K12 Class Connects Take Center Stage; Students Star of the Show
I just had an epiphany, and I am prepared to do some thinking on a topic that I may or may not be allowed to talk about. But hey, just like you never know what will happen when you step on a karate mat to get your face kicked in, you never know what talking about a sensitive school topic might net you. In short, I’ve seen a flutter of activity this school year on the part of teachers and administration alike, hard work—astonishing amounts of compassion about overdue assignments—and the first thing I want to say is “thank you” genuinely to those people. You know who you are. In addition to the daily grind I know teachers face each day, there has even been copious amounts of consideration by the administration given to getting even more kids to attend class connect sessions this year. This especially holds true for the History and the English Departments who are holding additional sessions every week on a myriad of topics. All one must do to enjoy one, is check his email to see it, check his class connect schedule to attend it, and if he likes it (or doesn’t) give feedback about it. So, for me as a student who goes and frequently is one of only one or two in the room, the question is simple: why wouldn’t students go to their class connects? It’s like buying an expensive movie ticket, and then missing the show. I have two answers, and one of them I got from my seven-year-old little sister in K12 who never misses a class connect…ever…and I thought the simplicity of her answer was brilliant. So here it goes. Let’s start with what Lizzie had to say, and then I’ll tell you exactly what I think.
“I go to my class connects because Ms. Ciara always teaches me stuff!” My Mom and I, who had been discussing this very topic when Lizzie piped in, turned our gaze to stare as if on a synced drumbeat. What? Of course.
Lizzie never misses her class connects because it is imperative to her finishing her school year. She won’t be promoted to the next grade level if she can’t read, and as of this moment she is improving but is not quite yet a strong reader. It isn’t that it is mandatory that she attend. These class connects are optional. Rather, Lizzie—who loves math (I’m tempted to hand over my trigonometry homework any day now) is a late reader and her teachers are showering her with attention to encourage her to get better. The short of it is that at the beginning of the year Lizzie hated being cornered with a book. Now, she is getting much, much better. She writes sentences properly, has beautiful handwriting, and can almost read her grade level. What is the message then?
In short, if class connects are to remain optional by school rule, then the reason people attend has to be compulsory in nature. The only reason I can think of for attending a class connect if I didn’t really want to otherwise would be because the teachers were literally giving away free answers on the tests I have to take. Am I advocating giving away the tests? No, of course not. I’m saying that if I got wind that my teachers were going to help me make an A on the final by hosting class connects regularly that were specifically about the material I was going to be asked about, I would feel as a student that I didn’t want to miss them because they made my life easier. Let me say that again: I have to believe as a student that if I voluntarily went to a class connect that I wouldn’t otherwise, it would be because I believed that the information offered at the meeting was going to make taking the test I dread easier. That’s what happens in a regular school, and I think that would be an okay standard to consider in a virtual one.
Now for what I think…
I want you to picture a High School cafeteria in a brick and mortar school. I’ve only had to see one once because I was forced to help with the Ron Paul campaign back in 2012. The smell was enough to keep me away. But I digress. Picture the badly tiled floor, the slightly damp asbestos ceiling tiles putting a little dust in the air vents, and as you scan the tables you’ll only find a few tables cut with words that I doubt made it onto the latest vocabulary tests. Or, come to think of it, maybe they did unofficially. Now picture it filled with sunshiny faces falling asleep on their palms at 8:10 AM waiting for the following announcement.
“Greetings Brainerd High School Warriors! As Principal NotSoMuch, I want to announce today that you no longer have to come to class. If you eventually can get your work in, we will be happy to grade it and give you the finest feedback possible. Responding to that feedback—or reading it all—is completely optional but highly encouraged. So, what we are trying to say is, we want you to decide whether or not you want to come to school today, listen, etc. etc.”
Just how many of Brainerd High School’s finest students do you think are going to show up?
Let me answer that for you. That’s gonna be a big fat ol’ zero no matter how good the cafeteria goop tastes around noon time! Nobody wants to wake up early, nobody wants to have to deal with the smelly kid who pulls your hair sitting behind you, and frankly, nobody wants to have to deal. Period.
Having written all that, do you guys get just how lucky we are that we get to go to K12 International Academy? I’m serious. We don’t have to deal with any of that. But the other side is, we signed up for this gig, we gotta go to it.
Some of us don’t go because we don’t want to be the only person in the room. Hey, I can relate. Others say, “If I go to a class connect, it must—MUST--help me pass my final because I only have so many hours in a day not to fail it and risk the wrath of my parental units.” I can relate to that one too. But we are citizens of a community—a virtual one—that is built or falls apart by our presence or absence respectively. And as such, I’m going to make a pitch for what I think we all want out of our class connects. Who knows? Maybe someone will even read this:
I want class connects that will help me pass the final. I don’t care if they are covering material I have already covered, or material I haven’t seen yet. The bottom line is both situation are going to be on the final, and this year it turns out this stuff may be on an AP exam I’m supposed to take and look like a genius. Yikes.
My Mom gave me this idea and I like it. Instead of study halls being exclusively where I come with a question and my teacher is the sage on the stage, the all-knowing oracle, the wise and powerful—I want the first thirty minutes of that study hall to cover just the reading I was supposed to do, will eventually do, or already did. That will be a great review, and then I can ask questions about that stuff. To make study hall meaningful, don’t force me to know the questions I’m supposed to ask when I don’t even know the material very well. How can I ask a question when I don’t even know where to start?
There. My ten cents for free. Your thoughts? Spike ‘em in the comments below. Let me know you read this, and you’re thinking about it. Am I wrong?
