Nine new cases in Cass County yesterday brought our total to 162 and our 14-day positivity average to 9.2%. In our small, rural Iowa county, these are big numbers.
After five weeks behind a mask for eight hours a day, you'd think I'd be used to it. Instead, I find myself increasingly tugging the mask away from my mouth to enunciate. Thursday I said something about grading and a student said, "I thought you said 'gravy'!"
The elastic pulls against the backs of my ears. By mid-day, my face feels damp and chapped. I'm trapped in a sauna of my own coffee breath.
I'm tired of not understanding my students' mumbles behind their masks, even as I appreciate the masks. Holding these contradictary positions makes my head hurt.
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Yesterday three of the ahsneedle.com editors interviewed our school district superintendent on Zoom for a story about the recent surge in cases in our county and school district. Because the editors were in the same room, we had feedback issues. Two of them had to log off and just listen and take notes as the lead editor asked the questions.
As I observed my students' handling of the interview and watched their notes unfold on the shared document, I was reminded of how far they've come as journalists over the past three years. The questions were tough but delivered without aggression. They circled back to re-ask un-answered questions in another way.
The gist of their inquiry focused on the district's response to the past week's surge and why the administration is not releasing actual numbers. (The district did release a memo acknowledging "cases in students and staff in multiple locations" but has not provided numbers to the press.)
To watch 17-year-olds interview the person holding the position of highest leadership in our district, and doing so with poise, confidence and professionalism is a journalism teacher's dream.
It was a highlight of my day.
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But wait!
My freshmen discussed when/how true learning occurs today. On Thursday we'd watched Father Guido Sarducci's classic "Five-minute University" sketch to get us thinking about authentic learning vs. temporary (only for the test) learning.
As a class, we considered times we've sought out learning independently, not for a grade or extrinsic reward, but because we wanted to learn/know something. One student told about learning to juggle and flying a remote-control airplane. Another said he is interested in psychology and seeks out learning related to this. One said politics. Another said she wanted to learn to drive the manual transmission jeep on her farm, but when her dad was too busy to teach her, she looked it up on the internet and taught herself. A boy told us about memorizing the periodic table in fifth grade just to prove to his dad he could do it.
Our discussion led to classwide agreement that intrinsically-motivated learning is fun--even exciting--despite its difficulty.
Unfortunately, in school, the learning goals are too often extrinsic.
What is a teacher to do when she is teaching a concept that she truly believes will enhance students' communication skills (and thereby their lives), but that the students are not intrinsically motivated to learn?
From these questions we headed to our notebooks to write as a means to figuring out our thoughts.
When I invited students to share their discoveries, the room exploded: kids told about times grades motivated them, and times grades stunted their learning. They talked about their parents sometimes caring more about the grades than they did. They spoke of a desire for corrective, instructive feedback, as long as that feedback comes from teachers they feel understand and care about them. The voiced frustration when they can't see a connection between learning and their own lives. They cited times a teacher's praise fed a small flame of possibility.
That, too, was a highlight of my day.
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Enough.
Be well.
Write.
Allison
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