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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (82788)	9/7/2008 4:47:08 PM
From: Stan J. Czernel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541736

I'm appalled at how badly the US does public education in impoverished areas... Teachers have a truly difficult task: trying to educate children who may come from an environment of hopelessness, drug addiction, crime, broken families, poverty. Teachers are expected to overcome all of this and get a child to care about learning. I have a quote I want to share in this regard: In a world where a billion workers cannot find a decent job or any employment at all, it bears stating the obvious: We cannot by any means - monetarily, governmentally, or charitably - create a sense of value and dignity in people's lives when we are simultaneously creating a society that clearly has no use for them. If people do not feel valuable, they will act out society's dismissal of them in ways that are manifest and sometimes shocking. Robert Strickland, a pioneer in working with inner-city children, once said, "You can't teach algebra to someone who doesn't want to be here." By this he meant that his kids didn't want to be "here" at all, alive, anywhere on earth. They try to speak, and when we don't hear them, they raise the level of risk in their behavior - turning to unprotected sex, drugs and violence - until we notice. By then a crime has usually been committed, and we respond by building more jails and calling it economic growth. This is from the book Natural Capitalism which I flog shamelessly to all, every chance I get. By the way, I think that one can sense the truth of the above when one contrasts the poor student of today with the poor immigrant students of the turn of the century. Those kid, back then, had two things that today's kids don't have: abundant opportunities, and Hope. They also had parents who were convinced that education was the key to a better life, and who instilled this in their kids. As a result, you got kids who were easy to teach - who understood that learning might be difficult, but who were determined to learn. On a personal note: when I retired, I decided I wanted to teach high school math. So I took our states ARC (Alternative Route to Certification) program. I spent an intense summer learning educational theory, reading Dewey and others on the subject, learning classroom management and educational law - as well as the requirements of No Child Left Behind. The last two weeks were classroom experience in a summer school in the area. These kids were inner-city - the majority Latino. For the most part, they kept silent: reluctant to volunteer thoughts on anything. Now this was a trade school, and I was teaching geometry. The kids had enough savvy to know that they had to pass the course or not get their diplomas - so they did the minimum. But I tell you that in very few of them did I sense any intellectual deficiency. In fact, some of these kids were extremely bright. But they were sullen, guarded, and difficult to teach. I was told by my peers at regular, inner-city schools that their students weren't nearly so motivated. Anyway, I would go home exhausted and enervated. I felt so frustrated: I felt there must be a key to unlocking their enthusiasm and igniting a hunger to learn, and I just wasn't smart enough or sensitive enough to find it. After graduation, I decided not to teach: I just couldn't see myself facing that kind of frustration day after day. My older sister has been a public school teacher for more than 30 years. I don't know how she does it.