Friday, March 09, 2012

Trying Doesn't Cut It For This Girl

What do you say to a student who sits in a remedial college class night after night, moaning that the work is too hard.

The girl tries but can't do more than copy the material from the board.  She is allowed to use a calculator but I have to remind her constantly to use it.

She sends me e-mails all the time about the class, letting me know she cares but she can't write a coherent sentence and I very often can't even understand what she is writing about.

She reminds me of the non-diploma bound special education kids I knew at Packemin.  Her IQ can't be much higher.  I wonder why she is sitting in a college class, wasting money and her time, frustrating the hell out of her.

The high school she went to probably encouraged her to attend college.  They probably got points added on to their evaluations because she has gone on to higher education.  Instead of points, they should be fined and punished for letting this girl believe she can have a future that involves academics.

1 comment:

LSquared32 said...

I don't know, and it's a big problem. We (people who talk about education) are in denial in this country. We believe that everyone can do everything. We believe this for students, even if we don't believe it for ourselves. "No child left behind" has put into law that every child can be competent at everything--when it's just not true. It's so frustrating knowing that a huge segment of people who have a say about education have rose colored glasses glued over their eyes. I want to sit them down with a student like your student and say--OK, show me how we can get this person to understand algebra (surely, if they spent 2-3 years failing to do so, even they would believe that it can't be done). Good luck to you and your student.