeine and vigorous stairmastering, I would re-trench. I re- everythinged! I would work at re-clarifying, work at re-designing. I wouldn’t let go of the “Scratch” problem. I couldn’t.

Each day I would think about a problem-solver I knew and channel that person’s energy.
How would my mother reach these students with exquisite prose? How would my father turn these ills into a normative situation yet change their trajectory? How would Mary Schneider discipline their minds? How would Elizabeth create a calm space, a haven? How would Dawn find a practical solution to this complex web of deficits? How would Anne Siviglia come up with thinking and writing exercises they could handle, and somehow make them more brilliant? How would Sue Skinner find the inner child-like curiosity? How would Aunt Dot hold on to her principles and yet somehow gather them up and pull them out of their Scratch? How would Chuck talk to them in plain language and inspire them to soar? How would Judy remind them of their obligation to be true to their potential? How would Gram Swinney reach for the stars? How would Stephanie stare this situation down and find repose? How would Neal reach into the cultural gap and re-shape it? How would Sarah be firm and gentle? How would Adam turn this defeat into a moment of promise and triumph?

I could go on…I am privileged to know many fine problem-solvers.

On my jag to the gym the other day, I thought of that day’s exemplary problem-solver, my Gram Leistler, and her favorite Bible verse from Psalms jumped into my head: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.”

Now I had a movie moment—as I looked past the gym, at the hills past King’s Academy, I realized those very hills before me are just a few miles away from the actual hills to which David had looked in Bible times. These hills, or rather, my mountains of strength, all those named examples above, and dozens more unnamed, would provide the help.

I decided to wait on the big writing assignment. If we are starting from Scratch, let’s get the engagement down first, let’s figure out what we do with concrete knowledge, let’s imagine what these abstract lessons might be, and let’s talk about it. We can write later on.

Last week I announced another quiz. The students treated it like it was a mid-term exam, which is not all bad, and while it only covered 5 days of material (with some homework and a little textbook reading) this was a comprehensive test. How far had we come from Scratch? Could they answer questions? Could I stand another defeat???!!!!

As I made my rounds talking with the boys, peppering them with questions, urging them to craft complete sentence answers, with concrete knowledge, a dear boy named Hasan said, “Mr. John, do you mind explaining what concrete and abstract knowledge is again?” This might have been the magic 100th time I had recently launched into that explanation, but a teacher finds the patience to offer analogies, because yes, hope springs eternal.

I reminded Hasan of the photographs we had compared in class—one of an 1890s cart being pulled by horses, and one of a fancy new automobile, circa 1910. I had hoped each student would get to “drive the car” for himself, and not just be dragged by those busybody, horsy adults, and so in my most poetic way, I alluded to the independence of driving that was like abstract thinking. Hasan got this huge smile, and said, “Oh, and the car needs fuel, of course, and the fuel that makes it go are those concrete facts! You can’t be abstract without the concrete!”

If only I had thought of that example of the fuel! Hasan beamed as his neighbor said, “Oh, Hasan! The fuel that drives the car! That’s insight! Mr. John, that’s smart, isn’t it?”

On the test over half of the students earned As and Bs.

Tonight as I walked by Yazan’s room, he started singing the song with which I start every class, a little ditty that goes, “Notebooks open, pen in hand.” (Again—you do what you gotta do—if a song might work, try and become the new Irving Berlin!)

Sigh.

We are digging a little deeper here in Scratch.