La tormenta perfecta (The Perfect Storm)

Nancy Hagstrom

On my first day of training as a new teacher in an inner city public high school, I was handed a folder that contained, among other things, my class schedule and rosters. In my folder, as is the norm for many high school world language teachers, I found that I was charged with teaching Spanish levels 1-5. I took a breath, and began to look through my class numbers. Spanish 4/5 had twelve students, Spanish 3, ten, Spanish 2 had twenty, and Spanish 1 had a roster so long that it was a stapled two-page print out. I took a deep breath. Intuitively I knew that this class would be my challenge this year. Thirty students in any class is enormous, and in a language class where much of the work should be interpersonal, project-based learning, thirty students is almost impossible. I put the folder away.

On the first day of school, my intuition was validated. As I began to get to know the class of thirty, I quickly realized that the number of students in this class was going to be the least of my problems. Sitting before me, on first day of school best behavior, were 13 freshman, 8 sophomores, and 9 juniors. The grade level breakdown was obvious, with the exception of one junior boy trying to work some magic with a pretty freshman girl, seats organized by grade. Also sitting in front of me were ten students with IEP plans, four students who were English Language Learners and had reading levels that ranged from between fourth and seventh grade, and six students who had 504 plans addressing severe emotional or behavioral issues. A perfect storm of issues was brewing and my task to differentiate was cut out for me.

As a second year teacher, I was excited to re-vamp and re-use my lesson plans from my first year, and to build on my previous successes in my second year in the classroom. However, my plans to do so quickly went down hill. One of the first indicators for me that this Spanish 1 class would be unlike any Spanish 1 classes that I had taught was the wide spread lack of homework completion. Despite my best efforts to make homework meaningful (I promised them we would use it in class the following day, it could be used on a test, one could fail the trimester if it wasn't completed) I routinely came to class to find that over 90% of the students had not done anything even remotely resembling Spanish homework. I spent a good part of September and October trying to remedy the homework situation, but I soon came to realize that my efforts were for naught. “Maybe homework is overrated” I thought to myself. I decided to re-focus my energy towards creating more engaging, student–centered, differentiated Spanish classes. Towards the end of October I began a project called “La segunda identidad” (A Second Identity) with the goal of having my students use, in a fun and applicable manner, the vocabulary, grammar, and conversational aspects of Spanish that we had covered in our first two months. The task for the students was this: to create an alternate Spanish speaking persona to bring to class for the “international reunion of Spanish speakers” to be held in class at the end of the month. At the reunion, each alternate persona would be expected to ask and answer question (in Spanish) of other attendees. All students would be using written work, would be speaking, listening, and also “immersing” themselves in Spanish culture. The students seemed excited. I was excited. As the day grew closer, and students continued to work on their projects in class, I was hopeful. Many students, it seemed, were focused and close to completing their second identity. Maybe, I imagined, the international reunion would be a success!

On the day of the reunion, however, my hopes were dashed. Despite the fact that the first student I saw before school that morning was dressed in his alternate persona ready to participate, when I arrived to second period I quickly recognized that he was in the minority. Of the thirty students in the class five had completed the assignment. Twenty-five were unprepared. Being that the reunion was entirely dependent on students having brought in their “alternate persona”, I scrambled to salvage the 88 minutes we had for class, and made do with what we had. I was crushed. Maybe I was a bad teacher, I thought, maybe I had completely over estimated their ability, maybe I am just not getting through to them. I left school that day fighting back tears. I didn't know what to do with the class.

Fast forward about a month to the beginning of December. I still didn't know what to do with the class. I dreaded period two each day, and I dreaded the 88 minutes that I knew I would be trapped in a classroom with them. Class to me felt chaotic, like a battle ground. I knew that I was not meeting student needs, and that my extreme attempts to differentiate for the different levels in the class were adding to the disaster. I felt like I was holding my finger in a dike, and if I moved it at all, the dike would burst and water would come flooding towards me, drowning me in my best efforts to hold it together. And then one day, the dike did break, and the water, in the form of students, came rushing forward.

It happened on a day when I had asked our teaching strategist to come an observe the class. I had met with her the week prior, and had explained to her how chaotic the class seemed to me, and how I was at my wits end with the lack of work completion, the amount that I had to re-direct student behavior, and the feeling that I wasn't meeting any student needs. She agreed to come and observe, but only, she stated, if she could help me plan the class.

The plan that we created included a class warm-up, small group work concentrated on a specific language study skill, and a group by group explanation and teaching session of their particular study skill to the class. The following class, the students would be taking a quiz, and the hope for the study skill presentations was that if the class heard and participated in six different ways to study, their quizzes would be successfully completed. The plan to have students teaching students stemmed from the idea that perhaps the students needed to be in the “teacher shoes” to understand why class was the way it was. I, willing to try anything, had agreed.

At the beginning of class that day I felt hopeful. The class warm-up had gone well, and students seemed to understand the task at hand. As the period continued, however, things quickly went downhill. By the end of the class period, students had been disrespectful to one another, students had gotten up and left class and not returned, only minimal work had been done towards the actual assignment, and I was so frustrated that at one point I had actually yelled at them. When class ended and lunch began, I slowly ate my sandwich, mortified. One of my advisees, who also happened to be in that class, walked into the room where I was eating. “So, that was a pretty bad class, today, huh?” He started, “I don't think I've ever felt so frustrated in my life.” I stared at him. Putting my sandwich slowly down onto the table I looked at him. “That is how I feel at the end of class every day.” I shared. The tipping point had arrived, I knew a class overhaul was in order.

It began with a simple suggestion from my teaching strategist. “You need to have a meeting with them.” I agreed. The following day, after a night of fitful sleep, I walked into the classroom armed with a white board marker and a class plan that consisted of two items. As students were entering the room and finding seats I carefully wrote on the board: AGENDA - 1. Quiz 2. Class meeting. I watched as eyes opened widely, and whispers rushed around the room. The quiz they knew about. But class meeting? They knew that something was about to change.

After the class had finished the quiz, I asked them to quietly corral their chairs into a circle in the middle of the room. I, too, pulled a chair into the circle, and sat, with my hands folded, waiting for the attention of the class. For the first time all year I found myself with all eyes on me. “I left class last time incredibly frustrated” I began. The room was silent. “And when I went home, I was still frustrated. And I was frustrated until I realized something.”

At that point, maintaining eye contact with the members of Spanish 1, I began to explain that I had realized that I wanted to be a teacher when I was leading multi-week wilderness trips, and I had recognized the power in teaching and learning new things. I had also learned the power of group dynamics, I explained, and how sometimes they go sour. “If we were all on a wilderness trip kayaking” I said calmly, “and we were on the water and things were progressing like they did last class, there is no way I would let the trip continue until we had pulled everyone over onto the shore of an island and figured out what was going wrong and how to fix it. I'm pulling us over right now, we need to fix this.” Internally, my heart was racing. I tried to retain my composure. “I need to know what we need to do to make this class one in which everyone has the chance to learn Spanish, to be respected, and to feel successful.”

I opened the discussion up to the class. The conversation that ensued was amazing, and the results were surprising to me in their simplicity. I established some “non-negotiable” items that were very important to me, such as respect for everyone's own ability to learn, and respect for each other, and then listened to the class discuss what their non-negotiable items were. By the end of the class period we had a contract that was in some ways intangible, and in many ways very tangible. I agreed to give them a 5 minute all class break every class. I agreed to switch their seating plan after every vacation. They agreed to be held accountable by a Habits of Work grade every class. They also agreed that if they were kicked out of class they were responsible for making up their disruption and absence to the class by teaching a portion of the following class. By the end of the discussion I felt as though I were seeing them for the first time, and I was thrilled.

The exhilaration that I felt when I left class was quickly replaced with nerves for how class would run the following day. Now, it is important to put the time line of this in perspective. The disastrous class had been held on a Friday, the conversation on a Tuesday (we have every other day block scheduling), and the first class to be held by the new rules would be on Thursday. The following week, however, was the last week before winter break, and as such I would only see them once. So, what I quickly realized was that the true test of the new plan would be put into place after vacation.

When vacation came to a close I once again found myself full of nerves. I would be embarking on a story-telling unit with Spanish 1, using an abbreviated version of Don Quixote de la Mancha in order to immerse the class in Spanish, build a vocabulary base, deal with some particular aspects of grammar, and hopefully engage them in Spanish. As I was preparing this particular unit over vacation I had also come to the realization that in order for the story-telling unit to be a success I would need to ensure that all students took comprehensive notes in class, and paid attention to the action of the story. Neither of those requirements would have been fulfilled prior to the class meeting, and with only two class periods in which to practice the new system, I was not convinced that the students would hold themselves accountable. I felt that I needed some sort of back up accountability for them, and so I decided that part of the class structure would include an end of class quiz during which any class notes could be utilized.

When we returned from vacation and class began again, I reminded them of the class decisions that we had arrived at and introduced the new story-telling unit, as well as the end of class quiz. As class and the story-telling began I was amazed – the students were engaged! By the end of class we had gotten through our first chapter of Don Quixote, we had taken a class break, and everyone had taken notes and completed their quiz. Later in the day when I was correcting the quizzes I realized that students who had done absolutely no work for me in the first part of the year had suddenly passed a quiz. Something seemed to be working.
I have now followed a similar schedule for this class for two months. The daily agenda is consistently similar to the following: 1. Class introduction (5 minutes), 2. Story telling in Spanish with scaffolded vocabulary (25 minutes) 3. Break (5 minutes) 4. Portion of the movie Don Quixote (20 minutes) 5. Quiz (30 minutes) I have rarely broken from this routine, and when I have strayed, I have found myself faced with a very similar class situation to what existed in the pre-class meeting days. The results for individual students in the class have been phenomenal. Students who were failing are now meeting standards, students who were disruptive and obnoxious now participate well. I have even found success holding students who are kicked out of class to the expectation that they teach a portion of the next class. My dread for period two has subsided. I now enjoy seeing this group of kids.

The problem, or potential problem, that I see with this scenario, however, has to do with equity and differentiation in the classroom. At this point I am not providing a high level of differentiation for students at all. Based on what proponents of differentiation would call for in a classroom, the extreme level of structure that has been implemented for this group of learners negates the possibility of providing a high level of differentiation. In fact, in a moment of “teacher guilt” I decided that I should re-incorporate some more differentiated tactics into the class and almost instantaneously all of the students fell back into their old roles, and the chaos returned.

I am perplexed by the fact that I am not, by a progressive educational stance, providing adequate opportunity for my students to access differentiated learning, yet within the structure that I have set up all of my students are accessing Spanish, and finding success. It is possible that for those who are great proponents of differentiation-based equity for all learners that I am not an equitable teacher, yet I find time within the structure of the class to meet with students individually, and more hands are raised to ask and answer questions. I worry sometimes that my high level students are not receiving challenging enough material to meet their needs, and yet when I watch them in class they are consistently on-task, and are working hard to complete quizzes and take notes during the period.

I wonder, as I look at this group of kids who are successful within this method, if it is okay to approach a group of students as a group, or a team, instead of a group of individuals who all have individual needs. My experience with this group would point to yes, and yet, I know that at some point I am going to have to figure out how to transition them to a greater level of independence, and that I will have to work with them in a way that supports their growth as individual language learners, instead of a classroom team. I wonder “how can I continue to provide a supportive structure that fosters success while simultaneously increasing their independence as students?” And I wonder about the time line of this independence as well. Perhaps when they begin Spanish 2 in the fall with me, they will surprise me in their maturity. Maybe the combination of differences in the class currently creates the perfect storm of problems in the absence of extreme structure, but a lovely team when those differences are not made obvious through differentiated methods.

Working with this group so far this year has made me re-think my ideas of equity. Prior to this year I would have defined equity as allowing all students to learn at their own pace, using differentiated methods, and attempting to teach to all learning styles all the time. As I have continued my experience with Spanish 1, which on paper presents a demographic that seems to be a precise mix of students with whom to practice my previous definition of equity, I have started to re-think what equity is, and how is looks in real life. As I look back to when I was adding to the disaster of the class by so extremely differentiating, I think that what I was actually doing was implementing a shrouded version of tracking. By providing so many options, students who were used to failing, could do just that by not choosing any of them, and students who were convinced that they were “dumb” could easily see what the “smart” kids were choosing to work on and make sure that they chose something different .

In this bizarre warping of differentiation as best practice, what I really was doing was adding fuel to the fire of self-doubt for many kids. In the instance of Spanish 1, it seems to me that the concept of equity has lain within the expectation that every student can do all of the work. Allowing students to use notes on quizzes has seemed to scaffold their success, and the fact that the notes have a purpose has seemed to scaffold the ability of students to act as academics, paying attention, asking clarifying questions, and being accountable for their own work. Within the structure, and because of the ability of students to follow the structure, it seems as though students have begun to feel confident in their abilities. The expectation of work and the success that students from all ranges of needs and various special education accommodations have found has put everyone on the same playing field – it has, in a word, made class feel equal.

Discussion Questions:

How can teaching professionals strike a balance between working with a class as a group of individual learners and also as a team?
At what point in pedagogy does “teaching for all learners” intersect with “holding all learners accountable?”
How can high school teachers reconcile the quandary of teaching academic content versus teaching academic skills (note-taking, study skills etc)? Do high school teachers have a responsibility to teach academic skills?

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