When we are kids, we go away to summer camp - perhaps it is scout, nerd, or church camp, but we go and come back with our heads and hearts stretched to the bursting point with new knowledge and dreams.
And then some of us get old, become teachers, and go away to this camp like beast called Advanced Placement Summer Institute. I say it is camp like because we have roommates - if you are lucky, it is someone you choose, but many end up sleeping five feet away from a total stranger. It is camp like in that meals are served from a buffet line with a mess hall type atmosphere. Mostly, however, it is camp like in that we are supposed to come home inspired and with the skills to transform our students into these amazing thinking machines who will pass the AP exam in ten months. It is a beast because at the end of each day, you need a stiff drink before you can think about processing all you learned and heard that day.
Last year, I came home frustrated, thinking I got little from my class, believing too much time had been spent on anecdotes rather than the meat of AP. After day one this year, I realized I had misjudged last years's instructor. Yes, there was little to no strategy, but he gave me a general idea of what to teach and several pre-made units on major literature. In the long run, that was what I needed. I can muddle through a lot of stuff as long as I know what it is I am supposed to be muddling through. This year, in sharp contrast, I walked away with no pre-made units on literature, instead bringing home several units of strategy for teaching each section of the AP lang and comp exam. This lady was fabulous, and these are such good, basic building blocks for beginning my kids on these essays and then working them into upper-half papers.
I came home inspired that I could get more kids to really get it, to really dig in and write deeply and meaningfully. I also came home feeling guilty. Some of this stuff was common sense or was in books I possess. Why did I not teach it? I just didn't know which strategies out of which books to teach - it was my first year and there was just so much I didn't know, but if I had known then what I know now . . . How many more kids would have passed the exam?
Overall, I am pleased. I feared that I would have no one pass. I began the year with twenty eight kids and ended the year with twenty one. Eleven tested and five scored high enough to get college credit at most major universities. I had one perfect score, but she was one of those amazing kids whom I simply guided a little, rather than really taught. There were a handful of others who should have taken the test, but didn't because of a conflict with the test date or lack of money. I think all but two kids walked away substantially more prepared to tackle a real college class.
I will say this. I think I did give them the first tastes many had of the same gift Sarah Webb and Ann Frankland gave to me: the right and power to form one's own opinion and to have a dream and work toward that bliss. It is so hard for kids to learn to have opinions instead of relying on me to say " this character was wrong because . . ." It is harder to start taking ownership for what they really want as opposed to what they think they are supposed to want. If I had to choose between them having learned about thinking and writing or passing the test, I am glad I went with thinking. They are young and still have a stretch of road to cover before they are ready to jump into life on their own, but they aren't too young to start thinking about what they want and counting the costs of those dreams.
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