Today we had a quiz on "Way to Rainy Mountain."
"I couldn't understand it." ---You mean you couldn't get that in the five minutes you spent looking at it?
"It was too hard." ---I guess it is a bit beyond your 3rd grade reading level.
"It was so boring I fell asleep three times." ---I noticed you were more alert today.
"We shouldn't have a quiz on something we don't get." ---Good idea. Let's discuss it thoroughly and then have the quiz.
Why do we label people who whine about doing something physical, like playing football, running, or exercise of any kind, wimps? Whereas, whining about using one's brain on a quiz is OK? Isn't there such a thing as brain fat?
"Wait till you get to college. Wait till you see the reading you get then," I want to warn them, the instinctive idle teacher threat. A couple years ago one student called my bluff: "No offense Mrs. Kies, but that doesn't work with us any more. When we're in elementary school, the teachers tell us, 'Wait till you get to middle school,' and when we're in middle school, they say, 'Wait till you get to high school.'"
This year our faculty council established a school-wide emphasis on reading. During our Guided Study time on Tuesdays, all students and staff are to get out something and read. We know that twenty minutes a week is not going to improve their ACT Reading Score, but we are trying to model and practice what we preach.
So, as a dedicated English teacher, I try a different approach of encouragement: "The reading IS hard, yes, but you need to work at it. I'm not giving you things that are simple because I want to challenge you and make you think. When I was your age (they always love anything that begins with these words, so I try to use them often) I remember liking stuff that had a plot that moved fast as the Lone Ranger after a bad guy. I get that. (take time to explain who the Lone Ranger is) But, if I give you something to read that is slow and that you don't like, suck it up and read it because it's good for you. It will make you a better reader, and you might learn something, like some new vocabulary. (maybe I shouldn't have said 'suck it up' here)"
Some heads nod in "game face" fashion, but the "yeah, rights" in their eyes are portals to their true feelings: How's reading this crap about some Native American dude visiting his grandmother's grave going to help me now? I've got plenty of time to worry about the future. I'm young. I can read OK. I don't want to read stuff that makes me think. I'd rather watch the movie.
They don't know it, yet, but at the end of the reading, which includes a Native American myth out of our Lit Book, "The Man to Send Rain Clouds" by Leslie Marmon Silko, and part of "On the Rez" by Ian Frazier, we are going to watch two movies: Lakota Woman, the story of Wounded Knee told by Mary Moore, and Smoke Signals, a modern Native American comedy/drama road trip.
However, I'm not sure the complainers in the class will have time to watch. I'll need to reserve the computer lab, so they can get started on their papers about their cultural heritage. They'll need the four hours of movie time to get all their whining out of the way so their papers won't be late.
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