My First, I mean, Second Blog - Education

This is technically my first blog, although, as Quyen knows, I spent a few hours yesterday typing up what had been intended to be my take on Fairy Tale Day, as well as some background information on the wonderful woman Quyen is, things she seldom says out of some sense of humility. Unfortunately, my web browser crashed on me, and, to my chagrin, I lost all that I had worked towards. So, from now on, I write all blogs in Microsoft Word first and then transfer them over to the web. Also, I'd like to start fresh on giving an account of today, rather than rehashing what I had written yesterday. There's something about rewriting, and recreating lost ideas that always tends to lead to a deminished product.

I am a teacher by profession, a high school English teacher to be exact. However, I consider myself to be a jack of all trades, to varying extents of course. I have a long history playing with various bands, and have taken a diverse array of classes, from Classical/Ancient Literature, Advanced Calculus, and Molecular Biology, to Political Science, Third World Studies, and Organic Chemistry. To say that I remember the minutiae inherent for a complete understanding of each area would be to commit an egregious breach of truth. Instead, I can say that what I have gained from such an education is not status as an avowed expert, but different ways of understanding the world, multiple perspectives on how things operate - something akin to the model of a Renaissance Man.

The reason I take time to make this clear is because it provides a backdrop for the decisions and attitudes I have towards teaching - attitudes which are sometimes condemned by others in my profession, or English teachers themselves. To be honest, I never intended to become a teacher when I first attended UC Berkeley. My goal was, at the time, to learn as much as I could in the short time span of four years so that I could be comfortable pursuing any line of work. At one time, I entertained being a lawyer, an AirForce pilot, a surgeon, a detective (the kind that work within a police department, and an advertising agent (look at the movie, What Women Want).

Now that I have bored you, rather than wowed, I'll start off my blog. My high school is engaging in a professional development workshop for three weeks (one this week and the next, and the other the week before school starts back up again). The big difference here is that in this version of professional development, there is no development actually taking place. Our days are spent, from nine in the morning to 4 in the afternoon, as a staff, talking about the philosophy of the school, and bringing up issues that should be addressed to improve the quality of teaching.

Today was frustrating to say the least. I spent seven hours listening to people talk out of their proverbial asses about what they liked and didn't like about the school, without any suggestions being made as to how to remedy things, or without anyone being willing to do the work that it takes to effect change. As a staff, we all know that some of the projects we do (we are a project driven high school) need to be seriously revamped. I'm talking about eviscerating these projects and taking away from them the few positive aspects they still retain. These projects are not relevant to new generations of students, they don't take into account the skill levels of the type of students we have been admitting over the past three years, don't function well with current class sizes, are a hodgepodge of many small assignments, aren't engaging, and penalize bright students for desiring high marks.

Instead of taking a hard look at the projects, both their strengths and weaknesses, and focusing our time on improving them, we went through the motions of pretending to be on the path to change by talking about what our projects are, why they're so "amazing." The day became an exercise in defending practices that have already been shown to harbor weakness. Rather than focus on how to eliminate the weakness, people praised themselves and other staff members for what was good in the projects. Fake smiles, clapping, and defensive posturing as to the quality or validity of projects does nothing! The kids, the students, are still receiving the same level of education whether or not we play polite like guests at a dinner party. Mind you, our school had an API of 9 last year.

Perhaps, what bothers me most about this process is that people are unwilling to say what they truly think. While they talk big before school, during lunch, at the watercooler, when the future of the school is on the line, they keep quiet about the controversial issues, and allow for the loudmouths (who, in my opinion, are also the least intellectually adept) to make policy and bully their opinions into practice.

Furthermore, there is this perverse idea that what people says matters only so far as the number of years they have been working at the school-site. Or, it matters only as much as they look old. Let me say that as a twenty-four year old teacher, I still look like many of the students, and that I have only been working for a year and a half. You can gather how much weight my words have on that campus. Nevermind the fact that many of them barely made it through high school and college; nevermind that many of them are still remembered as the worst students to go through teacher credentialing programs, or that the quality of these old-timers is so low that many faculty at our local university felt it to be disgraceful and beneath them. It wasn't until just recently that collaboration between the university and the high school became a possibility. What's worse is that these old-timers are proud of having been poor students, are proud of catering to the lowest achievers, and shortchanging those students who wish to excel.

I'll end this with what to me is one of the major issues that needs to be addressed, although I don't it will. The school has in place a math program called Core Plus. Theoretically, this is a wonderful program. It integrates math with real world situations, and makes use of word problems frequently. Various types of math are also integrated into the curriculum so that students in their first year might receive a bit of algebra, trigonometry, pre-calc, and statistics. There is no Algebra course, no Geometry course, and so on. Kids are placed in a mixed ability classroom, by grade level, in this program. Ideally, the bright kids, or rather those who have been empowered by teachers and parents, would raise the other children with them as they learn. I've seen this work in my own classroom, and in other schools so it's sound theory, even though research shows that high achievers fall three degrees of achievement when in mixed ability classrooms.

The problem at our school is that, with the reality of college admissions, AP, IB and Honors courses, and the competitive nature of the game education has become in the last few years, our math program is attracting very few high achievers. And with good reason. Students with a background in Geometry are not too enthused about being forced into Algebra review, for a year as their mixed ability's peers catch up. Even when we do attract high skilled students, we tend to lose them in the long-run, when they consider they are falling behind their college-bound friends at other schools. They also are not being challenged, and find themselves bored much of the time.

The exodus of bright students from our school leaves us with only the mediocre and those needing severe remediation. How then, can we pretend to give these students an education, their first year of high school, in algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and pre-calculus? We can't. And, while we should be strengthening the skills of the low-skilled students, through remediation, we aren't. We, instead are following the curriculum, which goes forward despite how many students fall behind. That's how we lose low-skilled students. School becomes a game of catch-up that they are never provided with the tools to succeed in. The school seems to think that remediation is a bad word, a dirty word. I'm here to say it isn't. Remediation is one of the most difficult and rewarding jobs a teacher can have - opening the doors to success for students who have, until recently, been unequipped to thrive in the school system. The problem is that schools routinely hand over remediation courses to the least-qualified teachers, as a punishment.

All I want is to create a situation in which the needs of both the low-skilled and high-skilled students is adequately met. Because, although our school has a selection process and can expel students at will, it is making it impossible for anyone who doesn't fit the definition of "average" to succeed. Then again, maybe I should buy into the unsaid culture of our country and accept that being different is to be wrong; different is something to be pushed to the fringes and forgotten about. And there's also the anti-intellectual strain of thought that runs rampant throughout our school systems and culture. We say we value education, but what we mean is that we value the opportunity to make money. We envy the rich, and the talented. "Nerds" are something to poke fun at and harass. Teachers are routinely referred to as "Those who can't, teach." And as degrading as that might seem, it's the sad truth when it comes to many teachers. Having been through a credentialing program, I can say that many of these people aren't "intellectuals," but the worst that our system has to offer - a people that proudly reiterate, from time to time, that they were awful students in school. If we truly valued education, we would make sure to put into place policies to ensure that inner-city children, as well as low-skilled children can succeed.