I've been thinking a lot this month about my students and the challenges they face. It's like all students come to school with a bucket. Picture one of the five gallon bright orange ones from Home Depot. Our students come to school with their bucket and teachers create the very best learning they can and pour it into the bucket. When the bucket's full, we show the students how to work with what we've poured to make something meaningful out of it.
Work with me here. Imagine Johnny coming into math class. His teacher wants him to learn how to add and subtract mixed numbers. She creates an awesome lesson that involves modeling and fills Johnny's bucket up with adding and subtracting mixed numbers. Then she shows Johnny how to use what's in his bucket to solve problems. Presto chango! Johnny's got adding and subtracting fractions down.
Except that some kids can't get their buckets to school. There are lots of reasons for this, but most of them are adult created. If the bucket's not at school, it can't be filled. Schools typically try to solve this problem by calling the parents, sending letters, and using truancy officers to try to get the bucket to school. When the kid finally arrives carrying the bucket, teachers pour like crazy--filling the bucket to overflowing, trying to make up for the lost days. The kid leaves school that day with a bucket full of pieces that don't connect, overwhelmed and not super motivated to figure out a way to come back.
And some kids have a lid on their bucket they can't get off. Maybe it's hunger or the fact that they slept in a tent last night or the fact that the police were at their house. Again. That lid is stuck on, and nothing is going in. Sometimes educators don't notice that, though, and try to fill it up anyway. Everything just spills all over the place, making a mess of the kid, the classroom, the teacher's shoes. Everyone gets frustrated, and the kid leaves with an empty bucket that still has a lid on it.
Sometimes the bucket is missing its handle. For a variety of reasons, some kids can't manage the load they are being given. The kid WANTS to learn, so badly, and lugs that darn bucket to school every single day. But managing a really heavy and full bucket when you are just a kid is HARD WORK, and things--important things--are going to spill out. Messes are going to happen. Learning opportunities are going to be lost.
Some kids were handed smaller buckets at the bucket hand-out place. They faithfully bring their bucket to school every day, holding it out for the teacher to fill. At some point, it's going to overflow and things will get dumped. Unfortunately, the kid has no idea what to dump and what to keep, so the dumping is pretty random and haphazard. When it's time for the magic to happen where all the pieces come together, this kid is going to be missing important parts.
Oftentimes there are holes in the bucket. It's getting filled, but is leaking. Some kids have more holes in their buckets than others. Some kids have really small pinholes and others have big gaping holes. Teachers are working hard to fill buckets, and important components are spilling out on the floor, and the kids don't have time to patch the holes.
And then there are the kids whose buckets don't have a bottom. There aren't a lot of these kids, but they are in our schools. They faithfully bring their bucket to school each day and show their teachers their bucket that's been destroyed through poverty and violence and abuse. Teachers try to fill the buckets of these kiddos and it just pours straight through--making a mess everywhere. They can't figure out where the mess is coming from. Sometimes they blame the kid. Sometimes they blame their aim. Either way, they just keep pouring. They get annoyed at the mess and lose their patience with the kid. The kid gets annoyed and communicates that annoyance with his behaviors. But they keep pouring.
Thirty or forty or fifty years ago, the kids with problems with their buckets ended up leaving school. They dropped out or we kicked them out or they ended up in jail or we put them in "special" school or facilities. The problem buckets made things hard and messy, so we fixed the problems by getting rid of them. A lot has changed since then. Now, ALL students have a right to a free appropriate public education. Not some students, not the easy students. ALL students.
That means that sometimes school's going to get a little messy from the spills. It just is. Sometimes teachers are going to need to change the way they pour so that every student can get their bucket filled in a way that makes sense for them.
I am so blessed to work at a school that recognizes that every kid has a bucket that might need some attention. Walk into my school on any given day and you'll see lids being taken off via access to food and clothes and school supplies. You'll see kids who are just getting their bucket to school for the first time in days being supported while teachers carefully decide what should go in first. You'll watch as kids who are struggling to hold their handle-less buckets get help via flexible seating options and copies of notes. You'll notice kids who have smaller buckets have content that is specially designed for them poured in carefully. You'll see lots of duck tape and other mending agents pulled out to close the holes. And you'll watch kids, distressed by their bottomless buckets, being supported and loved on as the bottom is slowly repaired.
Here's the thing: kicking the buckets that aren't perfect out isn't going to work. In fact, because of the world we live in, I'm certain we're going to see more and more buckets without handles or with holes or without bottoms. As educators, we are tasked with taking each kid and her bucket and working with it. It's what our kids are legally entitled to. It's what we're tasked to do. It's why I go to work every single day.
No comments:
Post a Comment