Why are districts facing an epidemic of students who aren’t passing their classes? Why are we struggling to graduate students from high school?

I believe the challenges for struggling students are multi-faceted, hard to pinpoint, and can’t be solved with a one-size-fits-all solution. However, I do believe teachers are oftentimes at fault for perpetuating the problem.

My job as a teacher is to educate. What does that mean, though? I’ve had dozens of conversations over the years – at multiple schools and districts – about what it is we actually teach. Are we, as teachers, responsible for teaching responsibility, time management, consequences for selected behaviors, morality, citizenship, real world realities, fortitude? Or is a teacher’s job to teach a curriculum and ensure children can show proficiency in that subject? Or are teachers responsible for both? Teachers have philosophies that run deep in the core of who they are. I’m not sure an answer exists to meet the needs of every child or every teacher. Nor do I believe we need to create one. What I do know is how I run my own classroom.

Let me go back to my earlier bold statement: teachers are oftentimes at fault for perpetuating the problem.

I’m not suggesting a teacher maliciously targets, fails or sabotages students. I will argue, however, teachers may lose sight of what I feel is our ultimate responsibility as teachers – to help children find success through differentiated instruction, intervention, individual plans for special circumstances, compassion, equity and fairness for all students based on their needs, and a focus on the course content.

Let’s take a look at a sample student to see how this plays out. Let’s call him Bob – because I’ve never had one in class. Bob’s story:

• unstable family life
  
• living in a middle-class neighborhood
  
• mixed race (Caucasian/Hispanic), but speaks English as a first language in the home
  
• performs at Proficiency in standardized tests
  
• struggled to pass English in seventh and eighth grade, ultimately pulling a D all four semesters 
  

Bob is capable, but struggling. As his teacher, unless he opens up to tell me why he struggles, all I can do is manage what happens in the classroom. Approaching the end of the first semester of ninth grade, it appears he won’t pass. This could be devastating for him. Students need to pass four full years of English to graduate high school. Projected out a couple years, he could potentially fail multiple semesters of English before his senior year, leaving him without enough time or summers to make up the credits and graduate high school; hence, he doesn't graduate. That is unless we work with him early to help him find success.

As a school team, we intervene. I re-evaluate his performance. I not suggesting I change his grades; I re-evaluate his performance.

• Does he turn in his homework? No
  
• Does he complete in-class work? Yes
  
• Does he perform at grade-level on quizzes and tests? Yes
  
• Have I been able to assessment him through oral, formative activities? Yes
  

Upon closer look, what I discover is that his homework grade is creating the biggest problem. Then I ask myself, Is he proficient in English and able to demonstrate that proficiency to justify a passing grade?

 Yes.

But it’s hard to imagine passing a student who earns an F in any class. So how do I “re-evaluate”? I look back at his homework grade. Turns out he’s only turned in only 20% of his homework. Not great, but each item turned in was an A. Regardless his performance, with the number of missing homework assignments included in his semester grade, he is earning an F.

So what’s a teacher to do? I had to go back to my philosophy. I want a grade to reflect a student’s proficiency or mastery of the content knowledge. Ultimately, isn’t this what a college wants to know?

I make accommodations for Bob. In the end, he is responsible for passing the semester final with a 70% to show he understands the material. He does, and he passes the first semester of ninth grade English with only a 49% in the gradebook.

Bob is now on track for graduation; he isn’t spending the next year trying to dig himself out of a hole he created for himself when he was only 14. That’s the part I continue to remind myself of … he’s just a kid. I WILL NOT let a 14-year-old child make decisions that will determine his future as an adult. I am the adult. I will cajole, push, encourage, accommodate, nurture and do whatever I can to champion a child.

This year he is in tenth grade and thriving. He is turning in more work, has figured out how to manage his home life, has become more organized, feels capable and is finding success. He’s also on the road to graduation and college. Did I have to change a grade? No. Did I have to lower my standards? No. In the end did I help teach responsibility, time management, consequences, morality, citizenship, real world realities, fortitude? I will argue “Yes.”

But you know the most important thing I taught him?

 Self worth.

In the end, ask yourself … are students really failing or are we failing our students? 

Of all the teachers I’ve ever encountered, I can pinpoint only a handful of them who stick with me today.

• Mr. Didier taught middle school French, and he had us engaged in the language by listening, speaking, writing, and reading on day one in seventh grade. By the end of eighth grade, I could carry on a pretty decent conversation in French.
  
  
• Mr. Bickel was my Geometry teacher. Every day we took notes and dissected triangles without fail. He was tough, but he had a way of engaging each of us. We were responsible for mastering the strategy, maintaining our knowledge, and performing every skill with precision. 
  
  
• Mr. Howard taught science. I can still remember some of the content we explored that year, and I’m sure it’s because the science class was taught through experimentation and questioning. In fact, he had a bulletin board on his wall all year with one simple quote: “Always wonder why.” I’m convinced that bulletin board influences my life every day.
  

I could mention a few others, but I think you get my point. We all have these: the teachers who inspire us to be better, teach us ideas and concepts that stay with us for a lifetime, and make us believe we are invincible.

But were these classes rigorous? Or do I just remember hilarity, style, personality, classmates? As a teacher, I think about this all the time. What exactly do I want my own students to walk away remembering? That I was the “cool” teacher? Or that I was the teacher from whom they learned more than they thought possible?

I will argue the later without question. And I'm convinced my own experiences with Mr. Didier, Mr. Bickel and Mr. Howard prove just that. But how is something like this accomplished?

Rigor.

Rigor is more than content and standards. Rigor is the why, the how and the “so what” – the ability to take the strategies, knowledge and skills and apply them in areas outside of one in-class assignment.

Let me give you an example near and dear to my heart – grammar.

Grammar worksheets make me crazy! I don’t use them in the English classroom, and I go ballistic when I see or hear of my own children doing them. Our educational system has decided that the eight parts of speech need to be taught, reviewed and practiced every year from kindergarten through twelfth grade. But many adults who lived through these painful worksheets themselves will argue they struggle with writing today. Businesses and hiring managers of the 21st century will argue that high school graduates don’t know how to write a memo, business proposal, marketing brochure or simple email. So do grammar worksheets equate to good writing?

No.

However, is it important to know how to write a complex sentence? Is it important to use introductory phrases for style? Can short and long sentences used in combination make a point more effectively than a report written without?

Absolutely.

Grammar plays a role in voice, style and fluency. However, grammar worksheets take grammar and teach it in isolation. Rather, a teacher who wants to teach an element of grammar needs to do so in conjunction with a rigorous writing curriculum. Let's take a look at one simple example. Instead of grammar worksheets to combine pairs of 40 simple sentences to create compound sentences, how about that same teacher:

• give students a writing model about a page long that includes sentence variety,
• ask the students to identify the compound sentences based on samples,
• give students a few minutes to discuss in pairs to identify the components of a compound sentence,
• require the students to annotate on the model the effect of each sentence type,
• tell them to take out the draft of a paper or essay they've started previously,
• require them to now color-code their paper based on sentence type and annotate for effect,
• require them to revise their piece for sentence variety, and then
• ask the students, in a formative assessment Exit Ticket from class, to give one example of a compound sentence as could be written for an argument paper in history and explain how using sentence variety can be more effective than not.
  

This is just a simple example, but in it you’ll see that the student will have had to learn parallelism, coordinating conjunctions, sentence types, audience and purpose.

Rigor requires not only content mastery as listed above, but also the ability to engage in that content, apply the strategies and skills, transfer the knowledge and show accountability for learning.

Rigor is a shift in teaching philosophy. It doesn't mean more. It means different. And I see no excuse for rigor not being the standard in all classrooms. No longer can we be content with seeing the same worksheets and projects year-after-year.

It’s time for a change. 

The summer before my freshman year of high school, I was required to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain) and Great Expectations (Charles Dickens). I remember sitting on my parent’s bed struggling to finish just the number of pages I was expected to get through, but enjoying the process of tackling the story and feeling confident upon completion that I’d done it on my own. As hard as it is for anyone to believe me, today Great Expectations is one of my favorite novels. I argue this is the case because I was expected to read it on my own.

However, that’s not the end of the story. I also argue it’s one of my favorites because my teacher introduced me to Pip and Miss Havisham and Estella in her unique and talented way once we started school that year. My only job that summer was to get through the texts. Upon our return to class, my teacher spent the first months of school helping us unpack them.

What I wasn’t expected to do upon my return to class in September was take a comprehension exam, a vocabulary test, and a character quiz that either set me up for success or failure within the first days of school. While reading the novels over the summer, I wasn’t stressed to the point of needing expensive private tutors, Cliffs Notes, Spark Notes, Wikipedia (if it’d existed) just to be “prepared” to be tested on day 1 of the new school year.

I’m sure my teachers must have been aware of the summer loss that we hear so much about today. They knew a summer reading assignment was a good idea. They must also have been aware of the importance of their role in teaching. Yes, my teacher challenged me with complex text, but knew that I was going to need her for:

• strategies for how to maneuver the subtleties of the themes
  
• background for how to glean context from character’s names
  
• approaches on how to read 19th century literature with all its language challenges
  
• help in understanding the power of the cliff hanger, audience and figurative language in relationship to the author’s staying power
  
• assistance in synthesizing the symbols from both novels to make an argument about classic, canonical literature
  

I am not opposed to summer homework, but I’d like to see it approached in a way that celebrates teaching and teachers while giving kids opportunities to enjoy their summers, challenge their minds, and kick start their curriculum work load in September.

Because I’ll argue any day that testing isn’t the point of education; rather, it’s the learning and love of the process that allows success.

Don’t you agree?