"I Won't Put Myself In His Shoes"

Compassion can be a tough sell, especially to an 8th grade boy with a reputation to protect. He has to appear hard, unmoved by the suffering of others, ruthless in defense of himself and what's his. For him, a discussion in Ethics Class is just another part of a larger PR campaign. He has to stay on-message.

The 8th grade boy profiled above--we'll call him Andre--was the last to find his seat in Molly Stone's Ethics class this morning. He sat sideways, with his back turned to most of the circle. When the Do Now arrived in front of him, he scribbled something quickly and then put his head down on the table.

There was a brief discussion of the Do Now, and then a reading about a school bus driver who was able to help a troubled student come out of her shell during bus rides to and from school. The bus driver exemplified the 8th grade maxim for compassion: walk a mile in someone else's shoes. The discussion that followed began with an analysis of the bus driver walking a mile in the troubled girl's shoes. The conversation got more interesting--as it usually does--when the students brought it home to their experiences with others who, like the girl in the reading, struggle to connect socially.

Michael offered an anecdote about a boy on his bus with bad oral hygiene. Michael's intentions seemed much more comedic than ethical, and his audience was right there on board with him. Bad breath is funny when it happens to other people. But the source of the humor was not really the boy's bad breath. The boy was socially isolated. Nobody would talk to him. Everybody laughed at him. It was the boy's painful humiliation that Ms. Stone's advisory found so funny. Andre was laughing loudest.

Ms. Stone wasn't laughing. But she did not berate her students for laughing (as I was tempted to do). She did not express any disappointment at their reaction. She let them laugh. And then dug deeper.

"Okay, on the surface it's a funny story. But, can anyone walk a mile in this boy's shoes?"

"I'd probably just give him a mint." With that Andre inspired another round of laughter. All eyes eventually turned to Ms. Stone, who was waiting patiently to continue the discussion.

"But can you put yourself in his situation? What do you think it would be like?"

"No, I can't put myself in his situation." His tone was more serious now. He wanted Ms. Stone to back off.

"Let's take a different example, then." She returned to the girl in today's reading. "The girl with 'behavior problems' turned out to be quite happy on the bus mostly because of the way the bus driver and the other kids treated her. Do you notice that this happens in school? Do students who seem to have 'behavior problems' in some contexts behave well in other contexts? Does it have anything to do with the way others see them or treat them?"

Andre straightened up in his seat. He raised his hand. He wanted back in.

"Sometimes when a teacher gives me lots of demerits or sends me out--especially a new teacher--I think about how hard that must be to teach all of us. I mean, how hard it must be to be a new teacher at this school."

And as Andre went so went the rest of the boys in the group. They shared earnest stories of stepping into the shoes of others and the discussion took on a life of its own. Happy ending.

Andre and Ms. Stone clearly have a history. She knew exactly which buttons to press and which ones not to press. She could have jumped all over his antics and disengagement early in the discussion--and we all know she would have done that if she thought it would be fruitful. Instead, she gave him some space to engage on his own terms, confident all the while that he would make good use of the opportunity. He knew she expected him to, and she knew he wanted to.

We should be mindful that this approach would not work to re-engage all resistant students. Harder redirection is often necessary. But in this case, Ms. Stone relied on her knowledge of Andre and a relationship she has built with him over a long period of time, walking miles and miles in his shoes.

Schell Shines as Rhymes Busta

It is annoying that although we teachers deserve celebrity status, so often we lack real star power in the eyes of our students. We have the talent and grit but not the fame or fortune that lends credibility to people like, for instance, Busta Rhymes.

Busta Rhymes is a widely admired Grammy-nominated rap artist with 9 albums to his credit and millions of devoted fans worldwide. In 2006, he witnessed the murder of his close friend, confidant, and bodyguard Israel Ramirez. In a statement released to MTV, Rhymes expressed his deepest condolences for the loss of the man he described as "one of those rare friends you come across that you can trust your life with." Yet Busta Rhymes released no statement to the police investigating Ramirez's murder. He was there, he saw it happen, but he would not "snitch" even to put the man who murdered a close friend behind bars. It was not out of distrust of the police or the threat of retribution that Rhymes kept his silence. Rather, it was an effort to maintain his "hard-core" image that helped him sell his records.

Today, seventh grade Ethics teacher Gretchen Schell boldly took on Busta Rhymes with all his gold and platinum records and throngs of fans. It was a classic teacher v. celebrity showdown, except this one was even more rigged than usual in favor of celebrity. Not only did Ms. Schell have to take down Busta Rhymes but she also had to contend with the whole "stop snitchin'" street culture that so many of our younger students want so badly to identify themselves with.

Yet Ms. Schell did not flinch. After her students read the Busta Rhymes story, she calmly, matter-of-factly stirred the pot and then let her students do the talking.

"Well, maybe if it was a family member I'd talk to the police," began one student. We'll call him Caleb. "But for a friend I wouldn't. I don't snitch. It's just something I've been taught."

Some snaps and some nods, mostly from the boys in the group. Sheila had her hand up and by the look on her face, she has a counterpoint.

"How would you feel if the tables were turned? If your were shot or hurt or something and your friend was a witness? I know you'd want your friend to have your back. You'd want someone to pay the price for hurting you."

All eyes were back to Caleb. "I'd want someone to pay but not by the police. I'd want my friend to--"

"But that's just going to cause more violence." Sheila was not going to let him off the hook. "You know you would want someone to help you, so why wouldn't you do that for someone else?"

"I guess I would eventually have to tell to get it off my chest," admitted Caleb. "I wouldn't want to carry that weight."

Ms. Schell then focused the discussion on the choice Busta Rhymes made. "What should be more important to Busta Rhymes, his hard-core reputation or standing by his friend and his friend's family?"

"This reminds me of something Mr. Dobberfuhl wrote on the board," announced Jasmine. "Would you rather be famous for something bad or not be famous but be a good person?"

Nods and snaps signaled consensus. Busta Rhymes was busted. At least for the ten minutes that remained in Ethics Class.

But it's a start. In years past, Busta Rhymes has almost always won this one.

Henning Wins Despite Shaky Stuff

Teaching is often compared to playing baseball, but most people I've talked to get this metaphor all wrong. Most people compare teaching to hitting. When you absolutely kill the lesson you say that you "hit it out of the park." When your students are difficult you say that you have to take whatever they're "pitching" and try your best to put the barrel of the bat on it. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't.

But this is all wrong. Teaching isn't like hitting. Hitting is much more passive than teaching. There's a lot of waiting, watching, and reacting that hitters do at the plate. Teachers don't have this luxury in the classroom. A good hitter carefully selects those pitches into which he will invest a precious swing. A good teacher can't be so choosy. She invests in every student.

Teaching is much more like pitching. Specifically, the teacher is like the starting pitcher. The starting pitcher is in control of the game. The decisions that the starting pitcher makes (certainly with the help and guidance of the catcher), and the pitcher's ability to execute these decisions, affect the course of the game much more than the decisions that any one batter makes. Similarly, the decisions that the teacher makes have a heavy impact on the way a particular lesson goes--almost always heavier than the decisions that any one student makes.

Major League pitchers report that they have their "best stuff" (their arm and all their pitches are performing at their best) about 25% of the time. When they have their best stuff, they are dominant and unbeatable. They report that they have "good stuff" (all of their pitches are generally working for them, though maybe not at their best) about 50% of the time. They can hope to keep their team in the game. The 25% of the time when a Major League pitcher does not have his good stuff... that's what really separates the great pitchers from the good ones.

A great pitcher can win even when he does not have his "good stuff." His curve ball hangs in the strike zone, so he knows he can't use it or he will eventually get shelled. His fastball does not have the usual zip, so he better be painting the edges of the plate, or it's batting practice. When the old reliable isn't working, a great pitcher finds another way to win.

8th grade Ethics teacher Greg Henning did not have his best stuff today. It wasn't his fault. He was working with a bad lesson. It was a brand new lesson for this year focusing on the story of George Washington Carver. It would have been a blockbuster lesson, except that the text, which should have brought the courage and resourcefulness of George Washington Carver to vivid life, was instead fairly dull--like a two-seam fastball with no action.

His students read it reluctantly, with a dreary monotone. They got it (thanks to some crafty real-time vocabulary support from Mr. Henning), but they didn't care much about it.

Henning battled through it, though, and kept his team (his students) in the game. Here's how he did it:

The text wasn't getting them, so he let the merits fly. They were all good, legit merits--an unusual and original answer, a brilliant use of textual evidence. As soon as he started throwing merits he got the crowd back into it. The discussion flowed much more enthusiastically.

He went off-script, adding questions of his own to the discussion. What fears do you think Dr. Carver would have felt? Raise your hand if you have ever felt these fears. When? Tell the story. Henning's students, as it turned out, were much more interested in talking about themselves than Dr. Carver.

Bur Mr. Henning did not abandon Dr. Carver. The text wasn't thrilling, yet he still recognized that it was important for his students to know Dr. Carver's story and to be able to relate their lives to it. So now do you see why this was difficult for George Washington Carver?

It would be great if every Ethics lesson provided enough inspiration right there on the page to captivate and motivate students, so that teachers would not have to work as hard as Mr. Henning to engage, energize, and provoke. But this is a quixotic fantasy. In reality, pitchers and teachers don't always have dominant stuff to work with. Sometimes they can win anyways.