Kids Say the Darndest Things

I'm sure this won't be the last time I chat about an incident in my classroom, although I won't use real names because we are dealing with minors here and there has to be some legal issue about all of that. Anyway, last Friday in my non-fiction American Literature class we read this essay entitled I Was Smart. It's an essay I got from a faculty meeting actually and it prompted some pretty good discussion (Dr. Jay Marks was the special speaker in the faculty meeting that day and I would highly recommend his consulting services). Ok-background knowledge. My class has a central theme of education in the 21st century. We have one core book (And Still We Rise by Miles Corwin) and readings, documentaries, and films that surround that text and fit within the individual units of the course. The essay I used last Friday told the story of an African-American male student who started out in trouble during first grade, got a teacher who supported him in 2nd-8th grade (and he felt really smart) then switched schools to a more non-diverse, affluent environment where teachers didn't seem to think he was smart. His grades fell, and even though he did graduate he didn't pursue a college degree. So in my class (both sections, one with 20 kids, the other with 29, all juniors and seniors) we tried to define smart. Prior to reading this essay I asked them if anyone had ever told them they were smart-almost every hand went up. Then I asked the kicker question-did they feel they were smart. No hands went up in one section, maybe 1 or 2 in the other section. So I had 47 students that basically told me they weren't smart. Several days later I still don't know what to make of this. When pressed it got down to tests-one student told me the math section of the ACT (that he had just taken the week before) made him feel pretty doggone stupid. Now I never thought of myself as a misunderstood genius or anything, but I never, ever, felt like any test or grade defined me. Maybe part of that was because I didn't come close to working as hard as I could have in high school or in my undergraduate studies (even though I had the best of the best English teachers in Jenny Colberg, who I know sometimes reads this blog!) :-) Whatever the reason, the person I was then is the person I am now-and that girl will never, ever let an external force dictate how she feels about herself. So that being said, what's going to happen to my students who will all head off to some school either next year or the year after, feeling like they aren't smart? What kind of citizens will they be? What kind of parents, aunts and uncles will they end up being? Think we should revisit this whole testing craze? Does a bear poop in the woods? In case you're wondering, the answer to those last two questions is yes. Howl On.