"Come on Asshole!" blurted Carlos. "You gonna call me an asshole...I'm not helping you." A reasonable response by Eduardo when you stop and think about it. Why would I want to help a student who just called me an asshole and I'm a teacher, not a 15 year old. Moving away from a group of kids who were engaged in a mini-lesson on using Excel to create graphs I felt a bit obligated to speak with the two young men.
"What's going on guys?" "It's simple," replied Carlos,"Eduardo won't help me learn how to do these parabolas." "That's cause he's acting like an ass," immediately snapped Eduardo. "Alright...enough." I just wanted to cut off the banter before it grew out of hand. "We've got a simple dilemma...Carols, there's something you want to and need to learn...Eduardo, there's something you know and have the opportunity to share. You are interdependent...Carlos, you need Eduardo to teach you and Eduardo, you need Carlos so you have a chance to clarify your thinking around quadratics and to solidify what you know. The bottom line, you need to find a way to make this work...you need each other."
As I walked away from the two disgruntled students I wondered what would happen next. I hadn't really finalized things...I left them a bit open (on purpose). At some point during our time together these guys were gonna have to find a way to live in the same house. Forcing boiled chicken down your throat like my grandma used to do wasn't gonna do it. I needed to put it on them.
Ten minutes went by as I continued with the mini-workshop when I glanced over to find Eduardo once again working with Carlos. Eleven minutes went by when I glanced over to find Eduardo and Carlos arguing. Eleven minutes and fifteen seconds went by when I glanced over to find Eduardo angirly moving back to his table with a look of of utter defeat. I guess he knows how it feels to be a frustrated teacher with a stubborn student. God knows I do.
Evidence that we don't yet have a true Collaborative Learning Community...Carlos and Eduardo.
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