A Failing System

It has been far too long since I have written...hopefully I will stay on track from now on this year!


Sometimes I think that my puppy listens better than the students I have this year...and he is only five months old. It is amazing to me that no matter what we as a 7th grade team try, some of our students do not respond. They need boot-camp. I am not just saying that, they seriously need boot-camp, or a school version of it. Give them two weeks of sitting silently, walking in lines silently, raising their hand, practice practice practice practice practice. If they do it correctly, they get a break and go to a special...if not, they practice during their special.

We have no consequences besides a 'talking to.' Okay, so what, you talked to them...AND? What is that really going to do? They say it takes 21 times of doing something correctly for something to become a habit. For some of my classes, this is happening...for others? It will take all year! In fact, the habit is going to become the poor behavior, they've probably got 21 times of calling out, yelling at teachers, yelling at each other, screaming in the hallways, not doing their work or any of the other poor behaviors down as a habit already because they haven't been changed. They haven't been given a solid consequence. Talk to them until you are blue in the face, but give them a consequence like after school or Saturday detention, and they will buck up right quick.

It amazes me that people outside of my school (for example, people in my department) can see the problem, can see that we need administrative consequences, but that people inside my school cannot. Advice from Tito will probably be the best I have gotten. He basically told me that when he was in his school, he would raise hell if there was a problem, if there was something seriously wrong with the system in place...well Tito, I guess it is my turn to raise hell when something is not right...thanks for the advice.

I hate for this to see like a complaining rant, so let me change the tone for a bit. Though I have a large rock-in-my-shoe class, my other classes typically grind it down. As I am teaching my pre-algebra class, I have students who brighten my day, sometimes with ridiculous comments that should be punishable, but they make me laugh and that's a problem. Though I feel as though I have made little progress and it is going to be the fifth week of school, that progress base is the curriculum, and I do feel like I am making progress with the topics that my students are missing. Adding and subtracting decimal numbers...try this one at home:

230 + 5.79 = ?

So many of my students will get 8.09 for the answer...and they are in 7th grade if you have forgotten. Though they may have been taught for years and years to line up the decimal place, that the decimal goes at the end of a whole number, they somehow don't retain it over the summer. We have summer math packets that get sent home...I think 2 of my 80 students did it. We see this constant cycle of regression every summer, but what can we do for those students when they are not in school? We can't go home with them and force them to do math, or to read, or to write other than texting over the summer...so what can we do? What can I as just one person do? We need a better system to help those students who are in very different environments from my home growing up. Our system right now is not serving the students who live in poverty stricken areas such as Bridgeport, such as the Mississippi Delta, such as the Rio Grande Valley...our system is fine for students in more affluent areas, which doesn't mean they have to be rich. They are fine for students growing up in a middle class area, going to a middle class school. But it is FAILING to serve students, to teach students, to help students grow in these areas previously mentioned. We need a better plan, we need a better system, and most of all, we need better leadership. Don't give me any less than your very best! We need to fight for our kids, and honestly, I don't see it happening...yes, I am frustrated by the lack of consequences...but even worse than my frustrations is the fact that the lack of consequences and teaching them how to be good citizens is failing them, not me. I have another choice, I have another option. My students do not. We all need to fight for them, whether you are a para or a principal. They need us.