They Grow Up

This summer, I have been bumping into former students as I move throughout the community. Some just graduated, some I see occasionally, but many have been away from Deerfield for a long time. I’ve been in touch with some here and there, and some I haven’t spoken to since graduation. They are doing well –and doing good. They are pursuing their passions. I cannot overstate how wonderful it is to see them.

I wonder and worry about my former (and current) students. These past few weeks several of my students have been married or engaged. I even attended a former student’s wedding and celebrated with her family and reconnected with some of her classmates! Another former student had a baby. Many graduated from college. With each photo, Facebook post, or word on the street, I am reminded of students I have not seen since they left DHS. That’s when I start thinking, “Whatever happened to...” or “How is that student” or “I worried so much about him.”

On another summer walk, I listened to a radio interview with one of my former students. He is an orthodox rabbi, and the interviewer baited him several times with questions that were clearly designed to get fiery answers. He dealt with them deftly and diplomatically. His discussion was thoughtful and soulful. I was kvelling the entire walk!  I would never have guessed, when we shared Sophomore English more than twenty years ago, that this would be his path!  

Not all stories are good ones. I have struggled with students whose challenges continued well beyond their graduations. There have been students whose stories did not have happy endings. I hope these are the exceptions.

There is no escaping loss and disappointment. There are unexpected plans, health issues, and problems that seem insurmountable. There are jobs that don’t work, scary situations, and worse. I wish I could swoop in and protect them from the pain and tragedy, but I couldn’t do that when we shared class, and I cannot do it now. They are independent adults who don’t need (or want) their former teacher to be their savior. They never did. I can be their supporter and cheerleader.

I believe that the seeds of my students' adult selves are visible in high school. However, sometimes they are just tiny buds just beginning to show themselves. Sometimes they are vines up the wall, and sometimes I wonder if they are weeds! I have learned to water all of them. I know that I cannot predict the future and I don’t bother trying.

I cannot overstate my delight when I see my former students. My eldest are in their mid-forties, and my youngest start college in the fall. I will carry them with me forever. My classes get bigger and bigger because the shadows of my former students are always present. I see them in the halls in the faces of my current kids.  I am reminded of them as I pass landmarks, discuss texts, and go to activities. It helps me to not miss them so much.

Thank you! Thank you for sharing your grown-up selves with me! Thank you for stopping and saying, “hello.”  Thank you for letting me see the wonderful people you have turned out to be.

Don't Grow Up

My college roommate called me to the hospital when his first child was born. I brought sandwiches and supplies and placed them in the room as he dressed me in a protective gown. When he handed his newborn son to me, I balked, “No! I’ll break him!” He smiled and I held my first baby.

Later, after his son was back in the nursery and his wife was getting some needed sleep, we looked through at the tiny baby on the other side of the window and my friend whispered, “Grow up!”

Yesterday, I watched my eighteen-year-old son leave the house on the way to his summer job and, after the door closed and we’d said, “I love you, see you this evening,” I whispered, “Don’t grow up!”

Of course, I want my child to become an independent adult. Of course, I want him to go to college and experience those wonderful lessons that he needs to become the person all of us want him to become. I just don’t want him to leave. I don’t want to let go of our time as parent and child.

Part of this is probably because he is the last child leaving the nest. Part of this may be that I teach teenagers and I have to let go a lot. I let go every year, but my classroom fills again. My home will not fill again.

So we both stand on the brink of a different kind of adulthood. He is ready to step off that cliff and fly. I am getting ready to watch because I know I don’t need to push. I do need to hold on to something because I will not fly if I follow and I know that I shouldn’t.

I want to pour his ear full of advice and reminders before he gets behind the wheel of my old minivan and drives away. Those are my neuroses, not his. I say them to myself. In my weaker moments, I say them to him and earn the eye rolls and choruses of, “I know, Dad!”

This past week, we shared college orientation. Appropriately, for many of the sessions, parents and their students were separated. The university stressed setting boundaries, allowing students to struggle, and assisting them in assisting themselves. I could have given those speeches.

That doesn’t change the way I feel this morning. I take lots of pictures. I have become nostalgic about times that were harried, hurried, and hard. But my children were children then. I was in charge and felt a semblance of control.

I am not in control anymore and that is a scary thing. As a teacher, I like being in control. As a parent, it makes me feel safe. That is an illusion, my rational self tells me. My children are ready to have full control. I know this.

Control is the way I fend off the worry. If I am in charge, then my child stays in my arms or behind the glass. Yet he must leave the comfort of the nursery and make his way into the world, where anything can happen.

And anything will happen. He will have scrapes, big and small. I will, too. He must grow up and walk out of that door. I must remain and watch. I will get used it. It will take a while. My friends tell me that I will come to like it.

Not yet. 

The Grading Treadmill

At the end of each marking period, I obsess over grades. Teachers like to say that they don’t “give” grades, but that students “earn them the old-fashioned way,” as if John Housman was speaking. I don’t believe that.

The game of grades is rigged and teachers control it. Students must learn how to play the game anew each time they enter a classroom. And while grades are supposed to be a measure of success in a course, that is not the whole truth. They are a reflection of the personality, priorities, and preferences of the person grading. The teacher, team, or school decides what is valued and how much. The grader decides if we are averaging or using standards or a contract or some other “system.” The students simply have to do their best to get to the cheese – over and over again.

I get tension headaches staring at my computer screen perseverating over grades. How could the student be earning a B+ when she had an A only a few weeks ago? Sometimes, students’ grades appear to be going in the wrong direction – or don’t make sense. I look for my error or where the student changed or a reasonable rationalization for a simple truth: students’ growth is not a direct learning curve. They fall down and get back up. They have bad days after many good days. They fail at the tasks they could do well just a few days before. They are human beings and there are myriad factors that influence their work – and I am only one of those factors.

I have written about grading many times.  I continue to struggle with our reasons and methods of grading. I feel like George Jetson on the treadmill screaming for Jane to “Stop this crazy thing!”

I am a proud standard based grader. That means that, instead of assigning points to everything happening in class and then performing some magical formula to arrive at a grade, I base grades on students’ demonstration of proficiency on a set of measurable skills. This makes grading far more challenging than plugging numbers into a computer and arriving at an average.

I assess how well and how often students can write a complete thesis, analyze a quotation, or infer a theme. The problem is turning these assessments into a single grade. Is the ability to cite correctly as important as integrating evidence? Should all claims be treated the same? Are reading and writing equal? Are skills on which we spent more time more important?

My judgment is not perfect. I fully understand why teachers love the point averaging system. It gives the illusion that the grade is objective. It is not. I, the teacher, am creating that grade regardless of how many layers of arithmetic sit between me and letter – or the student. Sometimes, I am not sure. Sometimes, I can see multiple interpretations of students’ work.

A grade isn’t the best form of feedback to students. I give far more detailed and thorough feedback about their work and skills than a single letter. The grade, no matter what form it takes, is such an amalgam of so many factors that it certainly doesn’t communicate the journey we’ve taken in class and often obscures important information.

I just turned in my grades for second semester. There were several on which I spent more than a few hours. I reviewed old work. I read final exams multiple times. I changed my mind and then changed it again.

I have been doing this for a long time and it hasn’t become easier. Grades have value. They are symbols of self-esteem and college currency. They add up to awards, scholarships, and auto insurance. I can’t take them lightly.

Arriving at students’ grades is not easy. If a teacher can do it quickly and casually, something is wrong. Like a diagnosis, it is a professional judgment based on lots of information, observation, and assessment – and it should be accurate!   

In a Kurt Vonnegut short story, Thomas Edison creates an “intelligence analyzer” and tells a young man that, ‘“It will be your generation that will grow up in the glorious new era when people will be as easily graded as oranges.’”  No one should be easily graded. Perhaps no one should be graded at all. In addition to being treated like oranges, grading traps us on George Jetson’s treadmill!

Sign My Yearbook

One of my most anxiety producing moments in the classroom is when a student approaches me and says, “Mr. Hirsch, will you sign my yearbook?” I always agree to sign or ask the student to wait until I have a free moment. The truth is that signing yearbooks makes me very anxious.

I joke that I should sell a stamp when yearbooks are being distributed that says:

Dear _____________

It was great seeing you in __________ class.

You are so _________!

Thanks so much for __________.

Have a _______ summer.

Your _________,

__________

Truthfully, I have not read many student yearbook messages. While their notes to each other might be banal and trite, I think that may not be the case. I watch students spend a long time writing their messages. I see yearbooks filled with notes and drawings. Kids seem to be thoughtful about yearbook notes.

That is why I am so worried. I don’t have time to craft a well-written and personal message. My handwriting is not that great. I misspell words and change my mind after I put them on the page. I just changed the beginning of this paragraph. I just changed it again.

Yearbook messages may not be carved in stone, but they are likely to be saved and, once in a while, reviewed. I worry that this five-minute scrawl is what this student will eventually remember about our time together. By the time all this has gone through my head, I am paralyzed and I regret whatever I write as soon as I hand the book back. I worry that I said the wrong thing or didn’t say enough.

So without the personal student-specific stuff, here is a version of the message I wish I could write in my students’ yearbooks:

My Dear Classmate,

Thank you for sharing class with me this year. Thank you for rolling up your sleeves and working hard. Thank you for your contributions to class, patience with me and our classmates, and willingness to laugh at my jokes. Thank you for the kindness you showed every day.

I want you to know how capable you are. It is healthy to doubt our abilities sometimes. However, your growth this year is not something you should question. It proves you can learn anything you want and become whatever or whomever you choose. You have that power. Use it for good.

I will miss you next year. Actually, I will miss you next period, tomorrow, and over the summer. I will miss you right after we greet each other in the hallway. When you graduate, I will continue missing you. I will think about you when we discuss the topics you loved and hated. I will remember you when we explore assignments that shaped your experience in this class. That is why I take a lot of pictures. They randomly appear on the background of my computer, and I will smile and miss you more when your photo surprises me like a found coin.

Please don’t doubt our relationship. Come back and visit school. You have a permanent standing appointment. At the front desk, when they ask if someone is expecting you, tell them that Mr. Hirsch is expecting you. I am always expecting you. Yes, you may befriend me on Facebook (after you graduate), yes, you may connect via Twitter or Instagram or email or owl or Morse code! I encourage you to use whatever way works for you to stay in touch – and that choice is yours.

When you have those moments of struggle, when you think the audience is empty and yearn for even the echo of applause, when you doubt yourself and your abilities, when things seem unbearable, remember that I am a card-carrying member of your fan club and I am cheering for you from Deerfield. Your audience is never empty and I know that you have the skills to figure out anything. It may take time, effort, creativity, and resources. You have more resources than you know – and I am one of them.

I care deeply about you, even when we have struggled or disagreed. I care deeply about you even if sometimes we fall down and make mistakes – and I make mistakes, too! Sorry about those. I know that, although I want you to master the skills and know the content and all that stuff, it isn’t the real core curriculum. You are the center of this class. Who you are and what you are thinking and feeling is far more important than any target, objective, or standard.

Be well. Make good choices. Move slowly. Read a lot, and continue to discover and create the extraordinary person I have come to like so much.

Your teacher and friend,

David Hirsch

Graduating to the Empty Nest

Our school parent organization hosts a special dinner for parents whose last child is graduating from the high school. Recently, it was my turn to attend.

This year has been a string of lasts: the last open house, homecoming, musical, concert, play, and now: graduation. This past week was a series of landmarks: the last day of classes, honors night, choral awards, theatre night, and soon, the big event itself.

My daughter entered high school in 2008. She graduated in 2012 and her brother took her place. His graduation means that my wife and I will be empty-nesters at home and at school. While we will attend concerts, plays, and events, I’ll leave my camera at home. We’ll only see the theatre productions once.

Life will be different.

When my daughter graduated college, she came home for the summer and then moved to Boston for graduate school. The pattern was the same even if the details were different. But that pattern is gone forever. It is unlikely that we will have another summer with the four of us at home. Even though my son will be home until late August, his job will keep him out of the house in the day, and his friends will most likely occupy much of his free time. He will teach us how to live with his empty room, just as we have grown accustomed to his sister’s absence.

I have never been good at letting go, and I don’t really want to let go now. I have loved being a father, and while my children’s launching doesn’t make me less of a father, it means I am more a long distance dad instead of the father on the line. I like being the father on the line.

I love being the teacher on the line, too. This graduation means saying farewell to students some of whom I have known since they were in elementary school. I will deeply miss my son’s classmates. Many were my students or we shared homeroom, advisory, or another activity. Although new students will fill the chairs in my classes next year, the class of 2016 has spoiled me and I am working hard to lower my expectations for the classes to come.  I am going to be pining for my former students next fall.

Right now, I am simply wishing that all of them, my own child and his wonderful friends, could do it again. I offered to home college my son, but for some reason, he didn’t take me up on it.

My son will come home once in a while. Most of his classmates I will never see again. I will bump into some throughout the years. Through Facebook or email, I will keep in touch with a few. Because they are my child’s class, I have a better chance of hearing about them through him. But graduation is the big goodbye for most of us.

My camera is out and I am capturing all these last events. I am dreading them because of their finality, but I want to enjoy and celebrate these special milestones. I am trying to negotiate both. 

Each year, I want to hang on to my students. I take photos, write cards, and try to capture the specialness of the moment. I am always partially successful. We leave an indelible mark on each other. But such marks fade.

I am so grateful that my son and his class have permitted me to share high school with them. I am so fortunate that, as a high school teacher, I got to play a unique role in my children’s lives at home and at school. I don’t want that to end. I am not sure what my new role looks like. The old role fit so well. 

So Class of 2016, bon voyage, mazel tov, and qapla’; I am looking forward to your new adventures and our new relationship – and I will miss you!

Teacher's Favorite

Something transformative happened in fourth period. While we were discussing an assembly about gender, a student noted that one of his teachers always picked on the boys, “The girls are her favorites.” Somehow, this moved us into a discussion about teacher’s favorites, and they asked me the question, “Do you have favorites, Mr. Hirsch?”

The answer was easy, “Of course, I have favorites!” I said. I asked them to raise their hands if they liked some teachers better than others. Every student raised a hand. Teachers are just like students, I told them. There are people who we connect with better than others, and there are some who press our buttons.

That was the moment. It happened right then. When I noted that teachers, like all of us, have students they don’t like as much, the entire class looked toward one boy. They all thought he was the student who fit that description.

They were wrong.

Being a teacher is improvisational. No matter how well you plan or how many years you have taught, you cannot prepare for everything.

I shook my head and told them that the boy in question was my favorite. Gasp! No one was more surprised than he was. I told them that I work hard to make sure that all students feel as though they are my favorite. It is my goal to give the teacher’s favorite treatment to every student – even the ones who may be a little challenging in class.

Of course, teachers gravitate toward some students and away from others. We are human. However, it is our job to recognize this, acknowledge it, and then consciously control it.

Yes, there are a few instances where that is not possible. In more than thirty years in the classroom, I can count on one hand the students I really wished were not in my room. They are rare. The boy in question is as far from being one of those students as I am from being an NHL quarterback.

I don’t know who started it, but the kids in fourth period started calling each other, “favorite.” We greeted each other that way for a while.

“Hello, Pat, my favorite.”  

“See you tomorrow, my favorite.”

“Do you have a question, my favorite?”

It even carried into the halls for a little while, until we agreed it was a little embarrassing to be so open about such things.

But the tone in the classroom had altered subtly. The boy who was the focus has changed substantially. His behavior since this discussion has been different. His need for my attention has diminished, although not completely. My reassurance that I liked him, that he was not one of “those” kids, that he was a favorite, has transformed our relationship and even the feeling of the class.

Should I declare that I like all my students in public this way all the time? Probably. I thought I was doing it in other ways, but perhaps I need to be more direct.

It feels good to be a favorite. It feels really good to know that someone, especially the teacher, likes you. And I do like them – all of them. It is not an act. It is a decision to make sure that I convey that to them. Some of them can read that from our day-to-day interactions. Some of them know this because of the way I greet them when they enter our room, from our hallway hellos, and the notes I write on their assignments.

Some may need more than that; some may need me to look at them and say, “you are my favorite.”

Next year, I am telling them earlier.