Day 168: Waiting for Superman

Today my students began watching the propaganda documentary "Waiting for 'Superman'". If you haven't seen it, the primary focus is on the broken public education system in America. When the highest percentage of reading proficiency in the country is 36% of students in ONE state are proficient in reading by the 8th grade, the system IS broken.

The documentarian is coming down hard on it being the fault of poor teachers. It is making me feel very pressured to be a better teacher, make sure I am addressing a minimum of 100% of the recommended curriculum. Apparently, one poor teacher can pull a student down an entire grade level in that subject. A poor elementary school teacher can hold a student back a grade level in every subject, which is a deficit from which few recover. If a child gets unlucky enough to have two poor teachers, his/her future can be permanently affected. We all know that one bad teacher affects an entire year of learning, which then affects the next year and the subsequently the next, but how many of us realize that this is leading 44-88% of high school students to enter 1-3 or more grade levels behind in reading and math.

Even though I understand the situation is much more complex than the film truly depicts, with a plethora of so many variables that even the best intentioned cannot find a workable solution, I have to be honest and admit that when my daughter is school age, I will be considering private school if it is a financial option for us.

In a perfect world, every student would have equal opportunity to learn according to his/her ability, but since teachers are people and people are imperfect, that does not seem to be realistic view. Some teachers work better with the upper echelon of students, some with the lower and some with the middle group. Some teachers are more patient and others more strict. What works in one room with one group of students might not work with a similar group down the hall. The system cannot be perfect with so many people being involved in it from students, parents, teachers, administrators, to local, state and federal politicians. However, I think the system could be better.

Is money the answer? In some ways, yes it is. Give me fewer students and more time to prepare and critique and grade. But giving each teacher fewer students and more time, costs money. Pay teachers what they are really worth. While higher pay will attract more people in general to the profession, more skilled and quality people who would love to teach might be willing to enter the profession if they could feasibly support a family on the income. Give teachers and schools the tools to make learning accessible and fun.

The next issue regarding teachers that the video addresses is TENURE. Tenure keeps many ignorant, lazy and generally ineffective teachers employed as do many teaching contracts in non-union states. However, no protections for teachers would lead to a lot of great teachers being lost to the profession as well. Teachers are in such a difficult position that they need some job security. It should be hard to get fired because parents and students can misinterpret or misrepresent situations. Assessing teacher success is also hard because the measurement of success is not an objective measure. How well students do on a test only would work if we could guarantee each student made an effort on the test and would not purposely fail to place a teacher's job in jeopardy. Passing versus failing percentages of students wouldn't work because everyone could just arbitrarily decide to pass students in order to be seen as more successful. In my school, teachers give students passing grades if they get close. I choose not to do so without extenuating circumstances. A student who earns a 69, just under the 70% passing rate, but did not attend tutoring or do all of his/her assignments, who made little effort to do even the minimum doesn't get a passing grade. At the same time a student with a 67-68 who came in for extra help, did every homework assignment, did extra credit work when offered, behaved and was on task in class daily might earn the passing grade. Grades are so subjective that looking at them from outside isn't really a fair assessment of a teacher's skill or necessarily of a student's learning.

The system is so huge and so convoluted that even brilliant, motivated, wonderful people haven't been able to fix it in its current manifestation. Don't even get me started on NCLB . . . NCLB Flaws is an article I found that addresses some of my concerns over the current educational system. A discussion for another day, perhaps.

We can't fix a broken system without being willing to shake things up, being willing to stop doing things the way they've always been done and start from the bottom correcting and changing things. I have answers, but no power and many better informed, educated and skilled than I have found themselves in the same place. All ideas and answers with no tools or ability or allowances to implement them. Perhaps the biggest hurdle to fixing it, isn't that we are waiting for Superman to come save us, but we should be waiting for the trash man to scrap the whole thing and start over.

Day 222: 1/2 way home

This school year is hard. I love teaching and once I get to school, I can generally psych myself up to be emotionally present, not just physically and intellectually. But it has been really hard going to work to teach students who don't understand, don't care, don't respect themselves much less me. I have to leave my precious peanut, who just wants me and my undivided attention all day, every day to spend the day with students who don't even understand how precious education is in this country, world, life.

I wasn't a perfect teenager (I am sure my parents could fill you in on that anti-newsflash!) and they had strict grade requirements for me. I spent a lot of time doing the absolute minimum, but the minimum was an A or B. I could bring home a C if they had seen me studying all night, every night, going in early to ask for help, and working with a tutor. If I could pull the grade up to a B, it was less work than convincing them to accept the C. I understand kids not wanting to work and not being able to grasp how the decisions they make today affect their futures. I certainly didn't. Many of my choices changed the course of my life for better or worse in ways I couldn't even imagine, so I understand from their perspective the future is next week, not twenty-five years from now.

What I don't understand is what seems to be an increasing number of the current generation who are entirely content to be morons at worst, completely ignorant at best. They literally see no value in knowledge for the sake of being learned or educated. They don't see value in knowledge in order to be functional as adults. I don't know if its the Google syndrome, "Why bother to know anything, I can always google it . . ." mentality or just laziness, but it makes me crazy.

I find it especially hard to lose out on days teaching Lil Bit to bash my head against the brick wall that is my students. But today, it is halfway over. First semester is over! I have grades to finish and report cards to run, but it is finito! HOORAY!!!

I don't know that my husband and I have decided if I can stay home next year for sure or not, or if in this economy it just doesn't pay to walk away from a paying gig, but I can still look forward to three glorious months of peace and quiet. We're halfway home, baby girl, can't wait!

Day 285: Politically correct and all that jazz

Today is grade check for my students for sports and extra curricular activities. If they aren't passing everything, they can't play. You would think this would be motivating, but no, I have an astronomical failure rate. I have never had a failure rate so high, or at least it feels high to me. I have two-thirds of one of my classes failing and I feel devastated. They are failing because they refuse to turn in homework. 80% or more of it was done in class, and they still cannot turn it in.

I feel like being politically correct had its roots in being kind and tolerant, but has run rampant where we can no longer speak the truth in case we hurt someone's feelings. Children are taught to have self esteem, but don't understand earning the right to be proud of yourself. We all have the right to be loved, accepted as human beings, but the right to pride and some aspects of respect have to be earned. I understand watching the little league team that loses be disappointed and wanting to cheer them up. Who can't empathize with disheartened children, but do we do them a disservice by negating the goal they failed to achieve. If losing doesn't sting, who works to win?

What do these two ideas have to do with each other? I think the increased pressure on adults to focus on raising self-esteem has led to a severe flaw in our current educational system. Maybe this is a problem in the geographical area I live in, maybe others are seeing it as well, but students seem to feel more and more like the world owes them a life and less and less like they have to do anything to earn a place in this world.

I don't know that I have any answers today, but I do know that unlimited chances to complete assignments, minimum allowable grades, and the ilk has led to an attitude of apathy seeming to pervade our current culture. I never would have accepted a zero for an assignment. I might not have put 100% into my work all the time, but I generally wanted to do well. I often was the kid with the 98% wondering why I lost two points. It just baffles me that students will sit in class while we're working on a project, do very little and then just take a zero. This was work they didn't even need to take home. If they worked with average diligence, they should have been able to finish it in class. And it was a facebook page for William Shakespeare. They should have had so much fun with that! I made it relevant to their culture, gave them a tangible product, passed out rubrics and gave them class time to work. About 80% of what was turned in would have been failing grades for 6th graders when I was their age.

They don't equate what they do with what they deserve. I saw students turn in slop and truly believe it was amazing. But our school puts pressure on us to give the kids the benefit of the doubt, "Is failing Johnny really what is best for him in the long run?"

When did that answer quit being, 'yes'?!?!? My parents told me the stove was hot; they watched me and tried to protect me from burning myself; eventually, I either learned the stove was hot by listening or touching it. If you never let a child get disappointed, burned or failed, then have you failed him?

Most of the best things I have ever learned was from when I failed or struggled. Even if the lesson was just that I am capable of getting back up, I learned my strengths and weaknesses through the struggle. Today, we use being politically correct and leaving no children behind as a smoke screen to disguise that we're letting emotions govern reason. I am all for being kind, but the greatest kindness might be pointing kids toward things they can really feel good about instead of keeping them from failure.

I'm just afraid by the time we as adults realize we've failed them, it will be too late for our society. The movie "Idiocracy" feels more and more prophetic and less comedic every year. Water your plants people, Gatorade isn't good for them.