I have hesitated to write about this topic because I feel that negativity can overtake the discourse pretty quickly, but I’m going to make a valiant effort to address it with solutions (at the end), as opposed to just bitching. I mean, I plan to bitch, but in a, like, cathartic way.

So, here we go…

Concierge Education.

You may be asking yourself “What do you mean by ‘Concierge Education’?” Please allow me to explain.

As students have grown less compliant with classroom engagement, schools have done a lot of adjusting to find a way to graduate students. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. We’ve lowered our expectations. Before you blow up the comments, yes, I am aware that there are lots of bright, curious, ambitious, responsible kids. My cadet teachers (peer models) for PLS are shining examples of this. However, it’s undeniable that the way we have responded to unmotivated kids has changed a lot.

Kids haven’t actually changed, despite what a lot of my older colleagues say. Kids have always been bad at seeing the big picture, impulse driven, emotional, and generally governed by the amygdala portion of the brain. The difference isn’t in adolescent development. The difference lies in the quick availability of desired reinforcers (cell phones, Netflix) in favor of a non-preferred task (writing a personal narrative essay for English). Like I said, kids haven’t changed; our RESPONSE to kids has.

We’re living in a world where real estate values are tied to the graduation rates of schools, parents my age (mid-40s) are largely interested in avoiding conflict with their kids, and school administrators are so terrified of bad press that they will beg and negotiate with kids down to the final day of a semester to cut a deal to “show minimum competency” in order to be granted a (albeit suboptimal) passing grade of “D” in a class.

Dress up this pig and put whatever lipstick on it you want. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Right or wrong, like it or not, students are no longer expected to engage during their classes. Sure, we make a lot of noise about student engagement, but frankly we’re full of shit. If a kid tunes out during the lesson (or, in the age of remote learning, mutes you and turns off her camera), teachers are expected to find another time–one more palatable to the student–to teach the lesson again to that individual.

This is what I mean by Concierge Education. There is an expectation that each, individual student should be able to choose when and how she engages. More often than not, the preferred modality for parents–who grew up in a time when the teacher standing in front of the class, barfing out knowledge upon the masses was “school”– is having a teacher personally work 1:1 with their child. The same child who watched two seasons of Parks and Recreation while I was modeling writing and getting everyone started, even though I asked her to PLEASE set it aside and focus. In this model, I have found myself teaching the EXACT SAME lesson to different people in the same class upwards of 10 times. I’m not talking about kids who really made an attempt but missed something. I’m not talking about kids who need me to explain it a different way because the first way didn’t click for them. I’m not talking about kids who were absent and missed the lesson. I’m talking about kids who were THERE IN CLASS but chose to do something else during the time I was offering instruction.

“Well, just tell them to get to work!”

Sure. Sounds awesome. I promise, we do that. We’re not morons. But kids will very politely open up the Google doc, then resume their binge watching the minute I’m helping someone else. This isn’t about inability. It’s about a security in the knowledge that a deal can be made in the final minutes of the semester, an office referral will result in a heart-to-heart talk about doing the right thing, and parents who will call or email the teacher to ask why we “let” them play all hour. Kids are the same as they ever were; if a task is boring or unpleasant, they tell themselves they’ll do it sometime in the nebulous future called Later. It’s just that, nowadays, they’ve got a lot of really fun stuff to choose from to do right now in order to avoid stress and discomfort. I could gripe all day about the systemic failures that have gotten us here.

Okay. That’s the “bitching” part. On to the solution part.

I’m doing more and more videos and more and more interactive writing outlines. I think it has the potential to help with this issue. When a student who didn’t engage gets ripped a new one when their mom opens the grade book and sees an F, then emails me about how their student can access some extra help, I can share the videos and interactive writing outlines. Parents can watch those same videos (they’re on YouTube) and fully understand what kids are being asked to do and how they are to go about doing it. I can ask them to please follow along with a prerecorded lesson FIRST if they checked out during class time, then see me if they need it explained a different way or want some feedback. I’m not talking about a flipped classroom model here (I work with freshmen…I just haven’t been successful with it), but replacement instruction for those who chose not to participate during our scheduled class time.

I’m also finding that this is really helpful for my kids with IEPs who need directions repeated or to see the same information presented more than once in order to understand it but feel embarrassed to ask. I’m able to provide their accommodations in a way that is much more seamless and subtle when I use videos, and students can be much more independent in front of their classmates–who may ALSO be using the video! It’s also a HUGE help for my colleagues who are teaching study skills classes; they can see exactly wheat we’re doing so they can better assist students during their study skills classes.

It’s not a perfect solution. As much as I hate all that Daggett crap, the dude had a point about the importance of relationships. 1:1 teaching is a really effective way to build a relationship, even with a kid who wants nothing to do with you. I’ve felt conflicted about using more and more prerecorded material for precisely this reason. I’ve had to make greater efforts to connect with kids through simple conversation since I started to put the brakes on 1:1 reteaching for every kid. Ultimately, I’ve had to weigh the risks and benefits and move in the direction I felt would best balance my resentment/burnout and our brave new world of on-demand teaching expectations.

I have no idea what the future of school is going to look like, but I KNOW it’s not going to look like teachers meeting 1:1 with every kid on his/her own schedule. It’d be cool if we could do it, but the cost would be astronomical. So…not happening.

In class, I’m also offering modeled cold-writing and sharing those with kids as I do them, but this only helps the kids who choose to engage during class time. I need to start recording it.

Wanna see an example of what I’m talking about? Check out this document. It’s an all-in-one document for a summative personal narrative writing assessment. On the document, there’s a guided writing outline (everyone has seen that before), but there are also videos of me modeling, a finished example, read-aloud, etc.