Session 6- Elijah's Sprint Through "The Ides of March"

Another session, another student. Justin was nowhere to be seen, and Kassandra did not feel like working with a tutor today. So, today, I was paired with another student from the quiet sector of the class, Elijah. Elijah looked a lot like Justin, actually, but without the scars. He had the same coke bottle glasses, and also seemed to have a predilection for reading. But instead of books or stories, he was a fan of reading shocker news articles online and evaluating movie trailers on youtube.

I was told that he was a special case this week; Elijah was close to finishing his English program! It had been a long journey for him, and he was ready to get it done. He only had a few days worth of work left, but it was causing him to trip up because the subject was Shakespeare. Old English is hard for anyone to wrap their minds around, so Elijah had been using a “No Fear” copy that offers modern-day translations. I am a fan of Shakespeare, so I was pretty excited, until I realized his Shakespeare standard was being satisfied by a play I had never read, Julius Caesar. This would certainly be interesting. It was the first occasion in which I would be working with a student on something I was relatively unfamiliar with. I mean, I knew the gist, and that proved useful, but I did not know the specifics.

This was an interesting session mostly for the fact that due to my lack of experience with Caesar, I could only help Elijah to think through the questions. He told me he often hated how the questions were worded in ENGL 2020, and that many of them seemed like people were intended to trip over them. I could definitely see what he was saying, but I also saw in Elijah a tendency to never want to be wrong. Even when he had gotten the wrong answer and had figured out that it was wrong, he would still continually try to justify it to either himself or me. I made sure to not just tell Elijah I understood why he chose the answers he did, but also to explain to him why the right answers were so. As we've discussed in my Education classes so far, it is easy for students to fall into a trap of wanting to succeed only to impress others rather than success for the sake of mastery; this made me want to erase any sense of shame Elijah might find in being wrong. I stressed to him that a school setting is the safest place to be wrong, as long as you are open to trying again. It's okay to pursue the right answer and trip a few times along the way! That's how you learn.

But I came to find that Elijah had not read the entirely of Julius Caesar. He said that would be boring, and instead had looked up the movie adaptation of it, which (no surprise there), did not seem to include the script in its entirety. I had to ask Elijah to tell me what he knew about certain characters so he could deduce which answer was most likely on the quizzes. I told him I knew he wanted to get done, but we were probably taking unnecessary time to fill in the blanks because he had not done a thorough reading the first time.

These short cuts were common know-how at PLC. From my experience, it is difficult to convince students that this quick, “utilitarian” approach isn't doing them any justice. It's like one of my professors says: “If you can't talk in specifics about something you've said, you just wind up looking like a a damned fool. You have to remind yourself why you read it in the first place—or, hell, if you actually read it—when you're sitting there trying to talk about 'that one story with that guy in the place.'” I wouldn't want to waste my time doing things at half-capacity, and I doubt Elijah wants to, either. He just has to learn there's another way that he can realistically get things done.

Session 5- Kassandra's "Blah de Blah English Blah"

Today, I returned to PLC, albeit a good ten minutes late. Curry was gone, Justin was working with a tutor who had arrived on time, and where was Kassandra? I spent ten minutes sitting in a stray chair at Mrs. Green's room as she ducked in and out to ask the other students if they had a student who would like to work with someone, and just then was when Kassandra sauntered into the room. Late. Mrs. Green had again kept me updated and told me that Kassandra was often late. When she came to class, it didn't seem like she was actually there.

And there she went, to a computer where she put on earphones and quickly disengaged. Mrs. Green approached her and asked if she'd want to work with me. She said sure. This time, my experience with Kassandra was very different. Through much of the session, she mumbled to herself things that insinuated she could not breeze through it fast enough. “Uh, voice is...ugh, not that. Whatever, B.” I saw a girl who was not focused and who did not see to react when her quiz grades were less than spectacular. She did not try to ask for feedback, but instead, I'd say something like “Hey, let's go back to that last one.”

I asked her if anything was wrong, and I got the cliché response- “I'm just tired.”

But nonetheless, we managed to get a lot of work done. On occasion, I would have to help her eliminate the multiple choice answers and then ask her to choose between a few. That seemed more manageable to her, but on the whole, she did not want to tackle work that involved much reading or critical thinking. It was hard to see the change in her.

At the end of the class, Mrs. Green called me over to her desk and said that she wanted to make sure that I was having a good experience. She said she knew that as much as we are in PLC to help the students, it's very meaningful to us to feel that we are helping a particular student and are able to see the progress. So, she hit me with a question. “Chelsea, I know you've worked with several students now. So, let's make this better for you. Which student would you prefer to work with?”

It came down to a difference between Justin, who I had worked with once, and Kassandra, who I had worked with three times. It was difficult for me to think of rationally instead of emotionally, but I knew that that's what I should do. I thought of Kassandra, who said that she had an exact goal in mind. She wanted to graduate and make her sister proud. But now, she seemed so unreceptive to any sort of help. Still, I wanted to be there for her if she needed me or changed her mind. I knew it was possible that maybe she really just was looking for a feeling of belonging and her grades would begin to stabilize once she got used to the transition. What she was going through again made me think of the book my group and I read, Jocks and Burnouts. It focused heavily on this family-like, peer-focused mentality the “burnouts” foster, and how their grades quickly become of secondary thought. They consider their social experiences to be more realistic than anything school could offer....And when it comes to English 2020, there isn't too much of a counter argument.

Justin, however, seemed that he would honestly welcome my help. He had accomplished a lot in the time that we had worked together, and he seemed eager to work with me again. I did not want the basis of our interactions to be in our shared issues with anxiety, but I remember that when I was in high school, the teachers I appreciated the most were ones that were able to sympathize with and help to alleviate the stress that we incurred as students. And I knew that in a school environment that could only be so personal, it might be good for Justin to be able to interact with someone. I felt that he would feel comfortable enough around me to continue to raise his own questions and tell me what he needed help with.

“I guess...I should go with whomever wants my help. But I enjoy working with both of them for their own reasons. Maybe it would be possible for me to ask them? But I don't want to make them feel like they have to answer to me, like, I'm their second teacher. Should I just work with either of them at their own availability, or?”

“I'll give you time to figure that out,” Mrs. Green responded, “But if you choose, either one of them is going to be very lucky.”