8th Grade Wisdom

Photo Credit: Einstein Wisdom Poster

Eighth graders are typically the oldest students in a middle school.  They are 14 years old and constantly amazed by their own intelligence.  Pleasing adults is a thing of the past.  Life is about connecting with friends. Teaching eighth grade is hazardous duty meant only for clever adults. Here are a couple of episodes from a real eighth grade class. Names have been changed to maintain confidentiality.

Tameka sashayed around the perimeter of the room toward the pencil sharpener.  She eyed her classmates, pecked the top of a boy’s head with her long fingernails and whispered something to a friend who responded with a laugh.  She arrived at the pencil sharpener with all eyes one her, including the teacher’s.

            Ms. Tolley had begun her lesson on African folktales. She paused and made eye contact with Tameka.  The pause endured for a second as the teacher looked from the girl back to her empty seat.   Tameka grinned at one of her friends, then began the slow journey back toward her seat.

            It was a one-person parade. Tameka’s hair was long and stylish; she wore lipstick, multiple bracelets on both arms, and dangling earrings.  Her nails were long and painted. While she made her way back to a desk, the boys attended to her slow walk. 

            Five minutes into this lesson, Tameka journeyed to the bathroom in the corner of the portable classroom.  While Ms. Tolley talked about the characters in the two African folktales students had read, voices whispered loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to be understood.  I waited for Ms. Tolley to confront Tameka, but she ignored her and kept talking about common themes in the two stories. 

Students began to focus more on the lesson when she used a slideshow to present images and key words about characters, themes and how folktales had been carried to the Americas during the slave trade. Several times during the slideshow she called students by name and asked for their attention to the information.  After the presentation, she gave students a graphic organizer and asked them to work in pairs to compare the two stories. Within the first five minutes of the activity, she had to restate directions and remind students of her expectations for their work.  After ten minutes, she told the students they had three more minutes to finish the graphic organizer. While the students worked in pairs, Ms. Tolley walked among the desks, asked questions and made suggestions.

            After the graphic organizer activity, Ms. Tolley held a whole class discussion about how the two folktales were similar and different. Near the end of the discussion, she returned to the slideshow and presented images that depicted American tall tale characters, Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan (stories the students were familiar with). As a ticket out the door, Ms. Tolley asked students to write at least three sentences about how the two African folktales were different from American tall tales.  Most students complied and handed her their sentences as they left the room.  The lesson had lasted about an hour. I was impressed by the teacher’s determination to teach her lesson.

            When I returned several days later, Ms. Tolley was finishing the unit on folktales. The desks had been pushed to the sides and the students were seated in chairs in a large circle.  This was supposed to be a seminar, with less teacher talk and more discussion -- like Socrates had taught his students.  Before the seminar began, Ms. Tolley reviewed the rules.  Raised hands were not required to talk, but only one student could talk at a time.  No interrupting.  Students were to speak loud enough to be heard, to justify answers, and to be courteous to each other.

            The seminar was about The Beauty and the Beast, which the students had finished reading.  Ms. Tolley started the discussion with a question, “What is a sacrifice?” 

            A boy said a sacrifice was like a gift.

            “Okay, give me an example?” said the teacher.

            “Well, it’s like if I have something my friend wants, I give it to him.”

            “Okay.”  Then she went around the circle, addressing each student by name, asking for an example of a sacrifice.  Most were similar to the first one -- a sacrifice was some kind of gift. 

            The turn-taking came to Tameka, the girl who had sought so much attention a few days earlier.  She was dressed down today, jeans and a sweatshirt.  “It’s got to be something important to you,” the girl said.

            “Yes,” the student teacher replied, detached like Socrates.  “Explain.”

            “It’s like when you’re low on cash and your friend asks you for some money.  You give her some anyway, even if you’re nearly out and need it yourself, “ she said.

            As the talk went around the circle, a few eighth graders picked up on what Tameka had said.  They gave examples that were more in the ballpark of sacrifices, rather than gifts.

            Then the question turned to the story of The Beauty and the Beast.  Which of the characters had made the greatest sacrifice?  The students did not agree.  Some thought Beauty had made the greatest sacrifice because she left her family to live in the castle with the Beast.  Some thought the Beast’s sacrifice was the greatest, because he had nearly died.  It was a long discussion, sometimes more like an argument.  Rules were forgotten.  Occasionally, several students talked at one time, and not always courteously.  Ms. Tolley’s voice remained calm.  Somehow, each time the discussion seemed about to slip over the edge into pandemonium, she brought it under control and urged the students to listen to each other and to provide more justification. 

              Forty minutes into the lesson, these reluctant students had been engaged in a heated discussion of a work of literature.  Although the tone of discussion was not always courteous, it was always on task. No one had been disinterested enough to wander away, either physically or mentally.

            Ms. Tolley asked Tameka her closing question, “What sacrifice could you make to help someone have a better life?”

            Tameka thought for a few seconds.  Ms. Tolley waited. “Give some food to the poor. Respect my parents. Share with my brothers,” Tameka said.

            One student argued against sharing with her brothers.  “I have five brothers and I’m the only girl.  They treat me like dirt.  I ain’t sharing with those turkeys.”

            “Well, girl, you need a change of attitude, ” said Tameka.  “A sacrifice I could make would be to work on my attitude.  Sometimes you gotta try to get-along.”

            The pause in the discussion wasn’t long, but it was noticeable.  Tameka and Ms. Tolley made eye contact for a moment, then they both listened to the next student’s example.

             If all teachers worked as hard as Ms. Tolley, schooling would, indeed, be beneficial for everyone.  The episodes above provide a glimpse of how much energy and patience are expended by teachers in a short amount of time.  The episodes also show that schooling is as much about ethics as it is academics.  Teachers and students constantly make decisions about what to say and do – either intentionally, based on personal ethics, or intuitively, based on impulse and emotion.  At all levels, schooling works when teachers and students come to accept a similar set of ethical values – the desire for knowledge and wisdom, respect, kindness, curiosity and patience.  The best teachers have clever ways (often subtle and indirect) of moving students to the common ethical ground shared by good people.