I am the Dean of Students this year at a school with about 98% free and reduced lunch---education folks understand this as a really broke school! I LOVE my job and I LOVE my students and I love my co-Dean. The teachers are awesome, but they are learning the hard way how to teach our kiddos.
If you read my posts, you know that I believe kids shouldn't sit in a desk all day and listen to a teacher drone on and this philosophy is proven by how teaching practices are utilized at my school. Is this a race issue? NOPE!! Is it a socioeconomic/cultural issue? ABSOLUTELY!!
We have a huge percentage of new teachers or at least teachers who are new to our building. There is one teacher who has been at our school for 13 years and the librarian has been there since the doors opened. Another teacher has been there for 7. After that, the most tenured teacher has about 3 years. The rest of the faculty is brand spankin' new, at least to the building.
Our kids are tough. They have seen more and been through more in 10 years than I have in 32. Many are diagnosed with ADHD/ADD, ED (emotionally disturbed), SLD (specific learning disability, or with some sort of speech/language delay. These kids are sometimes on meds and sometimes not. Many of the meds are narcotics (often opiates) so when a child stops taking the medication abruptly, he/she experiences withdrawals. The average 5th grader has a second grade reading level and the average 8th grader has a fourth grade reading level. Almost every child that I see in my office has at least one biological parent who is in jail or one parent who he/she has not seen for a while. Many live with grandparents or other relatives. Some are homeless, some live at the Salvation Army. On our side of town, the project housing has been removed and replaced Hope VI housing, but trailer parks are rampant and dismal. The Section 8 apartments have a porn shop at the entrance and it is used as a landmark to describe where to turn into the complex when visiting students' homes. Our kids come to school with torn clothing that is often stained and wrinkled. On Thursday of this past week, I had a young lady who came to school with a shirt that smelled so badly, that I gave her one of our extra shirts and took her shirt home to wash. After two washes on hot/cold, it smelled just as bad and the armpits were just as black, so I threw it away. On Monday, she will have a replacement shirt.
So, am I asking for sympathy? HECK NO! What I am asking for is a willingness to take in the information I just gave you and recognize that we have severe problems in our schools. There is such a huge disconnect between teachers and students as well. White, female, middle-upper middle class teachers who desperately just want to convey content knowledge to their students and see them succeed. Our kids know way too much to sit in a desk all day and willingly listen to someone drone on about antecedents, World War II, plant cells, and equations. They know that this information is pointless for the direction they are heading. So instead, they find better things to do with their time during the day such as:
- Fight
- Argue
- Throw paper
- Wander around the room without purpose
- Tackle each other in the hallway
- Rap/sing/talk loudly during inappropriate times
- Sleep
So what is the answer? How do teachers get to do what they love while also motivating kids to join the party? QUIT PROFESSING! Put down the text books people and walk away! You know the saying "You can't fully love someone else until you love yourself"? I would argue you can't fully love academic subjects until you love yourself. Our kids have to be taught a new way. The job of the inner-city teacher is to hit the ground hard each year showing kids how to behave and working with kids to develop new strategies to communicate with their peers and adults, thrive in a professional environment, be a wage-earning citizen, get out of poverty, and take care of themselves. Don't laugh, it's true. Ask any inner-city school teacher. Even if they have never thought about it before, I guarantee they will now!
So what about the abysmal test scores and poor reading levels? That will come. That can be part of this learning adventure students will go on each year. The definition of insanity is "Trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Well then, schools are insane! The awesome part is though, schools don't need medication to cure the insanity, just a little rehab. I never cared what someone said about where I was in my curriculum and after a while, no one had to because these (stupid) test scores showed that my kids had very good comprehension in Social Studies.
If you are a teacher and you are reading this, give it a shot this coming week. Put down the curriculum pacing guide and start getting to know your kids. Earn their trust and respect. Show care and concern for them (do NOT confuse that with sympathy!) by asking how their weekend went. Push the desks against the walls and do some real teaching by showing them how to work together, how to listen to you, how to answer questions, how to follow the rules at school. You will get to the curriculum and I can promise that when those (stupid) test scores come out later on next year, you will see a massive change for the better!
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