This week I went to a school "coffee" house where one of the students in my study performed. She didn't think she did too well, then last night I went to see another student in the study play basketball. That was fun, I had forgotten how much fun games were. Tay only played a short while and the last team he was on was not so great since the coach preferenced his players (students from his school) over the other students from a different school, even though Tay and his school mates were better players. Ah I have hit my other nerve of late, how I failed to get my son the proper education.
Is it bad that one of the reasons I am writing what I am is to better understand why I failed to get him the help and schooling I thought was good for him. I know for sure that this system is massively broken, so broken in fact that most of the kids I know have gpas under 2.0 and they are fine with that. I listen to students tell me they are not smart and try and get me to buy into that belief. This is after they have just demonstrated that they have learned the needed materials even when they have their heads on the desk, look like they are sleeping or are wandering around the class room. So many of them have told me that they are not good at math and that they hate math. Now I am not one to say I love math, but I do like it quite a bit, and find myself doing little math problems every day. We are miserably failing these students, boxing them up sending them off to community colleges and state schools, terribly under-prepared and behind, to such an extent that it is unlikely that they can catch up to the rest of the world by the time they graduate. We know this and we keep doing the same old same old.
Sit up, stop talking, face forward and pay attention to this deathly boring power point that some educational production house put together to help a teacher who can't keep up, who has so much other work and other stressors that the time she needs to get the work for tomorrow is overshadowed by the time she has to spend on recording and filing and grading what happened today. One of the students got to check her answers and copy answers out of the book. I told her the only reason I wasn't doing anything about it is because by copying the answers she was still learning something and that counts almost as much, although it lacks the development of critical thinking skills. It will be interesting to follow the other students around and see the other class rooms. Better teachers hopefully, although the history (AP) didn't really impress me at all.
One of the the things that really blows my mind is the paucity of books in the classrooms. Are they really so scared that the student will steal the books that they don't have them. Chris We. asked me yet another odd question this week about setting fire to farts. Of course I had a smart response and told him that it would most likely burn the ass hairs off first, at which point Kevin tried to ask the teacher if that would really happen, but my don't you dare got him to stop. Ok so I sit in the back of the room and chatter and make jokes, but they come to me for help and poke me for attention and beg me not to leave. Greet me in the halls, talk to me at games, bumm a dollar from me, like it when I give them chocolate, act all surprised when I know a biggie song or who Ez E is. I have offered to help with class work, especially math, since that seems to be the biggest piece. It is as if there is little actual reinforcement, oh plenty of repeating of work answering the same questions over and over in slightly different forms, but really no active application or learning of the terms. Many of them seem to not want to read the stuff, and I wonder how many of them are functionally literate. I know they read their phones and look on the internet all the time, but that is different and requires a totally different set of skills. No one has taught them how to read a text book, all that money is wasted on these very expensive books that they never read and barely touch. If they are assigned work in the book, they go straight to the work and ignore the previous pages, they want not to have to read them and just get the answers. Again and again they have this disconnect between what they have to do and what they have learned. For example. I had to go around the room and help everybody understand the 3CO2H2O was really CO2H2O CO2H2O CO2H2O. Some how they had not learned that or had missed it. Not really surprising given the teacher. ChrisWe asked me to rate the teacher on a scale, and then rather astutely asked how much of it was the teacher and how much of it was the students. I of course told him that it was not for me to judge. He told me if you are a bad teacher then the kids are going to be bad, if you are a strict teacher and a good teacher the kids will respect you and work for you. It is funny that he knows this but still can't stop talking and asking off task questions and trying to get away with no work. Will asked me if mixed kids were more likely to be adhd, and I said I didn't think so, he also told me he was. I believe it, it is really hard to get him to focus, but when I have him at the back of the room just him and me and Rodney they work hard and do well. Isiah is a bit of a distraction but most days I can get them to settle down and work. Same is true of Kevin and Chris. I am a bit worried about my report with Chris Wa, he is so angry and resentful, and I have annoyed him a few times, by asking him to settle down. He hate the class and doesn't want to be there and is not making much of an effort to help out with the study and class, but last class one of the squeeky girls sat by him and they chattered the whole time and missed the majority of what was need. He gets up and leaves when ever he wants, doesn't seem to get in trouble for wandering the halls. He seems to know how to avoid the hall monitors. A few of them spent much of the time out in the halls. I have to work on Brandon a bit, he is quiet, and sits there, just being distracted. Not like the ones who are constantly seeking attention. Like Chris We and Wa, or Kevin. I showed Carnell a picture of Tay last night and he said your son looks black. He's your right not adopted. And I smiled and said yes. There was a mixed race couple at the game, their son was playing. Honestly I would have been hard pressed to guess he was mixed, but then his dad looked mixed himself, probably about my age a bit older, very light skinned, and with more European features, so the son was literally white and the only clues were the fact that he had thicker lips and course hair. So if the dad hadn't been there then he would have easily passed as a white kid. I think that Sue M. (AP) is slowly warming up to me, not so put off by me. Smith is not interested in race at all, even with the growing population of non whites in the school. The kids are fairly unconcerned overall about race, usually the discussion is done in a joking fashion, although there are some slights like when Kevin told Chris he was not black. Then there are the discussion like with CWe trying to convince me he is black or mixed. And asking Kevin to agree and my asking if he is honorary. Then the boys telling me Markus is Hawaiian and white. OR Rodney trying to convince me he is mixed. I had a really interesting discussion with Chris We, Kevin and Erick about why latinos, somalis and asian sit apart but the Afro Am and white kids mix much more. Chris wanted to know why and thought it was because the other groups were being exclusive, and we talked about how they feel more comfortable in their ethnic groups the one time during the day where they can sit and speak in their native languages and have a communal understanding of each other because they have similar experiences.
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