My Turn
He Said, She Said

You know it happens. You turn your back for a minute, and the notes start flying behind you. Most of the notes you see are just adolescent chit-chat, but not always.

By Jim Farrell

Ordinarily, I would have been thrilled to see this particular student with her head down, writing like crazy. She was usually pretty hard to motivate.

Alas, I hadn’t explained the assignment yet and, in fact, hadn’t passed out the paper that we would be using in my eighth-grade language arts class that day.

So I wandered over, saw what she was working on, and took the note from her as she gave me a meek and embarrassed smile. I glanced at what she’d written before stuffing it in my pocket, and almost caught myself smiling, too.

Lil’ Jewel,
Hey girl. Sup with U? N.M.H. Just chillin’ in L.A. b4 I fall asleep b/c this book is sooooooo boreing ....

It went on like that, although I never did read the whole thing. I did talk to its author briefly on her way out of class, to remind her about our previous conversations about staying on task and to underscore her somewhat precarious academic plight.

I added, as a sort of afterthought, that “boring” doesn’t have an “e.”

Ah, notes. They are part of every middle school’s culture, a fundamental communication tool used by students who are fueled by gossip and conversation but spend their day being forced to relocate every 45 minutes and quiet down once they reach a new destination.

Grammar aside, I’m not afraid to admit that some of the liveliest, most interesting writing done in my room is ... well, let’s just say, not assigned. The cryptic language can be fascinating (N.M.H., incidentally, stands for “not much here”).

The candor and honesty can be refreshing, or moving, even alarming and disturbing.

A good teacher, of course, tries to tap that reservoir of passion within students, but in a way that promotes inspired writing done in the context of whatever it is that’s being studied.

When that happens, everybody wins.

When, on the other hand, students use class time inappropriately, and you catch ’em writing notes, you’ve got a decision to make.

Often, I’ll just tell a student: “Put it away. If I see it again, I’ll take it.”

Other times, I’ll take the note, place it unread on my desk, and return it at the end of class with a stern warning.

And then there are the times when, for one reason or another, I will read some or all of a note. (This, I should add, is an option I explain to students at the beginning of the year and periodically after that.)

The contents sometimes reveal or suggest behaviors that demand intervention. Drug use. Sexual activity. The use of profane language. What you read can lead to the involvement of guidance counselors, social workers, administrators, and, obviously, parents.

Most of the time, thankfully, the issues are less vexing.

“Are you going to the dance?”

“Did you hear what she said he said about her?”

And, of course:

“This book is sooooooo boreing.”

That one stung a bit, I’ll admit. Oh, how nice it would be one day to pick off a note and find out that instead of chillin’, I would learn that a student found my language arts class to be thrillin’.

That would make me O.H.T.

One happy teacher.

Jim Farrell teaches eighth grade language arts at Bennet Middle School in Manchester, Connecticut. In addition, he works part-time as an editor for The Hartford Courant, where he oversees a Web site designed to help teachers by providing weekly online reading lessons. The site also includes a weekly column Farrell writes about life in the classroom.

Editor's Note

Two regular features in February’s NEA Today produced more than the usual reader reaction.

One was our debate on the question: Should all teachers be trained as teachers of reading?

Initially, the yes side of the question, argued by Pennsylvania’s Becky Pringle, was carrying the day. Three of every four votes favored her position. Then the tide turned.

At press time, after several hundred votes, the no side, championed by South Carolina member Margaret Patterson, had forged ahead by 54 percent to 46 percent.

That’s the vote total we reported in the March issue of NEA Today, which you received in late February.

A week or so later, after checking the vote tally again, we found that the tide had turned once again, toward Pringle’s affirmative side of the issue.

The point here isn’t to emphasize which of the debaters “won’’ so much as to note how the topic had seemed to have caused people to stop and think, to form an opinion, then to act on that view by voting in the NEA Today poll.

NEA President Bob Chase’s February column on high stakes testing also drew heavy reader response. Dozens of NEA members fired off E-mails in response.

The overwhelming majority of those who wrote shared the column’s concerns about the overemphasis being placed on tests and what that means for teachers and students.

Said one reader: “I am horrified at the new tests in my state and the devastating message it sends to our new generation.’’

See how test mania has affected members and students in Massachusetts, and the NEA state affiliate’s response.

—Bill Fischer