Morning Meeting.(assigning homework)

THE TEACHER:

As she rinsed her coffee cup in the sink, she saw her husband's note reminding her to stop and fill her car's gas tank. She mentally clicked through the other things she was trying to remember today -- the two novels she had marked with passages that linked into the unit on child labor, the sketchy map of Victorian London that went along with the lesson on Dickens's settings, and something else: what was it? She remembered.

Back upstairs to the computer; where she had left her list of assignments and of students who were missing work. She had printed out the list only as far back as the beginning of second term, not wanting to stir up too much dust in the meeting today. Several of her students were on the list, some missing one or two pieces and a few glaringly missing most or all of the homework to date. Still three weeks before report cards, she would read the list of names and ask them to see her regarding the missing work. She smiled when she pictured, in her mind, her long ago professor -- he would have insisted that she see students individually and not embarrass them by reading names out loud off the list. Where those minutes to see them individually should come from was never addressed. For that matter, she probably would not need to read the list: the students all knew who had and who had not turned in assignments. She mentally thanked her quiet mentor for his impromptu reminder.

Still, she was concerned with the number of students on the list. She had given only two assignments per subject per week this term, and yet her students were struggling. She knew that several papers would appear on her desk the week before grades closed. The students knew that she would take late work. She was more interested in knowing that they did it, and seeing how well they could do it, than in penalizing them for delaying so long. Her colleagues told her that her list of missing work was longer than theirs because she did not deduct points: she still could not do it. There were always one or two legitimate excuses in the batch, and it took additional time to sort Out who then should and should not lose points. She always felt unprepared to weigh excuses but was unwilling to reject them out of hand. Instead, she kept a clear calendar for that final week in the term and encouraged her students to turn in the work. Most of them did, at the last minute, looking frazzled and annoyed and sometimes slipping b ehind in another class while catching up in hers.

The meeting scheduled for third period today concerned such a girl -- a good athlete, active on student council, busy with her family on weekends, she had fallen behind in the first term but had caught up after only a few reminders. The list showed six missing assignments in the past seven weeks -- almost a quarter of what had been assigned, compounded, no doubt, by her missing work in other classes as well. Maybe she would be willing to stay twice a week during

extra help sessions, not necessarily needing help, just needing a quiet, structured, scheduled spot in her life for homework. No doubt she would prefer less homework.

Could she drop the class down to just one assignment per subject per week? She immediately anticipated howls of protest - but where would they come from? Not from the parents ...