1. You are an expert in classroom management. Your next-door neighbor, a 1st-year teacher in an urban high school, has asked you to give her advice on a problem she is facing 1 month into her 1st year of teaching.

Debbie is a social studies teacher in an urban high school. She started the semester with great plans. She really wanted to avoid the trap of setting low expectations for urban students, so she developed a curriculum in which she planned to use a lot of primary historical sources in her class so that students could have real historical discussions about issues. For instance, she developed a unit on the Civil War in which students would read diaries from various people involved (both important and ordinary folks) and then use the diaries to try to understand the causes of the war. She really wanted her students to understand big issues raised by the study of history and government.

On the 1st day of class, Debbie told you that she had clearly emphasized the importance of homework in her class. She told her students that there wouldn’t be an excessive amount of homework in her class, but that it would be crucial that they do the readings before class; otherwise, the discussion would fizzle. She made homework count for 20% of students’ grade. As a first discussion, she handed out two pages of testimony relevant to who fired the first shot at Lexington Green to begin the American Revolutionary War, and she asked students to read the two pages before the next class and to bring the testimony to class.

The next day, she found that less than one-third of each class had done the homework, and, even worse, only half of most of her classes had even brought the sheets she handed out. She was stunned to find that nearly half her students didn’t even bring a pencil! She spent the first 6 or 7 minutes of every class getting pencils and paper handed out to everyone. After 2 weeks, it was clear that this was going to be the pattern. Most of the students could not contribute to any discussion because they hadn’t read the material. Students seldom brought the materials they needed. Finally, after 2 weeks, she abandoned her great plan and went back to covering the textbook in a somewhat more conventional way. She still tried to generate discussion on big issues, but she didn’t require students to read anything outside the class.

Most of the students were reasonably well behaved in her class, but in one class last week, when she asked students if they had any questions, one raised his hand and said, “Yeah, I want to know why this class is so boring? My cousin had Miss Cramer’s class last year, and he said it was really great and fun.” Debbie found out later that day that this student didn’t even have a cousin in the school. Debbie is begging you for help.

a. Formulate questions you would like to ask Debbie to help you understand other relevant aspects of her situation.

b. After hearing the answers to the questions, develop a plan for Debbie to follow.