NOTES: WHAT ARE WE DOING IN HIGH SCHOOL?

WARNING: the yearend meltdown continues. Remember that I teach high school juniors and seniors. Paramount to my teaching is the knowledge that they are about to be released into the wild, and I do not want them to be eaten alive by other wild animals........
  So many thoughts are roiling around in my mind as I grade research papers, and I realize that they prove my two overriding observations this year:
1) children need more practice in thinking critically and therefore writing critically and analytically because they do not read as much anymore, and
2) the emotional and moral youth of my students may prevent them from achieving what they so desperately desire-independence, integrity and happiness. Add to this the random (really?) ideas that come to me by way of students, other teachers, our student teacher, blogs I read, my kids--
** the move to retreat to young adult fiction for high school students that our student teacher is researching in her classes (not very happily either)
**the negative judgment of the classics as worthwhile (or the canon as I hear it now, though I am not sure what is on that list)
**the acceptance that new modes of writing are equal or superior in their significance and skill sets to the "old"--emails all of a sudden are "long" writing, blogs replace reviews, tweets are great creative tools, etc etc. Why can't we see them as new and not replacements?
**the expectation that everyone copies homework and that's not a big deal (for teachers either). For me, that means reading enotes is as good as reading the novel. Knowing about the book is the same as knowing the book. Really?
**that students cannot sit for long and should not have to.
**everything we teach should be fun and instantly engaging.
**grades are bad for kids. no grades are good.

The list goes on. I feel the need to react to these new "truths" in some way--no one wants to fail all the time (meaning me, not them). But everything in my heart cries out for the measured journey to achievement, surviving the bumps in the road, doing the hard stuff and being proud of yourself. Even the characters in the novels know this--Elizabeth Bennett suffers through her life until she knows what she feels. Holden Caulfield won't let go of what he instinctively knows to be true. We all suffered this year with Oedipus as he careens desperately towards truth and damnation in equal parts....... Kind of how life works, isn't it?
Is it true that they really do not need to read, to consider their own visceral reactions to something someone else wrote, anymore? I do know that I will not be teaching carmen figuratum to seniors in the future, because on the list of skills they must have, it is lower on the list than it used to be (a very long story, I assure you). But I would not understand my life today if I didn't know I exist in the myriad layers of human experience that now mark soft spring rainfall as a motif that a billion human beings still recognize as an archetype for cleansing.  But are there skills and concepts that I feel are critical, that aren't anymore? Have I lost my instincts?

And maybe this only means that I need to stop focusing on the kids that take the short cuts or know that doing the minimum will be enough, and focus instead on the great kids, who GET what you read and want to learn with me.....more later. Got to read more papers, hoping that they are the authentic ones.

Healigan loses her heart......

     Well, it has been a week since I  got my iPhone. I will admit that I was anxious to get a phone with internet access--my feeling that my own children would communicate more often with me has proven true. I know, we texted before, but now I am getting pics and I am in their loop--just another person on the list every day. Yes!
     But... I find myself struggling to leave it in my desk, instead of checking that quote or looking up the word I need.  I teach at a cellphone-free school, for better or worse, and though as a teacher, I am not restricted in my cellphone use, I have always tried  to respect the students by avoiding my phone throughout the day. Whether or not I agree with the policy has been irrelevant. Not so anymore.
     First, I did not understand the strength of the addiction that they must feel all day long every day when they cannot answer texts or check facebook. After the first hour, I found myself thinking of the phone as "she." After one day, I wanted to name it. And I love the way it feels in my hand; it is beautiful, like the Movado watch in the MoMA. Third, there are changes in the way I work already. Using my StickyNotes app to assess student  iMovie presentations Monday night, I found my iPhone notes to be succinct and more meaningful than the notes I made on my MacBook after the phone battery died.  It forced me to get it done, and working did not feel like working. The more informal work pattern--in my hand instead of sitting with a flat surface for the laptop--was great.
    So today, after six days in AppleLand, I went to Tech and demanded that they load Words with Friends on the 10 iTouches the school owns so my seniors can play on their last day of classes (next Monday). The problem? They have to set up a network to work it out--and I'm impatient because I do not have to wait for ANYTHING with Mr. Job's little toy. I am not usually demanding and petulant, but I suddenly realized that I was being rude and impatient. I am not sure how I feel about myself with an iPhone......more to come later. I am stopping now to go read American Gods on my Kindle for iPhone.

In which the bookworm teacher misses reading........and her seniors

Recently, I have been reading blogs from teachers linking children around the world,  digitally collaborating to create knowledge,  and developing methods and techniques to prepare our children for this new world. They inspire and motivate me to keep my mind and heart open to my children, to celebrate what they teach me every day.  At the same time, I love my literature: not only its beauty, but also how it has painted the world for me throughout the life. I have not traveled much, to my great regret. Many of the reasons have been beyond my control. But books always filled in the blanks for me, helped me never to lose that desire to know more, to meet others, to ask questions, to thrill at the unfamiliar.  So it is always a mystery to me that my students 1) no longer enjoy reading and 2) don't believe me, the avid reader whom they respect, when I say "try it, you'll like it."
And maybe my mystification comes from being educated in the latter half of the 20th century. During my school days,  teachers knew "it" and they gave "it" to us. We did what we were told, because our teachers knew. We worked alone. Studying paid off. If you got an "A," you were smart. Everything was measurable. Working hard had its rewards. Owning information or a book was achievement.  Reading the book, living the unknown secrets the author hid between its leaves, ploughing through the book even when it was hard,  have become the foundation for my fondest memories of school and childhood.
And then all of a sudden it was 2000,  and knowing where to find information became achievement instead. Reading about Jane Eyre was enough. Knowing the story got you what you needed.  Information. Not the tingle of love, epiphany of self-discovery, the thrill of not knowing, hate that you could taste in your throat, grief for which there (still) are no words, edge of the seat suspense,  madness that made you step back in fear: that is why Jane Eyre is still one of my favorite books. I suppose that I read it at the moment I needed it, when I felt the female becoming in me, but did not know yet what it was. If you tell someone the plot of Jane Eyre, their eyes glaze over. They have heard it before (I know, it is THIS plot that has been copied, but they do not know that). I still yearn for every moment stolen in a story read late at night with a flashlight under my covers.
Jump to the present: we just finished two critical projects in my World Lit classes: video podcasts on magical realist writers and personal digital dossiers. The podcasts are fabulous because at the end of high school, magical realism taps into the limitless possibilities that all my seniors can feel at this point in their lives. The world is theirs, all they can see is the blue sky and endless road ahead. I remember feeling that way, and my heart still jumps at the joy of it. It is how I manage my middle aged sadness every year when I lose them to their futures. Magical thinking is the last thing I can give them. They leave with their heads full of women with stars in their eyes and men who live forever. They never forget Federico Garcia Lorca or Charles Baudelaire. Students always return later, wiser, and tell me they understand "Get Drunk" now--seriously, Healigan, I do.

I'm getting lost here. I can imagine the comments sternly reminding me that they discover these joys themselves, that the new ways are better, and I get it. I really do. And I teach accordingly. But the reality is, they are just learning facts, listing plot points when they read sparknotes and wikipedia, just like I did when I memorized the names of all the Victorian authors. But what I remember most about English in high school is deciding on a Trollope summer after my 11th grade English teacher went nuts about him in one of her numerous digressions while we read Great Expectations. My students, who know so much, are not internalizing the experience of reading. So much of our learning throughout life is unconscious, experiential, random. Every time they wrote an essay this year, I find myself naturally sorting the essays by who reads and who doesn't, because their writing is starving for the experience of reading, of easy, sure expression of one soul communicating across centuries, genders, lands, races, languages, to touch one other soul. Reading is personal, intense, thrilling and creative. It informs their thoughts, feelings, relationships, values, clothes, music, driving, tastes, and decisions. Literature is the final and most critical character education (am I using the PC term?) that we have at our disposal........and posting 140 characters on Twitter (follow me, I'm @1healigan) is just not doing the same job.