A Case Study at Roberto Clemente

March 15, 3 hours 15 minutes spent at Roberto Clemente

Keeping Students Focused

Our biggest challenge has been keeping the students focused on seeing their assignments through completion. They may write it, but not put it in Google Docs; or type it into the computer, but not share it. Or perhaps not do any of it. They had folders for their hard copy papers, but their assignments were still not getting done.

Logistics was the biggest issue of getting the assignments complete. The students, I think, found they could too easily slip through the cracks of accountability and goof off for an hour, listening to music on a laptop or just walking around and talking.

So last month we changed tactics a little and divided up the students by the four volunteers – about four students per volunteer. We sat down with our four students one on one, identified at least one assignment they wanted to see published and focused on getting that piece ready for publication.

Katie put this chart up on Google Docs. The colored squares are those pieces that have been submitted and then edited by a volunteer. The goal at the end of class was to color in a box. That seemed to work a little better. It empowered the volunteers to assume more responsibility in pushing the students more rather than waiting passively for students to come to us, which they were not doing.

Coming into the project in the middle of the year kept me a little in the dark in terms of visualizing the process of oversight. I was surprised at how little anyone seemed to care about the project. I think I was too light gloved with the kids, afraid of alienating them, when I think what they need is more accountability. They often leave the room in disarray, their laptops open, sometimes their personal folders still on their desk or even on the floor. The volunteers and teacher end up picking up after them. I think these kids need some discipline. They’re also rude sometimes to their very agreeable teacher.

They’re way too deficient in attention to be assigned laptops with Internet connectivity. And often they just end up cutting and pasting research from Wikipedia at the end of the hour. It’s very disheartening. One can easily feel overwhelmed, that it’s too late to reach these kids, and we need to start earlier.

Every quarter, the students are reassigned to different classes. And you can see how one or two bad actors can bring down the entire class.

I’ll see this project through to the end of the term and publication. And I’ll stay involved in 826Michigan. I think as an artist, you realize that your body of work doesn’t have to live only between the bindings of a book. That strikes me as a limited existence. Becoming involved in communities, a social volunteer community like 826Michigan, an alternative school community, a writer’s community in and outside the classroom – has been essential to helping to create an environment in which I can work and see myself as an artist – which isn’t defined by business cards and company flow charts – in fact it resists such delineation and prefers to operate on the margins.

I may be doing some good for the kids at Roberto Clemente, but I’m also forming my own consciousness as an artist, which will carry me onto future community outreach efforts.