Mothers With no Shame
I teach elementary school in an "urban" school district. Yes, the children struggle mightily day after day to learn . . . except for the ones who struggle mightily not to learn. I've learned over the years that if the child is a mess, take a look at the parents, lack of parents, and the poor kid's general home situation. Just because there is an adult living in the home, even if this person gave birth to the child, he or she may not be a parent. Case in point: the other day as parents were in the school picking up their children, I passed by a mother in a black t-shirt. Written on the back of her shirt in big red letters was, "Fuck the Police." Remember, this was inside the school, and there were many children around. No matter how poor a child's reading skills are, there are certain words that they learn to read anyway.
I didn't get a look at her face, she was going one way and I was going the other. I don't know who her child is. Based on years of experience, my hypothesis is that her child is not a good student and is possibly resentful and combative. This woman thought nothing of walking through an elementary school wearing clothing featuring foul language. What other deviancies are part of this woman's normal behavior.
Labels: education, foul language, parents, school
Fourth Grade Hamlet
This year in my fourth grade class, we've been reading Hamlet. We began reading as soon as we returned from spring break. We'll be done with the play in about a week, (this is Shakespeare's longest one) and then we'll watch one of the movie versions.
Hamlet is tough. It's long. It's kind of "talky" in some parts. I can't say that all of my students are enjoying it. I can say that some of them are. Our discussions are way more fun than talking about the stories in the reading book. Some students have read ahead. Others claim that they've already seen a Hamlet movie. And I believe them when they start telling me how Hamlet kills Claudius and then also dies. They haven't mentioned Ophelia though.
The writing assignments I've given on the play show that for the most part, they are (with a lot of help from their teacher) understanding what's going on. They're picking up on the characters' motivations, on plot devices and twists, and making logical (but not always accurate) predictions on the direction of the story.
Two of my students have gone to the library and checked out Hamlet in other editions than the one we are using. One is one of my top students. The other one has given up trying to do most of the work and has adopted the "get on the teacher's nerves" method of getting attention - except for Hamlet. He made me read a scene with him the other day. He got to be Hamlet. I was relegated to being Horatio. It's a good thing I know who's boss in my class.
I used to get my Hamlets from Scholastic. Their edition has gone out of print, so this year I had to pick up a few used odd-ball editions. I noticed
Dover had their Hamlet Thrift Edition for $1.50. They also have a volume featuring Hamlet along with Macbeth, Othello, and Romeo and Juliette for $2.50. Five of my students gave me money to place an order for those books. I also ordered a few copies of Charles and Mary Lamb's
Ten Tales from Shakespeare because I know that they will be read. (And I ordered a few things for myself.) Somehow, probably due to my amazing math skills, I ordered an extra copy of the four-play volume. (And yes, I think Big Bill Shakespeare would have approved of that bit of word play.) A few students offered to buy it from me.
Some high school drama students came and performed some scenes from Hamlet for my class. My kids loved it. And they asked (mostly) appropriate questions of the performers afterward. Some of my boys were acting a little too "hot to trot" over some of the female players, but things still worked out well.
One of the things I learn year after year, is that we can teach children great literature. Even though the skill level of students entering my class gets noticeably lower year after year, they can still appreciate Shakespeare. I can't say they appreciate him over Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but that's no reason to hold back.
We don't have to dumb things down to get students to learn. In fact, even though I'm not what you'd call an expert, I think I'm safe in saying that the dumbing down trend has had a negative effect; students are getting dumber, learning less, and in many cases losing the ability to learn as less is expected of them.
Labels: education, Hamlet, reading, school, Shakespeare
We're Going to Starve!
Well, nobody actually said that, but I was faced with a room full of hungry students this morning and no breakfast. I've written previously about how in my district, every student is given a free breakfast (of sorts) every morning . . . if they want it. I've also remarked about how a few parents have now stopped feeding their children breakfast because it's no longer their responsibility.
Usually breakfast is already there when students arrive. Today, it wasn't. It was suggested that we send somebody down to the lunchroom to check on it. I had breakfast, so I was calmer than my students. I asked how many did not have breakfast at home this morning, and 19 of 22 hands went up. Seven were out today because we had a half day, so I will assume that most of them would not have had been fed at home either. I asked who gets their morning meal at home on weekends and during the summer and almost all hands went up. So parents will feed their children when nobody else will.
Breakfast did arrive about 10 minutes into class. Students were treated to a TRIX bar and a carton of milk. Students also bring snacks every day, to go along with their "breakfast", so there were the usual chips, pretzels, Flamin' Hot Cheetos, Tabasco flavored Cheez-Its, candy bars, cookies, mini-bagels, canned fruit, and other items full of empty calories. I gave up the fight for healthy snacks years ago. The parents were against me.
Am I the only one who sees a problem in this situation?
Labels: breakfast, school
More Reasons to Give Public Schools More Money
In the school district I work, we teachers agree in our contract, to be available every Monday after school for meetings. In the past, this was no big deal. Meetings were called at the discretion of building principals. We all grumbled when meetings were called, but we all showed up.
In the past few years, the district bigwigs have decided that we must have meetings every Monday. So we all show up, grumbling even more, especially on the days it seems like our principal doesn't want the meeting any more than we do, but he has to come up with an agenda and hold the meeting anyway.
Now we are having a series of Monday meeting in which a consultant is being brought in to teach us how to have meetings. The district bigwigs plead poverty (except when it comes to hiring more administrators) in a lot of areas, but I assume we are paying this consultant.
We are all taking good notes in order to improve our meeting skills because we know how important a good meeting is.
Well, maybe we really aren't.
Labels: meetings, school
War's legitimate object is more perfect peace. Flavius Vegitius Renatus
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CHALLAH AKBAR
