Gratifying

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the students in Native American Lit today: they were coming in with the first versions of their final papers, and since I've never taken them through a peer-review session, I didn't want to spring that on them. On my way to class, I decided to talk to them about what topics they'd chosen and how they'd narrowed down their theses--and whatever else they might have been worried about. As it turned out, I walked into a lively conversation about whether they can use other primary sources--and whether the primary sources count as secondary sources (um, no). They were willing to share their theses--even their first paragraphs--with each other, and had a lot of good questions. My one real concern is the sole remaining young man in the class: the one who has struggled all semester trying to figure out the difference between primary and secondary sources and who has tended to wax philosophical about the critical sources without mentioning the literature at all in his papers. He hadn't even started writing: as the rest of us were talking, he was reviewing the assignment sheet--and he was very confused, again.

I don't know why he is perpetually so confused, but--based on today's conversation--I think it's because he is a very bright young man who has suddenly found himself in a situation in which he does not understand what he is supposed to do. Part of the problem is that he tends to make things more difficult than they are (and they're plenty difficult enough), but another part is that this is all genuinely completely new and foreign to him, and he just can't quite get a handle on it.

But what was cool is that they started to talk about what they'd been taught in high school and what a shock my class was to them in terms of their grades and what I demand--but they were truly agitated about how they felt high school had let them down, hadn't prepared them, and they were truly grateful that they are at last in a situation in which they're being challenged. One--who may be the hardest working student I've ever had--said, "I've never spent five and a half hours in the library, never!" But she went on to say that she really loved that she was having to work so hard. I asked her why, and she said because she loved that she was being challenged--and that she was meeting the challenge (and she is). She also said she loves that she actually has to think for my class. Yes, dammit.

In any event, I did tell them what I know about the problems in the K-12 system (and I use the word "system" pretty loosely), about the ways in which the corporatization of education has corrupted actual learning values. I was thinking of the post I've seen recently on Facebook from a group called "Teachers laugh":
 They got incensed--and I urged them to write letters. One student said, "How can we write persuasive letters when we clearly don't know how to construct an argument essay?" Good point. But I said if they write the letters, I'll help them polish them up until they're worth sending off. One student--who is also a mother--said she would indeed write a letter. Man, I hope they do.

I also asked them to write down for me their experience in my class, gutting through frustration, doing the hard work--and having the joy of meeting a challenge, being pushed to a whole new level of thought. Good for Paul's and my project.

It was a great conversation, and one I'd like to have with all my classes. I found it enormously gratifying. And I was very transparent with them that I struggle over my own role in all this: what am I to do? Lower my standards, keep more students, but pass them along as has been done to them for the past 14, 15, more years? Or keep my standards, show them what they really need to know, how they really need to think--and recognize that I'll lose most of them before the end of the semester?

I may go back to that part of the conversation in our last class meeting. I really want their take on all this.

However, now it's quite late--and I still have three more papers that must be evaluated tomorrow morning, which means I need to get up and at it. I'm very interested to note that this morning my rotator cuff problem returned, making my shoulder extremely painful--and making me wonder if going to dance class was a good idea. Since I missed class to get papers graded (and now to write this post), my shoulder suddenly doesn't hurt so badly. OK, I admit, I did locate a place that may have been a muscle in spasm rather than the usual rotator cuff thing and massaged the hell out of it, so that may have reduced the problem, but I wonder how much of it was psychosomatic: here's the excuse to not feel quite so awful about missing dance class yet again....

I hope it isn't too hard to grade those last three papers in the morning. I think all three of them should be OK: one may even be splendid, which would be a hell of a treat. But now, if I don't get home soon, I'll have yet another night of being up way the hell too late--and pretty soon the minimal sleep is going to bring on a major attack of the stupids. I have too much to do to allow that, so off I go.