To Ms. Rob's Students, Past and Present

To my Students,

I taught myself to read at the age of three. It wasn’t something that I wanted to do; it just happened. And since this time, I have been a self-directed, self-guided learner, one that can find interest happily for hours in the most mundane types of learning tools – textbooks, newspapers, and even instruction manuals, if there is nothing else available. I am quite happy to sit and watch documentaries and learn. 

When I wanted to redo the floors in my house, I talked to a bunch of people because I don’t think that YouTube was popular at the time; today, it would be a cinch for me to watch a video and get the answers. I know how to do this because my teachers taught me, not necessarily how to complete floors, but to learn how to find information.  

So, if I had to take stock of the things that I want you to be as students, as current and future facilitators of learning, I have to take stock of my self as a teacher and facilitator of learning. What exactly is it that I want to teach my students?  Not what you need to know to pass a test, but really, what do I want my students to gain from my class – and how I have gone about doing it. So, why do I use the variety of methods, the methodology, the knowledge that I do in the course? I want you guys to know three things: I want you guys to take the onus of learning on your shoulders; I want your learning to be fun; and I want you to develop critical thinking skills – be able to take facts about the world, despite what the cultural norms are of the day and make sense of them using what you know about the world from your own experiences.  

One, it’s never been about the points. And to my former students, I apologize. I have administrative requirements that force me to give you x number of formative assessments a week, but if I could, I would have you guys read, research, and then we talk about the material—putting it into action.  I have never cared about you doing worksheets in class – those nickel and dime assignments that I have to give you to make it seem like I am teaching. Don’t get me wrong; they have their place. I like them to reinforce the things that we learned in the lectures and to make sure that you are on task. But that’s not really how and why I want to teach. I know you guy’s cheat on those; you copy the answers, and then you turn them in. And that’s why I give you points for doing them. There are times when you could write, “Blah, Blah, Blah,” for each answer and write your name on your paper, and you would get full credit on the assignment, they are really just to pad your grades and participation points.  But lately, going through the Master’s Program at Michigan State University; however, there are a few things that I would like to do more on the more serious assignments that I give you, use less rubrics and give you feedback on the assignment, but give you full credit on the assignment (which I pretty much do right now anyway), enact more project based learning, but more so than that, I have learned this about myself more concretely than I ever have. 

My mother told me years ago that she had a class valedictorian that was as dumb as rocks. 

I asked her why she thought that and she said, “Oh, don’t get me wrong. He was a smart kid, but he had no intellectual curiosity. He did the work to get the grades. You, your grades were shit, but you were a much smarter kid then he was.  You experienced the knowledge, he just learned it.” And while I don’t want you to sit in class and just do nothing, I want you guys to think about the dichotomy of this. There have been many of you that gotten A’s for turning in every piece of paper which is fair, and students that have gotten A’s for turning in no assignments but talking to me after class about how they make connections to the material and how they synthesize the material and apply it in other ways. And that is also fair, because in both of these situations, the students are learning, just in different ways. And while it is my responsibility as an educator to treat you all fairly, I do not have to treat you all equally. You are not all the same person, and therefore, some of you will have different needs.  

There are times when you think that we aren’t learning, but we are. Everything we do in my class is attached to learning. When we are playing video games, or I am waxing nostalgic about the 1980s and how I played video games on a Commodore 64, all of that is history – it gives you a frame of reference for where you are now in life, technology-wise. When you ask me to play hip-hop, I make sure to let them listen to old school American Rap, Hip-Hop, and R&B. I need my students, especially my Chinese students, to know the history and the struggles that their music came from; I find something is missing in just blindly liking things to like them.  Everything is a learning experience, even listening to music from a culture seemingly a million miles away from you, literally and figuratively.

Whenever we are watching movies or films, or listening to music, there is something I need you to get out of it, maybe history related, maybe not.  We watched Lars and the Real Girl in class because I needed you to know about tolerance.  I showed Black Panther to my Chinese domestic students to show you the glory of the African culture – and to learn English.   That’s why I spend so much time, I hope, teasing you playing around with you because I need to know what you like in order to teach you best. I know that you guys like video games, so we play video games. I know that you like rap music, so I use Epic Rap Battles of History. I know that you guys respond better when we have PowerPoint’s, so I try to have a PowerPoint. I need you guys to know that in my class when it comes to your needs, I hear you. I see you. 

Which brings me to my second point: I try to meet you guys where you are. I’m going to say this in a way that I will not need to clarify later: I don’t care if you guys are weird, or autistic, or gay, or black, or white, or whatever, I love you guys because you are my students. I want my classroom to be a safe space, and while I know that there are some things that I shouldn’t teach you, when my classroom door is closed, “What is said in the classroom, stays in the classroom.”  

It is not my intention to dissuade you from anything that your parents tell you is right, or what the government thinks that you should know, I also want you to know there is more than one way of thinking about things. Some people think differently about the world than you – and I want you to be prepared. I don’t want you ever to be caught flatfooted and not able to box yourselves out of the corner.  

I have not always been the best of teacher: I hate grading papers (hence, why I make sure that I grade things on the spot; I hate making PowerPoints; I am sometimes unprepared because my plans for the class are too grandiose and I don’t want to type up all the work and even sometimes my attention span is off. That does NOT mean I don’t know my shit and that I have the best interests for you at heart. Even at my worst, my most unprepared, I am better than you guys on your best days – I’ve honed my craft for a long time. I also know you are teenagers, so you think that you know more than me, and in many things, you do. There is nothing wrong with you teaching me sometimes, and it is one of the things I love about teaching, the free flow and exchange of ideas. Teaching and learning are never one-sided – never passive. Each side must be active. Even when I am giving you silent reading work, I am asking you to

Finally, and I have already said this, each one of you is a unique student with a unique destiny, and it is my job to bring it out of you. I have tried the best I can, and I hope that I have filled you with confidence and intelligence to be the best you can be. I want you to be lifelong learners, which is not just some bullshit teachers say to inspire you to be all that you can be. No, it is a real thing – if you learn how to learn, it is a skill you use forever. Not just learning trivia, but learning – how to be good people, how to read people and their moods, how to traverse the world.

I mean, a little trivia might be useful too.

Ms. Rob