Peter Nemenoff
Peter Nemenoff
Peter Nemenoff is a writer based out of Denver, Colorado. His plays have been produced by Gi60, Lakeshore Players, and published by Choeofpleirn Press, to name a few . His ten minute play Pellets won audience favorite in 2015 through the Lakeshore Players 10 minute play contest. Most recently his play Dinner Date was published by Apricity Magazine.
Rigorous Discourse
It seemed hypocritical to Mr. Silver.
In one breath, his evaluator, Ms. Rodriguez said that after coming back from COVID, students weren’t talking or engaging in discussion in class. In the very next breath, she was questioning him why he wasn’t engaging in more rigorous discourse in his classroom. The reason, of course, being that no matter what he did, what probing questions he asked, how much technology he used, or how “fun” he tried to make his class, he just could not get the kids to talk.
At all.
Mr. Silver was participating in his post-observation meeting, which was part of his formal evaluation, to determine if he would be renewed or not the following year. Ms. Rodriguez had observed his class earlier that week when he taught a poetry unit. Mr. Silver had read a poem with that class, then engaged in some discussion, followed by group work. Mr. Silver had been painfully aware of the fact prior to his observation that the kids in his class did not talk. They hadn’t all year. They weren’t great conversationalists concerning academic topics prior to COVID, but since remote teaching, the classes had become downright mute. On the plus side, there were many fewer behaviors to complain about, though it might have made class a little more exciting from time to time.
Mr. Silver, in an effort to solve this problem, created group work for his observation. The kids were assigned to groups, and each student was given a role. He made sure that the students, who he knew actually participated in class, were assigned the role of group speaker. The one, who when the class came back together, spoke out for their group to discuss what their group talked about. And just as he hoped, the group speakers did their job.
Ms. Rodriguez still found fault in her observation.
“I noticed the same four kids spoke over and over again. Is there an opportunity for the other kids to speak as well?” She asked, in her less-than-glamorous office, with exposed brick walls and a desk that took up most of the space, that probably at one point in time had been a book closet.
“Those were the group speakers,” Mr. Silver politely pointed out. “That was their job, to speak for the group.”
Ms. Rodriguez nodded.
“I understand, but even before the group activity, I noticed the same four kids were the only ones to speak. What do you do to try and engage the other kids in class?”
Mr. Silver stroked his goatee and went, “Hmmmmm,” to appear as though he was thinking in an effort to buy time in the hopes a brilliant answer would come to him. In truth, nothing came, and he had no answer for his evaluator. The truth was, no matter what he did; he could not get those other kids to talk. He could stare a kid down with a bright light, and nothing would happen. They’d just stare at each other in awkward silence until either the bell rang or Mr. Silver couldn’t take it anymore.
He had hoped for some compassion on the subject. When he first came into Ms. Rodriguez’s office, she was talking to another assistant principal in a hushed voice. He knocked on the door and said “knock, knock,” as well to make his presence known. Ms. Rodriguez apologized for making him wait, although she actually had not. He was early. Then the other administrator scuttled off.
“How’s it going?” Mr. Silver asked as he sat down.
She sighed and brushed her long dark hair back over her ear and took off her glasses and dropped them on the table before her.
“Honestly, it’s been a long year,” she said. She then admitted that she and the other administrator had been complaining about the school year, the students, their apathy, the lack of support from their higher-ups, and everything else. It made Mr. Silver feel better. He saw her as human, someone also struggling with the difficult situation they currently faced, but that empathy, feeling of camaraderie, was short-lived when she questioned Mr. Silver on why he was unable to make a bunch of students who refused to talk be able to engage in any kind of meaningful discourse.
But then he thought about the pressure she must be under too. Working in a school that continually fell below state expectations, trying to make the most of a nearly impossible situation. The pressure she must feel from her own evaluator; the principal, and everyone above him must have been immense. It dawned on him, she must have to find something to critique him over. How would it look if she came in and said: “Looks good! Change absolutely nothing,” when in fact, everything was not good, and the school absolutely needed something to change. Although, he wished that she could also find something productive to be critical about. Especially when she admitted in the same breath that everyone was having the same problem, and there was no good solution to the whole thing. He almost let the matter go when Ms. Rodriguez said, “And that is why I can’t check you off as proficient in this area yet.”
“I’m sorry. What?” He asked, his attention fully back to the conversation now.
“As of right now I can’t say you’ll be marked as proficient. I still need to check off that I’ve seen you engage in rigorous discourse with all your students in the classroom, and they engage in rigorous discourse with each other.”
Mr. Silver wanted to ask, “How?” But then thought better of it. He just privately vented to himself how stupid the rating system for teachers was, at least in Colorado where he taught. Each year they were given a rubric, and with each formal and informal observation, the teacher’s evaluator marked off that a certain standard was observed in the classroom until enough boxes were checked off, and the teacher was marked either proficient or, with any luck, exemplary.
Sounds great. Check off the boxes and be a proficient teacher. Except for one thing. Each year the rubric was completely erased. Washed clean, like an etch-a-sketch. Mr. Silver would have been more understanding if he was a first or even second-year teacher, but Mr. Silver was in year 3 of this. He just had to get one more year of being proficient to be immune from the threat of non-renewal, being granted tenure, or at least the closest to tenure a teacher in Colorado could be granted. He was still subject to evaluation but was at least given a little more cushion in that situation. Now the whole thing was threatened; he possibly had to start his three years of proficiency over again, all because the students were apathetic, not just in his class, but all of his classes. All of the school, for that matter. Maybe even the district, state, and country! So again, he thought, “How? How am I supposed to solve a problem nobody else can solve, but apparently I am being held to a higher standard than others?”
Again he thought this but he did not say it.
Instead he asked, “So what are my next steps?” Hoping once again for some empathy as he received earlier in the conversation. Perhaps now that Ms. Rodriguez had gone through the motions, so to say, she could get real with him. Tell him that was what she “had” to say, but since he had proven himself year after year, not to worry about it. She knew he was proficient in this area and would be able to mark him off based on his history as a proficient educator.
Instead, she said, “I think more observations are in order.”
Not ideal. Not the worst, but not what he wanted to hear. Although it wasn’t as heinous as her next comment.
“Would you be interested in some coaching?”
No, he certainly would not be. The last teacher he knew who got coaching left after the end of the year due to humiliation. He stood in the front of the class with an earpiece in, as an administrator stood in the back with a headpiece and microphone, issuing instructions to him, which he would clearly hear without any of the technology used. All the students could hear it too, only adding to more confusion when the administrator barked orders like, “Tell Johnny to get a pencil out.” Or, “Reward Jennifer for getting her work out without being redirected.”
Then the teacher would say, “Congratulations Jennifer. You started your work first without any further instruction.”
Prompting Jennifer to say, “I know Mister. I heard Mister say so.”
So no, Mr. Silver was not interested in coaching.
“Let’s start with more observations,” he politely said. “Should I invite you to a lesson?”
“Yes, when you plan a lesson that engages in discourse, send me an invite, and I will try to come.”
Mr. Silver did not have a chance to invite Ms. Rodriguez. He had every intention to, but she beat him to it. Within the week he found her coming into his 6th period class, unannounced, clipboard in hand, with another administrator. Not the principal but another assistant principal. It was more than possible that she was being observed while she observed him. Mr. Silver had assumed Ms. Rodriguez’s evaluator was the principal. Maybe they were both just doing their observations together. He had no idea, but either way, there were now two administrators in his classroom. Lucky him!
Luckily the students were working on something when they came in. It wasn’t exactly an example of rigorous discourse, but it was an activity that all the students were engaged in nonetheless.
As it was close to the end of the school year, Mr. Silver had planned an activity where his students, who happened to be freshmen, looked back on their first year of high school and wrote letters to themselves with any advice they might have after a year of gained wisdom. It was a pretty fluff activity, but the students were enjoying it, which made Mr. Silver grateful that his surprise observation took place that day.
However, the amount of discourse that was occurring was limited, mainly due to the solitary nature of the activity. This did not stop Ms. Rodriguez from going around the room to talk to students to see if they could tell her what they were doing. No doubt in an effort to show Mr. Silver and the other administrator, how to properly engage with students while in class.
Unfortunately for Ms. Rodriguez the first student she talked to was Nancy.
Nancy was a particularly salty student. She wore the same black hoodie every day, had part of her head shaved, and the other part dyed a different color each week. She mainly paid attention to her phone and only really engaged with Mr. Silver in an attempt to get into a power struggle with him, like trying to sit in another seat beside her assigned seat or trying to argue her way out of work.
To put it mildly; Ms. Rodriguez made a mistake picking Nancy as her first student to talk to.
Mr. Silver and Nancy had an understanding. She didn’t bother him as long as he didn’t bother her. She turned in some work, and he in turn gave her a passing grade. It was a working relationship that benefited both of their sanities. Ms. Rodriguez did not know about this agreement. She also did not know much about Nancy herself apparently, despite being an administrator in the school who should interact with all the freshman students in the hallway when she should have been outside directing them to class during the passing period.
Instead, she went right up to Nancy and asked, “What are you working on?”
Nancy somehow heard her, even with her headphones on and looked up. In a terse tone she screamed over her music, “Huh? What do you want?!”
Ms. Rodriguez, undeterred, or unwilling to give up, gestured for Nancy to remove her headphones, which, in all fairness to Nancy she did. It did not, however, make her more polite.
“What?” Nancy barked.
Ms. Rodriguez continued in as sweet a voice as she could.
“I asked what you are working on, sweetie?”
Again to Mr. Silver’s surprise, Nancy answered her, this time even with a little less attitude.
“We’re writing letters to ourselves to tell us what we learned our freshman year of high school.”
Ms. Rodriguez nodded in approval and took some notes on her clipboard.
“And what did you learn this year?” she asked.
Nancy’s eyes went dark.
“I learned that I fucking hate this place.”
Ms. Rodriguez froze. So did her evaluator. The classroom went silent as everyone waited to see how the two AP’s would respond. Would they blow up? Yell at Nancy? Drag her out of the classroom, never to be seen again?
No, they didn’t do any of that.
Ms. Rodriguez, when she got her composure back, just nodded and went, “Ok.”
Then she and the other administrator quickly left the room, apparently finished engaging in discourse with the other students. Mr. Silver shrugged, and the other students went back to work. He was curious if he would be dragged into her office later that day to be spoken with about the rude behavior of his students.
But he never was summoned. Instead he noticed that his evaluation was changed to proficient later that day. So he signed off on it, and none of it was ever spoken of again.