On Saturday 13 November 2004 10:08 pm, Jim kindly wrote:
>> And people like this vote, and blame the schools when their children are
>> idiots!
> Probably some of these idiots are the teachers. It would explain all the
> horror stories we hear about - high school graduates not being able to
> read
It's so much more complex than that. I feel that even though it's way OT, I
have to try to correct a common misperception here. If you don't want to go
OT, just delete.
I can tell you that the biggest causes of high schoolers not knowing how to
read are uninvolved parents who don't read and don't read to their kids. We
have kids who are raised by television sets. We have "social promotion" which
insists that kids be moved up to the next grade _in spite_ of teachers'
recommendations to hold them back another year. When a kid falls behind in
second and third grade, but gets promoted anyway, the fourth-grade teacher
gets a kid who can't read and can't keep up in class. The kid falls further
behind every year. Probably starts to develop behavior problems, too, out of
frustration, shame and boredom, and the parents don't demand better of him.
The teacher's lucky if he can even get a parent to show up for a teacher
conference.
The kid may eventually end up in Special Ed (where my husband, a SpEd teacher
comes in.) The SpEd classes are overcrowded and don't have enough teachers
and aides to provide one-on-one instruction which the kids need. The teachers
can't recommend Psych services or counseling, because if they do, the law
says the schools (not the parents) will have to pay for it. Most people don't
know this. Teachers who recommend special services for their at-risk kids get
recommended "Not for Rehire." We have the t-shirt for that one.
Teachers who give consequences for bad behavior that kids can relate to, like
telling a child to stand in the corner or do 10 pushups, are written up for
"shaming the child" or "child abuse" and it stays on their record. When the
kids never experience meaningful consequences for bad behavior, they grow up
thinking they can get away with anything and become menaces to society. Then
people blame the teachers for failing to provide discipline in the classroom.
So a teacher eventually gets an 8th grader who performs on a 3rd grade level.
He could have a learning disorder like dyslexia, and be a sweet kid, but it
doesn't matter because the violent sociopathic and psychopathic kids are
usually in the same classroom with him. That's because the schools don't want
to pay for extra staff for self-contained classrooms for the really dangerous
kids. So the nice kid who just has a learning disorder at best fails to get
help, and at worst learns how to behave like a real rotter after enough time
with the behavior-disordered kids. And the highly trained teacher who spent
years pursuing masters degrees in education and has to do side work just to
make ends meet, and can't afford to pay for his own kid's college, this
teacher who really wants to help this kid can't do it, because all his time
is spent trying to keep the ADHD or psychopathic kids from disrupting the
entire class or trying to kill somebody, respectively.
Most new teachers who graduate with degrees in SpEd last only six months on
the job before burnout makes them quit. My husband's been doing it for 16
years now. He can bring a child's reading skill up 3-5 grade levels in one
year, if given the chance. Most of the time, he doesn't get the chance; the
system is too broken to allow it. I think he and his fellow teachers are
heroes. But that's just my opinion.
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