Down the path2

message to class of 09

It was a great honor to be your teacher this year. This is my ideal job. I wouldn't trade my students at PATH for any in the world. You challenge me every day with your wit, your skepticism and your honesty. Every time you tell me WTF, I get to think about how I could do things a little better next time. In a way I owe you for making me a better teacher.

I have a vested interest in having you all graduate from college. You see, I would rather have you running the world than most of the people who are running it now. I like the idea of your hearts combined with minds that have risen to there they're their potential. You will bring a sense of fairness and an needed perspective to the world.

Believe in yourself and fight for yourself as you make your way through college. Take risks. Your surest bet, the gamble that you have the most control over is the gamble on yourself. Don't necessarily blindly follow your advisers. Often they either tell you what you want to hear or tell you what is the safe path.

students whom I failed

All of you were capable of doing the work of Humanities 4. It is a tribute to you and to your teachers and parents that you could. There is a huge difference, however, between 'could have' and actually pulling it off. You were cheated if you did not write the papers and did not pass the final. You were cheated of the reward. You need to feel the reward so that in the future you will be willing take the risk of working hard again.

Your failure to complete the work of the course is my failure. I apologize for failing you. It is the responsibility of the adults in the building to provide you, as superintendent Carol Johnson directed, with "high expectations, high relevance, and appropriate support". If somehow you got the message that you didn't really have to understand and study and write about your relationship to history and the world, that doubt would give you an 'out'. It is not in the nature of a healthy 17 year old mind to do anything unnecessary. You would be crazy to. Unless the adults in the building can be crystal clear about our expectations you are cast adrift. If there is a history of saying one thing and doing another, where some kids get away with not passing and others don't, where the very definition of passing seems subjective and random, that is a problem in the institution. You deserve better.

on the seminar "for no apparent reason"*

I want to address the observation that "because of a high level of stress in the last few days, I ask Mr. McKenna not be allowed to to give make up work the week of graduation."* The reality is, I don't set the schedule. (see copy of 5/18 email from headmaster to teachers below)

I don't really like stress. On most days of the school year that is why I sit in 366 till 3:30 or 4:00 reflecting on the day just passed and planning on the day to come. I don't leave until I have figured it out. I hate waking up in the middle of the night stressing about the next day.

And so I sat every day from May 13th till June 4th. It was I quiet space to work, to write your paper, to get help. There were computers. I saw very few of you. I was a little bored because I had stopped teaching, allowing you 10 hours of in-class time to write your papers and 6 hours to study for your final. In retrospect, it was a waste of time. There were many more things I wanted you to experience, to read, to learn. We missed Neruda, Gabriel Marquez, Valenzuela. This class didn't read and perform one act plays in the park.

I think I told you on the first day of school that in order to pass the 3rd and 4th term you would have to write papers. I think I told you a scores of times.

The research paper assignment was easier than the year before, 10% shorter. Compared to last year's class, far fewer of you completed it on time. The valedictorian didn't. Some of the best writers didn't even pass it in since they knew they would pass anyway. I guess I failed to reach you.

I was not impressed by your lack of effort, upset since you all had the ability. Perhaps it is the school culture. It seems to be getting worse every year.

All of the students who were invited to the 4 day seminar this week had a shot at passing. Students were asked to leave for solid, well considered reasons, like not having made progress on their paper or failure to prepare their questions by rereading the articles. They were living in a dreamworld where students don't really study.

Happy graduation. Conditions are such that is not likely that I will attend. Good luck.

*from former class president letter to my boss

May 18, 2009
from: Hilton, Pamela
to: Mawakana, Yvonne, Tim, Maureen, Winifred, Anna, Jeanmarie, Zahida, Ivette, Steven, Jeanmarie, Matthew, Hamida, HamidaMerchant, Mark, Amy, Leo, Carole, Paige
	
Dear ILT and Senior Teachers, .. In a letter about to go out to the seniors
we have the senior finals as:

May 27 to June 2 - Senior Finals
June 3 - Make-up
June 4 - Sign-out

Usually we do it this way even in the past when we did not have as many
snow days as this year. If we think this year will require more make-up
time, we can adjust the schedule. Also we will allow seniors after June
4 with a final overall average between 60 and 69 a chance to do further
make-up as we did last year and see if they can make up enough so they
may 'walk' at graduation and not go to credit recovery for August
graduation.

on high stakes testing

In spite of my best efforts, I never did figure out a way to impress upon you the importance of studying for exams. Even at the end of the year I would still hear "Mr. I don't study for tests. I never have. I do it from memory." This may be one of our biggest failures as educators.

It may well be another one of the unintended consequences of MCAS culture. The whole testing business is a flawed because it does not understand the human need for satisfaction, for feedback for the thrill of victory the agony of defeat. We give a test and tell you how you did 3 months later. 'Who cares' is the only appropriate response. At BPS the MCAS seems to be the only test, the only bar to scale, the only challenge to overcome. Sure there are the city finals. Get a 50 and you pass. What a joke.

There are very good reasons for tests that count. The process of studying reawakens those neural pathways that may have only been faintly laid down in your original exposure to the material. In studying you reinforce those connections and what you learn becomes part of who you are. In taking a test after successfully studying for it, those connections light up in your brain but something else happens too. The reward circuitry kicks in. When you know you've 'got it' you get a flood of neurotransmitter through your brain giving you the experience of pleasure, using mechanisms strikingly similar to those of drugs. It happens again if you get the test back (if you get it back quickly). This is much better than drugs. This is earned pleasure. The human mind has evolved so that successful thinking is rewarded and it is that feeling that drives you to want feel it again.

By creating a system where no tests count the BPS has robbed you of an essential human experience and left you ill prepared for the complex world we have evolved into.