"Oh, ya can't fire me cause I sticking with the Union,
I am following the progress of the NYC School system this year. Bob Herbert is a Black, Liberal Columnist for the "New York Times."
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October 24, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Failing Teachers
By BOB HERBERT
ducation," said John Dewey, "is the fundamental method of social progress and reform."
I've been talking recently with a handful of dedicated teachers about the classroom conditions that have festered over the past several years at some of New York City's least successful high schools. These are places where fear and loathing take up the space that could have been occupied by progress and reform.
You'll find these noisy, chaotic classrooms in almost any of America's big cities, not just New York. They are ruthlessly destructive, and scary to students and teachers alike. They are places where childhood dreams all too frequently expire.
"Sisyphus, that's me," said one teacher. "But I won't give up because I can't bear to walk away from these kids."
The teachers would not go on the record. They were afraid of being punished by school officials for speaking out. And some worried about reprisals from their own union because of comments critical of teachers.
"What goes on in these classrooms, that's the story of urban education," said a teacher from Brooklyn. "You've got kids playing dice in the back of the classroom. You've got kids listening to their Walkman, or writing rap rhymes. And rapping to girls. And also practicing gang signs. Now that's a classroom that's run by a teacher who doesn't care."
There were frequent references to "the back of the classroom." When I asked why, one teacher said: "There's a certain protocol to the room. If they sit in the back, the kids have specifically opted out of dealing with the classroom. They feel as though they can do whatever they want back there."
"They just slam their desks to the back of the room," said another teacher. "There might be 15 or 20 kids back there, with a space between their desks and the ones in the front of the room. The teacher just teaches the ones in the front."
"Remember," said a teacher from Manhattan, "these are just children. Teenagers. There is no reason to ever let them get out of control like that. But I would say that many of the teachers I've met don't care about their students."
A male teacher who runs very disciplined classes in Brooklyn spoke of the fear that plagues teachers and students in some schools. "You have violence in some of our schools, and people react to violence in different ways," he said. "You have teachers who have categorized all of the students as a problem. So they walk into the room afraid of the students without ever knowing them. To them, the students are one-dimensional. Everybody's a thug. Everybody's a problem. So they don't require anything of any of them.
"Meanwhile, the students themselves are scared. The class becomes undisciplined, and therefore dangerous. So the good students cut out because they don't want to be in that environment. That's one way you lose the good kids. You have a lot of students who are not thugs, but who left school because they couldn't learn — they couldn't even hear — in that noisy, disruptive atmosphere."
The teachers I talked to spread the blame widely among students, parents, teachers and administrators. But they were hardest on teachers.
"You have teachers who are very diligent," said a middle-aged teacher from the Bronx. "They work very hard, and even come up with money out of their own pockets to pay for supplies, or even to help these children when they are in trouble. But there are many, many others who are not remotely interested in these kids. They tell the kids to their faces: `I don't care what you do. I'm still going to get paid.'
"They mean it. They don't care. The kids pass classes they don't even attend, and attend classes they aren't even assigned to."
Said a teacher from Brooklyn: "Kids would literally go to their friends' classes. Just to hang out. One teacher laughed and said, `I should give you credit for this class, you've been here so many times.' "
The worst of the problems — the true extent of school violence, the utter chaos in some of the classrooms, the fraudulent grading and promotion practices, the widespread contempt heaped upon the students, and the scandalous lack of parental involvement — have not yet been fully and honestly revealed.
Real progress and real reform won't happen without an understanding of the real truth.
nytimes.com |
