Sparing the Buds
Dr. Bill Elgersma | October 2008
For several years I have marched as part of fall and spring convocations at the college where I teach. As commencements go, I imagine ours is much the same as most across North America. The academic officers and president of the college, along with board members or regents enter first, complete in their accoutrements. The faculty follows, position in line dictated by seniority and level of degree, again sporting the colors of their discipline. Not understanding the protocol early on, I made the mistake of being at the wrong end of the line, the senior end, but was quickly redirected to the appropriate position where I am quite comfortable. However, regardless of the pomp and regalia, the past two years have become something of a sobering humorous reminder of persistence and success.
Due to changes in personnel and faculty study leaves over the years, I have found that the partner one marches with at the back end of the line is likely to change at each commencement. However, for the past two years, my partner has been one of my former high school students. I had not paid attention to this until we entered the auditorium for the first time, and he muttered from the side of his mouth, "Imagine that, the two of us walking down this aisle as profs." I had to smile.
Some time ago when I was teaching at a Christian high school, the principal was a visionary. I did not realize that at the time; I was busy trying to survive with what I considered a heavy load of students all with specific needs. I liked teaching high school. Students had energy; they wanted to be challenged; relevant preparation each day was important, and motivating students was critical to our success. However, despite my best intentions and interests, a segment of the student body simply did not want to become engaged. I believe that many schools have this group of students—unmotivated, low efficacious students, typically male, who are experts at running discussions off topic and able to analyze and exploit teachers' flaws in an instant. These are the dangerous students who can ruin a lesson plan simply by attending class, and are even more threatening when they actually contribute. Their predictability is tenuous at best, as is their completion of assignments and preparedness for class. Certainly these are not students for the idealist or the faint of heart. They simply appear not to care.
Rattling a teacher brings particular joy to this group. Observing complexions change color to a glowing red, listening to quavers in voice and seeing teardrops appear, to produce satisfaction for them. Ultimately, intimidation and fear characterize this group, and they appear to facilitate each other in the refinement of skills and satisfaction in a job well done.
The school at which I was employed appeared to have a large group of these students who were making education miserable for teachers, as well as some of the students who truly desired to learn the material being presented. After a particularly poor semester where frustrated teachers failed this unmotivated group en masse, I was approached by the principal who suggested that I develop a course specifically for them: juniors and seniors who were not going to graduate in time because of a shortage of credits and few summer school options. Why he selected me is still a mystery; however, I learned far more than the students possibly could.
At first I hesitated. This group of boys had been in attendance, more or less, in my classes, and I knew them well. They had gleaned satisfaction from my frustration, and I believe I contributed to some of their shortage of credits. However, the principal gave me latitude in developing curriculum with few absolutes except for credit allocation. I believe his final encouragement was "sneak in education when they aren't looking." And so I began to think and plan.
Although no budget was allocated for this class, I was given access to an enclosed abandoned van garage for my use as a classroom lab if necessary. The first time I entered it, I had to push boxes of cleaning supplies, athletic equipment, broken desks, and antiquated art supplies to the walls to create an access route to the front. This would become our classroom for the semester. Work benches stained with remnants of various activities became desks, and steel lab stools, too worn for class but too good to be discarded were their seats, when they needed one. Not really a positive learning environment according to conventional educational standards.
Although criterion for enrollment in this course was ambiguous, the group was comprised of what some might consider the 10 worst students in the school. The principal had given me permission to accept or refuse anyone, and consequently I prepared a curriculum based on that piece of freedom. In retrospect, one of the students refused entry to the class, while never told, was denied admission because he was too good. Perhaps the environment was best epitomized the first day of class when one of the group looked around and announced, "I am going to like this class because I am the smartest one in the room!" Tact and social graces were wanting.
Through the course of that semester, education snuck in deliberately. They read academic journals, religious journals, instruction manuals, editorials, and Newsweek. They wrote coherent essays based on research complete with structure and logic. But that was the hidden curriculum. What they thought they were doing was reading about the continuing problems with Chernobyl, making lasagna, building car engines, fabricating Christmas toys for an outreach program in the area, and making financial decisions about crops. They did not see the class as education.
In education today, we use terms like developmental education, transitional students, remedial students, basic and at-risk students, and we offer a variety of courses in an attempt to facilitate their learning. Currently, approximately 15 percent of my teaching load includes developmental writing students—students who have been provisionally admitted to post secondary institutions with one more chance to be successful. But at-risk students are the pariah of many educational systems. They are unknowns who create headaches for administrators attempting to fill classrooms, discipline officers patrolling parking lots, and teachers unable or unwilling to identify with them and the way they learn.
In retrospect, I failed to see what the principal saw so clearly—unlimited potential. As covenant children in our community, at their baptism when the minister read the form for the sacrament of baptism, we verbally committed "to receive them in love, pray for them, and help instruct them in the faith, and encourage and sustain them in the fellowship of believers." They had needs that the principal addressed, a responsibility that I was too self-absorbed to see.
This experience taught me a lesson I have not forgotten. Now, at the beginning of this new semester I look at a class roster and then scan the room of students with no history or connection to these students, at-risk or otherwise. I need to remember that it is new again, for all of us. However, what is not new is task and calling. We work together to redeem the kingdom, coworkers in Christ, not as despots without mutual respect and responsibility for the individuals involved or surgeons eliminating what we perceive to be cancer. We, all of us, are not called to be perfect; we are called to be obedient—faithful. God will bless the increase.
Again today I marched into the auditorium beside my former student. He grinned. This never gets old, this inside joke with mental images of ice cream pails catching dripping rain water and a frost-covered north wall. Later this year he will take a leave of absence to finish his Ph.D. I am reminded of Andrew Marvell's "The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers" where Marvell implores the reader: "Pick the flowers but spare the buds." We as educators do well to consider God's buds as well as his flowers.
Dr. Bill Elgersma is an Assistant Professor of English at Dordt College in Sioux Center, IA.