Let Me Step Onto the Soap-box, or Why I Teach Where I Teach (and Who)
Well, I missed a week posting. I've been aiming for once a week- certainly doable, right?
Apparently not.
I've had a very busy week. Every week is busy, but this week was just ridiculous. Fibro and RA is flaring up-- I am supposed to start a new once-a-month IV infusion drug (Orencia), so my other meds have been stopped. Which means that all the pain and swelling is at full force, and any day that I am tired, its a thousand times worse. So its been hard. On top of that, I am fighting off yet another of my endless sinus infections-- with an antibiotic that is wrecking havoc on my stomach (better than the last one's effects further down the digestive track.) It was bad enough that I actually had to leave my classroom to dry heave, and threw up another day before school actually started. That was scary and disgusting. I had started new nutritional supplements, too, trying to ease off "real" meds and try something more traditional, so I wasn't sure which was causing it. After puking up something that felt and looked like wet sand but tasted far fouler, I decided the supplements could wait until after the antibiotic. (Sorry if that's TMI for ya'll.)
Tuesday I went on a fact-finding trip for the charter school I work for to see the Baltimore City public schools, specifically schools like ours-- second chance, low performing, a population of students that every one else has thrown away. What I saw was absolutely frightening. The kids were kids; they are not what frightened me. No uniforms of any kind, the buildings, the low attendance (in the 50% range), the abysmal graduation rate (somewhere around 37%), the teachers, the behavior that the teachers and administrators did not correct, the classrooms I went into, the absolute rearrangement of curriculum for seniors so that they could be taught to pass the state high school graduation exams while not learning one damn thing else. There were water fountains, which still worked, with big signs saying "Do Not Drink The Water." It took a bit to figure out what the hell that was about, and why every where we went we were offered bottled water, but after hearing that no new schools had been built in 25 years, I got it; lead pipes still in the building. The district has also been taken over by the state (much like the Philadelphia School District was a few years ago), and hasn't had a superintendent stay longer then 2 years in a decade.
How the hell do you fix a system like that?
It breaks my heart to see the state of public schools, and makes me doubley (tripley?) happy about where I teach and what I do. I love these kids. I've always rooted for the underdog, and my students are the underdogs in this life, by and large. The Baltimore administrators and teachers kept telling us how we wouldn't believe the stories of some of their students' backgrounds, and our CEO kept telling them that yes, yes we would. And we would. Some of our students have horrible backgrounds-- years of therapy-- suffer from PTSD-- and have no money at all, so that the school gives them jobs and helps them find health care coverage and get caseworkers, etc. My students are not going to be the doctors of the world, but any stretch of the imagination. But we are turning out some good, solid, every day citizens whose kids might make it to doctor, or grandkids; who are the first in their family to graduate from high school at all, much less attend even a few semesters at community college.
For example, one of my students, who we will just call M to protect anonymity and cover my ass, came back to us after a year in a southern state, where he kept getting suspended for fighting, which he said he had to do protect himself because they kept giving the black looking Hispanic Yankee a hard time. He's a nice kid, not an Einstein but does pretty well considering his reading level, who I taught as a freshman as well. As a freshman, he talked. A lot. But always apologetic when caught, good natured, tried his hardest to understand Beowulf and Romeo and Juliet. This year, he got to our school late, had months less to work on his required senior project and presentation (which they start in their junior year) than the other seniors, and ended up having to move out into his own apartment and support himself with a job at McDonald's mid-year. Which means that he works from dismissal to midnight, five days a week, and takes an hour or more to get home on public transportation. He is missing a credit from his time down south, so he won't graduate until after summer school in August. But he comes to school almost every day, on time, and is passing all his classes. He stops to see me after school, to make sure that he is caught up on his work and talk a little about his stress (I told him that I, too, had worked full time at McDonald's my senior year, and how difficult it was to do.) This is a kid that can make a decent life for himself with a little support.
We almost lost him in October or November. He injured a tendon in his leg playing touch football-- a freak fall, a turn of his leg with an underclassman falling on him-- and he had no health coverage. He still went to the doctor, kept his appointments, until his leg wasn't fully recovering. He could walk again, but didn't have full range of motion at the ankle. The doctor needed an MRI done to tell if the damage was permanent, or if he was just still recovering. His father, whom he lived with, did not have health insurance. The father, for some reason only fathomable to him, couldn't manage to get the state aid health coverage, open to all children. Other relatives wouldn't let him live with them, wouldn't put him on their insurance. His mother, living in that southern state, wanted him to come back down there so she could put him on her health insurance. He did NOT want to go; he was sure he would never make it to graduation that way. Somehow, somewhere, with the school counselor, he was found coverage, and got the MRI, and has pretty much fully recovered. He failed his senior project, but I worked with him for hours on the rewrite and prepping him for his presentation.
He passed the rewrite, and got an 81 on his presentation.
He is passing all his subjects, and only needs one class in summer school.
He may not be at graduation, but I feel better about the help I have given him than any other student. He is one of my favorites, and I will miss him. But the system failed him. Thank god for my school, and the caring people who work at my school. There have to be people like that in Baltimore, too; there just aren't enough. Every time a public school district asks for more money, spends over budget, there's a reason. M and every one like him, who are what they are as a result of the society we live in.
How can the world prosper and be a better, happier place if most people are willing to throw kids like M away?
We can't. I just wish the rest of the world would realize this before its too late, before the schools can't be saved. Every where.
Apparently not.
I've had a very busy week. Every week is busy, but this week was just ridiculous. Fibro and RA is flaring up-- I am supposed to start a new once-a-month IV infusion drug (Orencia), so my other meds have been stopped. Which means that all the pain and swelling is at full force, and any day that I am tired, its a thousand times worse. So its been hard. On top of that, I am fighting off yet another of my endless sinus infections-- with an antibiotic that is wrecking havoc on my stomach (better than the last one's effects further down the digestive track.) It was bad enough that I actually had to leave my classroom to dry heave, and threw up another day before school actually started. That was scary and disgusting. I had started new nutritional supplements, too, trying to ease off "real" meds and try something more traditional, so I wasn't sure which was causing it. After puking up something that felt and looked like wet sand but tasted far fouler, I decided the supplements could wait until after the antibiotic. (Sorry if that's TMI for ya'll.)
Tuesday I went on a fact-finding trip for the charter school I work for to see the Baltimore City public schools, specifically schools like ours-- second chance, low performing, a population of students that every one else has thrown away. What I saw was absolutely frightening. The kids were kids; they are not what frightened me. No uniforms of any kind, the buildings, the low attendance (in the 50% range), the abysmal graduation rate (somewhere around 37%), the teachers, the behavior that the teachers and administrators did not correct, the classrooms I went into, the absolute rearrangement of curriculum for seniors so that they could be taught to pass the state high school graduation exams while not learning one damn thing else. There were water fountains, which still worked, with big signs saying "Do Not Drink The Water." It took a bit to figure out what the hell that was about, and why every where we went we were offered bottled water, but after hearing that no new schools had been built in 25 years, I got it; lead pipes still in the building. The district has also been taken over by the state (much like the Philadelphia School District was a few years ago), and hasn't had a superintendent stay longer then 2 years in a decade.
How the hell do you fix a system like that?
It breaks my heart to see the state of public schools, and makes me doubley (tripley?) happy about where I teach and what I do. I love these kids. I've always rooted for the underdog, and my students are the underdogs in this life, by and large. The Baltimore administrators and teachers kept telling us how we wouldn't believe the stories of some of their students' backgrounds, and our CEO kept telling them that yes, yes we would. And we would. Some of our students have horrible backgrounds-- years of therapy-- suffer from PTSD-- and have no money at all, so that the school gives them jobs and helps them find health care coverage and get caseworkers, etc. My students are not going to be the doctors of the world, but any stretch of the imagination. But we are turning out some good, solid, every day citizens whose kids might make it to doctor, or grandkids; who are the first in their family to graduate from high school at all, much less attend even a few semesters at community college.
For example, one of my students, who we will just call M to protect anonymity and cover my ass, came back to us after a year in a southern state, where he kept getting suspended for fighting, which he said he had to do protect himself because they kept giving the black looking Hispanic Yankee a hard time. He's a nice kid, not an Einstein but does pretty well considering his reading level, who I taught as a freshman as well. As a freshman, he talked. A lot. But always apologetic when caught, good natured, tried his hardest to understand Beowulf and Romeo and Juliet. This year, he got to our school late, had months less to work on his required senior project and presentation (which they start in their junior year) than the other seniors, and ended up having to move out into his own apartment and support himself with a job at McDonald's mid-year. Which means that he works from dismissal to midnight, five days a week, and takes an hour or more to get home on public transportation. He is missing a credit from his time down south, so he won't graduate until after summer school in August. But he comes to school almost every day, on time, and is passing all his classes. He stops to see me after school, to make sure that he is caught up on his work and talk a little about his stress (I told him that I, too, had worked full time at McDonald's my senior year, and how difficult it was to do.) This is a kid that can make a decent life for himself with a little support.
We almost lost him in October or November. He injured a tendon in his leg playing touch football-- a freak fall, a turn of his leg with an underclassman falling on him-- and he had no health coverage. He still went to the doctor, kept his appointments, until his leg wasn't fully recovering. He could walk again, but didn't have full range of motion at the ankle. The doctor needed an MRI done to tell if the damage was permanent, or if he was just still recovering. His father, whom he lived with, did not have health insurance. The father, for some reason only fathomable to him, couldn't manage to get the state aid health coverage, open to all children. Other relatives wouldn't let him live with them, wouldn't put him on their insurance. His mother, living in that southern state, wanted him to come back down there so she could put him on her health insurance. He did NOT want to go; he was sure he would never make it to graduation that way. Somehow, somewhere, with the school counselor, he was found coverage, and got the MRI, and has pretty much fully recovered. He failed his senior project, but I worked with him for hours on the rewrite and prepping him for his presentation.
He passed the rewrite, and got an 81 on his presentation.
He is passing all his subjects, and only needs one class in summer school.
He may not be at graduation, but I feel better about the help I have given him than any other student. He is one of my favorites, and I will miss him. But the system failed him. Thank god for my school, and the caring people who work at my school. There have to be people like that in Baltimore, too; there just aren't enough. Every time a public school district asks for more money, spends over budget, there's a reason. M and every one like him, who are what they are as a result of the society we live in.
How can the world prosper and be a better, happier place if most people are willing to throw kids like M away?
We can't. I just wish the rest of the world would realize this before its too late, before the schools can't be saved. Every where.