How to Kill a Rat?

A few years back, I was observing in a first grade classroom.  The class was in the beginning stages of creating ‘how-to’ books and on this particular day, they were brainstorming various topics for their individual works.  “You must write about something you already know,” the teacher said.    “It will be very difficult to write a ‘how-to’ book about building house if you’ve never built one before.”  She had been working with the students for several weeks to establish a writing culture in her classroom – one in which students were focused on the task at hand and were actively bouncing their ideas off of one another.  As I eavesdropped on some rather intent conversations, potential topics ranged from how-to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to how-to fly a kite.  The teacher reminded students the basic format of a first grade ‘how-to’ book was to tell what you do first, then what you do next, then what after that, and what you finally do at the end – “First….next…then….finally,” she repeated over and over again.  “First…next…then…finally,” the students chanted back. 

As I wandered around the classroom, I noticed Darryl collaborating with another student in the class.  He was new to our school and is the kind of kid who you are instantly drawn to – Mr. Personality.  I approached Darryl and his classmate to see how things were going.  He looked up at me with the biggest brown eyes and biggest smile you have ever seen.  I asked him what the topic of his book was going to be.  “How to kill a rat!” said a very excited little boy.  I was intrigued to say the least.  He pulled out his outline, scribbled on that wonderful first grade paper we all remember so well.  He then asks, “Can I tell you about it Mr. Torbert?”  As Darryl began to speak, I realized that this was no ordinary ‘how-to’ book…

“First, you find a rat,” said Darryl loudly.

“Next, you get a can of roach spray.”  As he took a deep breath to continue, my mind began to race as to what would come next – are we going to spray the roach spray into the face of this poor creature?

“Then you chase the rat until you are really close to it,” he continues

At this point Darryl raises his hands above his head while grasping an invisible can of roach spray.  “Then you hit the rat with the roach spray!” he yelled as he wacked some poor invisible rat over and over again with his invisible can of roach spray.  His writing partner looked at him is horror – I’m sure her parents had just finished reading her Stuart Little the night before.

“Finally,” said Darryl with an even bigger smile, “your mamma cleans up the nasty mess.”

At this point I am clinching my teeth as tightly as possible as not to burst out laughing.  I speculate that many of you have been in a similar situation. I didn't want to embarrass him, I wanted to honor his passion for his topic -- his great organization and attention to detail.  By this time his writing partner had retreated safely to another partner.  As Darryl and I sat at his desk to discuss his writing, I came to the realization that he was writing from personal experience – he had been ‘rat hunting’ before. 

Darryl’s background was different than a great majority of our students.  Darryl was African-American, 85% of our students are white.  Darryl was not financially well off, only 2% of our students are eligible for free and reduced lunch.  Darryl was academically below grade level, very few of our students work below grade level.  Darryl was being raised by his older sister (who works), most of our students still live with both parents and many have a stay at home mom.   The makeup of our school community is slowly changing.  Year after year, students are coming in who have a very different background than those we've seen in the past.  Their life experiences are quite different than the majority white, upper middle class students who have made up our school community for the past 16 years. 

Teachers are encountering circumstances that they have not experienced in the past:  parents who are unable to help with homework or help struggling students at home due to the fact they are working multiple jobs and are simply not around, students are moving into their classrooms from other schools who are multiple grade levels behind academically, or parents can’t afford to hire an outside tutor for a student who needs extra help.  Our teachers are wonderful and work above and beyond to ensure success of our students – they will do whatever it takes.  They are seeing that their tried and true methods that have been successful in the past are not quite what every student needs. 

We are beginning to identify new academic supports that we can put into place for these students, and their teachers.  As we have worked to implement Response to Intervention (RtI) we are seeing great possibilities.  As educators, it is our responsibility to take each student from wherever he is academically and move him as far along as possible, using whatever resources are available to them.  As a school leader, it is my responsibility to provide teachers support and access to resource to accomplish this task.

In the end, the academics appear to be the easy part.  Affective supports are much more difficult to formulate.  How do we honor the differences of these students instead of expecting them to adapt to the dominant culture of the school?  How do we work with our student body to help them recognize the contributions that these new students can make to our school?  How do we support parents to help them feel part of the community?  We have a long (but exciting) road ahead of us...