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The last day of class is always sad. It's a day when not a lot gets done, and everybody should be pretty happy about it, but it's always just a little sad.
Today, I said goodbye to a class that just felt like the one. This class is a 22-person class that is its own brand of chaos: loud, talkative, outgoing, vibrant. It should be an introvert's worst nightmare. There are seven kids that you'd feel like are adrift in their shyness and hushed conversation, awash in extrovert energy, working quietly with each other. Seven introverts, surrounded by a class of extroverts.
Yet, I asked them once if the din of intense conversation or the buzz of frequent movement was too much, and they told me they actually enjoyed it, and were okay with it. They knew that they could do work somewhere else if the noise was too much, or that they could work with each other without feeling like they had to speak up. They did the work their way.
The other kids are extroverts and they talk. They talk a lot. And, yes, sometimes it's not on task. It's about their social lives, or things they're concerned about or stressed about. It's sometimes about grief (we had a coach die this year). It's about how frustrating or hard or boring their classes are (mine included). It's about how they really didn't learn this in Precalculus, or how this problem just has to be wrong (a problem they got in the math department really was wrong, and they asked me to prove it), or about how they never learned how to do any sort of technical writing in English class. It's that just as much as it is kinematics problems or lab report writing or why did I get the answer wrong or who's gonna write the abstract or bring me the answer key or Mr. Dudley please explain this problem to me because I just do not get it.
While the class was chaos, they are a group of 22 students who are the absolute loveliest I've come to know. Their class was never a chore, the learning was never dry. The discussions were always rich and humorous moments came in abundance. No challenge I ever issued was left unmet, and no task was left undone. This was the class dreams were made of, and I miss it already.
One of my colleagues asked me about that class. "How in the world do you put up with that...chaos?" they asked. "Easy," I said. "They do the work every single day, in their own way, without fail."
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I think the social value of school is drastically understated. Schools today emphasize academics in excess. Look at any mission statement, and it becomes clear very quickly that the vast majority of schools are primary interested in academic purposes. If kids did not see this element of their schooling in the forefront, they could learn the content in isolation in a homeschooling environment or online. Yet, kids flock to classes still, where we hammer the importance of academic achievement.
But academics ring hollow for me for two reasons. The first is that we still assume, like we always have, that the core of lame, dry, formulaic, and methodical classes will always hold relevance in isolation, that English is English and math is math and science and science and social sciences are social sciences and arts are arts and at no time should they meet. I know that the place where I learned math was in learning to read music, and the place that I learned to write best was in a science class, and the place where I learned to appreciate the story of science and why it evolved the way it did was in a history class, and that the place I first got an idea of how to be a decent human being was in a law class. These subjects do not exist in isolation; they are elements of the same story.
The second reason is that academics without human treatment are meaningless, at least in my humble view. We don't teach our topic to hear ourselves talk or to gloat about how great it all is, nor do our students want to hear us sermonize (and if we do, we're assholes, quite frankly). We teach our subjects because we think that our students will be better for knowing them, and it's our job to help students forge that connection in any way possible. In fact, in faculty meetings and in-services we preach, constantly, that human connection and personalization of content is critical to effective learning.
But, we as adults in school often get in the way of forging that human connection by preventing the growth of one thing: community. We force kids to be seen and not heard, and we regard obedience as paramount, because obedience means order, and order means ease. When kids are quiet or are "just listening", our jobs are easier. And we do this even though we stress the value and importance of community and engagement and participation. We want kids to talk to each other, but only about academics, and only about what's on task. It's a pantomime we want, and it's fucking stupid.
I think back to where I found community in my experience as a student, and I remember sitting around big tables in Bennett Hall at the University of Maine, or in my dorm room at 314 Patch, grinding out physics problems and eating food and making nerdy jokes. I miss those people, but a close of my eyes and I am there again. We survived problems together and learned more from each other than we learned from any professor. It mattered to us that we all understood what was going on. And if our professors had shut us up in class, we never would have had that community.
If you're part of that group and you're reading this, know that I cherished that time and I miss you dearly.
The hardest job is to let groups of kids be themselves safely, on terms that matter to them. This is the true work. When they do this, they flourish. When they don't, they struggle.
----------------------
I showed this Honors Physics class John Green's 2013 commencement address at Butler University. In this speech, John offers some advice to graduates predicated upon the idea of a good life, one in which education is the bedrock of empathy. He talks about the journey from strength to weakness as the hero's journey, not from weakness to strength as we all think. I tell them that they are making this journey, not only if they are making the jump from Honors to AP Physics, but as they go from seasoned juniors to seniors who once again have to be novices at something.
I tell them that I'm proud of their skill and capability and drive. I tell them that I cannot believe I am in the presence of such wonderful people and that I'm thrilled and privileged to have been a small part of their success. I tell them I'm grateful, for they've taught me so much.
Then one student raises her hand. She has a question. I ask that she make that question heard.
"Mr. Dudley, did you know that you're wearing your shirt inside out?"
I look down at the polo shirt I'm wearing, and there's a tag sticking out of my left side for all to see.
None of us can stop laughing.
Today, I said goodbye to a class that just felt like the one. This class is a 22-person class that is its own brand of chaos: loud, talkative, outgoing, vibrant. It should be an introvert's worst nightmare. There are seven kids that you'd feel like are adrift in their shyness and hushed conversation, awash in extrovert energy, working quietly with each other. Seven introverts, surrounded by a class of extroverts.
Yet, I asked them once if the din of intense conversation or the buzz of frequent movement was too much, and they told me they actually enjoyed it, and were okay with it. They knew that they could do work somewhere else if the noise was too much, or that they could work with each other without feeling like they had to speak up. They did the work their way.
The other kids are extroverts and they talk. They talk a lot. And, yes, sometimes it's not on task. It's about their social lives, or things they're concerned about or stressed about. It's sometimes about grief (we had a coach die this year). It's about how frustrating or hard or boring their classes are (mine included). It's about how they really didn't learn this in Precalculus, or how this problem just has to be wrong (a problem they got in the math department really was wrong, and they asked me to prove it), or about how they never learned how to do any sort of technical writing in English class. It's that just as much as it is kinematics problems or lab report writing or why did I get the answer wrong or who's gonna write the abstract or bring me the answer key or Mr. Dudley please explain this problem to me because I just do not get it.
While the class was chaos, they are a group of 22 students who are the absolute loveliest I've come to know. Their class was never a chore, the learning was never dry. The discussions were always rich and humorous moments came in abundance. No challenge I ever issued was left unmet, and no task was left undone. This was the class dreams were made of, and I miss it already.
One of my colleagues asked me about that class. "How in the world do you put up with that...chaos?" they asked. "Easy," I said. "They do the work every single day, in their own way, without fail."
------------------------
I think the social value of school is drastically understated. Schools today emphasize academics in excess. Look at any mission statement, and it becomes clear very quickly that the vast majority of schools are primary interested in academic purposes. If kids did not see this element of their schooling in the forefront, they could learn the content in isolation in a homeschooling environment or online. Yet, kids flock to classes still, where we hammer the importance of academic achievement.
But academics ring hollow for me for two reasons. The first is that we still assume, like we always have, that the core of lame, dry, formulaic, and methodical classes will always hold relevance in isolation, that English is English and math is math and science and science and social sciences are social sciences and arts are arts and at no time should they meet. I know that the place where I learned math was in learning to read music, and the place that I learned to write best was in a science class, and the place where I learned to appreciate the story of science and why it evolved the way it did was in a history class, and that the place I first got an idea of how to be a decent human being was in a law class. These subjects do not exist in isolation; they are elements of the same story.
The second reason is that academics without human treatment are meaningless, at least in my humble view. We don't teach our topic to hear ourselves talk or to gloat about how great it all is, nor do our students want to hear us sermonize (and if we do, we're assholes, quite frankly). We teach our subjects because we think that our students will be better for knowing them, and it's our job to help students forge that connection in any way possible. In fact, in faculty meetings and in-services we preach, constantly, that human connection and personalization of content is critical to effective learning.
But, we as adults in school often get in the way of forging that human connection by preventing the growth of one thing: community. We force kids to be seen and not heard, and we regard obedience as paramount, because obedience means order, and order means ease. When kids are quiet or are "just listening", our jobs are easier. And we do this even though we stress the value and importance of community and engagement and participation. We want kids to talk to each other, but only about academics, and only about what's on task. It's a pantomime we want, and it's fucking stupid.
I think back to where I found community in my experience as a student, and I remember sitting around big tables in Bennett Hall at the University of Maine, or in my dorm room at 314 Patch, grinding out physics problems and eating food and making nerdy jokes. I miss those people, but a close of my eyes and I am there again. We survived problems together and learned more from each other than we learned from any professor. It mattered to us that we all understood what was going on. And if our professors had shut us up in class, we never would have had that community.
If you're part of that group and you're reading this, know that I cherished that time and I miss you dearly.
The hardest job is to let groups of kids be themselves safely, on terms that matter to them. This is the true work. When they do this, they flourish. When they don't, they struggle.
----------------------
I showed this Honors Physics class John Green's 2013 commencement address at Butler University. In this speech, John offers some advice to graduates predicated upon the idea of a good life, one in which education is the bedrock of empathy. He talks about the journey from strength to weakness as the hero's journey, not from weakness to strength as we all think. I tell them that they are making this journey, not only if they are making the jump from Honors to AP Physics, but as they go from seasoned juniors to seniors who once again have to be novices at something.
I tell them that I'm proud of their skill and capability and drive. I tell them that I cannot believe I am in the presence of such wonderful people and that I'm thrilled and privileged to have been a small part of their success. I tell them I'm grateful, for they've taught me so much.
Then one student raises her hand. She has a question. I ask that she make that question heard.
"Mr. Dudley, did you know that you're wearing your shirt inside out?"
I look down at the polo shirt I'm wearing, and there's a tag sticking out of my left side for all to see.
None of us can stop laughing.
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