38 – She’s Only Seventeen…

Okay…okay…I realize I just showed my age (along with revealing the fact that I once listened to Winger). “Her daddy says she too young, but she’s old enough for me.” (That was for those of you who know the song)…LOL!

But on a more serious note…

I have to tell you about this student of mine…she’s seventeen, a senior.  BOTH of her parents died when she was at an early age, and she now lives with her older brother and his girlfriend.  From what I have gathered…the brother is not extremely stable himself because my student has no personal doctor, medical insurance (no Medicade yet), or personal transportation.

She came in to first period this morning, limping…acting as though it really pained her to walk. After everyone got settled, I asked her if she felt okay. She said she did, but another student said, “No Ms. Friendly! She just left the hospital this morning at 4 a.m. and she should go home!”

The “sick” student protested and said she felt fine. I told her, after looking over her release papers, that I wanted to speak to her in the hallway. I was alarmed because it seemed as though she had a miscarriage. I saw the words “pregnancy terminated by vacuum” written in her diagnosis. My heart immediately went out to her.  She said that she didn’t even know that she was pregnant. She also said that the fetus died while inside of her…she was THREE months pregnant.

She went on to explain to me that she has only had sex twice in her life, and doesn’t see how all those other girls run around doing it without getting “caught.”  She said she had questions when the nurse was talking to her, but her brother was in the room and she didn’t feel she could ask…She was concerned about internal infection, seeing as how the fetus was deceased when born.  I urged her to find a gynecologist.  She said that she would as soon as her brother applied for her Medicaid.

I tried to answer her questions to the best of my ability as well as give her a comforting hug. I felt so sad for her. These kids deal with so much! I just wish that I could save all of them!

Life is just so delicate…

37 – The Secret Life of Students

There’s so much I don’t know about my students.  Their lives are so much more complicated than mine could have ever been when I was their age.  It scares me…makes me wonder where we, as adults and a community, have failed them.  Were “we” the ones who failed them?

This year alone I have had five of my Seniors tell me that I am the same age (or OLDER) than their mother…WTF?  Really?  That’s just fucking strange (to me) because I am 34!  34…as in three decades plus four years…not, in my book, old enough to have a SENIOR in high school.  I have four seniors who are now pregnant with her own child (sigh).  I shake my head…It makes me sad.

Whatever happened to being a kid?

Today, I facilitated a discussion activity called a “Fishbowl” in class.  The premise behind the fishbowl was to get the students’ creative juices flowing for our upcoming Canterbury Tales project.  For their project, students are to select a modern-day issue and satirize through the persona of a pilgrim from The Canterbury Tales.  Well, needless to say, when I assigned the project last week Thursday, they acted as if I had asked them to shit down each other’s throats instead of “create an authentic project of your choosing.”

Original thought is not something they offer up willingly…LOL!

So, in the name of provocation, I assigned a journal prompt stating the following:

“Write three modern-day issues/topics and create an open-ended question for each issue/topic.”

I collected their journal prompts and selected some of the more juicy questions in which ask.  There were eight students in the “inner-circle.”  Those kids were the ones who answered the questions.  The “outer-circle” kids remained SILENT and took notes (and this REALLY worked until my last class during 6^th period).  Once someone from the “inner-circle” spoke, then a student sitting in the “outer-circle” had the opportunity to switch places and participate in the discussion.

I discovered these key things via the fishbowl discussions in various classes:

• A majority of my students have sex (more than I do)
• A major majority of my students have UNPROTECTED sex (I do not do that)
• I am as old as, or younger, than my students’ parents (I’m 34 and they are 17 or 18)
• They are homeless
• They have unconventional families (live with grandparents, siblings, foster parents, etc.)
• They are parents themselves
• They don’t believe in conventional relationships (or that they will actually work)
• Don’t have a reliable adult base of support at home

So now…I have a newfound respect for the efforts my mother and extended family members did to ensure my welfare.

36 – The Slush Pile ABCs

I’m trapped in the gym today…it’s club/organization picture day, and I was “suggested” as a candidate for yearbook sponsor in the later part of last school year.  Of course, my initial response when asked was, Hell No! But I never said that aloud…to my boss (yeah, right…I’m snarky…not crazy).

Okay…so…before I start gripping about my newly appointed duties…allow me to (1) apologize for my EXTENDED hiatus, and (2) catch you all up on what’s been going on with me.

A. Not still teaching with Pollyanna Sunshine. I firmly informed my new department head that I’m a one-woman-show…no assistance needed!  In fact, Pollyanna’s “help” crippled me and (more importantly) my class.  I let my department head know that I did not want anymore collaborative teaching situations (whole “My Buddy and Me” thing creeps me out).  I offered to keep the subject I was already teaching (American Literature – 11^th), but instead I got British Literature…Seniors!!!! Yayyyyyy!

B. Got stuck with yearbook. I don’t know shit from shinola about a damn yearbook.  The only thing I know about yearbooks is that the guy I had a crush on in high school, drew a picture of a penis in mine…and I had to do everything in my power to keep my very authoritarian mother from seeing that!  Had she seen that, she would have demanded to speak to his parents immediately.  My yearbook staff, while sweet kids, is inexperienced…kinda like having sex with a 40-year-old male virgin (throwing up in my mouth a little bit).  They don’t know shit from shinola, too!  We all make an interesting group.  All I can say is that yearbook is stressful, and I’ve already had to decline a part-time adjunct teaching job I was offered.

C. Have high blood pressure. I never thought I would admit to having HBP…at 34!  Perhaps the stress of my profession does not agree with me.  Last year, I over did it.  Last year I smoldered from within every time I came to work because I didn’t like co-teaching and I hated my 6^th period class (damn delinquents…literally).  I was teaching as an adjunct professor, two nights a week, at the community college in my neighborhood (which added another 15 miles to my already 32-mile-one-way trek to work).  Also, I was pining away over an idiot asshole who did not care for me the way I cared for him.  I could not just wake up and smell the bullshit.

D. Got accepted to the PhD program I applied for. This is a bitter-sweet situation.  My student loans were in default…HEAVY default.  I was under the impression that they were deferred because I filled out loan forgiveness paperwork, but it was for something entirely different than what I thought it was for.  So…to make a long story longer…I had to defer my admission to Fall 2010 in order to fix my financial issues.  Although the university is offering me a stipend ($1100 a month BEFORE taxes), free tuition, and medical…I would still need minimal loans to cover my personal expenses.  However, I’m grateful for the offer and can’t wait to get started!  It’s a PhD in Education (of course).  The goal is to teach other teachers HOW to implement meaningful/authentic/germane teaching strategies in which to teach the new breed of people/situations we are being faced with in our classrooms.

So now we are all caught up!  I look forward to posting my daily goings-on more often! 

35-Discipline Starts at Home!

I’m teaching at a new school…but I’m experiencing the same problems. The same apathetic attitudes, unruly teens with no direction (Read: Lord of the Flies), and poor access to educational supplies exist at this school. Just minutes ago, I was verbally attacked by one student for saying that I heard music being played in an area of the room that she happened to be sitting in. I was not directly speaking to that student, however, she responds with, “She don’t hear no music from over here.”

Folks, this is one of my pet peeves, I do not need a pissy-ass teenager telling me what I do or do not hear! I have the hearing of a dog! Unfortunately, I hear most of everything my students say (the “private” things they say to one another especially). Again, addressing the GENERAL vicinity from which the noise came from, I said, “I am aware of what I hear. I do not need someone else telling me what I did or did not hear so, turn it off!” So the Bad Seed responds with, “Just cuz you come in here with a bad attitude everyday don’t mean nothing. I’m sick of all you stupid ass teachers.” My collaborative teacher tells Bad Seed, “That’s enough. Step outside.” Bad Seed replies, “No. I don’t need to go outside.” “Yes you do,” I responded. “I’m straight,” she replies. “No,” I said, “You need to go.”

Now she’s all puffed up and even more pissy (if that’s possible). “I don’t give a shit.” I laugh and say, “Neither do I because the more you say the more you incriminate yourself. I’ve a write-up with your name on.” “Fine,” she responds, “I don’t give a fuck about you. Make sure you put that on the write-up.” …This from an eighteen-year-old girl who is in my 11^th Grade Literature class (with sixteen-year-olds) who throws shoes at her peers and curses her teachers out. I am the one with the bad attitude? HA!

Her parents are afraid of her temper. They allow her to do whatever she wants…her father once said to me, “Sometimes she has a bad temper, but you just have to wait it out and let her come around.” What a cop out! She was never disciplined! In my eyes, that’s child abuse…she has no real-world skills! If she goes off on a boss the same way she just did to me, she would lose her job! I would never hire her. She’s a ticking time bomb. She is not used to being held accountable for following rules…that’s the REAL reason why she thinks I “have a bad attitude.” I don’t have a bad attitude, I just expect DISCIPLINED students, and if they are unfamiliar with what DISCIPLINE looks like…I “gently” remind them. While I respect ALL of my students as individuals, I will not allow them to over-step their boundaries without calling it to their attention. I believe that one of the dire issues, widely affecting education and achievement gaps, is the lack of discipline among young adults. All I have to say is that discipline STARTS AT HOME!

34 – Ms. Friendly’s Back…and Hey, Why Don’t You Work Here Anymore?!

No!  Don’t panic!  I didn’t ask for my old job back, but it did ask for me…(kind of)…

 

This week, my school system had two days off in the name of “Teachers-please-don’t- murder- your –students-Day”…okay…so maybe it’s not REALLY called  “Teachers-please-don’t- murder- your –students-Day”…maybe more like Fall Break.  But, whatever, it’s all the same to me!  Anywho, I had some business to attend to and that business happened to include my Fearless Leader from Ye Olde Ghetto Asylum in the inner-city.  Meaning…I would have to return to my old stomping grounds.  Whew!  My stomach was grumbling like two cats and a hyena stuck in a bag.

 

Two of my former students spotted me in the hallway, before I could even make it to the front office.  They both started giggling uncontrollably.  I gave them a hug and inquired as to what was so funny.  They shook their heads vigorously and were not able to produce a coherent response.  I made it to the office and Fearless Leader was not there; he was somewhere else in the building (apparently he leaves his office during work and walks about the school now…who knew?).  I sat in the office while I waited for him, and the word spread like wildfire…Ms. Friendly’s back!  Students were flooding the office to see me.  They came bearing hugs, smiles, and questions such as “Why did you leave us?  Are you coming back?  Where’s saneandsingle?”  I answered their questions and sent them on their way.  I was beginning to get a warm feeling inside after the welcome I received from my former students…after conducting my business with my former Fearless Leader, I decided to take the “long way out of the school.”  I ran into more students, and the reception from them was identical to the prior reactions of their peers.  “Why did you leave us?  Are you coming back?  Where’s saneandsingle?”  Then…more hugging…more squealing (OMG!  Ms. Friendly!)…more hugging.  It was like a family reunion.

 

I was nonplussed! 

 

Me: But you did everything humanly possible to place me in an insane asylum!  You barely listened to me when I was here.

 

Them: But the teachers here are boring.   Please come back!  Why did you leave?

 

Me: I don’t know…we’ll see…(Read: Fat chance!  Not as long as that man is the principal!)

 

Needless to say, I left feeling full of love and appreciation.  I think about those kids often…they have so much personality.  I wish I had a more experienced “leader” because the students suffered from the lack of administrative discipline and the eventual loss of two extremely talented teachers.  I can honestly say that I miss them because I know that they need me…however, I have teaching long enough to know that sacrificing values and personal health for others will only send one to the grave that much more quickly.   

 

Apparently I did make a difference.  Too bad the administration did not recognize my worth.

 

33 – The Testing Trap

 

I’m trapped! My concentration is shot…once again…being ass-fucked by the system (FYI: I don’t like that sort of thing).  Today is PSAT testing day…all teachers with homerooms are required to administer the test (Normally, I would not be one of those people because I do not have a homeroom…OBVIOUSLY because I already have a nit-wit).  However, when I arrive to work, there is an entire class of SOMEONE ELSE’S STUDENTS waiting for me!  Bye-bye to the three hours of grading and planning…bye-bye to my sanity…bye-bye to quiet.  No one told me that I would have to cover for a long-term sub because long-term subs cannot administer national tests. Yayyyyyy me!

 

So, in walk The Keepers of Grade 9.5 (now how in the hell you achieve such a status as nine and a half is beyond me…but that’s how the school has them listed).  How do you expect people who range between the ages of 15-17 (and one donning a house arrest anklet) to act?  UmmHmm…well, you’re exactly right!  Like poster children for Adderol!  Although not quite as unruly as my last punch of Garbage Pail Kids, they have mastered the art of whining, complaining, making plucking sounds with their mouths, talking, tying ropes around their necks, attempting to pass food, etc.!  No tom-foolery should be occurring during a national test!  Now, all we do is whine at the student…hoping that he or she will see fit to listen to our song of woe and cease their behavior (it doesn’t work).  This school will suspend students, but not for something like the disruption of a national test.  You have to fight.  Be in a gang.  Threaten bodily harm to a teacher.  All of those things have already happened here.  Last week was an arrest-fest!  I saw two students arrested during school hours, and heard of twelve others who were as well…So why would maintaining the integrity of a national test be of any importance to my adopted 9.5ers?

 

Public education is a joke! If I ever have a child, he or she will not attend one!

 

Yes, I know I’m a teacher…a veteran teacher at that…this year begins my 8^th in the hole.  And I’m looking for an out…I predict graduate school in the very near future.  By this time next year, I hope to be knee deep in a Ph.D. program…possibly drumming up solutions to this mess we call public school education (and pissing off the educational policy makers who don’t know what they’re talking about…I’m coming for you…J).  This school year, so far, has been…eye-opening…a rollercoaster…difficult to muster through because I realize the problem with education is far bigger than “Do your work,” “Make good grades,” “Come to school.”  No…this is political, social, and economic… it has nothing to do with education.  This is about the “Have’s” and “Have Not’s” – the “Have Not’s” who eventually become the “throw-away” people of this society…the ones who are the most misinformed and the least educated.

 

Where have I been over the last few weeks?

 

Well…the last couple of months I have been trying to balance the shock of having to share my class with a nit-wit, illness, and warding off an upcoming case of Mid-Life Crisis (i.e. hanging on for dear life)!  Oh…and I forgot to mention the most scintillating news…the ENTIRE county lost its ACCREDITATION!!!!! Yayyyyyy!  So, I will not be returning here next year even if I wanted to…who would knowingly sign a contract with a school system that has no accreditation?  (sigh)

 

Okay, well…I’m out for now.  Next time I will tell you about Julius Caesar, the Evil Twins and “Whoopsie! There’s water on the floor.”  

32 – Hay Gente Importante …And I’m Not One of Them!

Hay gente importante…pronounced (I *Hen Tay * M Pour Taun Tay)…which means…There are important people…

…and I’m NOT one of them!

I believe that I’m FINALLY getting the message…there’s no such thing as “just teaching.” Before I begin, please allow me to preface this rant by reiterating that this school is BETTER than where I came from (but so is Sasquatch’s bunghole), however the façade is beginning to crumble.

I believe in education. REALLY. I’m a nerd…I know I’ve said this before, and I mean it when I say it (proud of it, too). However, as a teacher in the urban and/or near-to-urban public school system, I believe that I am in the WRONG profession. Those people keep fucking with me! I just want to teach! I don’t want to deal with displaying their dozens and eons worth of meaningless, standards-based, data-driven posters and shit in my room! Today, a representative from the central office visited our department meeting to “warn” us that gente importante (important people) will be coming to our rooms this week in search of this paper shit on our walls. Also, said gente importante would be subject to place students under interrogation…seeking to discover the following burning academic enigmas:

w How often has your teacher incorporated writing into your lesson?

w Is your teacher preparing you for the state graduation test?

w Has your teacher demonstrated the proper method in which to structure a persuasive essay?

Never mind the fact that our school system has been in session for EIGHT DAYS!!!! This is the Inquisition. This is the delousing of a dirty whore’s crabs. This shit is for the birds! I don’t give a damn about the county and their expansive charts that cover a good four feet of wall space…what I care about is the cultivation of a positive learning environment/community within my classroom. I also care about:

w Making photocopies for students (of which is nearly impossible…13 English teachers have been allotted 1000 copies for the entire school year)

w Internet connections (so I know there’s a damn fire drill or STRANGER DANGER)

w Ability to access the school’s online grade book service (I just got a working computer in my room today)

w Student access to technology (non-existent)

w Updated class rosters w/access to student personal info…like parent’s phone number

Okay, okay…I know…I’m complaining again! But damn it…why is it so difficult to JUST TEACH? I am obviously not una persona importante!

31 – Lessons in Falling…Oh the Humility!

Do you realize that on the SIXTH day of school, I was informally observed by an administrator? Normally, something like that would not ruffle my feathers…but I am housing a nitwit in my room, so the situation got hairy. The administrator who came to observe my class reminds me of a cross between a Jack Russell Terrier and Alex P. Keaton of Family Ties…he’s an overzealous bundle of little man energy. The children were reading when Alex P Keaton walked into the classroom…they had just begun a lesson focusing on the folk tale and the trickster.

When Pollyanna saw APK…she commandeered the class…MY class, and began to stop the readers in random places to ask them questions of no relation to the text (as I reflect now, I believe she thinks she was emulating what I had done the previous two class periods…NOT). When one of the students asked her “What’s the difference between a folk tale and a myth?” …she replied “A folk tale is just a sidebar of a myth.”

HUH? (cue the crickets sound)

So, needless to say…no glowing informal observation for us; Alex P Keaton emailed us the type of feedback a novice teacher would expect to receive. I was livid. Who is that woman and why is she in my room?!

From Alex P. Keaton to Ms. Friendly and Pollyanna…

Good afternoon -

Below are the observations from your 3rd period:

1. Students were initially focused using the proper standard, objective and EQ.
2. The essential question was well written and reflected the days lesson.
3. The transition between readers was not smooth. I suggest using an activity such as popcorn (allow a student to read then pick another student when finished with the passage and only allowing each person to be picked once) or assigning a number to each student and picking students based on the number.
4. The reading activity did not engage all learners. They were quiet but not necessarily attentive.
5. Use some type of graphic organizer to assist student in organizing their thoughts about the reading passage.

If you have questions or I can assist you with developing strategies, please let me know.

From Ms. Friendly to Saneandsingle…

Okay, so I was responsible for #1&2…nitwit jumped in and took over the discussion when Alex P Keaton walked in (this was the time of the infamous “Folk tale is a side bar to myth” statement occurred). The kids were reading just fine, and then when he walked in…she stood up and started to interrupt them and “teach”!!!! …So I will blame #3&4 on her fucking ass (fucktard)…and #4…well…BOTH copiers in the school were BROKEN!!!! I was absent Wed, and the graphic organizer I had for them was useless because it could not be copied nor placed on a transparency!!!

Fuckity Fuck Fuck!!!! Formal or informal…I do not receive evaluations such as this one. Shit WILL change immediately. I don’t care how she takes it, but she will back the fuck down from her “teaching.” She needs to sit back and learn!

Alrighty then…back to the drawing board…so much for learning humility! Now she’s asking to write lesson plans (I said “No”) when she hasn’t even read up on all fifteen students on her SPED caseload. She says that she hasn’t had the time…HUH? Whatever…I’m beginning to think that people who have spent the last eight years in the private sector should NOT be allowed to run rampant in classrooms thinking that they can walk in and “just teach” like those of us who have been properly trained!

She’s not taking the subtle hints.

30 – Mrs. Pollyanna Sunshine

So many people have asked me the $1million dollar question, “Friendly, is it any better this year?” Boy oh boy…let me tell you…I could be teaching in an Eskimo fishing hole with muskrats and caribou as my star pupils and I would be THE happiest woman-not-teaching-in-the-inner-city EVER! I’m dead ass! And don’t get me wrong, by no means do I work in the quintessence of scholarly teen academia (the county is in danger of losing its accreditation for Pete’s sake…and Justin’s sake, too…lol), but at least New School High has the following:

· REAL administrators!

· REAL rules that are ACTUALLY enforced!

· A REAL principal (i.e. one who knows the difference between the hole in the wall and the one in his ass)

· An ethnically diverse faculty AND student body population (yayyyyy!)

· Students who are quiet while I teach.

· Students who complete their work (or at least they give me the impression that they are).

Now please don’t think I’m walking on sunshine…it’s still work! But…it’s nothing like the hell I was banished to last year. This is still education, which means some of the things I am required to do are half past retarded! So, the school has given me ALL collaborative classes…which means that I am the English teacher, and there is also a person who teaches Special Education in the classroom. The SpEd teacher is also supposed to be HIGHLY QUALIFIED (lol)…ummm…some of them are, and I have worked with such individuals in the past. Great experience. My SpEd teacher, however, is not! She is not HIGHLY QUALIFIED in jack shit J! In fact, she has never taught a day in her life. She will be beginning her Online Masters/Certification at the end of this month…and the thing that really burns my ass about this situation is that the administration expects to see 50/50 teaching occurring. HA!

I have voiced my dissent to my department head. I told her that it would be detrimental, to the academic progress of my regular education students, to allow this woman 50/50 teaching access. She’s not a certified English teacher. She has NO BACKGROUND in English whatsoever…and it shows! I have a total of 100 students to her 10 SpEd students. I also am responsible for preparing all of my 11^th graders for THREE state tests that highly affect (note: not effect…remind me to come back to that one) the status of their graduation from high school. So WHY would the school system think it a viable learning situation to jeopardize the success of 90 students in light of 10…does that make any sense to you?

Okay…because Pollyanna is not an English teacher, she doles out misinformation like a whore gives head…it’s astronomical! (Okay…she’s not THAT much of a rock head…she’s actually quite bright, but NOT an English teacher) I will give you some examples of A Day in the Life of the Doings and Misdeeds of Mrs. Pollyanna Sunshine. I was discussing the ways in which media AFFECTS youth, with the class. I wrote a journal question on the board and modeled it after the state test format…I was actually going somewhere with the whole journal thing…and then Pollyanna interjects with her Sunshine “isms” just as I’m about to divulge the secret formula to forming a succinct thesis statement…Issue + Opinion about issue = Thesis Statement!!!! Yayyyyyy!!!!! But noooooo, Pollyanna tells the class, “Make sure that your thesis statement is interesting!”
She’s enthused as she delivers this morsel of abstract and useless information…I groan inwardly…trying hard not to throw up in my mouth a little bit…trying hard not to strangle her or tell/ask her KINDLY, “Please go and sit your ass down for the remainder of the class period and NEVER speak without running it by me first.” But I don’t say that…I ignore her…nod my head…and proceed with my goal in mind. I try not to think about the affect/effect mishap that occurred yesterday…UGH!

My department head informed me today that it is my job to over plan (for her benefit) and basically train her…so I just couldn’t resist asking the snarky ass question fighting to claw its way out of my throat. “So, you mean to tell me that she gets my Master’s degree for free and I get nothing for giving it to her?” My department head blinks twice…digests what I said…makes a slight nod of her head and says, “I once had a collab teacher who…”

I zoned out at that point because her response was a resounding “YES!” in my book. And…to all you readers out there in WordPress Land…I hope you know me well enough to know that that is a resounding “HELL NO!” in my scholarly book…It will be a cold day in hell before I allow her give my students any further misinformation (one of them corrected her today)…I know how to play the game, too!

Once again folks, this is the fine work of NCLB in action!

29 – Who Killed Education?

I stayed up until 3am watching CNN’s special entitled, Black in America. My mother called to tell me about the special…she said it would be featured in two-parts and that I should check it out. Well, I did…and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since! The education portion of the Wednesday night’s special really hit home…hell, it even reminded me WHY I flocked towards that inner-city school the way in which I did. The statistics were mind boggling…the special report mentioned that Black children are, academically, the lowest achieving group in the world…in the WORLD…WOW! The report also noted that Black females make-up the majority of the African-American populace of post-secondary enrollment…Black males are more likely to drop out of school, become involved in a life of drugs, gangs, and crime…and end up in prison. WOW! Then the special featured how the plight of the black male (you know…not being educated or gainfully employed) affects the family structure and trims down the dating pool for Black females (if she’s only dating within her race)…and the stats for that…only 45% of Black females will ever get married. WOW! (I know that had nothing to do with education…more on a personal note)

Dr. Roland Fryer is a big-wig professor of economy over at THE Harvard University, and he is also the associate director of something called the American Inequality Lab (and yes, I so totally have a nerd crush on him). Fryer was featured on last night’s special due to his idea of “paying students to learn.” He feels that it will work. Fryer revealed that he grew up in an inner-city environment and claims that today’s students are not like the students of the past. He says that phrases such as, “Do your work so that you can make good grades and go to college,” mean anything anymore…he also says that today’s student (especially the inner-city student) needs a tangible incentive to get through school because they (lower-class, inner-city students) do not have the same role models that middle-class students have at home (which I guess would be their version of the tangible incentive).

The next thing I see is a group of Fourth Graders who are being rewarded/paid for making A’s on test. They receive a sheet of paper that tells them their balance…and the kids are excited. When the students are questioned about how they feel making money for studying affects them, one young man responded by saying that he felt it made his expectations for himself that much higher (I’m paraphrasing here). Reaching Out to Students When They Talk and Text discuss the idea more in depth, and while I understand the idea behind the action…I’m not so sure that what students will learn in the long-run will truly pay-off. I understand that students need to be motivated to learn, but is paying them THE answer? …Or giving them a cell phone? And I found the following quote from the article to be extremely interesting:

Mr. Klein and Dr. Fryer said they hoped that celebrities like the rapper Jay-Z, the comedian Chris Rock and the basketball star LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers would participate by sending text messages or calling students who succeed. Grades, attendance and completion of assignments will all be considered signs of success.

I find that quote interesting because a simple “Good job!” from your parent is no longer enough…a male from the ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY is now being expected to tow the line as the last hope for academic encouragement. I’m just wondering what will happen to these kids when they get out into the real world and realize that there are no rewards in college for acing an exam…there are no rewards at home for taking care of your children…there are no rewards or incentives for paying your bills on time (I don’t get discounts for that)…so, I will be extremely curious to see the end result of Dr. Fryer’s two year experiment. Also, I wonder how well this would work with drug-dealing high school students who would scoff at $25 per test…and I also wonder WHERE is this money coming from? Hey…and maybe I have no room to comment on anything like this since I had a middle-class upbringing with college educated family members, but my INCENTIVE to learn was a spanking…I didn’t want one…so I did the work, and then as I became older the spankings stopped and I understood the value of completing something via the fruits of my labor. HA! Go figure! Ideas like that are foreign and antiquated now! Now my students talk of abuse or neglect…never the middle ground where nurturing occurs…Has this also killed education?