And the Survey Says by Renee Duke

 

       

https://www.bookswelove.com/shop/p/theroyalyot?rq=duke

Writing for teens requires an ability to remember how the adolescent mind works. One example: their attitude towards adult ‘probes’ into their inner feelings disguised as school surveys. High schools sometimes get students to complete questionnaires about individual learning styles, and while some questions might have relevance, most fill kids with an urge to answer them something like this:

Q.  Before starting an unfamiliar task, do you prefer to have someone tell you the proper way to do it?

A.  As opposed to wading in without the vaguest notion and doing it all wrong, yes.

Q.  Do you think it’s important that a teacher understand the subject he or she is teaching?

A.   Now there’s a plan.

Q.  Do you frequently like to have the significance and interdependency of supplemental graphs and diagrams as they relate to concepts addressed in the corresponding texts or lectures explained to you?

A.  I think I’d like to have the above question explained to me.

Q.  Do you write out your notes in paragraph form, or make graphs and charts, to help you understand concepts better, even if the teacher doesn’t require you to do so?

A.  You’ve got to be kidding.

Q.  Would you rather copy notes off the board or work with hand-outs?

A.  Photocopy machines were a wonderful invention. So were highlighters.

Q.  What do you think it means if you doodle in your notebook during class?

A.  It usually means I’m bored.

Q.  Are your notes covered with circles, arrows and other symbols?

A.  Yes.  Even though, by the following day, I have no idea what they mean.

Q.  If you sit near a classroom window, can you be distracted by what’s going on outside? 

A.  Depends if watching two crows square off over a walnut is more riveting than Pythagoras’s Theorem. (Answer: yes.)

Q.  Do you find it easier to think when you have the freedom to move around?

A.  The school rather frowns on students wandering the halls because they’re ‘thinking’.

Q.  Do you often tap your foot or pencil when you’re thinking?

A.  Doesn’t everyone?

Q.  Do you get restless if you have to sit still for an extended period of time?

A.  Doesn’t everyone?

Q.  Do you enjoy studying English literature?

A.  The operative word is ‘English’. Things like, “Bifil that in that seson, on a day,” no longer qualify as English.

Q.  Do you read for enjoyment?

A.  I don’t have time to read for enjoyment.  I’m too busy reading assigned downers like Wuthering Heights and wicked wastes of paper like The Metamorphosis.

Q.  Do you have trouble spelling unknown words when writing an essay?

A.  If they’re unknown, how would I know to use them?

Q.  How much do you enjoy giving presentations in class?

A.  I wasn’t aware it was supposed to be enjoyable.

Q.  Do you find it difficult to accept views opposite to your own?

A.  No.  The world is full of ignorant people.  One has to have tolerance.

Q.  Do your parents have to nag you to do your homework?

A.  I don’t know if they have to.  I think it’s pretty much automatic.

Q.  Do you resent it when teachers who have taught your older brothers and sisters have high expectations of you?

A.  Having taught my older siblings, they generally don’t have high expectations of me.

Q.  Do you find it difficult to set goals during teacher/parent/student conferences?

A.  My parents have usually made it pretty clear what ‘my’ goals are going to be.

They don’t–or at least, shouldn’t–answer that way of course. They’d be put down as maladjusted and made to do six more questionnaires designed to figure out why.