Seniors take their exams a week early in MNPS. First, to make sure they are passing, and second, to get them out of the building so there can be some semblance of order in our last week. I had mixed classes, out of my 88 students I had about 30 seniors. They were, on average, the worst behaved, lowest performing of all my students. They lacked motivation, were rude to me on a daily basis, and pretty much got away with whatever they wanted.
And they all passed.
They did not feel the pressure to pass. They put the pressure on me to pass them. So did the administration. No matter how low their math skills, no matter how often they came (or did not come) to class, and no matter how many assignments they did not bother turning in, they would pass.
That is terrible. It's a flaw in the system. They knew this day would come since they walked into my classroom in January and took full advantage of it. They knew counselors and principals would be knocking on my door telling me the students needed to pass. What can YOU do for them, Ms. Sudow. What extra time can you put in to make sure these students get a diploma.
Our principal called the teacher next door when he saw he had a few failing seniors and said, "I don't care if he has to stay here with you until 10:30 in the evening doing work, he needs to pass"...well doesn't that mean Mr. M is here until 10:30 in the evening as well? Didn't Mr. McFarland show up and teach every day? Why couldn't the seniors learn then?
When I changed grades and forgave missing assignments, when I saw just how low the math skills of the students I was passing actually were, I felt dirty. Dirtier on the inside than after a weekend in New Orleans (that's dirty). Didn't I become a teacher to stop that? Didn't I tell the students all along that they wouldn't just pass my class? That they had to work hard? That they had to understand the material? Why did I let this happen? How could I have done it better? Could I have just failed them and told the administration I wasn't willing to budge? I am not sure.
Maybe I wasn't a good enough teacher to them. Maybe I didn't do well enough bringing them up all along. Maybe, just maybe, there was nothing I could have done anyway. Our school counselor put it to me this way: Either you pass them and they have a degree that might not mean quite as much as you think it does, or you fail them, they are a credit short of graduating, probably don't come back to finish that credit and then are floating out in the world without any diploma...Which is worse?
Will my kids get to college or the work force and have someone think, who was the idiot that passed you in Math? How could you possibly have earned a diploma?
I made up for my failings as a teacher by not failing my kids. I hope that in the future I won't feel so unsure of my methods, that in the future I won't have to 'just pass' kids that turn in one or two extra worksheets in the 11th hour. That instead I drive them to work hard all along. I give them 'I can, I want, I will' attitude that is so necessary for success.
Also, I must say, this was not all my seniors. Some of my seniors worked so hard. They stayed in my classroom for tutoring during lunch, they texted or called me with questions, they begged me to keep teaching when the others were working on disrupting.
I will stand at graduation tomorrow and I will watch with a smile on my face. I will be angry and frustrated when certain seniors walk across the stage, but mostly I will have goosebumps and pride for what I might have helped start: a life with just a few more possibilities than if these students had not occupied a seat in room 233.
