A commenter on my last post said that they were glad to see some schools pushing kids to succeed because most city/county schools don't. My purpose for this blog isn't to blame the system even though I have plenty of reasons to but unfortunately schools are institutions and when you run an institution it's run exactly the same way, every day. No matter who comes in or goes out, it's exactly the same.
Now that's not to say there are not great teachers in the MCS or SCS schools systems. I have several friends who teach in those systems and I know that they are inspiring their kids to be all that they can be, but unfortunately institutionalized learning keeps most kids from achieving their potential because they learn differently than others do.
Mr. B is definitely one of those kids that thinks outside of the box. He's certainly not your average student. He's had some really great teachers along the way, but most had their hands tied by the education system. There was a lot of labeling when he was a kid and for a while I got sucked into it because it was a way to place blame. "He was born this way, he'll never grow out of it. It's just the way it is. Maybe he would excel at a trade school because he probably won't be able to attend college." The other explanation was that he was lazy and had ADHD and although I have seen both of those attributes I doubt their validity.
He's a boy who is terribly and completely unorganized. Due to his lack of organization he loses EVERYTHING, but I think that due to the labeling he received as a youngster, no one took the time to help him get organized. They just accepted the fact that he was unorganized and would always be late turning in homework and unfortunately that was at a great disservice to him.
The problem with the school that he attended last year is that they have the highest drop out rate in the city. The Freshman class starts with close to 400 kids and by the time the get to their Senior year around half are left and even less than that actually graduates. Teachers in failing schools try the best they can but it seems that they feel like there is not much they can do to help the situation so they do nothing. Mr. B had a Algebra Tutorial class last year and all they did in that class was surf the web, however as not to draw suspicion no one received an A for a grade even though no work or tests were ever done or assigned. When I brought this issue up with the Assistant Principal she said she would look into it, but nothing ever changed. Mr. B left that class with a B and even though the class was supposed to be for kids that struggled with math, he left no better than he began.
Even in well performing schools there are not so good teachers, but generally if your Principal, President or Dean have high expectations it trickles down to the teachers and staff. My ex-husband is on staff at one of the city's premier private schools. He became friends with the man that is in charge of the janitorial staff, even he was proud of his school and the part he played. Frankly if the man that cleans the toilet is glad to be there, then there is an atmosphere of pride and accomplishment that trickles down to the kids and when that kind of atmosphere exists kids excel.
When you think of people that are institutionalized you think of people in prison. I wouldn't doubt that most kids think they are in prison when they are at school. That's why I was so excited to hear that Mr. B's history teacher didn't teach out of the book, because we all know that he is right. History books are written to give us the picture of history that the government wants us to know, not actually what happened. In fact on B's first day in his class the teacher made them take the Naturalization Exam, which if you know anyone who has taken it is very in depth and most American's that take the test fail because they only know what is in the books they had in High School.
Books leave out major pieces of information because they want you to think a certain way. I didn't know until I was an adult that Thomas Jefferson who wrote in the Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal" didn't mean black people, in fact he and most of the signers of the document were slave owners. In Mr. B's history class they were talking about Pocahontas and how she was actually very young, like middle school age when the dashing 40something John Smith marries her. Sorry Mr. Disney, you didn't include that fact in your movie.
Unfortunately we've been stuck in this idea that institutionalized learning is the right way to do things and I think that with the rapid increase of ADHD diagnosis, we need to realize that there is a better way.
Really if I had my way I would have all of my kids at home with me and I would be teaching them. It worked for the Founding Fathers, I don't see why it couldn't work now.
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