Happy Wrong Number By The Sea

          Remember the Malibu Sands Beach Club? You know, the place where Zack and the gang got summer jobs one year working for Mr. Carosi? Those episodes are remembered most for the summer romance between Zack and the boss' daughter Stacey Carosi. At first, Stacey thought Zack was the typical California surfer dude who didn't understand hard work and Zack thought Stacy was a snobbish East Coast girl. Eventually they fall in love when they're able to see past their stereotyping of each other. A cute, albeit cheesy love story, but it's also a lesson for me as a teacher. Quick side note...the Malibu Sands episodes remind me why Saved By the Bell is not a good model of parenting. What kind of parents allow three teenage girls to stay in a beach house for the summer with no parental supervision and the opportunities for boys to come over?
          As a teacher, I find myself really having to fight against stereotyping my students. Whether it's from their physical appearance or early academic performance, it's tempting to typecast teenagers as trouble-makers, or geeks, or annoying, or air-headed, or lazy (the list goes on). Before I even get to know some of these kids and their stories, I unfairly judge them and paint them into a corner they can't get out of, because I won't allow them. My stereotyping usually doesn't affect how I teach, but it definitely affects how I respond and interact with students. I might roll my eyes when the kid who doesn't listen asks another question I've already answered if he was only paying attention. I might not be as helpful to the struggling student who has missed his last three homework assignments because I don't think he/she is trying. I might get into a sarcastic argument with that "thug" student who seems to go out of their way to be difficult.
          Obviously, those are my low moments as a teacher. I'm not proud of myself. Sadly, some teachers don't feel guilty about stereotyping. I've heard them talk in the teacher's lounge about students in such a negative manner, but then figuratively shake their heads as if there's nothing that can be done to change the child. As a parent myself, I would never want my son or daughter's teacher making assumptions about their abilities or character. Plus, students must know when teachers have stereotyped them and it only makes school harder for them!
          I will never forget a student I had a few years ago named Nicholas. He entered my class in the middle of the year because he was expelled from his former district. He was 12 years old and his file was already full of run-ins with police, gang-related activity, rumors of drug use and weapons brought on campus, and a reputation for being very disrespectful with teachers. I tried to keep an open mind, but within the first few weeks, he was challenging me in class in front of others, instigating, and trying to "look cool." It wasn't long before I just gave up on Nicholas, assumed he couldn't be reached and decided to challenge him back (yeah, because that's a solid plan that was going to work...take note of my sarcasm). To this day, Nicholas is my biggest regret. I often wonder what has happened to him and how I could have handled things differently. He was probably used to teachers holding his past and reputation against him. If I had approached him with a clean slate in mind and not been so quick to stereotype and quit as a teacher, perhaps it would have made a difference. Maybe not, but as teachers often encourage their students: you'll never know unless you try.
          In a way, stereotyping students is being pessimistic about them. It also demonstrates laziness on the teacher's part. I need to be willing to go the extra mile for students even if they have had problems in the past. I need to be willing to see past appearances because they can be deceiving. I need to be willing to be surprised by students who prove my assumptions wrong. If they had continued to stereotype, Zack and Stacey would have never loved each other, or Zack and Slater would have never become best friends with that cool handshake, or Zack would have never dated the handicapped girl, plus-size girl, or wrestling girl (why did those girls always disappear after one episode...no high school has that many transfers!)

The Pizza May Suck, But The Mouse Got One Thing Right

            Sometimes I miss elementary school. I miss being a little kid who looked forward to going to school, not because of what I learned but the whole experience. I miss a time when the little things brought me the greatest joy, like getting to play Oregon Trail in computer class (my son died of dysentery, yet I had no idea what that meant) or being invited to play handball on the big kids’ side of the wall. I miss the excitement of learning to play an instrument in band class (for me it was the drums) or finally climbing to the top of the massive jungle gym that by today’s standards would be considered completely unsafe. Even the classroom stuff was fun because the teachers focused on the basics: what we needed to know, when we needed to know it, like multiplication, or the California missions, or dinosaurs, or the Ramona books. Oh, and field trips! Those were the best because even if they were educational, it felt like a vacation and you couldn’t wait to come home and tell your parents about the adventure. Most students look back fondly at elementary school because it was fun, the teachers were nice, and there was no rush to grow up (except maybe the desire to finally go to 6^th grade camp)

            But something happens when students enter middle and high school. School becomes work. It becomes a job that they have to tread through for 6-7 years and the fun gets drained away. Sure, some students still enjoy school, but it’s usually only because of the friends they make and the extra stuff outside of school they get involved in (sports, drama, band, clubs). Some kids will enjoy a specific subject because it fascinates them or they have a passion for it, or it may even connect to a possible dream career in the future for them, but by and large, it feels like a lot of kids have a negative connotation of school after they leave the elementary world behind (I realize I may be exaggerating, and obviously I have no data to back this up, but sometimes the faces of the students I encounter say enough).

            So what happened? What takes place that changes school from an adventure to a chore? One theory of mine is that as teachers we’re forgetting the advice of the wise Chuck-E-Cheese…school, no matter what level, should be a place “where a kid can be a kid.” (Quick side note, as a parent, I obviously dread the chaos that is Chuck-E-Cheese and the pizza that goes with it…but I can’t deny the smile that lights up my daughter’s face when she goes inside one). I believe that teachers are sometimes (or frequently) guilty of trying to make their students grow up faster then they need to. Let’s be honest, every teacher has to admit that the assignments and responsibilities we ask of our students is nowhere near what we experienced when we were students. Yes, times have changed and the world feels like a more competitive place. So as a response, teachers want to better prepare students for that competition, whether its college or beyond. But there is a big problem that arises when we push our students and demand more of them.

            We’re robbing kids, even high schoolers, of their youth. Homework usually took me a total of 1-2 hours, which still gave me plenty of time to play football or basketball with my friends in the neighborhood. Projects and tests were spaced out enough so I never felt overloaded. Heck, we rarely saw the kids on Saved By the Bell doing homework. They had time to hang out at The Max, or make a music video for Hot Sundae, or sneak into “The Attic.” Today, a lot of kids are getting burdened with more. My nine year old nephew in the 4^th grade goes home every day from school with 1-2 hours of work and 2-3 projects each trimester to complete. Lucky for him, he’s great at school, so he’s able to still have time for soccer practice and video games. But what about other kids who struggle with school? I’m sure it takes them longer. How dare we take away from kids the time to actually be a kid!

Teachers have confused the word “challenge” with the word “more.” Teachers justify giving more work and testing students more frequently by claiming: “I’m challenging them….I’m pushing them to be better…I’m getting them ready for college.” I don’t know, but that sounds like being too lazy to actually create a different kind of assignment that really does challenge them (it reminds me of when Zack got a 1502 on his SAT and Belding put him into harder classes where he just had more work to complete). And by the way, since more and more students go to college after high school, why do middle and high school teachers feel the need to give students a preview by running their classrooms like a mini-college class with long lectures, lots of reading, and monotony? They’ll have plenty of opportunities to experience that later on when they really are in college! Now I know I’m guilty myself sometimes, so I’m trying to really evaluate what I assign my students and decide what’s really worth their time. I also try to make the classroom experience fun for students so that they (and I) can experience moments of “youth” more frequently. Teachers should make every effort to turn school into the experience it was in elementary school for us. Or instead of dysentery, our kids will die from exhaustion.