Do The Right Thing: A Response to “Supportive,” a blog post by Rachel Singh on 9.25.10

10.20.10 By Noel Reyes

Like Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls teams of the nineties, I run a triangle offense. But the parts of my triangle don’t include Bill Cartwright or John Paxson. My triangle consists of knowledge, skills, and values.

I find that at the high school level, knowledge is the part of the triangle that we think of first. In fact, we often define ourselves as chemistry teachers or English teachers or math teachers. And why not? Gaining knowledge is one reason why we go to school.

Over the years, I have learned how to teach knowledge. I know, for instance, that I often need to write my own background readings when the ones I find in textbooks aren’t the appropriate reading level, or don’t address what I believe are the most important points. That relating events from history to current events often helps clarify both the past and the present. That asking kids what they already know and what they hope to find out increases curiosity and engagement. That simulations that ask students to play the roles of historical figures make for more meaningful and memorable learning. That a visual aid is worth a thousand words, and that a thousand words don’t mean a thing if they aren’t graphically organized. That an assignment that asks you to show your knowledge in a creative work of historical fiction is a thousand times more valuable than a test. And so on.

Still, I enjoy teaching skills even more. After all, education is not just what you know, but what you can do. To really “participate in power” (as Lisa Delpit has often written), students need to be equipped with a specific set of skills. And I know that I shouldn’t ask students to produce or perform anything that I haven’t modeled. That if I want a high quality 5-paragraph persuasive essay, then I need to write (a really good) one myself and let it marinate by annotating each paragraph, sentence, transition as a class. That learning how to write requires detailed feedback on the specific part of your writing that you are working on right now. That writing is a process, that each part of the process has steps, and that even those steps have steps. And so on.

But values are the mountaintop of my triangle. After all, could we consider ourselves to be truly successful if we equipped kids with knowledge and skills but not the moral compass to use their ability to do the right thing? As current BTR Resident Rachel Singh recently wrote, our classrooms must “teach students compassion and justice, alongside literacy, math, and critical thinking.”

Yet somehow, this most sacred part of my triangle is the one I’m least comfortable with. Regarding knowledge and skills, I have whole sets of rules and principles in my head that define what it means to plan and deliver instruction in a way that is pedagogically powerful, universally accessible, and authentically relevant. But teaching values is not so clear. In fact, I have loads of student work that tells me that students understand the successes and failures of the Reconstruction Era and how to write a persuasive essay. But I have only anecdotal evidence as to whether they have the moral courage to stand up for what they believe in.

I know that it begins with modeling the values I believe in. That it involves, as Rachel noted, positive reinforcement when kids choose to show compassion. That kids respond to incentives to do the right thing.

But I teach in a school where homophobic slurs can be heard during passing periods like cheers at a Celtics game. Where homework assignments are traded like baseball cards, and personal property disappears like paper in the teachers’ room. In this same school, students also come together to write poetry in the name of raising money for earthquake victims in Haiti. They also fly to New Orleans every year to build homes, clean up the environment around the school, raise money for breast cancer, walk for hunger, and protest on behalf of immigrants’ rights.

Demoralized is how I’ve felt when gifted kids who can write literary analysis with great depth are too shallow to defend a student who is being verbally abused. Inspired is how I’ve felt when kids who don’t turn in homework assignments turn up when their friend is in trouble, and risk ridicule by standing up for what they believe in.

As far as doing the right thing goes, I know I’m an important player in this game. I’m just not sure if I’m winning.