For anyone who says that class size does not matter, I say to them…

Well, this is a civil conversation so I’ll bite my tongue. But come on, in the rush to hoist the notion of “teacher quality” to the top of the educational flagpole, we are allowing ourselves to pretend truthful things are not really truths.

And one truthful thing is that class size does matter. A lot.

Here’s an article from the Los Angeles Times about how some classes at Fairfax High School have 50 students crammed into classrooms built for 30. When kids sit on the floor, on filing cabinets, and the such, is anyone really going to say that “teacher quality” trumps all other factors when it comes to successfully educating students? My second period class this year has 43 kids while I only have 34 desks. (I do have some chairs however and right now, no one is sitting on the floor.) But am I the same teacher I am in my 8th period class where there are only 29 students on the roster?

The answer is, I try to be but no, it saddens me that I am not. I believe I am a better teacher in the class where there are less students.

Why? (Like you have to ask.) Because at a certain point the volume becomes unmanageable to individualize and attend to the unique needs of all students. With 29 it’s hard. With 35 it’s threshold. With 43, it’s approaching ludicrous. I get spread too thin and they get less and less and less of me. And with 50, as they cite in the article mentioned above where kids are sitting on the floor, let’s be honest, those kids are being short-changed.

And so is the teacher. And so is the school. And so is the community. And so is our country. Do kids have to sit on the floor for us to recognize that we are heading towards rock bottom?

Let’s face it, I am at a HUGE disadvantage when it comes to names.

First off, there are about a ba-zillion new ones I need to learn. This always takes a lot of effort and a few weeks. Kids, they have about 6-10 new names they must learn at school at the start of a new year — the names of their new teachers. Me, I have scores and scores and scores of them I must learn.

It’s a challenge every year… learn all the names as fast as you can. However, at least I learn them!!

See, I just realized I used the word “must” above. However, as other teachers often prove to me, what I find to be a “must” is not really a “must” when it comes to public education. I mean how many teachers are there out in our school systems this year that will just never even bother to learn all their students’ first names? (More than you think, that’s for sure.)

They just simply put kids into alphabetical seating order and spend the rest of the year looking at their charts to see who is who — but they don’t really know the kids. Wouldn’t know what to call them if they saw them at lunch or in the halls or what not. And let’s face it — the kids know when you do not know their names.

This is why I view learning the names of my students as a must — because how in the world can you expect to be an effective educator if you do not even know your students’ names?

Even if there are 43 kids in your 2nd period class (with only 36 desks)?

(Those are rhetorical questions, BTW… you really can’t, IMHO.)

So I learn names. All of them.

However, I still haven’t figured out a way to handle remembering the names of all my former students. I mean, I teach teenagers and these kids change and grow and lose their braces and cut their hair and pierce their faces and color their hair and gain weight and lose weight and on and on an on.

So when a semi-quiet kid I had 2 years ago in 4rth period who has become taller by 2 inches, grown a mini-mohawk, gotten contact lenses and is now deeply into goth comes up to me and says, “Hi Mr. Alan,” a bit of a deer-in-the-headlights look sometimes crosses my face. I mean I know I remember the kid… I just don’t quite remember their name.

It’s that tip-of-the-tongue thing that never comes.

And they sense it. And they take it personally. And I feel bad. But I am struggling with names in the month of September. Struggling badly. My focus is more on learning new ones than recalling old ones anyway and the fact is, I think the memory card between my ears has storage space limitations that inhibit me from remembering any more than I already do.

I mean how many names can a teacher possibly be expected to recall?

For example, I betchya that last year in the month of June I knew the first names of 500 people on campus. Kids, teachers, administrators… yep, 500 seems like a solid guess. And yet, there were probably at least 1,000 people that new my name if not more. (We were over 4,000 at our high school in enrollment, or thereabouts.)

But do I get any credit for the ones I remember? Nope… but I feel terrible for the ones I forget.

Never mind the fact that I have 4 Juans, 5 Marias and two students named Jesus this year (one’s a boy and one’s a girl — go figure). It’ll all make a person bonkers.

So what do I do when I get hit with a former student saying, “Hi, Mr. Alan”?

I play the “Uhm, Hey… Dude” Name Game.

But if there’s a better way, I’d love to hear about it.

It’s Monday, June 1, 2009 and Lynwood High School ends on June 26, 2009. That means there are 25 days left until the end of the school year and 20 more official teaching days left.

But you wouldn’t know it if you came to my first period class today. 35% of my students were absent.

That’s right… 35%!

And why? Well, the answer I got when I freaked out on the kids who actually did show up was that, “Well, the school year is almost over.”

Excuse me? (Deep breath, Mr. Alan!)

WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?

Actually, I know exactly what they are talking about. This was more for theatrics, a bit of Bobby Knight throwing a chair to make a point, catch everyone’s attention and right my classroom’s ship… and quickly!

But even though I’ve been here for years – and been through this for years – it still makes me want to FLIP OUT!!

So how do I respond? By turning up the heat. More work. More teaching. More everything. And why?

Because there are only 25 days left. The perspective through which my students view the last month of school and the way in which I view it are so diametrically opposed it’s bananas. And the thing is, in a way it’s like I am fighting a culture war here.

And if you are keeping score at home, my army is under-equipped, outmanned and ill-prepared to win the battle. Yet we will cede no ground. My class goes bell to bell, September to June, year to year.

And being that it’s NBA time and the Finals are on us right now (Go Lakers!) I believe there is a great deal of value to be found in looking to sports.

Who are the icons of the sport’s world? The folks who deliver in the clutch, who close strong, who deliver in the end when it really matters. Think about it, when is the most critical time of any game? The fourth quarter, the last 2 minutes of the second half, the bottom of the ninth. This is where the mettle of folks is shown.

And teachers who cash out come June make it really hard for those of use who realize that 9 weeks of summer is already enough of a detriment to our nation’s kids (yep, I believe we need a longer school year — but a more effective one as well… simply spending more time being as ineffective as we currently are isn’t going to help anything — we need more school AND we need better schooling) that we don’t need peeps folding up their tents before the gig is even up.

Now is the time where I want to see my kids at their best… not at their most lazy and apathetic. June 1 is message day for me, the day where I fire a shot across the bow of my class and say, WARNING: bring heat or do not enter this room. A psycho teacher is on the rampage and only excellence will do.

Does it work? Well, I do feel like I certainly reach a lot of kids with this approach. And it’s the proverbial teachable moment for my kids about positive habits in life.

But most importantly, though I may be losing the culture war, the battle to treat education seriously in the state of California, I can sleep at night knowing that at least I gave it my best effort.

I can’t control what other people do. Not the parents who buy into the shenanigans of their kids, not the other educators in our state who simply phone it in during the last few weeks of school, not the Governor who wanted to cut a few days of school off the back-end anyway thinking it made for sound economic policy… no, I can’t control any of that.

But I can work my kids to the bell, making them intellectually sweat like Kobe Bryant closing out a game when all the chips are on the table late in the 4rth quarter. You may not like Kobe as a person, but you have to respect the heart he shows as a basketball player — especially when it’s all on the line.

And like I said, this mentality helps me sleep like a baby over the summer… because I know I tried.