An ed student's blog

I got a kick out of this ed student's blog (http://schoolnerdblog.blogspot.com), in which she rants about the idiocy of the "education" she's receiving, the pathetic level of knowledge of her 11th graders, and the even more pathetic teaching skills and attitude of many of the teachers she interns with.

 

My favorite quotes:

 

a) Comparing Gates fighting malaria vs. what needs to be done with our education system:

A Tanzanian health entomologist told the reporter, "I am sitting here watching my hair go gray and waiting for those nets. Every year a million more kids die. A decade ago, they were saying 'Let people die; there is nothing we can do.' Then Gates came along and he said this is not acceptable. That was more important than his money."

There are so many parallels here with education. Just as they know nets and insecticide work for malaria (they helped to eradicate it among officials in the British Raj in India), we know that discipline, hard work, and attention to academic rigor work for urban education. What's missing is merely the will to do it, someone to come and say "this is not acceptable." Everyone would rather wait for a magic bullet that's easy and cheap. Or perhaps they just don't care. The Tanzanian scientist said, "We already know how much eight hundred thousand African children are worth to the rich world. We have known it for a long time."

I hope that's not true, for African children or American children. But it's sad that a cold fish like Gates is the guy who has to save the rest of us from the collective guilt of a natural holocaust in Africa. We should take his initiative for ourselves here in America, regarding education. We should say something like, "The underclass in this country, who are disproportionately minorities, have hardly a chance to improve their circumstances. And the only way for that to change is to give everyone a good education. So that is what we are going to have to do." In other words, "This shit is not getting done. Therefore, we will have to do it."

b) On the pathetic knowledge of the students and lack of proper teaching by the teachers:

Unfortunately, the entire class today was "student-centered." Please read "none of the kids had any idea what was going on." We were reading various documents about colonists continual insistence upon taking Native American land after the American Revolution. The problem is that most of the kids still do not really know what the American Revolution was or who was even fighting in it, because they were never actually told what it was, explicity. That would have been wrong...I guess they were supposed to "construct" the two sides of the conflict from various bits and pieces of information thrown their way.

If you don't believe me that 11th graders don't know anything about the American Revolution, here are some student guesses I received today as to who fought who: 1) The colonists were fighting the Indians. 2) The British were fighting the English. 3) The whites were fighting the British. 4) The whites were fighting the English. And we can't forget 5) The Indians were fighting the Native Americans.

c) On the chaos that reigns in the classroom -- and the teacher who thinks it's OK:

As if this were not depressing enough, the kids' behavior in second period is getting out of control. They throw balls of paper. They swear at each other across the room. They hit one another. They rap. They yell. They do anything but the work. When the teacher talks, there are eight other conversations going on at the same volume level. My teacher refuses to do anything about this. Refuses. In fact, she thinks that "the class is going really well!" Whereas I would put it more like, "the class is an unmitigated disaster!" Today, another teacher who works with us suggested that we do something to stop them from throwing paper at each other, since it is completely ridiculous. When we see them do it, all we can do is tell them not to. They laugh it off. But she has tied our hands because she never set any limits or any consequences for acting like a total idiot. She said that their paper throwing didn't bother her. She doesn't want to be "authoritarian" with them. She doesn't want to say "oh no, you can't do that." Because somehow, that is wrong. The other teacher said, well, it's your call. But another thing is that oftentimes you're talking, and they're all talking over you. You respect them so much, and you should demand it back from them. She responded, "in my five years of experience, this type of thing gets better as time goes on and they come to know and respect me more." On the contrary. At the beginning of the year, their behavior ranged up and down the scale from "ok" down to "the worst behavior ever." Now it starts at "the worst behavior ever" and goes downhill from there.

 

d) On why she writes the blog:

Writing about the crazy things I see helps me step back into the world I've always known, where knowledge is good, achievement smiled upon, and intellect encouraged. Please do not believe that I am glad to witness any of the things I do. I wish to God I didn't see any of it. Many days I feel nauseous and near tears with the futility and the tragedy of the thing. It makes me crazy, just crazy. The only thing I can do, besides steeling myself against it all, is to write here. So that's why I do it.

e) More on the near-illiteracy of her 11th-grade students:

Today's post is simple. It is a series of paragraphs written by 11th grade students in my school. I do believe that posting these paragraphs is mildly unethical. However, I think the fact that these kids are allowed to get to 11th grade and write like this is positively immoral, and I think people should know about it. These excerpts are written responses to questions about a novel on the American Revolution. Just for extra safety, I took out the name of the book when it is directly stated and replaced it with brackets like this: [Title]

• "I like how they showed how the black people got there freedom and what white men did to the blacks I did not know black men had to go to the army to get freedom"
  
• "1 thing i liked about the book "[Title]" was that she kept on fighting for freedom and never gave up no matter what happen. She stood strong even when she witness her fathers die. I really didn't have any dislike's about the book. I would really recommand this book to other 11th graders."