this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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A middle school social studies teacher of mine gave me detention on numerous occasions because I refused to take notes in his class.
Partway into the year during parent-teacher conferences, where parents met with teachers to discuss their children's performance in class, the issue was brought up.
The greatest irony of the situation was that on the few occasions he forced me to take notes, it lessened my comprehension, because focusing on writing in real time during the lecture actively harmed my understanding of the lecture. God forbid a student actually listens to what you have to say...
I think people learn differently. Most lectures I have to wait for the instructor to finish their slide or something and then begin copying notes. If they're going really fast I don't understand anything, at that point it's just writing them down as fast as possible in order to study later instead of learning in class.
I had a similar experience with a high school biology teacher. I always took very scarce notes (just what i knew i needed to write down). She insisted we take thorough notes and later copy them over neatly into another notebook. I refused. Nevermind that my handwriting has always been abominable. She based some part of our final grade on turning in these copied over notes, and I consequently got a poor grade despite doing well on tests. I took great pleasure in telling her about my 5 on the AP test at the end of the year. (It was a national test, scored 1 to 5.)
It's a classroom management thing.
I didn't understand this until I was a teacher but unfortunately, "if I let you do it, I have to let everyone do it" ends up being pretty true. Kids will absolutely point to other kids and say, "but you let Joey put his head down and listen."
My response can't be "but Joey is passing my class." As much as I would like it to be.
It's also a respect thing and I don't mean that like you might think. I don't demand unearned respect from everyone like an asshole. But one thing that happens is, if you let kids skirt classroom expectations and let them avoid doing things you ask them to do, they learn that your rules/expectations are actually just suggestions. Everything becomes negotiable.
Sorry dude, I would have made you take your notes too.
I'm sorry but you're wrong here. Kids need to learn that everyone is different and everyone is not treated the same. The oft liar is never trusted. The fat kid is probably the one that stole the candy. The nerdy kid probably did most of the group work. If you get good grades, the teacher gives you more slack in some areas.
And your example sucks. Putting your head down and "listening" is not the same thing as sitting up and paying attention to a lecture but not taking notes.
Don't get me wrong. I see where you're coming from and agree generally, but on academics, there's too many different ways to learn. Whatever someone figures out that works best for them should be left to that if their marks are good every evaluation.
Much as I'd like to agree with you, you're clearly talking out of your arse.
Teachers are hamstrung by administration nowadays. If we could treat kids differently, we would. Alas, terrible admin+awful parents means differentiation isn't even remotely possible.
That's all very highly regarded
Who said anything about putting heads down? I wasn't pissing about reading a book or playing games on my laptop during lecture, I was paying attention. Head up, eyes locked, watching.
"Classroom expectations"? The only reasonable expectation here is that I pass the class. Whether the teacher thinks patting my head, rubbing my belly, and jumping up and down whilst doing so is the ideal way to acheive it is irrelevant. Especially so if it is demonstrably to the contrary. Literal data for this exists in the form of grades displaying the trend.
Maybe my anecdote is no longer reflective of modern institutions where teachers are increasingly restricted and scrutenized over dumb factors they don't even control, but I find this quite a strange take, because a different middle school teacher of mine in the same school played this exact card to great effect. It is not immediately obvious to me why you couldn't.
EDIT: Sitting on that response for a moment, it seems that to some degree you read it as if I was being disruptive in class, or otherwise not paying attention and setting that example to my peers. In these cases I would take your side. You have a responsibility to teach students the soft skills of proper attention and listening comprehension.
I was not violating this. My whole debacle was very specifically the putting pencil to paper part. In my view, notes are strictly an assistive tool. If I demonstrably did not require this tool to perform (evidenced by grades), and even moreso performed worse with it (further evidenced by grades), I do not agree that I should be forced to use it, specifically at a time where students are arguably old enough to start making choices like study strategy for themselves.
And I am not sufficiently convinced that this specific kind of selectivity is sufficiently toxic to your teaching position that you have to cast aside your better judgement to not rock the boat. But perhaps things really are that dire now. If they are, well, I guess that's just a bummer for both of us. :/