done
I was a high school English and History teacher for 30 years. In my final year, I had an honors Global History class, possibly the best group of kids I’d ever taught. Global History is a two year course culminating in a rigorous June examination. But my principal decided that she wanted this particular class to take the exam six months earlier in January. I objected, arguing that the kids weren’t fully prepared, that we hadn’t covered any of the 20th century yet.
But she insisted, so I spent three weeks prior to the exam cramming for the entire history of the last 100 years. The kids were amazingly cooperative, listening and taking notes during hour-long lectures and studying intensive review sheets. It turned out that all 24 kids in the class passed the exam, 20 of them with scores over 80. Those who got lower grades were permitted to retake the test in June. It really wasn’t educationally sound, but it was an amazing accomplishment.
To help them study, I wrote this rap song, reviewing the history of the world in three minutes. Then after the test, we shot this video with the help of the media arts instructor.
April 22, 2009 at 11:08 pm |
Fantastic.
April 22, 2009 at 11:14 pm |
[...] LESTER RAPS [...]
April 23, 2009 at 8:59 am |
Great, helps an oldtimer get the whole rap thing for first time. Well done you must have been a great teacher.
April 23, 2009 at 11:40 am |
It was easy being a good teacher with an exceptional class like this. They threw me a surprise retirement party before I left and made a farewell video tribute of their own. I hope to attend their graduation this June.
April 23, 2009 at 8:31 pm |
Fabulous stuff! Makes me want to go be a teacher. So long as I’m guaranteed those students.
April 23, 2009 at 9:55 pm |
One of casualties of the back-to-basics movement in U.S. education is the lack of art and music classes. Kids get double periods of Math and English in middle school and are tested continually. Teachers try to insert creative stuff into their lessons, but that’s especially difficult when there is so much pressure to improve test grades and so much curriculum to cover for the state exams in high school.
Art and music are essential to a well-rounded education. Officials claim that emphasis on the “academic subjects” has resulted in recent improvements in student performance, but if you look closely at the high school exams over the years, they have gotten easier and easier. I was able to cover six months of material in three weeks with motivated students because I knew the kinds of questions they’d be asked. I taught to the test and left out most of the cultural history of the 20th century. What kind of education is that?