Writing on a blog regularly is something that doesn’t come naturally to me – I like to write in big, full-featured posts that include links to pictures and slideshows and background articles, and that takes a while and in a busy schedule it often ends up being the lowest priority on the totem pole. So let’s forget the extras and ramblings and focus on a single story, a vignette.
Note that now, as always, names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Alice is a freshman in Mr. MacGregor’s algebra class, and also is part of his math support class, where students doing poorly get an extra hour of math each day. On a couple of successive visits, Alice pulled out a romance novel and sat quietly reading during the lecture. Now, to set the scene, Alice sits in the very front of the class, closest to the teacher’s desk – there was nothing subtle about it. As per usual, the teacher told her to stop reading and pay attention, she ignored him, and he was too busy to really follow up much.
So, Mr. McDonald to the rescue! I walked over, sat down quietly next to her and started talking to her. As it turns out, Alice has been reading since she was really little, maybe around first grade or so, and she likes to read, at least a heck of a lot more than she likes listening in math class. As in many cases, rolling with the “disruptive” behavior for a minute without condemning it tends to produce results:
Mike: So, you’re pretty good at reading, huh?
Alice: Yeah, I guess.
M: Are you better at it now than you were when you first started?
A: Yeah, probably.
M: Why do you suppose that is?
A: I don’t know, I just got better.
M: How about math, do you like that?
A: No.
M: Are you any good at it?”
A: No, I suck at math.
M: Is that why you read instead of paying attention to what’s going on in class?
A: None of what he’s saying makes sense. It doesn’t matter if I pay attention or not, I don’t get it.
At this point, I’ve talked to her about something she’s good at, reading, and worked in a bit about why she’s not doing what I wanted her to. Now I want to make a connection about why her behavior isn’t very productive.
M: That’s a pretty long book you’re reading there. Did you start out reading books that long?
A: No, when I started they were little.
M: Oh, like picture books, and not a lot of words back then, right?
A: Yeah, I guess.
M: So then after a while you just read enough books that you could kind of make sense of things, read better stories?
A: Yeah.
Now I’ve laid the groundwork that there was something she learned, practiced, improved at and now enjoys. Let’s make that explicit:
M: You ever do any sports or anything?
A: No.
M: How about dance? Do you like to dance?
A: Yeah…
M: What happened the first time you tried to dance, do you remember? Did you have any good moves?
A: Nah, it was pretty bad.
M: But you’re better now, right? I mean, you’re not still bad, are you?
A: Yeah, now I like it.
M: So because you like it, you do it more, and because you do it more, you get good at it and you like it… you see where I’m going with this?
A: Yeah … I bet you want me to put my book away and pay attention in class.
So she knew all along I wanted her to stop reading the book. I don’t think she knew exactly when the other shoe was going to drop yet, but she knew pretty well where it was coming down. Still, the tone of the conversation is, well, it’s conversational, not confrontational. Confrontation doesn’t work, especially when as in my case you have absolutely zero authority to mete out any sort of punishment anyway (I often wonder how well a time-out corner would work for 9th graders!). So, since she’s brought it up, let’s go in for the kill:
M: Well, think about it like this: When you first danced, your body didn’t know how to use all the muscles you have to make you look good when you tried to move to the music. Some of those muscles were weak, and others you just weren’t used to using that way, so I bet you looked pretty funny.
A: (Laughs) Yeah…
M: But then after a while those muscles got stronger, and you learned to use them better, and you got better at dancing because you kept at it, you know, like practicing.
A: (Quietly) Yeah, I guess…
M: Now here’s the really crazy part – your brain is just like another muscle, and it can get stronger too. When you learn something new, like how to read, it’s like your brain is learning a new way to dance. At first, you didn’t have a clue what all those letters on the page meant, and now you’re reading whole books full of little symbols that make words!
A: Ok.
M: Guess what? Your brain has a math muscle, too. When you don’t understand what’s going on in here, it’s like you’re trying to read a whole big book but you haven’t practiced enough on the smaller books yet. You’ve gotta train your math muscles, and Mr. MacGregor, he’s like your coach, and he’s showing you exercises to get those muscles stronger.
A: Ok, so what am I supposed to do?
M: Well, you’ve already practiced a lot with your reading muscles… maybe you should try using the math muscles a bit. After all, you can read at home, but Mr. MacGregor isn’t going to follow you home to help train your brain. The work during class is like exercises – even if they’re hard, struggle through them and eventually you get stronger and better. Or you can keep reading, but… it’ll be like your first time on the dance floor, every time you try to do math. Not pretty.
So this conversation all happened in the span of about 5-6 minutes, for all it’s a thousand lines typed out. And, as I expect most teachers have experienced, for all the effort I expended most of Alice’s replies were only about 2 words -- not very encouraging. But after we were done, she put her book away and paid attention for a while without getting too distracted. In return, I tried to come back frequently during the hour to see if she had questions.
Over the next few weeks, I didn’t see the book ever come back out. Now, this was no panacea – Alice passed first semester, but like most of the students passed by the skin of her teeth and likely would have failed if not for Ypsi’s cook-the-books grading scheme. But when she gets off-topic now, she is far more receptive to me when I urge her back on, and she is also far more open to asking me questions now that I’ve spent some effort having a conversation with her that consists of more than “Put your book away, or it’s a referral.”
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