Do you think students who graduate out of high school that cant read?

You are discussing the very situation that I teach in. I live in an isolated city almost 100 miles in any direction from another city. The dropout rate in my town is 58 percent, and for years even people who did graduate didn’t have much of an education.

Teaching here has great challenges. Most of my student’s parents can’t help me with their education. I mean, if I send home homework, most of my parents have no idea of how to help since they can’t read. I send home a weekly newsletter, which my students read TO THEIR PARENTS to give them the information about what is going on in our classroom. Most of my parents can do basic addition and subtraction facts, but after that they are lost. That means they can’t help them with multiplication or division, fractions decimals or word problems, not to mention multiple digit addition. And to tell you the truth, I don’t want them to try to help. When they do they get so upset that they don’t know the material that they then tell the children that it is stupid and worthless for them to do it. Or they make up answers, like the father who tried to help his daughter read a paragraph on “plate tectonics”. When he couldn’t, he told her that “plate tectonics” was when her mother put out the plates for dinner and they passed them around the table.”

So in other words, ALL of their academic pursuits are my responsibility. This upsets and embarrasses my students’ parents, and so what do they do? Insult education. They tell their children that education isn’t important, or is “acting white” or “acting stuck up”. What a double wammy for my students, hun? No one but their teacher to help them and their home environment actively attacking their education.

I can’t do projects for homework since I know that a good deal of them can’t do it for lack of materials. Even regular homework requires me to send home pencils and paper since most of them don’t have even that in their homes. I’m sure you are aware of the No Child Left Behind Act. This law ties funding to test scores. As you can guess, in general students at my school don’t score as well as children from wealthier areas. That means that we in turn receive less funding each year. At first that meant that we cut things like art, music, and PE teachers. Then it meant that we cut assemblies and field trips. Then it meant that we cut librarians and media techs, and finally it has meant that we cut the actual amount of money for materials in the classroom. Let me tell you, two hundred dollars to buy all the materials from pencils, erasers, paper, staples, copies, and white board markers for 20 children for 189 days, doesn’t go far. So not, if I want my students to do homework, I am going to have to buy them the pencils and paper out of my own pocket. (And the replacements when they are “lost” or the “baby ripped them” at home. Yes- by the way, they lose privileges at school when this happens, but if I want them to do homework, I still have to have take home materials to do it.)

But now what to do about it? When they don’t do as well as children from homes where parents do value education, we could hold them back. I am not a big supporter of social promotion. But when you don’t care about education, you don’t care about the grade you are in. Right now, if I held back all the children in my classroom who aren’t on grade level in every area, that would be almost half. And some would have to go back two grade levels and one three.

Oh I can hear jdeekdee and people like him screaming about the “CORRUPT PUBLIC SCHOOLS” and how the fact that these children failing is entirely my fault because I am more interested in filling my pockets (With my copious salary!), then helping the children entrusted to me. What they don’t see is the fact that these children in my classroom have shown great progress in academics- they came to me 3 and 4 grade levels below. In a half a year they have made a year’s growth. But that is still not enough for people like jdeekdd, if they are below grade level it is because I am not doing my job, like the only time children learn is when they are with their teacher and the other hours of the day al children are just in “sleep mode”. Honestly, what an insult to all the good parents out there.

Look, I only legally have them 6 hours a day. (I do pick some up early, and keep some late to help them with their work. I also take some away on the weekend for private field trips when I have extra money or can get a grant to pay for the transportation), but I can’t make up for all they are lacking when they return home. My children don’t go home to Brownies, music lessons and gymnastics. They don’t go to Sylvan Learning Center or Kumeron classes. They don’t visit museums, restored villages, and nature preserves, go to the beach or the mountains or a to play with their parents on the weekend. (Some go on drive- by’s and a couple do stay in the car when the parent they live with visits their “friend”), but they don’t watch educational TV, if they even have a TV, don’t have conversations with their parents with more than two syllable words, and as I have said before, don’t have “family reading time” or bedtime stories.

If we want our student’s in the US to do better, if we want to “close the gap” in education, then we need to look at the reality of our situation and stop pointing fingers, especially at the very people who are on the front lines trying to fight it.

Oh, and by the way, I am not a proponent of social promotion, but I don't believe that children should be in classes with children mor than three years younger than them. As one mother said, "I don't want my eight year old daughter in school with boys that have chest hair." Think about all of the things that our younger children would be exposed to if all the Junior and Senior high age children who are below grade level, were held back to elementary school. As a teacher who works in a high gang area, that thought really scares me. I do believe in different kinds of schools and would be supportive of making a special school or classes for the children who need extra help. But that would take more money and people would still scream that the reason all of those schools and classes existed was because us teachers weren't doing our jobs.

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I agree with what you are saying, it would be much better if there were special tutors for the children who need them. Sadly though, when there isn't money for pencils, there certainly isn't any for tutors.

Also I agree with you that we need to set up our classrooms differently. I am a Montessori teacher and completely believe in our method of teaching. Here is a link to a post I wrote on the Montessori Method http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AlYqr...

But to quickly summarize it, we work in strands instead of units. For example, in math some of the strands are ...math facts, math operations, algebra, geometry... every strand has work organized in a progressive order and building on the concept before it. Children are initially placed on a level that is slightly easy for them and then they move throughout the levels at their own learning rate. When they are stuck on a concept they can work on learning it, I don't have to push them along because the scripted program as determined that it is time for them to move on. On the other hand, when a child is mastering a concept, I don't hold them back they can move on and learn more.

What we have found with our method of teaching is that children usually progress at a quicker rate than in a traditional classroom. Even children who are behind when they first come in to our program move faster because we have the ability to give them a very strong foundation. Once this foundation is set, it is much easier to introduce new materials to them since they have a very strong understanding of the concepts already.

The problem is though, that teaching like this is such a paradigm shift that most people don't believe it can actually be done. Once they see it in my program, they start to make up ridiculous stories like, "It's because you have all the white kids." or "It's because you have all the rich kids." Over the years I have so strongly fought all of the accusations and proven them to be false, so now they tell me that it is because we are just really good teachers. I then have to say that there are lots of really good teachers out there and they aren't getting the scores that we have so it must be something else- like maybe the way our classrooms are set up?

The bottom line is that we have to change the way we impart knowledge, from the schedule to the environment. That will take a lot of training and work. But I��m willing to be there for it..

first you find the trainer u want then find out a little about wat they like e.x. good posture. then you find out wat ring they watch and make sure ur in it and showing. if he/she sees u they will prob remember u not 4 sure u have to be seen. u dont have to win just be seen after that u just ask if that trainer has a program u can join if he says no find another trainer and do the same thing it may take a little while but i bet ull find one. next year im going to be one but my mom is a trainer so i have a bit of a inside. you will ride every day depending on how hard u work most people ride every day. make sure u watch everything the trainer does so u can learn what they like. the better u do things the more likely they will have u ride more horses. my friend is doing the maclay stuff and she rides for Geoff Teale. his working student rides almost every horse in the barn every day. u dont live at the barn u stay at the hotel ur trainer gives u at the horse show. it might be cheap or nice depending on how hard u work. i hope i helped i tryed to answer all of your ?'s so if u have any more just ask

I think there are those that graduate and can't read some of them have no math skills they could care less..the parents and teachers can't be blamed all the time..you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink..if a high school kid doesn't show interest after being encouraged what's left but to turn him/her loose..

You are exactly right. Not to mention MOST if not ALL of these kids have learning problems that the school would not help. THis is corruption in special ed all across USA.

LOTS of criminals have undiagnosed learning disabiliites that the school would not help.

Just think their life could have been different if it were't for

CORRUPT PUBLIC SCHOOLS