Why the Pakistani Taliban's war on children keeps on going (7700 articles and counting, as of 8:30 pm tonight)
And then I go into work and try to convince my American students, who are privileged by comparison, and everything I see is an echo of this teacher's epiphany. I could have written what she wrote, if I weren't so beat down and exhausted that clear writing is nearly impossible. I am a textbook example right now of 'Executive Function Overload'. I'm so stressed and worn out I can barely drag myself to work every day. My school talks a lot about 'standards-based' classrooms, but all the information provided, all the examples given, seem to be focused on the look of the room, rather than the content or quality of the lessons. We've just been treated to a big pitcher of koolaid on the topic of the Self-fulfilling Prophecy and the Pygmalion Effect (Rosenthal, 1968 article here)
I read another piece by a teacher who took her leaders at their word and held her students to high standards, with the consequences that came of not completing assignments despite numerous opportunities, afterschool tutoring, etc. She was called in to account for her pass/fail rate, and was told that if students were failing, then she had failed them. she changed her lessons, with the same result. In the end,
When she talks about the exhortations to set high standards, I hear the echo. When she talks about being attacked for doing exactly that, I have flashbacks. To this afternoon, when a parent chewed me out for asking her daughter to rewrite her plagiarized project. To the week before last, when a parent yelled at me over the phone about whatever she thought were my failings, as if it somehow makes her son's constant disruption of the learning environment more acceptable. To the school year quite some time back when I stopped bothering to grade actual work, but just recorded 65s and 75s in the gradebook, so that the final averages would meet the minimum to pass. I had had all I could take of explaining to parents why their children couldn't earn As without doing exceptional work, but especially why they couldn't earn Cs without doing any work. Because, you see, I don't GIVE grades. Students have to EARN them. And they work very hard to either pass or fail in any class I teach. What I'm wondering is simply this: at what point does the student pick up the ball? The quarterback can't win the game all alone. Right now, I'm feeling like Tim Tebow when his time in the NFL ended. MAybe I should just drop to one knee and pray?
No comments:
Post a Comment