A Teacher's Happy Ending

Examiner column for February 25.

    How do teachers judge whether a lesson is effective? Education experts tell us that all lessons should result in demonstrable student learning. But who defines “learning”? Is it always measured by the end-of-course test?

    In my Advanced Placement literature course “Senior Seminar”, I operate with a double agenda that allows me to teach to the test and teach to the student at the same time. We read great books and write about them in essays that mirror the AP test format, and I give them several of the wickedly hard multiple choice tests that will constitute 45% of their final AP score.

    But the rest of the time I base my lessons on writing, reading, and class discussions that affect the student’s life and have fewer direct links to the test. I justify the class time by noting these lessons stimulate student thinking and ability to make connections--skills essential to both the test and success in college.

    I have no proof that spending time on college essays and discussing government surveillance (when we read “1984”) or changing women’s roles (when we read “Their Eyes Were Watching God”) directly result in higher test scores. What I do know is that students crave classroom links to the real world and, especially by their senior year, think the claustrophobic walls of the high school classroom are expendable—unless their teachers are able to convince them that what goes on within those walls is valuable after test day.

    One such class was the subject of last week’s column--a lesson plan born of necessity when I failed to get the test-directed multiple choice exam Xeroxed in time. Test prep was postponed and a life lesson on endings took its place.

    Margaret Atwood’s brief essay on “Happy Endings” was a hit with the students. In this piece, she composes several scenarios for the life of John and Mary. Ending A is the traditional 1950’s happily-ever-after ending; the others are variations that place roadblocks in the first story—derailing the fairy tale of A and turning it into a narrative that more closely mirrors the lives most of us lead. Her sobering conclusion is that the ultimate ending is always the same: “John and Mary die.” But Atwood adds that the important part is the journey--how we get to that end.

    I thought this three-page riff on endings would simply be a jumping off place for a discussion on the ending of the novel we had just finished. But Atwood’s compressed biographies of John and Mary resonated with students more than I expected and proved to be “an end” in itself.

    Cathleen commented on last week’s lesson: “It was seriously one of my favorite activities of the year. Atwood's ‘Happy Endings’ really got me thinking about how we should be focused on the journey that is our lives rather than if we get to have the house with the white picket fence, disregarding all that it took us to get to our ultimate ‘goal.’ You got me to think about life, and as you said, that's what Seminar is all about!”

    A comment like that is a teacher’s definition of a happy ending.

Comments

[Huy Ho]

As I was reading through my weekly chapter for the Developmental Psychology course I'm taking, I came across a section on children's cognitive development in the learning environment. This got the creaky wheels of memory spinning in my mind from way back in high school, slowly dredging up the memory, now nearly two years old, of a certain essay I wrote on the student-induced sound pollution that occurs in the classroom environment of our Senior Seminar class.

Although I've lost contact with most of my high school class, I still find myself thinking of them on random days like today -- maybe not as individuals, but collectively as people, as experiences, who, in one way or another, have helped me define my own on-going "ending."

I guess this comment has no other purpose than to say 'hello!' It's me, Huy; that kid that used to sit quietly in your Senior Seminar class, with apparently too many things to say but not enough courage to say them in class but still managed to write excellent practice AP essays (right, Dr. Jacobs!?).

I just wanted to let you (and Mr. Waxman, too!) know that I'm still doing well at W&M and the lessons and experiences you two have taught me are still with me. I hope things are going well on the Oakton front and although I've always aspired to be one of those cool "returning seniors" that visit classrooms of bygone days, I'm more busy than I thought I would be whenever I'm home.

Maybe one of these days I'll find or make the time -- until then though, I hope your teaching days will always be as cool as when you were teaching that 05-06 Senior Seminar class all those two years ago :)

[Cathleen]

Dr. Jacobs, I'm glad you liked my comment! I think one of the the best decisions I have ever made in high school was to take Seminar. You and Mr. Waxman really respect the students as individuals and seem to really be interested in what we have to say which is refreshing in high school. For the most part, high school is test preparation and making sure kids "get the grades" but Seminar is rewarding because it poses questions that cannot be answered "Yes" or "No" & "True" or "False." You really have to think and I can honestly say that I've grown as a thinker, a writer, and a person since I've came into your class.

As I look forward and think about which college I am going to attend, I find myself reading through the course catalogs (at first because my Mom was making me and later, because I want to see what path I will take with my degree) and looking for courses that are similar to yours -- ones that demand thought rather than memorization and ones that don't teach skills but develop and stimulate the mind. Of course, I will have to take the methodical, memorization courses from time to time but I want make sure that I go to the right place for me -- that place being one where I am able to think and share thoughts with like-minded people.

I can safely say that Seminar is not only "teaching to the test," it is also letting the students reflect and grow into young adults. When I first got my schedule at the beginning of the year I asked members of the class of '07, "How are Waxman/Jacobs?" I got the answer, "Oh, they are the hard ones!" But now, I realize that perhaps those students just didn't like to think, want to think, or perhaps due to a mild case of Senioritis wanted a class merely of memorization so they could "breeze" through their senior year. But that's not what I was or am looking for and I am glad to have gotten the "hard" teachers for Senior Seminar.

[Dr. Jacobs]

Huy---it is so great to hear from you! We need someone to come and talk about W&M because not many students apply there, for some reason. We would love to have you stop by.
And Cathleen! You are a teacher's dream student. Thank you for the inspiration for today's column, and for everything you've been in class this entire year. I will save your comment always--and have already sent it to Mr. Waxman!