Checking Out

Isn't the end of the year something?

There's a certain point in time when the seesaw finally tips the kids' way, and they're done. It doesn't matter how well constructed or novel the lesson you're trying to teach is, because their minds are on sunshine and beaches and leisure. That's my first graders, anyhow, though the little bit I know about teenagers makes me think they're not all that different.

In my district our last day of school is next Monday, which had to be done because of the crappy winter weather we had around here. I suspect that many of my kids won't bother with Monday, which is fine with me.

That's not it for us teachers, though. The two days immediately after that are workshop days, and later this month there's a 4-day session on the new math standards. I've already got my list of things to do for next year spinning around my head (Get more phonics games ready! You need a new way to teach 2-digit subtraction! Let's revamp social studies!), but those can wait for August.

Summer is coming. I'm ready.

seriously... just make it

'Tis the season for pranks (Coupeville's was artless and stupid), rising tempers (without the usual commensurate rising temperatures), and fraying nerves (hire a hit man? seriously? rip out his eyeballs? really?).

Now's not the time to boil over, blow up, or burn out.

You can make it. It's only a week or two more. You can make it.

watch those eyebrows

Not your own. Your students'. They might harbor surreptitious gang signs.

Some students at Centennial High School have shaved vertical lines into their eyebrows in a trend recently made popular by hip-hop star Soulja Boy. School officials say the mark looks like a gang symbol.

Centennial administrators are telling students with the lines that they can't return to school until they shave their eyebrows off. Assistant Principal Mark Porterfield said the students are not suspended, but they are not allowed in school until they cooperate.

Four students have been sent home. One returned with a bandage covering the shaved brow.

Life must be pretty good at Centennial High, if they have time to enforce perhaps the pettiest rule in the history of secondary education. (Given that history, no easy feat.)

Sadly, if my administration asked me to monitor my students eyebrow grooming, I'd have to meekly go along with it. RIF lists suck.

So this is how kids think?

Like a lot of teachers, I struggle with students who don't do their work. Since I've only ever taught at one school -- one that is in a fairly affluent area -- I've pretty much chalked my students' laziness and apathy up to the fact that many of them are simply spoiled children.

You know the drill: You call home, tell the parent that Johnny is failing, and the parent says, "I just don't know what to doooooooooo! Johnny always tells me he doesn't have any homework. And even when I know he does, he won't do it, so I just let him play his video games anyway. I don't know what else I can dooooooooooo!"

To which we all think: "YOU'RE THE PARENT!!!" Then we politely say, "Well, I just wanted you to know. Thanks for your time." And we hang up the phone shaking our heads.

Well, now I know it's not just a problem with me or my school or my students.

Check out this report at NPR from about a month ago. It talks about how managers in the workplace are growing increasingly frustrated with how needy employees in the 20-30 set are.

Companies are hiring consultants to help manage the "over-praised" Me Generation. The result? Kudos for showing up to work on time! Awards for getting a report in! Forget Employee of the Month — how about Employee of the Day! Some managers are resistant, saying the only praise they ever got was a paycheck.

I think this resonates with a lot of us teachers, who can't understand why students need a pat on the back every time they do something they're supposed to do. When I was in school, I never dreamed of not turning in a homework assignment. It might not have been my best work, but to simply not do it? No way.

Now, I rarely give homework in my classes because I know it's generally an exercise in futility.

Could understanding this "Me Generation" help us understand how to better motivate our students to do more, better work? We wonder why we should have to do this, but I think the question isn't so much "Why should we have to do this?" anymore, as it is "Are we willing to sink to that level in order to get the best out of our students?"

A lot of teachers will answer no. But is that really best practice?

SCOTUS protects political speech

Today the Court refused to hear an appeal of a case that would be the first to test the latest free speech ruling. The background:

A seventh-grader from Vermont was suspended for wearing a shirt that bore images of cocaine and a martini glass — but also had messages calling President Bush a lying drunk driver who abused cocaine and marijuana, and the "chicken-hawk-in-chief" who was engaged in a "world domination tour."

After his suspension, Zachary Guiles returned to school with duct tape covering the offending images.

Williamstown Middle School Principal Kathleen Morris-Kortz said the images violated the school dress code, which prohibits clothing that promotes the use of drugs or alcohol.

An appeals court said the school had no right to censor any part of the shirt.

Alito's political speech exception was the controlling ruling. "Bong hits 4 Jesus" is unacceptable, but "Bad Bush Hits Bong" is apparently okay.

Perhaps we pessimists have reason to be a little less pessimistic. (Outright optimism is a stretch.)

No bong hits, part II

As a self-proclaimed defender of student free expression rights, I'm certainly disappointed by the Supreme Court's decision to rule against Joseph Frederick in the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case.

That said, I'm not exactly crestfallen, either.

The ruling is pretty narrow and seems to be focused almost exclusively on speech that promotes drug use. Justice Alito summed it up this way in his concurring opinion:

"Public schools may ban speech advocating illegal drug use," Alito wrote in his concurrence. "But I regard such regulation as standing at the far reaches of what the First Amendment permits. I join the opinion of the Court with the understanding that [it] does not endorse any further extension."

I still think the court was a little silly in thinking that any reasonable person -- yes, even teenagers -- would think that "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" means "Hey you! Go smoke pot!", but I can at least somewhat understand where it was coming from. Doesn't mean I agree with the decision, but I take comfort in knowing that the court took the time to acknowledge that this was a case about drug advocacy and not political or religious speech.

The key will be this: How broadly will administrators try to apply the decision? Although Hazelwood, at its core, is pretty vague, administrators have consistently misapplied even the most specific portions of the majority opinion and used the ruling as sweeping justification for squelching student speech.

The most troubling part for me is that the court has further extended what qualifies as "school sponsored." This was an event that took place outside of school hours and off school grounds. How will administrators and districts try and use this ruling to extend their power off campus? Will this extend to the electronic realm?

Time will only tell.

Requa case raises interesting questions

This piece of news is almost a month old at this point, but I've been kicking it around in my head for quite a while now.

It centers around Gregory Requa, a student suspended for 40 days by the Kent School District for his involvement in the making of YouTube video that mocks one of his teachers. The suspension subsequently was upheld by a federal judge.

It's an interesting case as teachers, administrators and our courts grapple with the impact of online speech in the classroom; the pending decision on the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case will provide even more clarity about just how far off campus school officials can go to regulate student speech.

Requa's lawyers tried to make the claim that his suspension infringed on his First Amendment right to free speech, but the Kent School District said his suspension was only for the disruption caused in class in the making of the video: “The video depicted the conduct that was punished,” according to a district spokesperson.

Which leaves me with two questions.

1. Are they seriously trying to lead us to believe that the Kent School District always gives 40-day suspensions whenever a student makes a hand motion towards his nose (indicating his teacher smells bad), rabbit ears behind his teacher's head, and pelvic thrusting motions at her when she's not looking?
2. Do the really mean to imply that they would not have suspended Requa had the video only been footage of her cluttered class and shots of her backside, neither of which ostensibly disrupted the class?

Those of you that end up reading the blog with regularity will find that I am a ridiculously ardent defender of student free speech rights -- after all it's how Jim and I came to know each other in the first place -- and decisions such as this one scare me. The judge explained herself this way:

“The court has no difficulty in concluding that one student filming another student standing behind a teacher making ‘rabbit ears’ and pelvic thrusts in her direction, or a student filming the buttocks of a teacher as she bends over in the classroom, constitutes a material and substantial disruption to the work and discipline of the school.”

While noting that “the ability of students to critique the performance and competence of their teachers is a legitimate and important right,” Pechman said that a classroom devoid of inappropriate behavior is in the public interest.

Regarding the video, Pechman said, “The First Amendment does not extend its coverage to disruptive, in-class activity of this nature.”

While I don't disagree that having respectful and orderly classrooms is important, and I certainly wouldn't want to be the topic of a similar video, I wonder what kind of a precedent this sets for legitimate criticisms.

What if it simply had been footage of a teacher teaching poorly, interspersed with legitimate complaints about the classroom? Would the district acknowledge that with a suspension? Would Pechman strike down that suspension as unconstitutional?

Better yet, what if it had been an flier about what a terrible teacher a particular teacher is, then distributed it off school grounds. Would the district have forgiven such speech?

I seriously question whether they're punishing the speech or the medium.

oh, s---: student swears at concert, claims to imitate teacher

Why you might want to reconsider lacing your lectures with profanities, because, you know, it gets attention: it really gets attention.

After singing solo in a school concert in Longview, a 13-year-old girl said she wanted to thank her choir teacher by imitating her.

Savannah Larson then let loose with a string of expletives and obscenities that stunned the audience of about 700 students, teachers and family members in the gym at Monticello Middle School.

The choir teacher can take solace in the fact that at least Larson was listening.

Update: The Times has more details. Larson had just finished singing "Where or When" by Rodgers and Hart. Those kids and their "popular music."

Update 6/18: Larson explains herself here. I thought kids these days were supposed to be all tech-savvy, recording their evidence on iPods and such.