Sometimes I feel very pleased with myself.  I think I did something right last week.

A few posts ago, I wrote about a student who is facing and presenting some challenges.  I hadn't figured out what to do about him.  Then, last week, a possible course of action occurred to me.  I took it.  It may be working.

J is in my remedial class.  He's struggling with the English language, although his skills with essay organization are fair.  He is also an athlete.  Two or three times during the semester, the athletics department sends out forms asking teachers for information about how student athletes are doing in their classes.  They ask for comments on their attendance, participation, demeanour and likelihood of passing the course.  J's form landed on my desk on Wednesday.  It had caught me at the wrong - or maybe at exactly the right - time; I'd just had a class with J, and he and his friends had annoyed me.  I had a lot to say.

J seems very resistant to working with others except for the couple of friends he has made in the class.  When working with those friends, he is sometimes off-task.  He is easily frustrated when he finds work difficult, but hasn't asked me for extra help and often comes to class without his grammar homework done.  In general, he is moody, and he is sometimes rude when he seems to be showing off for his friends.  I expect he will be successful in the course, but he is not always a pleasant addition to the class.

As I was tucking the forms back into their envelope, I paused, feeling a tug of dissatisfaction.  There was something about J.  It was true that he was less than friendly, often sulky, a typical showoff teenage boy with a lot to prove.  But during our one-on-one meetings, we had had a couple of productive conversations in which he asked astute questions and demonstrated a real interest in learning to do better.  He had even surprised me once by calling hello to me in the hallway, when I hadn't noticed him and he could just as easily have slunk on by.  I needed to do more than just send information to his coach.

So I wrote him a message.  I reported, word for word, what I'd written on his tracking form, and then wrote:

In future, I am going to ask you and your friends X and Y to separate yourselves during group work, and to make a better effort to interact with other people in your groups.  I hope this will help you to focus more on your work.  I didn't have time to address it with you this morning, but I was not happy with the negative dynamic at the end of the class period.

After sending this note, I felt, at first, relieved.  I was certain I'd done the right thing by contacting him directly, rather than letting this information filter to him through someone else.

That certainty faded quickly.  I spent the next two days nervously checking our school message system to see if J had read the message.  What would I do if he didn't read it before our next class meeting?  Would I have to explain it to him without his having seen it?  How would that go?  Would I take him out of class, or talk with him and his friends together?  Would I explain everything in my note, or just separate them and tell J to read his messages for more information?

The night before our class, the system finally signalled that the message had been read.  I slept poorly.  What if this had been the wrong move?  What if it antagonized him and made matters worse?  How was I going to enforce the "no sitting together" rule?  My habit of numbering students off randomly to form groups, a technique I had been using almost every class in order to disperse these three boys, was getting old, and the boys were still manoeuvring to be near each other.

Then it occurred to me.  I'd prepare a list of partners before class.  I'd choose partners for J and his friends who I thought would complement their personalities and bring out the best in them.  Not only that, I'd tell the class that they'd be working with their partners, not for one class, but for three; this, I hoped, would maximize everyone's desire to develop and maintain a good dynamic.  And I'd explain to J's friends that they needed to separate themselves in order to give their partners their full attention.

The next morning, coincidentally, I ran into J in the hallway before class.  I asked if he'd read my note.  He said he had, and I reiterated that I wanted him and his friends to separate themselves in the classroom so they wouldn't distract each other.  He was impassive but not hostile.  He nodded.  He said, "Okay."  Then he slipped into the computer lab without a backward glance.

I then spoke to one of his friends before the class began.   "I need you to help me with something," I said.  He listened, without protest, as I explained why I wanted him, J, and their other friend to spread themselves around the room.  He thought about it for a second.  He said, "Sure.  No problem." Then he leapt out of his seat to help me set up the computer projector.

The other friend always shows up twenty minutes late, so I couldn't address him about this myself, but his buddies must have explained the situation, because they did as I asked.  When I assigned their partners, the three friends stationed themselves at far corners of the room.  They focused on their pair work, and completed the assignment diligently.  J, in particular, asked pertinent questions throughout the class period, interacted politely with his partner, and even made jokes that, if a little sardonic, were not rude.  His friends were much the same.  It was the best two hours I've spent with that class all semester.

Pride goeth before...etc.  I know.  There are still three and a half weeks left in the course - plenty of time for things to go wrong.  Next class they'll probably test me again, and I'll have to respond more quickly this time.  Nevertheless, at least for the moment, it seems that I addressed this effectively.

I've been listening to Practical Wisdom by Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe.  Above is a link to Schwartz's TED talk, in which he discusses some ideas from the book.  The premise is that when we want doctors, lawyers, teachers etc. to be better at what they do, we assume that offering them bigger (usually financial) incentives or disincentives, or giving them strict scripts to follow so they can address any situation, will help.  The problem, Schwartz and Sharpe say, is that these approaches don't work.  Incentives make little difference, and the difference they do make is often the opposite of what we want.  And more detailed rulebooks aren't useful because situations will ALWAYS arise that fall outside the script.

Nevertheless, Schwartz and Sharpe affirm, we can get better at our jobs.  We need to be trained in "practical wisdom."  That is, we need to learn rules of conduct, and then we need to have the discretion, experience and receptivity to know when to apply which guidelines, and how to nuance them to fit each situation.  We need to recognize what's familiar about a problem or encounter, and also to recognize what's new about it.

I recognized  J.  He was  a typical 17-year-old boy, a typical football player, a typical insecure and slightly immature young man.  But he wasn't only those things.  He'd made moves that showed that he wanted to learn, that he wanted to please, but was finding it hard.  He'd certainly care what his coach thought about his behaviour; he might even care about my feelings about him.  He might be typical, but he was also unique.

His relationship with his friends was both typical and unique, too.  They were feeding off each other, but there was an edge of desperation to it.  They couldn't relate to anyone else in the class, so they needed to bond with each other, and they only knew one way to do that - be a**holes who disrupt the class and defy even the mildest of authority.  I could tell, though, that none of them were entirely enjoying it.  They needed someone to come in and take away that option, so they'd have an excuse to let it go.

I needed to synthesize these realities in my response.

We all have a capacity for practical wisdom, and we need to trust it.  It's frightening, because it doesn't provide equations with clear solutions.  Instead, it gives us sleepless nights as we wonder if we made the right call, and sometimes, sadly, our calls are wrong.  J's shapeup could be temporary, and next week could prove my "wisdom" to be pure idiocy.

For now, though, I'm wondering how we can train ourselves and each other in this capacity.  Is it something that comes purely through experience, a lot of mistakes, a lot of introspection?  Are there basic attitudes that we can learn that will allow practical wisdom to blossom?  Perhaps more importantly: can we teach it to our students?