The only way you can be wrong is if you do nothing…

--> I did my student teaching in a predominately white, very well resourced, rural school district.  Many of the students lived in two-parent homes where there was a legacy of post-secondary education.  The majority of my students, even those from lower socio-economic families, carried a high degree of social capital.  The population that I currently teach (and have taught for the last four years) could not be more different on paper - almost entirely black, low SES, non-traditional or “unstable” family structure, and very minimal history of post-secondary or even secondary academic achievement. 

Though I had some experience working with urban schools in my undergrad (spending a month in the Boston public schools), I was a little nervous that I wouldn’t be prepared for the challenges that would await me in Philadelphia.  Though there were many ways that this was true, I continue to be struck by the reality that in the classroom students are students.

Obviously, this doesn’t mean that I discount the role that experiences, family life, SES, poverty, social & cultural capital and a host of other factors have on students. (After reading almost anything else I’ve written it should be pretty clear how I feel about the “no excuses” approach to education reform). The point I’m trying to make is that there are some student behaviors that you’re going to encounter if you’re teaching in rural Vermont, in a ritzy Main Line private school, or in North Philadelphia.

One of these behaviors that I’ve been struggling with recently is what I call:

 The Power of the Blank Page. 

The brilliant Margaret Atwood summed it up pretty well when she said: 

The fact is the blank pages inspire me with terror. What will I put on them?  Will it be good enough?  Will I have to throw it out? The trick is to sit at the desk anyway, everyday.

Now, if a blank page can have this debilitating effect on a woman referred to as the voice of an entire age, imagine what it can do to a high school student, especially one who is just coming back to the classroom and hasn’t written anything for a teacher in over a year. 

If you’re a classroom teacher, what I’m describing here is probably something you’re all too familiar with.  However, the Power of the Blank Page is often overlooked, ignored, and belittled by administrators, curriculum writers, and reformers. These are the folks who don’t understand that even literary luminaries like Margaret Atwood are frozen by a blank page.  They are the folks who expect students to produce brilliance on demand (high stakes testing?).  You can recognize them because they will use the phrase “students will be able to” in casual conversations. 

The harsh reality is that whether you’re a professor’s kid in a small college town or in DHS custody in West Philly, the blank page can evoke the same feelings of terror and dread.  Even teachers feel the Power of the Blank Page (maybe that explains the recent blog hiatus or the reason that lesson plans lay blank until the night before they’re due).  

 

As educators, it’s important to bring the Power of the Blank Page to our students’ attention. The title of this very entry is a phrase that I say so often that sometimes I think it’s my name. While it is not the only reason that students disengage and screw around, the Power of the Blank Page often pushes my students to put their heads down, hoods up, and headphones in.  It has even been the cause of several of my most memorable blow-ups (of which there have been many) that usually involve profanity like I’ve never heard before.  The Blank Page is a powerful nemesis indeed. 

I try to encourage my students to take risks with their writing and it’s nearly impossible to take risks if you’re afraid of being wrong. 

The only caveat to my “only way you can be wrong” dictate is that it can become a law for some students.  I would caution all teachers, but especially newer teachers, to be sure to distinguish between times when there ARE ways to be incorrect and times when a blank page is the only way to be “wrong”.  Inevitably, I encounter students who will look at essay that they did poorly on and shout, “Teacher Man a FRAUD! He said if I wrote SOMETHING, I’d get an A”.  

I’m careful to distinguish between analytical, reflective, and creative writing.  I also am very clear with expectations ahead of time. I tell students what I’m going to be reading for when I give credit (and it’s almost never a page length… UHHH do I hate the ‘how long does this have to be?’ questions).

We need to help students take control of the Power of the Blank Page and to do that, they need to know that they’re not alone in their terror.  This comes through low-stakes writing, empowerment of voice, and PRACTICE.

How do you counter the Power of the Blank Page in your classroom? 

TFA and assumptions about poverty

 

I read a well written piece on Reuters today that I feel outlines many of my fundamental concerns with TFA.

*Before I begin on what might come off as “TFA Bashing” (but in my opinion is not), I should say that I take issue with what the organization has become and the agenda that I feel they are pushing, not with individual corps members who are  following their training and supervisors.  I have a number of friends who have done TFA (with mixed reviews) and I’ve worked with a handful of corps members and alums.  

That said, in the interest of full disclosure, here is my personal background with TFA:

I went to a small, “highly selective” liberal arts school where TFA recruited heavily. They employed students, typically NOT education minors (in the teacher ed program you majored in your subject and minored in ed.) to speak to classes and recruit students to apply to the program.  Knowing I had been involved with a number of mentoring and teaching programs, I got calls from the recruiters, but after I told them I was committed to student teaching and the “traditional route” they left me alone. 

From my graduating class of about 700 students (I know, small), 6 students joined TFA.  Of those six, 1 quit during institute, 2 left after their first year, and 3 completed their 2 year commitment.  Also, according to the most recent college alumni magazine one of those 3 is now “one of the youngest principals in the country” (which is a whole separate concern for me). 

While these six students were completing their summer institutes in urban districts around the country, I was applying to and interviewing at schools all over Philly.  At almost every school, they asked disappointed, “So you aren’t TFA?” As though doing my student teaching and being fully certified was some sort of black mark on my application. In spite of my frustration, I ultimately found a job working at an alternative school, so no harm done.  I offer this personal account to show that even for traditionally trained novice teachers there is an “us vs. them” dichotomy set up with TFA. 

Though I have a host of other concerns with the present iteration of TFA, one particular quote from Stephanie Simon’s piece on Reuters jumped out at me.  A 22-year-old recruit who will be teaching in LA said, “I’m here to tell these kids that they have potential. They’ve never been told that before”.  The second sentence really rubbed me the wrong way.  Though I don’t think this well meaning recruit intended to insult the population of students that they’ll be teaching in the fall, it certainly struck me that way.

 If I’ve learned anything from teaching so-called “dropouts” for the last three years, it’s that you can’t make any assumptions about the students, their families, or their experiences.  Saying that students have never been told that they have potential is an assumption that people make about kids in poverty (and their families) and these assumptions are dangerous.  See the criticism of Ruby Payne’s “A Framework for Understanding Poverty”.  Teachers and districts love people like Payne who offer a step by step outline for how to teach poor kids.  The reality, however, is that there are no step-by-step directions.  In her book, which served as a great counter example in my urban ed classes, Payne makes generalizations and assumptions about children in poverty that I found shocking and absurd.  Further, even if her assumptions held true, I didn’t find them to be particularly helpful to my teaching. 

I feel that in its rush to “prepare” recruits for the classroom, TFA has drawn on the work of people like Payne who offer quick fixes to working with children in poverty.  This approach leads recruits to make assumptions that could ultimately make their work in the classroom even more difficult and be potentially damaging to their students.