Greatness in 48 minutes
April 3, 2008
In 1998, I had my first opportunity to teach an advanced chemistry class and I was just as nervous and apprehensive as my students. Before the previous school year had ended, I told the prospective students that this Advanced Placement class was going to challenge them to search for, and hopefully find, higher levels of academic consistency, dedication and preparation. I told them they would probably discover new things about themselves and deep down inside, I knew I would be discovering a lot about myself as well. I wondered if it had been too long since my college chemistry classes in the early 1970’s. I had not delved into the depths and complexity of my subject area in over two decades! I wondered if I would be able to keep up with the bright and talented students who would be in my classes.
Pam was one of those adept and savvy students who greeted me on the first day of AP Chemistry that year. She was an effortless learner and was also one of the most effervescent and happy students I’ve met. A twinkle was always in her eye and she went out of her way to speak first and tell you to have a good day. She had been a student in one of my first year Chemistry classes and was one of those students who could put anyone in a great mood on almost any day. I was looking forward to having her in class a second year right along with so many other outstanding kids.
As the first few weeks of school flew by, I observed her persona slowly beginning to change. Pam’s bubbly personality started going flat and a frown, accompanied by a wrinkled brow, frequently replaced her customary smile. Her daily preparations for this class were clearly lacking and her grades on the first two tests were below her usual high standards. She was trying to get by on just her natural abilities. After the second test, Pam’s chemistry grade settled in the “B” range so I was not surprised to see her walk through my doorway one afternoon after school. We chatted about the need for preparation every day and I tried my best to explain that if her homework assignments were not completed, the tests would be very difficult. I stressed the need for this consistency and then affirmed that I knew she was capable of making an outstanding grade in this class. Then as she was leaving, we had this final exchange.
“But I want an ‘A’ in this class, Mr. Manuel”, she stated emphatically.
My response was, “There is so much time left and I know if you will work a little harder outside of class you will have that ‘A’.”
Then the tears started welling up in her eyes and as she was walking toward the door she said in a slightly quivering voice, “But I want an ‘A’ right now.” Then Pam turned and hurried from the room.
I sat there in my room alone for a few minutes trying to decide what I could do to help her at this point but I had no answers. Pam found her way into my thoughts and quiet reflections quite often over the next several days and weeks.
It wasn’t a dramatic change, but one day I realized there were beginning to be more smiles and fewer frowns. She began to intentionally walk by my door again during the day and give me a cheerful, “Hi Mr. Manuel, how is your day going?”
During class, she always had her completed homework paper in front of her with only an occasional big question mark or a frowning cartoon face to identify the problems that really stumped her. Pam always doodled amusing “funny faces” in the margins of her homework papers or even occasionally on tests when she was deep in thought and these trademarks had reappeared after being absent for weeks. Her lab reports again became neat, thorough and very insightful. Grading lab reports can be tedious and time-consuming but I always enjoyed grading hers. Pam’s test scores shot right to the top or near the top on every exam.
I don’t remember when I heard it for the first time but Pam began saying that she wished there were a third-year chemistry class offered (she was just a junior). She explained that she wanted another chemistry course because then we could get to learn the really hard but really cool stuff. Pam always followed these words with a flash of her contagious smile, but she was serious and later on I discovered why. Towards the end of the year, Pam sent me a letter and in it she explained how this course had stretched her more than any class before it. She said that she had definitely discovered a lot about self-discipline and about her inner motivations. Pam concluded her little note by explaining that she had decided to take more chemistry classes in college and perhaps even choose a career in a chemistry-related field.
As I read her letter, I recognized that I had been witnessing a yearlong transformation. From that emotional and tear-filled day early in the year, Pam had arrived at a remarkable new place in her young life. She had responded to a challenge that broke down some old boundaries and then carried her to a new location beyond her previous comfort zone. As a result, Pam experienced substantial growth in her maturity and in her character. Pam’s mind expanded as she learned how to set long range academic goals. She also developed a new academic attitude along with new study habits that helped her to reach her goals. Pam overcame several obstacles along the way including her own impatience and desire for “A” results right now with less than an “A” effort.
My teaching colleagues and I frequently find ourselves encouraging our students to develop more consistent and more disciplined study and preparation habits. There are many things about education that have changed in my seventeen years as a teacher, but student self-discipline and preparation are two of the biggies. There are so many amazing students walking the halls of Blue Springs High School every day and each one of them makes the daily decision whether to come to class prepared. Those are often tough decisions because there are so many other things that seem to lobby for their time. There are jobs, there are friends and there are extracurricular activities. In addition, these students truly have become a technology-liberated and at the same time a technology-distracted generation. In recent years, these students and their families have evolved to make time for instant, worldwide communication, networking and recreation through: cell phoning, picture-phoning, text messaging, instant messaging, podcasting, YouTubing, Facebooking, Xangaing, MySpacing, Guitar Heroing and Internet video gaming. Each one of these can be a pretty potent competitor that can gobble up precious minutes once the dismissal bell rings.
Whenever we discuss homework and study habits, I hear many of my colleagues talking about the same things I observe with increasing numbers of students in my classes. We all talk about the large numbers of students who come to class every day without any homework done and we lament that these same students are not spending much if any time outside of class studying and preparing for tests. Their grades suffer and in some cases become dramatically deflated. Just as important, however, they are also not learning some of the most important life lessons that will stay with them long after they have forgotten the details of their high school academic lessons.
I am fortunate to teach a large number of the very best students who attend Blue Springs High School. Quite a few of them will take the advanced chemistry curriculum for two years and will then have the opportunity to really test themselves by taking the AP Chemistry Exam in the late spring of their second year. If they score high enough on it, they will likely earn college credit. Every year, the students who earn the best grades in this class and who earn the best scores on this challenging exam are the ones who have learned the importance of working hard to achieve their goals. They have learned to be involved but they have also become efficient managers of their scarce time. They have learned to manage their minutes after school and in the evenings just like they have learned to manage their text-messages with their friends at the end of the month. These successful students have good friends and they are very active in school and in the community; plus they still make time to study and prepare for class every day. By the time they leave high school, they have had a valuable first-hand experience that has reinforced the key life-long idea that hard work does pay off.
Unfortunately, there are some who do not make this connection at any time during their two years in my classes or in any of the other classes during their high school years. They struggle because they continue trying to get by with less than their best effort. So many of these floundering students are just as talented and are just as involved as their peers who are experiencing higher levels of success. Some of these struggling students do set high goals for themselves, but they haven’t yet seen the need to develop a self-disciplined, academic work ethic to go with their lofty aspirations. I have students that sacrifice almost a full letter grade in my course because they don’t take the fifteen minutes that are needed to finish their lab reports before they are turned in.
Our class periods are forty-eight minutes long and so many of these students haven’t yet learned that they must spend time beyond those forty-eight minutes to begin moving closer to reaching their significant potential. I see this most often in my first year chemistry students. For perhaps the first time in their academic careers they find themselves wanting to be in the challenging courses but many of them are counting on being able to achieve their goals by spending only the forty-eight minutes of classroom time to learn and become proficient at a very interesting but challenging and complicated subject. This year, almost one fourth of these talented first year chemistry students are consistently coming to class unprepared for the time we will spend together. Many of my teaching peers report similar experiences regarding homework and outside preparations by the students in their classes.
As high school teachers we sometimes feel a sense of urgency because we recognize that we have the final opportunity to teach our students so many important things before they venture out on their own. We all want our students to understand the subject matter we teach; but we also want them to learn and understand that greatness in an academic subject as well as greatness in their personal lives cannot be achieved in a literal or a figurative forty-eight minute class period. We all want our students to dream big dreams but we also want to help them learn new skills. We all want to help our students understand and accept their responsibilities in turning those dreams into realities. Greatness can only be attained through focus, commitment and diligent effort.
To become great . . . and each one of our students can become great in their own unique and individual ways in their own area of interest . . . they will have to learn to invest quality time and energy away from school. That is a lesson that teachers and parents must work together to teach and reinforce. Our students need to learn to stretch themselves and they need to learn to prioritize the demands for their time. They need to learn how to become independent learners and they need to experience the feelings of satisfaction when they look back and realize they gave their best effort and really earned their grades as well as their other academic successes.
Pam made some important discoveries just a few short weeks into her junior year and it was so much fun to watch what happened for her the rest of that year. As teachers at all levels, we enjoy seeing the light bulbs of deep and long-lasting learning begin to glimmer and glow, then grow in intensity and finally beam so very brightly. With the hundreds of students that have come through our classrooms, we feel professional pride and personal satisfaction when we have been able to do our part to nurture a student to the freeing and life-altering realization that personal as well as academic greatness cannot be achieved in 48 minutes.
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