Abstract:

A Teacher Leaders Network member who prefers to remain anonymous describes the journey of a studen who took seven times to pass the graduation writing test--and found meaningful work and a place in his community working on a farm.

Anonymous. (2004). I believe in Nathan. Teacher Leaders Network diaries. Retrieved from the Teacher Leaders Network 10 Apr 2008. Link: http://www.teacherleaders.org/old_site/diaries04_05/anon_diary1.html

Full Text:

I Believe in Nathan

I learned today that Nathan did not pass the writing portion of our state graduation tests.

"Oh no," I moaned to the department head. "Have you told him yet?"

I truly felt a sense of doom. I did not want to have to face this student and tell him that he did not pass that test again, his fourth attempt.

And yet, I wanted to be the only one to tell him, because I believe in Nathan.

He's the kind of kid I know will make a great dad, a loving husband, and a consistent provider for a family he will remain loyal to. His kids will one day show up in my room expecting to work hard and show respect for their teachers. I wanted to couch the news in my belief that he has other skills and abilities that will serve him well the rest of his life.

I do not want Nathan to believe he is a failure.

I didn't know Nathan before the fall of this year when he entered my Career English 12 class — already marked for having failed the writing test the previous spring. And yet, I had seen him before in many of the students who sat in my classroom struggling to make thought visible in writing.

I feel that I know Nathan especially well because he is what I consider a true local. Though my current school seems much like the suburban school I attended in a nearby state, Nathan is not of that ilk. He is like the majority of the students I taught when I first landed a job here in 1978, in what was then a very rural county. Now, those locals are diluted by the thousands of families who have moved here to escape the rising cost of living in the large city nearby.

Nathan is like many of my earlier students, working evenings and weekends on one of the few farms left in our rapidly developing county. His family is intact and his parents are working class people.
When he talks, I am nostalgic for his accent and his syntax. Back in 1978, the regional accent, double negatives, and subject-verb agreement inconsistencies smacked of the uneducated to a recent college graduate. But as a young teacher, I quickly learned that, though I might have thought the locals sounded uneducated, they are primarily honest and hardworking, but have a rooted disdain for time spent idly on reading.

Just the other day, on a street jammed with our more recent imports, I saw one of those early student names prominently displayed on one of a fleet of trucks owned by an established, profitable well-drilling company. It was the very same family company that the 1980-tenth-grader had told me he was destined to run — and just one more reason why he didn't need to worry about all that readin'.

At our school, a career class is intended for students who do not plan to go on to college. Most are enrolled in a vocational program. I have girls who are already working in nursing homes as practical nurses, boys who are already repairing cars in shops around town after school. This year, a scheduling challenge combined this group of students with those who have learning disabilities. Nathan has not been labeled disabled. But still, he struggles with this writing test.

It is Nathan's mother tongue that now stands between him and the diploma he has steadfastly worked toward in his home town since he was five. It is the only test he has left to pass. Even though he has passed every section of the graduation exam he has taken except for this one, if he fails in the last few attempts he has left, our state will only offer him a Certificate of Attendance and not a high school diploma.

In a written dialogue journal, we chat back and forth about a Foxfire book he is mining for the "old timey ways" of doing things. He has soaked up the directions for building a log cabin. He wants to try the recipes for corn bread and sorghum. He's fascinated with the old wives tales about the kinds of snakes you can encounter in the woods. "There's one that'll wrap round you and whip you with his tail till he kills you," he writes. It's clear a life close to nature is what excites Nathan. I remember seeing pictures of the coyote he killed during hunting season in the fall.

I'll take time outside of class to work with Nathan, just like I have with other 'locals.' I'll give him my best advice: "If one of the choices [on the multiple choice editing section] sounds wrong to you, it is probably right."

We have two more chances to get this right. And even though Nathan wants me to take the test for him — he thinks I can pass it — it will be Nathan alone in the room again.

In order to get him to pass, before we can grant him the diploma which clearly means so much to him, I'll have to ask him to deny his own heritage and turn his back on the local songs I love to hear.
I want him to pass, but not so much because I think this test is a worthy measure of the Nathan I have come to know and admire for other reasons.

I want him to pass because I do not want him to leave twelve years of schooling behind thinking that he is stupid – a failure.

UPDATE

After seven attempts at the writing test, Nathan finally passed the state's alternative test and received a diploma from our district. He will continue to work on the farm that is managed by one of his classmates, a young man whose language disability merited him an IEP and a modified diploma, but who is raising award-winning beef cattle on a farm that is clearly his expression of himself to the world.

Though the test measured Nathan's competency with the written word, here is what it did not measure:

Tenacity: Nathan faced repeated failure and yet he stayed focused on his goal of receiving his diploma. He did not give up and drop out. He accepted help from anyone who offered it, an act of humility I do not think I could repeat.

Reflection and metacognition: In a talk we had after all the testing was over, Nathan clearly knew which methods had helped him and which did not. He generously passed what he had learned about the process on to me, offering it as a learning opportunity for the teachers who would tutor other students next year. I, in turn, passed that information on to the rest of the English staff, crediting Nathan with the observation that "all those grammar exercises didn't help me pass the test at all. What helped the most was the chance to practice writing." I could have hugged him for that observation alone, knowing that entire studies have been based around this very statement.

Growth: Nathan became something of a reader during the year, though he claimed never to like it. In an out-of-class confession, he told me he had purchased several Foxfire books. After reading them as a part of Reading Workshop, he wanted them on his shelf. Though Nathan claimed to be a non-reader in front of his peers, away from them he was taking responsibility for his literacy. I reminded him to read to his children, when he has them.

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