I actually dream about teaching metacognition...
One week after becoming a high school teacher, I realized that one of my ninth grade chemistry students cannot read. When he just copied down material from the text to answer my question about his life (which was meant to relate his personal experiences to the text), I was perplexed. I went through the list of possibilities: He looks a little different from the other kids, maybe he has some special circumstances. Or maybe it's that he's an English Language Learner; after all, he hardly speaks up in our very small class. Perhaps he's just obstinately opposed to doing any work in the summer; after all, he seems to understand me perfectly well.
On Friday, even after spending two weeks being swamped with all of Teach For America's literacy messages, it finally hit me: Matteo (not his real name) cannot read. He has made it to the ninth grade on the assumptions that I made about him before I realized what I was doing, and probably on ones that I haven't even thought of. I called his mother, and she more or less confirmed my suspicions. For me, he is the face of educational inequality.
Matteo is 15, maybe 16 years old. He is baffled by the printed sentence "An atom is the smallest unit of _________," even though he can answer this question perfectly well out loud. This child, and may others like him, has been left behind by our educational infrastructure. This child has been allowed to fail quietly in the back of the class because he does not cause a disturbance and does not ask for help. The most obscene thing about Matteo is that this child is not a rare case.
We are told from our early years in school that we live in a meritocracy where those who work hard, those who become "smart", will go on to have happy, productive lives and earn a living wage. Many of my livejournal friends have expressed dissatisfaction with one end of this bargain: namely, that this hard work does not guarantee any of these things. But many of us have chosen our positions for Art or Beliefs.
The kinds of assumptions that I made about Matteo are keeping thousands of children in an educational ghetto in every state in this nation. These children don't have a chance to choose. They are not on a level playing field: they don't even know the rules of the game. Some believe that this system is set up-- and the belief in a meritocracy deeply instilled-- so that America will have grocery baggers and fast-food workers and custodians and so that higher-status individuals can feel confident that this is all that these people have earned (so we can kind of look down on them, right?). But once you know what is going on in American education, how can you let it continue? I couldn't.
I will leave you with some of the statistics that have continued to inspire me through the intense process of learning how to be a great teacher to the kids who need one the most:
Of the 13 million children growing up in poverty, about half will graduate from high school. Those that do graduate will perform on average at an eighth grade level;
So strong is the link between literacy and incarceration that in some states, the results of third-grade reading tests are used to predict future prison construction;
Only 1 in 50 Latinos and 1 in 100 African American 17-year-olds can read and gain information from specialized texts such as the science section in the newspaper (compared to about 1 in 12 whites);
About 1 in 30 Latinos and 1 in 100 African Americans can comfortably do multistep problem solving and elementary algebra, compared to about 1 in 10 white students;
Only 3 in 10 African American and 4 in 10 Latino 17-year-olds have mastered the usage and computation of fractions, commonly used percents, and averages, compared to 7 in 10 white students.
This has got to change. For me, this means that I do not have an excuse. This summer, I must try to teach Matteo to read.
Many of these statistics were compiled by Kati Haycock in the article "Closing the Achievement Gap" in the March 2001 issue of Educational Leadership. If you'd like to read this article, email me at ehealan@gmail.com and I will forward you a copy.
On Friday, even after spending two weeks being swamped with all of Teach For America's literacy messages, it finally hit me: Matteo (not his real name) cannot read. He has made it to the ninth grade on the assumptions that I made about him before I realized what I was doing, and probably on ones that I haven't even thought of. I called his mother, and she more or less confirmed my suspicions. For me, he is the face of educational inequality.
Matteo is 15, maybe 16 years old. He is baffled by the printed sentence "An atom is the smallest unit of _________," even though he can answer this question perfectly well out loud. This child, and may others like him, has been left behind by our educational infrastructure. This child has been allowed to fail quietly in the back of the class because he does not cause a disturbance and does not ask for help. The most obscene thing about Matteo is that this child is not a rare case.
We are told from our early years in school that we live in a meritocracy where those who work hard, those who become "smart", will go on to have happy, productive lives and earn a living wage. Many of my livejournal friends have expressed dissatisfaction with one end of this bargain: namely, that this hard work does not guarantee any of these things. But many of us have chosen our positions for Art or Beliefs.
The kinds of assumptions that I made about Matteo are keeping thousands of children in an educational ghetto in every state in this nation. These children don't have a chance to choose. They are not on a level playing field: they don't even know the rules of the game. Some believe that this system is set up-- and the belief in a meritocracy deeply instilled-- so that America will have grocery baggers and fast-food workers and custodians and so that higher-status individuals can feel confident that this is all that these people have earned (so we can kind of look down on them, right?). But once you know what is going on in American education, how can you let it continue? I couldn't.
I will leave you with some of the statistics that have continued to inspire me through the intense process of learning how to be a great teacher to the kids who need one the most:
Of the 13 million children growing up in poverty, about half will graduate from high school. Those that do graduate will perform on average at an eighth grade level;
So strong is the link between literacy and incarceration that in some states, the results of third-grade reading tests are used to predict future prison construction;
Only 1 in 50 Latinos and 1 in 100 African American 17-year-olds can read and gain information from specialized texts such as the science section in the newspaper (compared to about 1 in 12 whites);
About 1 in 30 Latinos and 1 in 100 African Americans can comfortably do multistep problem solving and elementary algebra, compared to about 1 in 10 white students;
Only 3 in 10 African American and 4 in 10 Latino 17-year-olds have mastered the usage and computation of fractions, commonly used percents, and averages, compared to 7 in 10 white students.
This has got to change. For me, this means that I do not have an excuse. This summer, I must try to teach Matteo to read.
Many of these statistics were compiled by Kati Haycock in the article "Closing the Achievement Gap" in the March 2001 issue of Educational Leadership. If you'd like to read this article, email me at ehealan@gmail.com and I will forward you a copy.