The presenter at our Teach For America introductory training posed this question: “How will you respond when a student says “F You” when you assign them work or ask them to listen for the first time.
In small groups, we were to respond with each other: “I will kick the kid out,” I remember saying. Others offered similar remarks. We then spent an hour trying to devise a list of rules and consequences for our inner city classrooms.
As more college students apply for and get accepted to Teach For America, as is happening to the corps in my city by a dramatic number for next year, more will find out the interesting realities of urban schools. Also, more will quit when faced with scarring realities.
One of my good buddies from the summer training institute quit within the first week. The kids at his school were calling him a faggot and mocking how he dressed and talked. He couldn’t teach and felt incredibly uncomfortable in front of his class.
I was similarly mocked for what felt like a very long time as I got to know my place and my role in the school. The first time I told a girl that she couldn’t use the word “faggot” in my classroom she responded with: “Why mister – is you a faggot?”
That was a classic moment in my life. I was stunned that a student would say that to a teacher! That girl, who graduated last year, was recently walking the halls of the school with her one-year-old son in her arms; she was feeding him a bottle filled with Coca-Cola.
Thomas Friedman is the latest NY Times columnist to be outraged by the achievement gap between whites and minorities. He offers no suggestions in this column today as to how to fix the problem, but gives TFA members props for taking an interest in fixing urban schools in what might be the most important way: getting into classrooms and teaching – righting the wrongs up front and personal on a daily basis by being good, committed educators.
Friedman discusses a recent conversation he had with TFA founder, Wendy Kopp. She read him a list of statistics showing the influx of applicants from Ivy League schools. The answer isn’t getting more Ivy League kids into TFA, it’s getting kids who are tough and determined and will not let the emotional stress wear them down and out.
Some days at my school are incredibly low and sad. The other day, for instance, four of my track athletes were suspended on the day of a meet. Also caught up with them were two of my other students, both of whom were then found to have drugs on them. Two of the boys wound up in city detention. Imagine: Leaving for school in the morning only to head downtown in handcuffs. I know it was their choice to do what they did, but seeing all this was really hard on my psyche. Then, to top off the day, the bus for our track meet never showed up. We sat outside on the street corner until 4:45 before I let the rest of the kids go home. One runner put it very simply: “Shit don’t work here.”
Some days are incredibly great. These are the days when you see the impact of good teaching on kids who aren’t used to it – when everyone is involved and reading and writing and you look around and know you’re in a bad school but are making it better.
The Friedman column is worth a read because it discusses the economic impact of our failed schools and the achievement gap. Even if your kids attend good public or private schools, failed schools affect the pocketbooks of all citizens in one way or the other.
There’s always a temptation to say “F you too” to the kids who give me hell and the community that has failed its children around here. But it’s too important a problem to give such a hasty, momentarily fulfilling response to.
5 responses so far
1 danbmil99 // Apr 22, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Ok, let’s get to the meat of things. Do you think abstinence-only programs are the best way to keep your students from having their own kids at 16?
Isn’t there some merit to the liberal stance that sex ed and free condoms will at least reduce the numbers of the next generation born into poverty and low expectations? Of course the GOP can’t go there as long as they’re tied to the mast of “Family values” as defined by megachurches and televangelists who don’t know or simply don’t really care about these inner-city issues.
2 Egli Ha // Apr 22, 2009 at 11:32 pm
The problem is not government-run schools per se. The problem is schools which are required to teach everyone.
Public magnet schools with stiff entrance exams to select for both readiness and motivation do just fine thank you very much. As long as they don’t get overfilled.
3 Cforchange // Apr 23, 2009 at 7:30 am
Schools should be required to teach most everyone basic reading, writing and arithmetic. This is a right owed to both the student as well as the funding taxpayer. But the problem is we are trying to teach the entire student community all by the same method.
Not everyone will sit behind a desk so somehow we need to determine when the cirriculum should diverge into those needing to be taught robust academics and those a hand skill and those that need a combo of the two. The trade education should be complete not a jack of all trade master at nothing. Then we need to recreate opportunities for those adept at their skill. This movement should gain traction now that we’ve lost the need for all those mouse clicking pencil pushers displaced by our financial system barf. Yes the incredibly higher educated that will never go back to work in finance.
Urban school reform is underway in my city – at least 30% of the schools have been shuttered because of poor performance and declining attendance. To reverse the trend, a community wide scholarship program has been instituted – attend 4 years of high school missing less than 10% of class, earn of 2.5 and get yourself a $5k per year scholarship.
Sure it won’t change those who are really damaged and need detention supervision but it will encourage new people to the community who overall will rehab the existing population to get in the game. Also, they just abolished an abstinence only sex ed program that the community at large did not know was in place.
With our financial woes, it’s difficult to see how this plan could fail. Yes it’s a Democrat initiative but it is an opportunity for new Republican populations – especially if Thomas, new teachers are needed. As Dan notes the “I don’t care to know about my urban community” is tired and has plenty to do with the 2008 election results.
4 Jonas.Stankovich // Apr 25, 2009 at 3:27 pm
The United Federation of Teachers must bear a portion of the responsibility in discussing why schools throughout America are in a state of dilapidation. Randi Weingarten and her cronies have a strangle-hold on the decision making processes throughout many American public-school systems. What good has that done for school children over the past few decades?
5 Jeffersonian // Apr 26, 2009 at 4:35 pm
When an opportunity is given to someone for which they themselves could not otherwise provide for, a minimum standard of accountability such as respect for an authority figure is hardly much to ask for. Will society benefit more from someone who has character and regard for others, or someone who who has received a very basic education? Why should anyone have a problem requiring of students from the get-go that they comply with the merest standards of civility? There are far too many cowards in this country who simply are unwilling to acknowledge that people CHOOSE to do wrong, and because it requires them to acknowledge their own wrongdoing, and the logical step of seeing that there are absolutes.
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