For the school year that
just ended, I worked as a new faculty member at one of Philadelphia's
endangered accelerated schools, where students -- ranging from
16-to-21-years-old -- are given an opportunity to earn their diplomas, and make
up for time lost due to every conceivable circumstance. Sure, there are kids (I
call them kids, even though I'm only three or four years older than most of
them) who show up just to collect a SEPTA transpass (a trizzie in their
parlance) and do little else. But the level of determination and commitment
shown by many of these pupils is staggering. These are kids who, for the most
part, had dropped out of school at some point, but now are working to turn
negative aspects of their lives around. Many are just a few steps away from
college, a career, and a healthy, satisfying, and long life.
One of my proudest
personal achievements at school this year involved a literature class based on
my own experiences as a college student. I decided the class would take the
same seminar-style form as the classes I was enrolled in as an undergraduate
and graduate student. The idea was that students would be given a text in
advance, read it on their own, and then come to class to discuss. We would then
sit around in a circle with our reading and converse. I would take a minimal
role by asking opening questions, keeping the flow of the class going, and
taking attendance. That would be all.
My goal was mainly to
help the students develop critical thinking skills. Rather than teaching them
about narrative styles by introducing terms like 'third-person omniscient' or
whatever, I would just let them read the story and then ask something like 'Why
should I trust the person telling the story?' My optimistic theory was that this
particular format could work equally well for middle-class grad students and
inner-city youth.
The idea was admittedly
far-fetched. While the laissez-faire form of the class would be easy on
students, to say the least, the newness of the form would be a challenge. Could
I really count on students to read independently? And if they did, would there
be any guarantee that they would understand the material? Or want to discuss
it? But, I was determined to
try it, believing that the same gumption I saw students demonstrate personally
would help them academically, as well. Then a blow came in the form of TABE
test results, which concluded that not one of the students in my class could
read beyond an 8th grade level. It was too late to change course,
though. I knew they could keep up with more demanding work, pushing themselves
when necessary. Or at least that's what I hoped for.
The first class was an
unmitigated disaster. I explained the way the class would operate while the
students sat around with dull, confused faces. They had no questions and I had
nothing left to say. I handed out the first assignment, Somerset Maugham's
classic "The Appointment in Samarra" and then, perhaps heeding a lesson from
the story, let the rest fall into fate's hands.
Thankfully, the students
approached and engaged the text dutifully. They may read at an 8th
grade level according to the tests, may lack the vocabulary and sentence
construction skills to be taken seriously by most of the professional world,
but they certainly can read, discuss, and understand Albert Camus or Wiliam Faulkner
or Toni Morrison. As the year went on, the class slowly and adroitly analyzed poets
such as Ezra Pound, Wiliam Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens. I even had them
write Imagist poems based on the busy intersection where our school is located and
they did a wonderful job. They used dictionaries to discover and define words,
gained better writing and communication skills by reading and talking about
some of the greatest writers ever, and, hopefully, gained a real sense of pride
in the work they are doing.
Just as 45 minutes has never been enough class time, the year ended too soon. Even though I should be pleased, I was saddened that we had just finished reading The Great Gatsby and now there was nothing left for me to hand out. But I don't need to worry about these kids and the others like them. Despite the shortcomings of our urban school systems, the dire prospects facing even the youth that do graduate, and the harsh day-to-day life that so many of the students I worked with face, the class renewed my faith in Socrates' credo that the only certain good is knowledge and the only true evil is ignorance.