4/17 Reading

Reference: "Made in America", Chapter 9

1) "I'm sorry you're stuck with the garbage kids. You'll be able to teach other students after a few years." (pg. 192) - This was pretty upsetting to read. The fact that a veteran teacher would call them 'garbage kids' shows that this teacher is completely bogged down by the school and years of dealing with problems in Madison High, and that they are taking it out on other teachers who are still young and ambitious. There is nothing like setting up a bad precedent for your students. Isn't a teacher supposed to be supportive of their students and of the school that they teach in? A part of being a teacher is being involved in a high school environment is being a role model and being a mentor for young teachers coming in who need advice. If you are going to say something negative, just do not say it at all. It is not productive to have a negative attitude about teaching and project it on everyone else in the school. It creates a negative mentality among the staff and then the school becomes a negative place entirely. It is no wonder the students feel like the teachers do not want to help them; it is because they actually do not want to help them! The teachers think that the students are not worth teaching because they do not understand English. Well, unfortunately, teachers do need to work very hard and they have to cater to the needs of 30 other students in their classroom so I get that it can be extremely difficult to control all of that at one time, and that can get teachers down, but they cannot walk around calling kids garbage. That is mean, hurtful, and should never be said about your own students.

2) "Lisa's proposal on detracking just focused the way other teachers were feeling about us. I mean, here's this topic being put out there by one of the young teachers, and...the faculty never really talk about this stuff. " (pg. 196) - Here exists the dichotomy between the veteran teachers and the young teachers. The young teachers come in, bright and excited to teach and think that they are going to make a difference in the school. I cannot say that I was not under the same impression for a long time, and I still feel that I can be a good teacher and influence my students to be reflective and be proactive in their lives, but I am realistic in the hope that that is all I can ask for from my students. I cannot say that I believe that I am going to change the world of teaching like some people say, but I do believe that I can make a difference in students' lives. If I can open their eyes to something new or teach them to see something in a new light, I will feel like my job has been done. I want my future ESL students to learn English in a practical and innovative way, and if I can just reach them and make sure that they can accomplish all of their goals, I will feel great about my teaching. I think that it is always effective to do checkpoints of your own teaching along the way, giving them evaluations of my teaching so that I know how I am doing versus always how they are doing, like the teacher in the chapter. I think that makes a lot of sense to do, and it helps the students feel like they can express their own thoughts and ideas and it will give me some ideas to better my own teaching and to better their experience in my classroom. It also gives them opportunity to critically assess in English and there is no better skill for them to learn than that.

3) "These four women are inspired by a vision of what they want to do as teachers, but exhausted and (outside of the support they give each other) feeling generally unacknowledged and unsupported by the school." (pg. 204) - Again, the veteran teachers do get a lot of say in what classes they get and what students they teach and the young teachers do not get anything that they want. Schools are very much like a hierarchy; the young and new are at the bottom of the heap because they presumably do not know anything yet about teaching. Yes, new teachers (including myself) understand theory, how to write lesson plans, and general classroom management skills, things we have learned from a textbook. However, at the same time we do not know how to handle students with behavior disorders, students who are constantly insubordinate, among many other things that crop up in the classroom. Teaching is largely a learn-as-you-go experience where you have to learn how to deal with issues as they appear. There is literally nothing a university can do to prepare you for the craziness of a classroom. The young teachers feel unsupported by schools because they do not appreciate the new knowledge they bring in, especially in a school like Madison who does not seem to listen to current policy and theory about ESL education. Who knows, they may have changed in recent years, but there is a certain benefit to listening to new teachers and new ideas. If new teachers could convince the veteran teachers that the ideas work, then maybe something could get done. I wonder if they have thought of it yet? I think that maybe the veteran teachers could then convince the principal to change the policies or support the ideas of these experienced teachers.

4) "...the WASC visiting committee sufficiently picked up on the situation to recommend in its report to the school the establishment of an ESL/sheltered department. The principal's response...was 'over my dead body'." (pg. 210) - That is certainly a strong response from the principal. I noticed that this principal seems to be a recurring problem in the school. Unfortunately, this happens a lot in schools all over the country. The administration does not agree with what teachers are doing, so they squash the new ideas and want to stick with what they know has worked, even if the times are changing and it is no longer working in the new school environment. The principal seems very stubborn and does not want to change unless he absolutely has to; you can see by his strong response to the WASC committee's suggestion. I guess that I would think that the principal would at least listen to a higher government power, but even then he did not seem convinced which is appalling. Many schools have the same issues and still do not have separate ESL departments. Usually it is just part of the English department and has a head of department that does not have ESL background or training, which again is an administration problem. I personally think that in a school like Madison with a large immigrant population they would deeply consider establishing a specific department, but I remember now, that costs money. Money means everything to schools and it is just something that will never change. The education system now has the same issues and they do not receive the funding to do these things even if they wanted to. It really is too bad because high schools really need this funding but it just is not happening.

5) "You don't get to pick and choose which students you're going to teach math on the basis of who is easy to teach." (pg. 216) - I think this quote sort of goes along with my first quote I picked for this blog post. The students who are not easy to teach are these 'garbage' kids, the ESL and the sheltered kids, and they can be difficult to teach, of course. Teachers know what they are getting into ahead of time, and if they do not know, they should take the initiative to at least research ESL lesson plans or ESL methods and theories. I know that teachers have enough to do, but they have all summer to at least sit down for an hour or two a week and write some ideas down about how to better the educational experience for the ESL students. Those students are trying very hard to understand their basic subjects and they do not get enough individualized attention as it is, so if all you need to do is research their situation, it can make an infinite difference. Veteran teachers have the upper hand in the case that they can pick and choose the classes they feel comfortable with teaching, so they will choose the honors or AP classes because the students are willing and eager to learn and they are extremely easy to teach; even some academic classes are the same way. Or, at least they want to pick classes where there are no special needs cases so that their job is not too hard. Maybe some very veteran teachers deserve to relax after 20-25 years of teaching, but that does not mean that they should turn down teaching the ESL students. They should at least offer to try, but I know that is unrealistic. Teachers want to take it easy when they can, and I do not necessarily blame them, but they need to expect to have ESL students in their classes. At this point in our country, it is inevitable.

6) "Was it right to help her when clearly birth control is not something her parents were about to help her with. Was I mucking with her culture?" (pg. 222) - I think that this is a dilemma that a lot of teachers face that is not talked about very often. High school and even middle school teachers can face this problem, and it is especially propagated by the fact that they are from different cultures that have extremely conservative views on birth control. Even most Caucasian families have a conservative view on this, and what this teacher did could have gotten her in huge trouble so I can see why she left Madison High. She probably did not want them to find out. For me, being someone is very liberal about these kind of issues, I think that these students need this information. Was Padma supposed to enter her marriage without knowing anything about what marriage and physical intimacy entails? I suppose that might be a very American way of looking at it, but most teenagers in the United States have sex in high school and many schools do not offer sex education, so you end up with people on TV shows, like in Teen Mom or 16 and Pregnant, lost and confused, poor and having to quit school. In this case, Padma was going to be married so it was socially acceptable when she got pregnant, but the girl wanted to go to college and have a career before she had children. She did mention hoping that her husband would be more modern and allow her to continue her education before having children, but she may not be that lucky. Many immigrant girls are burdened down by these arranged marriages and not allowed to achieve their full potential in life because they have to settle down at 17 or 18 and then have children, and then they are pretty much stuck. I think that the teacher did the right thing in educating them about sex and what it means, and being very honest with them. There are not enough teachers who have the courage and compassion to do this with their students. It is completely necessary to have these talks with teenagers because they may have already had sex and do not understand the implications of what they are doing. They need an honest and realistic view about sex, and where else are they going to get it besides school if their parents are not willing to talk about it? Maybe taking her to Planned Parenthood was not a good choice, but I feel like the teacher had to get involved in this case.