#17 Postby timNms » Fri Jan 30, 2004 8:26 pm
"Unfortunately, there are way too many who "fall thru the cracks" and repeatedly get put up into the next school year without being able to function/perform correctly. I see it daily, and it breaks my heart. I often wonder what that 2nd, 3rd, or 4th grade teacher was thinking!!"
As a former elementary teacher, (3rd grade for several years) I can say that it isn't always the teachers' fault that those kids can't read or perform on grade level.
Two years ago I had 25 3rd graders. Of those 25, one was on oxygen, one had a shunt in his head and was on ritalin, one had to be tube fed, one had to be cahterized to urinate, and one had cerebral palsy. Keep in mind, this is a REGULAR ED classroom. On top of those medical problems, I had 5 kids on kindergarten reading level, 5 or 6 on first grade reading level, several on 2nd grade reading level, one or 2 on grade level and one above grade level. I had 3 on ritalin (and believe me, they needed it!) They'd come in in the mornings bouncing off the walls. For about the first hour of the morning, my time was spent keeping those 3 in their seats until their meds took effect. By noon, that dose had worn off and it was a repeat of the early morn until their 2nd dose began to work. Keep in mind, I was dealing with all of these problems WITHOUT ANY HELP! I had no assistant teacher.
When I attempted to group the students and place them in reading material that was appropriate for their reading level, the principal blew a fuse and told me that I could not place them in anything other than the 3rd grade reading series. Go figure. I'm still waiting for her to explain to me how in this world those kids were going to comprehend what they attempted to read in that 3rd grade series when every other word was one they couldn't pronounce, let alone understand!
So, there I was with the majority of my class struggling to read and comprehend on 3rd grade level when in fact, they should have been reading material that was appropriate for their comprehension levels. (Not to mention the fact that the child that was ABOVE grade level suffered too, because he was "being held back" by having to stay in a 3rd grade reading series.)
Fortunately for the child with cerebral palsy, his mother got smart and pulled him out of the public school system and placed him in a private school that was geared toward workign with students with his condition. She spent a couple of days helping me in the classroom, then told me that she didn't know how I managed to survive in there from one day to the next. That was one of the most horrible years I'd ever had. Don't get me wrong. I loved the kids, but I was as frustrated as they were because I knew in my heart that I was doing them NO GOOD because my hands were tied. IF the principal had let me work with them on THEIR level, they could have experienced more success. At the end of the year, I had about 5 that were to repeat 3rd grade....guess what? NONE of them did because miraculously over the summer, they got smart and was moved on to 4th grade! Go figure.
Another case in point....a few yrs before, I had a student that failed reading and math. I kept in touch with his parent throughout the school year, telling them that he was not going to pass. Funny how some parents only hear what they want to. At the end of the year, the kid had an "F" in Math and Reading. The principal MADE me change his last nine weeks' reading grade to a 98 so that he could pass the year in reading with a 70 average!! They sent him to summerschool and he failed math again! The parents moved to another district, so I don't know if he repeated 3rd grade.
To summarize....it's not always the teachers' fault that those kids get to highschool and can't function on grade level. It's the system. The administration doesn't have the backbone to stand up to the parents and say NO, your child is not going to move on until he/she is capable of functioning on the next level. I find it sad that it's not the powers that be that suffer, but it's the children who, in the long run, loose!
In MS we have begun to hear about "Teacher accountability". It's another ploy to place the blame on the teachers. I had a problem with the principal during my last year at the school I was just talking about. Around the middle of March, he called me into the office and said "We're going to put you on an improvement plan because your students' test scores were low last year". I asked if he'd looked at all the testing data. We were doing the Barksdale grant the year before and had done some testing that was not state generated. My test data at the beginning of the year showed who was below, on, and above grade level. At the end of that year, we repeated the test to show progress made. ALL of my student showed gains. However, there was no prior state testing data to compare to since we'd just started a new state test. SO, their "Improvement plan" was based on absolutely nothing. I called the state department of ed and discussed it with them and they said the district had NO basis for their decission. I told the principal about it and turned in my resignation the same day.
Didn't mean to ramble on, but that comment struck a nerve. Don't blame the teachers for the lack of skills some of the students have. It's not always the teachers' fault!
Side note...after leaving that district, I was working with a great principal and in a great elem. school. Unfortunately, that first year is when I began to have problems with depression and eventually had to resign.
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But my 13 year old can have some very intelligent conversations on AIM and use a language that I cannot decipher and absolutley no punctuation, but he also makes "A"'s in English...........go figure.