I'm Lucky I Went To School Then

I was sitting with a colleague today and the topic of the NY Times came up. I told her of my aversion to the paper, not because of anything written in it today, but because of the experience I had with the paper as a sixth grader.

I vividly remember daily sessions with that huge paper sitting on my desk. I never learned how to fold it properly and although I was reading on grade level, that level was not good enough and I had trouble comprehending what I was reading. I still remember trying to copy the answers to our weekly newspaper quizzes from the little red head boy I sat next to.

After relating this story, my colleague looked at me and said, "what happened to differentiated learning?" We both laughed at that since differentiated learning was not in any one's vocabulary when we went to school. And then I said, "am I lucky it wasn't."

Differentiated learning would have meant that instead of the Times, I would have been given a Weekly Reader. I would not have accomplished as much as I did that year and when I went into junior high, I would have been behind. If statistics mattered then, like they do now, I then would have been delegated to a class of poor readers and behavior problems. I would have kept this pattern going until I entered high school, ill prepared for college preparatory classes. I am sure I would have made it through but I wouldn't have learned much. No one would have cared because I was not hurting the graduation statistic. I might have even attended a two -year college that I was not prepared for. I would have flunked out. Today, instead of teaching, I might have been walking behind elephants in the circus, holding giant garbage cans to catch their waste products. I wouldn't even have the skills to write this blog.

Don't get me wrong, there were problems with education then but I believe there are bigger problems now. I just returned from dinner with a few teacher buddies of mine. One, an English teacher, was bemoaning the kids today and how ill prepared they are to grasp what they should be able to grasp as seniors in honor English classes. She said the kids today are just not that bright. I corrected her. They are just as bright or even brighter. The problem is not them, it is the type of education that has been rammed down their throats for years. They have been schooled but not educated. She thought about this and agreed.

No teacher can effectively differentiate in a class of 34 and who has the right to shortchange kids by differentiating the curriculums. Kids will be left behind. How many do we have to do this to until someone wakes up and changes the program?