Villainous Company

> The truly sad thing in all of this is that it isn't really their fault. Their expectations are being set by their parents

Certainly this is contributory, but, no -- it's an outgrowth of the Germanic system of education, to destroy initiative, free thought, and individuality.

This has been in situ for over 40 years. My mother was asked in the 60s if I was allowed to "pick my own clothes", and, when the answer was in the affirmative, she was advised that she should not, it showed in the fact that I was too ready to decide things for myself. In another instance, she was advised that I needed to "learn to be a follower". When she asked where future leaders were supposed to come from, the reply was a stupefied silence.

Our country has always had a healthy disrespect for pure intelligence and intellect, but for the last century or more, it's devolved into outright hostility.

In any group of people, who are the least likely males to have feminine companions? The incredidibly stupid ones, yes, and after that? The incredibly smart ones, who have been turned into social outcasts for being different (multiculti doesn't extend to respect for someone who thinks differently because he's simply *smart*).

Now, ask yourself -- what's going to be the long-term effect on a society that turns sub-geniuses into social outcasts?

Well now that's an interesting question:

I realize I'm zeroing in on something you said (perhaps with little reason) but it interests me.

I used to go to the mat with my friends over this. I'd watch them struggle to get their kids out the door for school in the morning. One of the problems was that they would fight over what to wear or what to eat for breakfast. That drove me nuts - the kids weren't supposed to be in charge, but they ran the house.

I'm a big believer in letting your kids decide stuff too: in an age-appropriate way, though. I see parents give kids too many choices all the time and then they pitch fits. When mine were toddlers, I'd say, "Do you want to wear this outfit or this one?". And they got to pick. I didn't open the whole fricking drawer or closet so they'd pick an outfit I had no intention of letting them leave the house in.

By the time they were in high school, they pretty much had carte blanche on a lot of stuff. I was far more hands-off than many of my friends, ironically, but that was, I think, because I'd been letting make small, age-appropriate decisions, and more importantly, live with the consequences of those decisions even if they were bad ones for years. So they tended to make pretty good decisions and I could generally trust them not to screw up.

One example: my youngest boy decided when he was 15 that he wanted to dye his hair bright red. And I mean RED - like a fire engine. Now I live in a conservative Marine family. This was major weird. But I thought about it, the kid never gave me any grief, we were getting ready to move anyway, and I thought it would be a good learning experience, so I said yes.

Long story short, it was. Embarrassing as hell for me, and a good learning experience for him. He paid for it (I wasn't about to - I thought it was a damned stupid idea). And I let him live with the dumb-looking hair while it grew out. It ended up bleaching out kind of surfer blonde eventually, which was less dumb looking. We live and learn. I didn't berate him about it, or even mention it. And he's a great kid.

Anyway, kind of off-topic, but you know me :)

I got my first disappointing look at American students when I went to college back in '95. My first day in American History... the prof. asks who knows the significance of Pearl Harbor Day. Nobody raises a hand. Finally, I do. The professor looks at me and shakes his head "No." He calls on a young girl. She says, "I don't know. Wasn't it something that happened a long time ago... back in the '20's or '30's?"
How is it she was not taught that basic piece of American history? There have been many, many more bits of educational trauma that have set me off on rampages against schools and teachers and parents... in my grandson's class, one "helpful" parent, who is a lawyer, informed the class that if the school, or their parents, tried to make them do ANYTHING that they didn't want to, then just call her and they'd sue to make them stop. That means homework, detention, tutoring, etc. "You children have a right to be free human beings." She said.
Kinda brings to mind William Shakespear's words on lawyers.

I have many thoughts about this post, I would like to just write another post, but I am suffering what must be bird flu so I will just make a few comments here.

Everything the teachers who wrote the op-ed said applies to my students as well. My kids are not middle and upper middle class either. I teach in the burbs of Houston, but not the affluent burbs to the north and west. My school is between the refineries and the dump.

Many of the kids lack the work ethic needed to do well in science and math. Unlike the authors I do not blame the kids, they have been trained that there will be no consequences when they fail to learn the material. They are the natural product of social promotions.

My superintendent at the beginning of the year cited studies that said that if kids are held back they are more likely to drop out. So it was his policy that they be passed and hope that they catch up somewhere along the line. They don't. They drag the rest of the class down with them.

I would like to see a two or three-tiered system where the kids in the first tier are prepared for college and the other two prepare the kids for trades or even juco. They should have to earn their way into the first tier, a little competition is good.

I try not to get sucked into the vortex that the author appears to have. We can point fingers all day long, but everyday I have to go in and teach the students I have. Do the kids blame me when they fail? Sure. Do they think I have to entertain them? Some do. But there is nothing wrong with trying to make the class fun and interesting. I just wish they would give me the time to do that.

What everyone is afraid to say is that we can't reach them all. There are some that do well regardless who teaches the class. There are some that I can reach and motivate and get interested in my class. Then there are those that refuse to try, they need to be somewhere else.

Yes Pile, your three-tiered system is called 'Ability Tracking'. Schools used to use it. But it has fallen out of favor in many places essentially because it seperates kids into winners and losers. And we can't have any losers, they're just in 'Deferred Success'.

That's what we had in New England when I was in grade school and jr. high. They actually shunted you off into an entirely different school if you passed the test and you stayed there all the way through.

Then there are the special ed kids that have been mainstreamed into the core classes. These fall into two categories, those with learning disabilites who need extra help, and those who have truly learned to milk the system.

The latter are a real problem. They disrupt classes, and it does not go unnoticed that they never do anything and always manage to pass. One day I will flunk one of these kids. Most have so many modifications that you have to by law make or run the risk of being sued. The lists are so long no human teacher could possibly meet the requirements we are supposed to, when these kids are mainstreamed. It is a mess, and the kids know it.

Wow, that was poorly written. Back to bed.

Pile darlin', that is unlike you :)

You take care of yourself. I'm starting to worry about you.

I was just kidding about the avian flu thing. I do have a fever though and my whole body aches. More than usual.

The kids aren't missing their favorite/most hated chemistry teacher though. It is spring break.

I'll bet they are missing you.

Kids always have a love/hate thing going on with male teachers, Pile. They're like hen's teeth. I've never met you in person because you are too chicken to come to Fredneck :)

(just teasing - old joke there - *very* old joke...)

But I know your dry wit well enough to know how much fun you must be in the classroom. I often miss the zingers you used to come up with on TOB when we all had more time and you were torturing that poor Chinese-Mexican-Jewish lawn chica.

You know, some day we are all going to be truly old and pitiful and I am going to organize a blog bash.

We will have to rent a huge barn somewhere and just bring in a whole lot of beer. And get all the old folks together: Harden, Cat (who I still trade emails with all the time), Cricket, you, KJ, spd, Greyhawk and the Mrs. (maybe Bambi Stoke-Hymington will drop by too!), Pookie...and maybe even Mr. and Mrs. Purple will stop in and give me a hug for old times' sake. I'll stop now because for some reason I can't see the (*&^ letters and I am leaving people out and I hate that.

I would like that very much.

Okay, I am in. But you can't be in charge of the invite list all by yourself because you left out some obvious ones.

What about my boy Ranbutan? Can he come?

I hate you... :)

But maybe Ednutt and his buds from InformationClearinghouse.

I spelled Pooke wrong too. Must've been something in my eyes.

Crap.

Man did I leave a lot of people out. Well nevermind.

Sign me up for the blog bash. I will bring the grill and the cheese stuffed jalapenos.

You know, today was the usual drill day. As many of you know, I am using Saxon math. I love it for many reasons, but the best one is the baby steps to Actually Figuring Out The Problem. The oldest CLU
is sweating bullets over it and after I went through his homework, and marked half of them wrong (in red pen, no less...sadistic parent that I am)and went over them, he had the audacity to ask me if he could go on to the next lesson.
My response was 'NO.'

He had that deer in the headlights look and I felt sorry for him, knowing that learning can be a bear. But what favors am I going to do him if he can't lather, rinse and repeat until he understands the reasoning as well as the operation? This is the kid that fought me tooth and claw from day one about being taught at home...thought he knew it all and got dumped on his butt big time. For two solid years we have worked to get him to grade level. I am proud of him, but we still have a ways to go.

He will get there, but not without some tears.
I am prepared to see them shed, but I would rather he cry now when all he has to do is write a paper or work math problems or work a science hypothesis out instead of in frustration because I let him browbeat me. Ain't gonna happen.

The point is, there are also those teachers who would let him slip through the cracks not because they don't care, but because they are overworked themselves.

And that last non sequiter was because I forgot to erase it. Eet ees all ze fault of ze Shrub.

This is the kid that fought me tooth and claw from day one about being taught at home...thought he knew it all and got dumped on his butt big time.

Man, oh man Cricket, does that bring bad memories.

More like PTSD...

My oldest son and I locked horns almost from the moment he was born. I loved that boy so much it hurts, but he's so much like me it's infuriating. School was our biggest (really our only major) battleground. He's smart, but was never inclined to push himself because most things came too easily to him. So if he actually had to try hard at something he assumed something was wrong instead of assuming this was what most kids experience at school. And no amount of talking or explaining on my part would convince him otherwise - I quickly learned that while you can reason with a child, you can't transplant conviction or experience; especially if they're stubborn.

He fought me tooth and nail about putting in the needed work. It was disheartening at the time - he would do fine as long as I stood over him, but slack off if I let up even for a second, and I knew I wouldn't always be there. That is why I reluctantly stepped back in his Senior year and let him crash in school. I decided that, if at 17, he wasn't going to start putting forth some effort on his own, maybe he needed to have some things go wrong in his life so he'd see what happens when you don't pay attention.

A year sitting it out while his friends were in college, working in fast food joints, focused his mind wonderfully. He went off to school the next year and got very good grades with no pressure from me - they rose every year as he continued to mature.

And I began to see what I had suspected while he was at home: his dogged attempts to fight both me and his Dad were actually the flip side of a few very positive personality traits that were struggling to come out. He has his Dad's uncompromising integrity and my stubborn idealism, and he's not afraid to stand up for what he believes in. It's just that when you're a kid, your judgment isn't all that mature yet, so you don't always pick your battles all that wisely.

It was hard for me, but he needed to stand up to me in order to become a man even though he was wrong and, as he later admitted to me, he knew that. Something in me sensed that at the time - that by the time he hit seventeen we weren't fighting about school anymore but about who was in charge of his life: me, or him. I can respect that impulse even if I wasn't willing to support his desire to steer himself into the nearest ditch :)

Anyway, children are a slow crop. I'd have liked to have had more bairns, I think. Though I have to say I am really enjoying having them out and about now. There is nothing like having them come home when they're completely independent and enjoying their company as adults.

Seeing what they've turned into never ceases to amaze me. I am so proud. I love just talking to them on the phone.

You are a wonderful Mom, Cricket, and all those tears and pains will pay off in spades some day. You'll see :)