Susan Hendrickson's personal page

-- Anonymous, November 11, 1998

Answers

I teach English/Language Arts at Two Harbors High School. The classes I teach first semester are Creative Writing (grades 10-12), Forms of Fiction (grades 10-12), and College Writing (grade 12). I have a B.S. Degree from Bemidji State University, and it has been 25 years since I've taken college courses, except for CEU coursework. I also work with students in the Alternative Learning Program Monday nights; they are working with me toward earning English credits for their high school diploma or are studying for the GED test. I've also taught full-time in Northome, Orr, and Montevideo....and have done extensive substitute teaching in the Iron Range Schools: Hibbing, Cherry, Nashwauk-Keewatin, and Chisholm. I love what I do; and if you slit my wrists, chalk flows out! I am interested in a research project involving remediation of reading skills for students who do not pass the Mn Grad Standards...or motivation of at-risk students...at this time, but am open to considering other topics.

-- Anonymous, November 11, 1998

COHORT III 1998-1999 REFLECTION PAPER "Toxic Child": Examining the Effects

Susan D. Hendrickson

The "Toxic Child" presentations and the ensuing Cohort III discussions greatly affected me. The data and perspectives shared by the speakers, panel members, and audience gave me a conscious awareness and a fuller understanding of today's students' physical, mental, emotional, and academic challenges. I all too often relegate student concerns and issues into the unconscious and subconscious regions of thought when confronted with the seemingly unending organizational, managerial, financial, and operational duties of the THHS Language Arts Department, activities of the various faculty committees, and obligations of extra-curricular supervisory positions. The following pages contain parts of my Toxic Child journal entries. I have not wasted space restating the facts and statistics provided in the oral presentations and accompanying handouts. Instead, I've organized my responses (to this workshop series), my observations (of my own classroom and community), and my continuing queries and ruminations (of the thirteen topics Cohort II attended) into an overview of today's students in our changing society and in an age of uncertainty.

The American dream of education for all young people has become a reality. The majority of children between the ages of six and sixteen are listed on school rolls; the exceptions are those whose physical or mental health makes school attendance impossible, and even those children are generally given special instruction of some sort. The number of high school graduates going on to some form of higher education is growing. At one time, just a little over a century ago, there were no high schools. When such schools did come into existence, they were for a long time regarded as for the few, not for the majority. A number of states did not have the minimum school-leaving ages until the present century; these ages now vary from sixteen to eighteen, and there's always talk of making them higher. Educating all American youth obviously means educating a wide variety of American youth. They come in various colors, shapes, and sizes. They are the children of millionaires, the children of parents of government welfare, and especially the children of parents who are not very rich or very poor. Some come from homes that attach a high value on education, others from homes where schooling is considered unnecessary or even downright undesirable. Some parents are themselves well educated, but others have spent only about ten years in school. Most of the children share certain environmental characteristics. Since they have never lived through a depression, few of them know what hunger is, they have never out of necessity worn rags, and they have never seen their fathers trudging the streets looking for work. And since they are of a post-world-war and post-Vietnam War generation, relatively few of them have felt the sickening fear that a father or brother will be killed in combat, the feeling of helplessness that exists when much of the world is burning and one can do nothing to extinguish the flames. They are in a sense a soft generation for they have not known the hardships of the pioneers, most of them have never grasped a how handle or a broom, and many have been given so many luxuries that they cannot distinguish luxury from necessity. They are a mobile generation. From the natal crib in the hospital to the four-on-the floor that some of them drive to school, they have been on wheels. Although a few, especially in urban or rural ghettos, have seldom been over a few miles from home, some have been in a dozen or a score of states, and many have traveled abroad. Hence they have seen much more of the world than their parents had, a generation ago. Many have lived in six or eight communities as their fathers' work changed. Some have attended a dozen schools. Because they have seen so much, many have become blase if not sophisticated. They do know more than earlier teenagers. They grew up staring at television; and despite its flaws, TV is a powerful educator. Some of them learned to read via commercials for shampoo and dry breakfast cereal. By television they have been taken to distant lands and into space, into family brawls and gang warfare, drug addiction and music concerts, hospitals and offices....They have seen on television the faces of presidents, murderers, soldiers, prostitutes, comedians, singers, poets, artists, laborers....They have learned the superficialities of countless crafts and innumerable ways of life. They have learned little or nothing in depth, but the breadth of their vicarious experience is considerable. Most have grown up in highly permissive homes. The legendary stern father and the demanding mother have nearly disappeared. Children stay up late, and a few years afterward they stay out late. They are given an allowance to spend as they please, instead of having to work to earn money that must then be accounted for. They start dating early, little girls wear brassieres before they need them, and many a mother provides her daughter with the Pill or closes her eyes when the daughter acquires access to birth control on her own. Movies are frank and explicit; lovers are followed in the bedroom. Magazines are no less lurid. Many teenage bodies have undergone erotic experiences that their grandparents did not know existed, and many youngsters have experimented with drugs as their forbears tried smoking cornsilk or that first cigarette behind the barn. But despite all this, many young people retain a sturdy idealism. Much of the unrest of youth can be accounted for by the fact that the world is not a perfect place that the young believe it should and can be. Though many of their complaints deal with trivia or are based on inadequate information, and though many of their proposed solutions seem completely impracticable, they have a right to protest; and the future shape of society is dependent upon how successful they will be in effecting reforms. They see injustices, and they are right to protest aginst it. They see dangers of a war that can annihilate them, and they are right in crying "I want to live!" If youth believed that injustice, war, tyranny, hunger, and constant fear are inevitable, then such things would indeed be inevitable. The hope of tomorrow lies in the idealism of today, guided into rational and potentially productive channels. As in every generation, the abilities of individuals differ. Some learn quickly, some slowly. Some will never master more than a fraction of what we can offer them, but others will far outstrip their teachers. Some will become drivers of taxis, and they will serve society well if they are considerate and resourceful drivers. Some will be carpenters and we need quality housing. Some will become secretaries and we need more and better secretaries. Some will become research scientists, doctors, lawyers, teachers, professors, and political leaders; we never have enough highly able people in these occupations. Most will become parents, and the world needs wiser parents. As we teachers think of the future contributions of our students to society, we may well remember Browning: "All service ranks the same with God...there is no last nor first." How does the change in the type of student affect English teaching? The society of the Nineties demands a citizenry more capable of abstract thinking than ever before--the society of the New Millennium may bid to extend this demand. Because much of this thinking takes place through language, the teaching of the language will remain central in the education proess.

-- Susan D. Hendrickson (shendri2@d.umn.edu), June 07, 1999.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 1999