First and foremost, I need to state that I teach what you would call "mainstream" kids. The ones who are "high achievers" are sectioned off into "AP" classes for college prep. So my mainstreamers are those who are anywhere from gifted (but don't want the AP pressure/work) to those who need serious education modifications.
These kids are often precious. Sometimes they surprise me. I try my best to love them all. I teach them as much as I can squeeze into 50 minutes every day. I don't believe in "free-days." (Every activity has to have educational value; movies even have to be written about and analyzed.) I expect a lot of my kids. I push them, but gently. I do my best to not go to far with each individual while still challenging them. Yeah, there's a lot to all this. And when the copier is decalaring a revolution, days like today are a real pain.
We're in the middle of six weeks of heavy-duty, industrial -strength preparation for the standardized state test. I hate it more than they do, I swear. "What are we doing today?" they ask. "Same thing we do everynight, Pinky," I respond. (Not getting the obvious allusion, one of my black kids said to my Cuban kid, "Oooooh, she called you 'pinky!'") My kids have not ceased whining, complaining, and kvetching over this. Granted, it's hell, but they have been nightmares to work with.
I wrote up six people today. One kid got 22 days of AEC (like solitary confinement for learning). He got that for things he was doing in other people's classes, too, though. I wrote up two of my generally "good" kids and one of my kids that mostly behaves for me.
This week, one kid got the stack of papers passed round to him (a stead flow of stacks was coming to form a packet) and he refused to walk the stack to the next desk two steps away. I told him I stand all day and walk to every kid's desk who calls all day long. He said, "yeah but you get paid for it though," and he put his head down and refused to work.
"Why we have to do this?" and "I don't get this" are two common statements preceding someone putting their head down in "I give up" stance. I usually don't get questions from these kids. When I try to help, they don't know what it is they don't understand. What's worse is when I get arguments about why what I'm telling them is valid or useful. That irks me. Especially when they're non-sensical.
"I don't get why we have to do this!" one kid said. I said, "because you're fortunate enough to not be a child in Cambodia doing slave labor right now." This whole attitude of complaining had kept me from sleeping the night before. I didn't get any kind of sleep. All I could think about was the vast opportunity they're squandering. God forbid we have a national crisis or terror, but these kids are spoiled rotten and rather need one. Our generation -- including mine! -- has lived through NOTHING compared to generations in other countries and generations in our country's past.
Our exchange student from Germany, years ago, told us that beyond eighth grade you're not guaranteed an education there. She said you have to test into high school. And apprenticeships at that age are common. Is there anything really wrong with this? I don't think so. High school tries to focus on college prep as much as possible; we need painters and plumbers and people who work with their hands and we need them to be good at it. My German "sister" had one opportunity to pass the test to become a doctor and one test only. Education is not for the weak of will there. Is that bad?
I think of my young friends in Central America. Job pays for his own schooling -- high school. He works in an orange grove to pay for it. When I go there, the kids can show me where the work. Job's parents have a LOT of kids and a very small home. But you should see the school. It's a cement building. That's it. Bars on glassless windows. a roof, walls, and cement foundation. Rather empty, too. And my kids dismantle and abuse the dictionaries we are blessed to have. They leave their textbooks on the floor. Carve things in desks and on walls. Break my personal things. Or steal them.
I got a wonderful opportunity to visit with a sweet lady from Cambodia this Christmas. Her three boys are very American and yet speak fluent Cambodian and have been there several times. I asked the three young boys, "do you like school?" They said, "oh, yes ma'am," and nodded very assuredly. Their mom piped up, "They have no choice. They like school or they go to work." The kids didn't seem to think she was playing. I didn't either.
A missionary I know to that area of the world (Don't want to say specifically which countries for his security) tells me he saves up every penny he can while there. For between $50 and $100, he can buy a child. He then puts them in a Christian orphanage so they can grow up like a "normal" child. But see, he's not just buying these kids -- 2, 3, 4+ yr-olds -- out of slavery. He's buying them out of a life of prostitution.
These kids would literally risk their lives to grow up here. They'd be grateful every day for what ours take for granted. My seniors last year didn't even know slavery still went on in the world. Their world-view tumbled when I told them that.
Why are we raising such ungrateful kids? Why are they (we?) so oblivious to the obvious blessings we have? Why are WE not grateful?
In a class of 20, it's not my 6 kids from other countries that complain about having to take a standardized test in English.