::A Geek in Korea::

Part of the problem with an age diverse class is that if the older students aren’t role models, the rest of the class has a hard time standing up to them. If an older student is put in a class based on their test level and they are studying with students much younger than they are, the chances they are going to be role models is really slim. Slackers suck basically, and they can eat away at the strong foundations of an otherwise positive class.

The worst student I’ve ever taught percentage wise is about to become a middle school student. He studies with students two to four years younger than he is, and demands that they call him a title of respect in class when spoken to in Korean. It’s probably the only respect he gets from anyone, because he’s a thug. He’s the only student that has gone an entire year without doing homework and has never faced repercussions for his actions because his mother doesn’t want him to be punished. Ever. He fights with other students constantly, and is a rude, bad influence on everyone he meets. I cannot stand this boy.

The only girl in class was being harassed by the Worst Student Ever today. He kept saying that she needed to address him with a Korean title, and she said she’d call him his English name because she was in English class. He was taunting her by having all the other boys in class say rude things about her while I tried to keep the class on track. She said, “If you want to make a problem with me, just fight me after class. I’ll kick your ass. This is when I study. Don’t bother me with your nonsense. Moron.”

I’ve always liked her.

Today was their testing period, and none of them had put in the effort to study, again. It’s an annoying bimonthly ritual where I give them time to study, they frantically try to memorize some things, then they fail miserably. They say the test is too hard, and then don’t study when I give them time.  They get nothing out of it because they put nothing into it. The students that try are close to success, but don’t put in that extra effort because they get mocked in class by bullies when they do. I get 10 minutes of rest while they pretend to look at books, then raise my blood pressure as I see them fail simple tests over and over. It’s disheartening.

I wanted to try something new. I remember a teacher that let us create a cheat sheet on a limited size of paper. We could write whatever we wanted on the paper, but only had a few minutes worth of time to prepare the paper. We couldn’t use more than the allotted sheet, and had to finish writing when he told us to close our books. I don’t think it’s an actual good thing to do for a test that counts for something, but I was doing it more as an experiment to confirm my suspicions about the Worst Student Ever. Did he actually know how to study?

I give the same test format every time, students that study know more than 50% of the answers simply by the format of the test if they memorize anywhere from 10 to 15 words. It’s not a difficult task. They have to memorize more than that every day for a Korean to English vocabulary test, and that is without time in class to refresh their memories.

If they get HALF the test correct, they pass my test. I figured that anyone given a cheat sheet would remember the format of the last several months of tests, recall how to find the answers from their materials, and just copy down the proper answers to their cheat sheet. No knowledge or learning was required. I wasn’t really worried that I was giving them the answers to the test. All they had was a Post-it Note worth of cheats to help them, but they knew exactly what was on the test.I just wanted to see if the students had the concentration, test taking strategy, and foresight to guess what was going to be on the test and prepare for the challenge. Even the students that consistently fail my tests know where to find all the answers on my test.  I keep them after class until they correct their test every week. All they had to do is write down the information they’d usually find correcting their tests on the cheat sheet and they’d pass my test easily.

The brighter students that know what they are doing passed with their official “cheat sheets” with no problem. They decided they only had to pass 51% of the test to succeed, and focused on exactly those questions that would get them past that mark with a margin of safety. Ideally I’d like them to shoot for 100%, but at least they had a strategy for studying. They knew the materials they would see, knew what they had to remember, knew to write down everything useful to solving the problem they expected to see. They worked as quickly as possible to maximize their success on the test and didn’t waste any of the time allotted to writing on the cheat sheet. They crammed their papers full of information.

The slower students in the class would duplicate materials already present on the test sheet itself or would waste space on the paper writing in a format that was useless to them once they got the test. They also finished writing far earlier than the time when I told them to close their books. They talked during the time instead of trying to figure out what to write. They didn’t approach it with any prior knowledge on how the test worked, or thought about what they needed to remember versus what they should write down to get the best score. They wrote down a few things, then didn’t have the right information to pass the test because they had sabotaged their chances at success.

The Worst Student Ever wrote a handful of words, had no context or stategy, and spent most of the time saying that he was going to hide his cheat sheet under his table to use on the test. Since I told everyone they could use the cheat sheet ON the test, he basically wasted all his time trying to be funny instead of doing anything related to preparing for the test. He actually scored a 0% on his test WITH A CHEAT SHEET. Not only could he have guessed and gotten SOMETHING correct if he had written the same word in ever question, even with a cheat sheet he STILL scores worse than everyone else in the class.

The worst student ever really just doesn’t know how to study. No strategy. No planning. No forethought. Nothing. I would be angry, but I was actually shocked that he might have some sort of learning disability. That would explain something. He can read, but not very well. If I replaced all the words with pictograms and made a rebus he’d still probably fail. There are students three or four years younger than he is passing these tests with ease. His parents know he doesn’t care, but don’t remove him from class. I sent a letter to my director concerning the fact that even when presented with the answers on a test he STILL fails. I think she’ll just blow it off and say, “A month left, let him waste his time and yours. Try hard but don’t be too stressed.”

I’m trying not to get too depressed about a month more of this student failing tests, but if that girl kicked his ass for being rude to her it’d really make my day.