Kendallism: the term given a modern social movement created to enact change in something you are a part of. It can be at church, soccer practice, or how about if you are on a karate team that can’t score a sparring point to save their own life? Or…how about a school? Ew….let’s start there…are you a Kendallist?
Long ago, in a time period far, far away, three men took up their pens in the spirit of forming ‘a more perfect union.’ My fellow students, in a similar way Federalists Madison, Hamilton, and Jay gripped their sharply tipped quill pens, I grasp my keyboard for a similar reason. Until such time as our school achieves the goal of completely supplanting brick and mortar schools as the preferred method for acquiring an elementary, middle school, and high school education—a goal easily within our school’s grasp—the Kendallist papers will exist in a very similar manner that the Federalist Papers served to usher in the approval and adoption of the final phase of framework that created the model for modern democracies. That was a wordy way to say, here’s an idea to make our school better.
And with this goal in mind, I bring to you the opening essay that explores what must first change at our school in order for our goals as a community of teachers and students to unite: guys, we need to tell our administrators to make live attendance to class connects mandatory as a percentage of our overall grade.
Did I just type that? Oh yes I did. And, I meant it.
Oh, like all of you, I do know that the recordings are convenient in a pinch when the hour that a class connect was originally held proves to be inconvenient. But while the flexibility is fantastic, the side effects of students not attending class connects together “live” borders on being rude to our teachers. Worse (worse than being rude), we students are willfully ripping ourselves away from the fabric of our virtual community, making it possible for some who don’t attend “live” to feel disconnected and alone. To truly understand what “live” class connects do for us individually and as a student/teacher community, a closer look is in order.
I think it is worthy to first turn our attention to our wonderful teachers and think about what virtual ‘empty seats’ mean to them. They’d never say it, and they’d never ask for thanks, or say out loud they were hurt when we didn’t come. That’s how beautiful inside our teachers are. But, I think we need to be honest and agree they probably don’t like it when we don’t come to their class connects. Who would? I mean, unless they are thinking “Oh well, at least I don’t have to answer anymore dumb questions for the day. Oh wait, there are no dumb questions…there are just dumb pare--
Ahem.
We should acknowledge, that our teachers spend a great deal of time creating PowerPoints jammed with general answers to test questions, and even better, additional information that isn’t even in the books that they thought we should know. More than that, teachers include in most classes a game or two, and invite students to participate by posting their own ideas and answers on whiteboard slides. When we fail to attend these class connects, teachers get the message that these sessions aren’t very important to us. And again, while they won’t say it, our absence communicates that their hard work isn’t appreciated. They get the message that, despite these meetings being an efficient vehicle for giving out information, we don’t care, and we don’t really want them. So while I know they are all professionals, human nature dictates that they will care less about putting together more intricate presentations, and concentrate their efforts on answering a quick skype question or two when they force you to ask a question once a month for extra credit. Why bother when few people show up anyway?
The next point I’d like to make is that class connects are the fundamental method we have to do any peer to peer mentoring at our school. One particular class I attend regularly—an English writing share—is always heavily attended and is of obvious benefit and enjoyment to the students who regularly don’t miss. But what about all the other class connects?
Especially true at the High School level, I am frequently the only person or one of two in any one class connect! Where are you people? I’m feeling like that guy in the movie “The Truman Show.” And I got to tell you, while I appreciate the individual attention all my teachers give me, I totally don’t mind sharing my teachers with you. I can take turns. Sharing teachers is not like sharing drinks. You can’t catch a cold from it, and unless you are eating at your keyboard during the sessions (gross! Bacteria!) you don’t have to wash your hands after them. And I wouldn’t think of ‘my’ teachers as exclusively ‘mine’ if you were there. They would quickly morph into ‘our’ teachers.
I just gotta wonder about one other thing. Where are you getting your information if you aren’t going to class connects, and would you mind sharing? I do watch a lot of videos from Khan Academy, especially for math, but watching my math teacher “live” is far superior. Frankly, I talk to her nearly every day. Actually…come to think of it…I talk to even my old math teachers nearly every day. Old? I meant former.
And yes, I watch some of the class connects when I can’t make it for scheduling reasons. But are all of you out there really only watching the videos? Seriously? That’s so boring. Here’s what you are missing.
If you don’t go to your class connects, you are missing the opportunity to talk about your ideas to real live people. These are not NPC’s (non-playable characters for the 40+ crowd that might read this) on a PS3 video game. Now granted, I think we should loosen up our student communication policy a bit to make the class connect sessions truly meaningful, but I’ll save that for another essay. Having said that, what you put into a class connect or a relationship with a teacher is what you will get out of it.
So to sum up, go to class. Currently, you get extra credit when you go in some classes. I want to make it mandatary 5% participation as part of our grades. Did I say I want 5%? I meant 15%. Who wants 20%? Can I push it to 21%? That’s more than the extra credit we get now, and it gives people who go not just a leg up on their courses, but a chance to learn something they didn’t even know.
Give me liberty—or give me….eh, I’ll just settle for a Mountain Dew, and seeing you in the next class connect we’re both in. This is me inviting you to join me…how about you invite me back? So, are you a Kendallist too?
