"Dude, I spawned into an aircraft"

Last week I was riding in a van with ten eighth grade boys on our way to a zipline course. The trip would take about an hour, so I settled into my front seat and began a little informal data gathering: What do adolescent boys talk about in unstructured settings? Over the course of that hour, the boys discussed video games-- especially war-based games, movies-- war-based movies, horror films, and slapstick comedy, and TV shows-- South Park and Family Guy. The conversation was rapid fire: one boy introducing a topic, another offering a brief comment, a third jumping in with a new topic. No one topic lasted more than about a minute and a half. Some boys could never get a word in edgewise, while the same 2-3 dominated the conversation. Yet there was a sense of community and lots of laughter, quotes and shared memories.

I learned something by listening that day: Those boys are part of a culture that has its own vocabulary, rituals, and values. That culture is completely foreign to my culture; although I have heard of the games, movies, and TV shows they discussed, I have not participated nor viewed any of them. They used familiar words in new ways: "Dude, I spawned into an aircraft" (spawned?), and used terms I'd never heard of: "I used my MOAB to blow up the tank" (MOAB? When another boy asked, I learned it meant "Mother Of All Bombs"). They valued violence and competition, slapstick humor and special effects.

This is interesting to me because these are my students. They sit in my class every day and listen to me talk about the things I think are important. But what I am talking about has nothing to do with modern warfare weapons, gory violence, nor slapstick humor. I wonder if what I am saying is as foreign to them as their discussion was to me. I wonder how to bridge my middle-aged female academic culture with their adolescent male pop culture so that they can access the vocabulary and concepts in the curriculum. I wonder about the pace of the class, where one topic can last 20 or more minutes. Can they sustain their attention that long?

The boys in that van come from families like mine, have parents like me. Yet they have created a common culture that is foreign to me. Rather than assuming they are accessing all of the concepts presented in class, I must remember to find the bridge that helps them link my culture to theirs, just as I do with students from other foreign cultures.

What I learned about eighth graders- Part I: Love Them

Moving from sixth grade to eighth grade this year was a leap, not just in curricular expectations or unit topics, but also in dealing with personalities. Three students in particular challenged me and made me continuously question how and why I was teaching the way I was. Because of their challenges, I grew as a teacher.

Y- was a little boy in a big boy’s body. Although he was as tall as the other boys, taller than many, and was one of the first in the grade to have an official girlfriend, he was only twelve years old until November, making him the youngest boy in the grade. He acted his age in small but important ways in the classroom: continuously poking his neighbors, especially if they were girls; unable to concentrate for longer than ten minutes—standardized tests were a torture and he would rock or sit on his knees and sigh; he had very little reading stamina, hating each story or book he was given because it took a little effort to get past the beginning. In class, he put his head down on the table. When asked to take notes or to write a reflection, he scrawled a few illegible words. He was simply unengaged. But he craved attention, and he reached out from his world to mine. “Mrs. Pohl, have you seen….?” “Mrs. Pohl, is this right?” “Mrs. Pohl, how do I…?” A huge movie buff, he frequently asked me if I’d seen the most recent movie, or one that connected to what we were discussing. He asked my favorite actor, or musician, or song. He was quick with verbal snipes back to my remarks. And when it was the last day of school and he asked, “Can we go?” I said, “Yes, but you have to hug me first.” He gave me the biggest, tightest hug of anyone. Y- taught me that the curriculum is not going to connect to every kid, no matter the games or role-plays, the choices or multiple intelligences opportunities. But I had better find a way to connect with every single kid even if their behavior is off-putting or negative, because they still want to be loved by their teachers. That will make a difference in a kid’s life.