In the early days of teaching this class, the inevitable happens.  Student’s eyes roll, they groan and say things like, “Let me guess, your gonna have us write questions, right?”, or “Natural Disasters, again?, or “Why are we doing Science in English class?”  They project a smart-alec, who-does-she-think-she-is attitude.

It is common.  In fact, it is probably a good sign. You are asking them to work, and they don’t want to. 

The schooling our students’ have known is teachers reading to them, teachers giving them worksheets with limited expectations of completion, video watching, and a lot of teacher talking, and talking, and talking.

Our students don’t want to do work, they want the teacher to.

So now they are enrolled in new class, taught differently, with serious intentions of saving lives. It is different.  This class, this curriculum, this teacher, IS different.  And the student gets confused, because in THIS class the teacher is excited, and confident, and serious about getting students to read--to read better, to read more, to LIKE reading.  “She must be trippin’ ” they think.

So, naturally, they want to disrupt this. Certainly, they will challenge it. Which for well meaning teachers causes doubt and insecurity. They want to scare, or hurt, teachers into not feeling confident.  They want to co-opt teachers into negotiating what they teach, but really what they want is for the teacher to let up on the gas, to lower the expectations.

Sigh, groan, whine…“Natural Disasters, again….?”

The insecure teacher says, “Okay, what do you want to study, what will you read and enjoy???”   And then she’s “had”, because regardless of what the students say, in three days it’ll change. It isn’t the topic they have issues with, it is the work.

We stay in units for very purposeful reasons.  Adolescent urban students need to develop “schema” to have successful experiences, they need an ever growing bank of vocabulary, of background knowledge, of points of connection, in order to enter the reading act and enjoy success.  Changing subjects every day keeps them at beginning levels every day.

The topic, however, isn’t “the thing.”  We use the topic to build literacy schema, not content schema.  We desire daily practice with literacy and thinking strategies.    We want kids, everyday, to make connections, ask questions, predict, visualize, summarize, interpret, synthesize.  In short, to think. 

So the next time students say, “Natural Disasters, again???”  You say, “Yup.  Get over it, because I’m going to make you a better student, and it’s gonna save your life.”