I Don't Get It!

I don't get it, I don't get it, I don't get it.

Every time one of my students says this, I flash to the scene from the movie Big, where John Heard mocks Tom Hanks' character for saying he doesn't "get" what's so interesting about the toy that's been designed.

Back to the classroom, "what don't you get?" It's a conversation that happens at least once a day in my math class.

The frustrating part is that typically, the student who sincerely doesn't "get it" isn't the one asking questions. The quiet kid doodling in the second seat is usually the one that doesn't get it.

The "vocal" one is the one that has learned, over the years, that if they simply use those four harmonious words, "I dont get it," they won't have to think, they won't have to apply the concepts, they won't have to make the connections, they might even get out of doing the assignment all together. Instead, they will be hand fed an answer by a frustrated teacher who has asked five students to quiet down, told two students to stay in their seats and has handed out three pencils (which she won't get back) and allowed two additional students an extra night on their homework because they were simply "too busy" with soccer, music lessons and all the other subjects of homework to get to before said assignment.

I mean, isn't this something men have bragged about for years? Their wife asks them to do something and they do a poor job, so she won't ask them to do it again? I'm sure it's not solely isolated to husbands, I'm sure wives and children have played the same "I don't know how to" card to get out of an added responsibility.

At one point this year, I told my students the phrase "I don't get it" is considered a "bad word" in my classroom. This reminded me of the time when my then 3-year-old son was upset about something and said "BAD WORDS MOMMY! Bad Words!" because he didn't in fact know any bad words but knew that saying "bad words" was not allowed.

A little chuckle to myself but again back to the classroom. I didn't implement this rule because I didn't want to help, but because I want my students to think. I'm refuse to add one more member to this society that can't think for themselves!

So  I pose the question "what don't you get?" Of course, I have the "few" that say "none of it" as they are sitting there with proficient CST scores in their pretty little files. Hard to believe!

As I take a few deep breathes and go to my happy place under a palm tree with an iced adult beverage in one hand and a Chelsea Handler book in the other, I look at the doodler in row two and hope that somehow the explanation I'm about to provide isn't wasted on a student that just talked and passed notes during the five very clear examples I just explained like the given problem he/she is declaring "I don't get." So I gather my strength and explain once again because that is "my job."

I head home daily feeling drained of physical but mostly emotional energy. I arrive home to an inquisitive 4-year-old boy who hasn't learned the "I don't get it" game yet but is quite good at the "WHY?" game... Wait isn't BevMo having the five cent wine sale, I can get through this!

The next morning as the sun rises on a new day, feeling motivated, I go back to work, ready to teach the world! That is, until I hear those fateful words, "I didn't do my homework, because I didn't get it!" Sigh!