English Classes Mean Business
The high school students in Todd Bender’s English class often pretend the teacher is their boss.
Bender plays the part, ordering them to write memos, take telephone messages, create computerized spreadsheets.
Last fall, the seniors studied etiquette, so they won’t embarrass themselves at business lunches by eating pasta with a salad fork.
Their homework assignment? Use proper manners at Thanksgiving dinner without correcting those who don’t.
If you can’t imagine English classes changing - and changing fast - spend an hour in Bender’s class at Ferris High School. It’s called Integrated Communications, and the course has replaced the literature-based General Senior English classes in all Spokane District 81 high schools.
“They’ve put together home pages, corresponded through e-mail,” Bender says. “They know Power Point and spreadsheets. We talk about workplace ethics, and I give them ethical case studies.”
Example: You’re working at McDonald’s. Your friends come in with only 50 cents and want ice cream. What do you do?
Or: You want time off, but it’s a crunch at work. How do you get what you want without making it tough on your employer?
Bender weaves in some literature - Shakespeare, even - but that’s not the course’s focus anymore.
“They’re not going to look to see if you’ve read ‘The Iliad,”’ he tells students, preparing them for job interviews. “They’re going to see if you’ve mastered cursive handwriting.” (Bender gave a crash course in penmanship; no student could write a proper capital Q.)
He works in a little poetry, too. One assignment had kids writing poems about themselves, then transforming them into resumes.
Dennie Crowe, head of North Central’s English department, said the district decided to make the changes based on statistics showing most kids don’t go on to four-year colleges.
Those graduates won’t need to analyze literature as much as decode technical manuals, she said.
“We know the majority of kids will be having jobs in technical fields and that’s not what we’re teaching them,” Crowe said. “We have to get kids onto career paths and we just haven’t been doing a good job at that.”
Bender’s students aren’t exactly longing for literature.
“Who cares who Homer was when it comes to getting a job?” asked 18-year-old Keelan Southerland.
“We’re so sick of literature,” said Andrea Cunningham, also 18. “It’s senior year. We should be learning to get jobs.”
Not all teachers share Bender’s gusto for the new course.
“I still have a very difficult time with some of the things I do in Integrated Communications,” said Matt Wakabayashi, a North Central High School teacher. “I think, ‘Am I a business teacher or an English teacher?’
“It looks so different than anything we’ve done before,” he said. “It’s like comparing the ‘Grapes of Wrath’ with something from Consumer Reports.”
The old Wakabayashi spent weeks on MacBeth. The new Wakabayashi slaps telephone notepads onto student’s desks. “Take a message,” he says.
The old Wakabayashi assigned essays on Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” The new Wakabayashi tells students to write concise directions for programming a VCR.
So far, most Spokane high schools have replaced only senior English with the new class. But educators are discussing starting the business-based classes at lower levels. Ferris will offer Integrated Communications to juniors and seniors next year.
Students still have the option of traditional College Prep classes and Advanced Placement classes, geared for students excelling in English. What’s gone now is a literature-based class designed for the average senior.
Students choose classes with help from guidance counselors; so far, about half are routed into the new business-based English classes.
Last year, English teachers debated whether to drop literature that some students found offensive, such as Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn.”
Now, teachers acknowledge, it may be a pointless discussion. There’s no longer time to include all the traditional literature.
Sharon Straub, language-arts department head at Ferris, said some teachers balk at the changes because literature - not business English - is their first love.
“As traditional English teachers, this was not our bailiwick,” she said. “It was a real stretch.”
But Straub believes the course is rigorous and relevant for today’s students.
Meanwhile, the philosophical debate continues.
“The basic problem was, where will they learn those higher-thinking skills, like relating a piece of literature to their life?” Wakabayashi said. “Will they get it writing a resume?”