Well, summer school has been over for almost a month. In that time, I have slept, had my wisdom teeth out and started work at a new school, yet I still think fondly of my "first kids." Even now, I refer to them as mine, as if, just by entering their lives for a few short weeks, they have become a part of me. I can only imagine what my new students will mean to me after an entire year!
I have been so busy that I have hardly written anything about summer school. It was a whirlwind, for me and for the kids. I learned many things, most of them filed away in the "what not to do" folder of my brain. Not that my school was all bad. The kids, of course, were incredible, funny and energetic in ways I don't remember being as an 8th grader. But the teachers I encountered were sadly disappointing, yelling at the kids and exuding low expectations. All the kids passed, not because they deserved to, but because the school was honestly too lazy to fail them.
This is a fundamental problem with our education system. No one wants the kids who behave badly, so they are shuttled forward, passed from teacher to teacher and school to school without really learning anything. Well, actually, it's worse than that. These kids learn that they are stupid, that no one cares what they do or how they turn out, and that the system will pass them regardless of how much work they put in. With all that knowledge, it isn't surprising that these kids continue to fail.
The worst things I saw in summer school (keeping in mind that I was at a pretty good school too):
- teacher sending a kid out to buy him coffee during class
- teacher having a kid give her a back massage during class
- teacher not knowing the names of her students on the last day of summer school
- assistant principal asking me who had failed my class, making a list, then handing me their diplomas a few days later
I could go on, but it's too depressing. I can only hope that my school in the fall will be different and from what I've seen so far (upcoming post!), the environment there is much more nurturing. And if it isn't, they better be ready for me to stir things up!
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