This new plan of Bloomberg's to hire people to get rid of unsatisfactory teachers is really getting to me. I know that it will not affect me personally, as I will be retired long before they could decide that I am one they should get rid of. Injustice is always something I have fought against. One of my students even said "I know why the administration doesn't like you, you stand up for us. You stand up for what is right."
I really think that the one thing bringing this down on teachers is the NCLB laws and the policies of the Bloomberg-Klein regime. At the risk of being politically incorrect, I will say what I have been saying for years:
One of the women who works in my school has a daughter who is a freshman at the school. The poor girl has been failing math and the mom asked me to help her. I've been sitting with her a few days a week and she is starting to get it. She even passed her last test. But, no matter what a math test shows, it is obvious that this girl is limited in lots of ways. She is in ninth grade, but counts on her fingers. She has difficulty reading. Her vocabulary is limited. It took me quite a while to get her to do problems involving "at least" and "at most". She finally was able to do the problems but, only because of repetition. She really didn't understand the meaning of the words, she just memorized a process.SOME PEOPLE ARE DUMB. THEY ARE INCAPABLE OF LEARNING CERTAIN
THINGS. NOTHING WE WILL EVER DO WILL CHANGE THE INTELLIGENCE (OR LACK OF) THAT THEY ARE BORN WITH.
There are too many kids in the schools like this one. This one is lucky. She has a mom that works in the building and knows how to get her daughter help. Most kids are not this lucky. They are failing. Someone must be blamed for this failure. Someone must take the hit. It can't be the parents or the administrators and certainly the mayor would never say his programs are not a success. So, the only logical thing to do is to blame the teachers. Instead of spending money on reduced class sizes, the money is going to be spent to hire a hit squad to get rid of these teachers that cannot teach the kids that cannot learn.
5 comments:
Read my latest bilingual post. El Diario came out in favor of this scheme but I understand why. I wrote to them that blaming the very people(teachers) that can help a community to uplift itself is counterproductive. The Asian community venerates its educators and look how succesful many are!
YOU DON'T BASH TEACHERS YOU HONOR THEM!
I've had Asian parents bow to me when they meet me. Once, the father (from Hong Kong) of a very bright young man, went to every teacher his son had had during hs to thank them when his son graduated. You are right about the respect Asians give to teachers. But, on another note, my AP is Asian and he gives us no respect.
That's because not all Asians are alike! You got a bad apple one. Listen my Principal is a Puerto Rican and he is the greatest enemy that community has!
Amen. When the hell are we going to stop trying to make kids into something they're not? I had quite a time with a parent of a special ed child I teach. He's a good kid, he tries his best, but he can barely read and his comprehension is limited. I gave him a 70 on his report card. His mother was all over me because of the low grade. When I looked at his report card, he had grades over 90 in math and social studies! I tried to explain to his mother that he struggles to understand what we do in my class, but she wasn't having it. Why lie to the woman? Eventually she gave up when she saw I wasn't budging.
As I student I just did not get math and it was no fault of my teachers I am just dense when it comes to Mathematical equations. So you can not mold a student into a stellar performer if they just don't get it.
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