Editorial | Teachers today can only do so much | Melvin Tate

The final in a series of three: Student issues in the classroom. Part 1 Part 2

Back in the day the mantra was, and still is, “all students can learn.” By golly that’s right, all students can learn; that is, “when they want to learn” and what they want to learn.

Students with other priorities

The fact that all students can learn cannot be denied. However, in the past as well as now, many students came into high school classrooms knowing what they were going to do upon graduation, and they were very content to work hard enough to get a D grade. Imagine a very capable student being encouraged by the teacher to apply himself more. Finally the student becomes annoyed with the teacher’s persistence and says, “…It’s nothing personal but I only need this class to graduate, so tell me how many points I need to get a D and I will handle the rest…” Clearly this student has his own agenda.

Raise your hand if you want to be evaluated on how well you brought this student up to the expected academic standards.

Having other priorities is not only the case at high schools but research consistently shows that some students at all grade levels studied more after school hours than others, and the test scores generally reflected the difference in achievement. How much control does a teacher or principal have over those scenarios? Family and community have more control.

Even though better teacher evaluation tools may be necessary, neither the governor nor anyone else has produced an intelligible argument indicating that we can close the achievement gap by hammering out tighter teacher evaluations; that’s because many Asian and white kids are causing the achievement gap by studying four hours a night after school while many black and brown kids are watching TV more than four hours a night. Perhaps we should spend more resources helping families and students assume responsibility for education.

Extending the school day and other options might be considered when families can’t assume responsibility for education. However not many of those options will help the student who thinks carrying books, going to class, and studying are a “white thing.“

Let’s be clear, some families and students aren’t capable, but we have to look at individual cases to determine who is and who isn’t capable, and we assist on an individual basis. We can’t assume that because a student says, carrying a book to class is a “white thing;” that it’s a teacher’s problem. Wrong,

OK? Sure, we have to look deeper to see if that attitude is masking other issues, but sometimes we will find the only thing some such students need is firm guidance by those who have the authority to deliver firm guidance.

Rather than go into the homes to work with students and families, it’s probably easier to blame the teacher and the system for a few more years, find a few improvements, and wait for the next “crisis” in education; the kind of recurring crises our nation has had in education since the Russians launched Sputnik back in 1957.

Meanwhile, just about every educator and parent already know that regardless of what a teacher does in the classroom, individual students have to apply themselves as well. Let’s start a new mantra; anytime we hear someone mention the achievement gap the new mantra will be, “let’s try helping black and brown students learn to study more,” we already know they can learn.

Ultimately we have to realize that teachers are teaching human beings with free will and some with a few issues, and they teach subject matter second, especially in K-12.

Environmental Health

At one point in Kent schools we were extending the school year by bringing para-educators into a number of apartment complexes during the summer. In one of the complexes a little boy in diapers was playing outside in the sand near monkey bars. His toy was a piece of wood with a rusty nail protruding from it. The apartment manager said Johnny was about 3 years old and had recently been brought back to the apartment by the police after he was found taking items off the shelves at the nearby convenience store.

When asked, where are the parents right now? As she dropped her head the manager replied, “The mother is inside.” After a few seconds she lifted her eyes in tears and said, think of what will happen when Johnny enters school for the first time, having never had discipline and structure in his life. At school he has to stand in line, follow instructions, and stop taking whatever he wants, she added. Upon hearing that story, one person said, “wow! That’s what some teachers experience in the early years.” The manager said, “yeah, but think about Johnny also once structure is suddenly imposed.”

Through the schools’ social mores, teachers and schools do as much to develop the whole human beings as they do to prepare students to pass the tests. Regardless of whether a student passes the test, too often we find the teacher, the custodian, the head secretary, the principal, the cook, the coach, the nurse, or the counselor may be the only stable influence in a child’s life. That’s the case at any grade level.