Re: [arn-l Digest] Vol. 3 No. 537 Messages: 7

[Jennifer Parker <jenbie44@hotmail.com>]

Art wrote:> > There is more to public education than your "personal educational > > philosophy." You don't, for example, say that parents and children were > > dissatisfied with what you were teaching or that they thought that the > > test results were bought at the wrong price.> > ArtPeter wrote:> > Jennifer - are you still teaching or did you leave to take a position> > at St. Jude?> > Peter C.
Peter:  I am not currently teaching. I started at St. Jude this past August and my job primarily entails being an educational advocate for the 600+ Sickle Cell patients we see from the Mid-South area. It's a great combination of my education and legal backgrounds.
 
Art: No, I didn't say in my post that the parents and children were dissatisfied with my "teaching". However, I can assure you that they were and still are dissatisfied with the price paid. Although they liked me personally and were relieved their children didn't "fail" the tests, there was no joy for any of us in attaining the results we did. 
 
For the students, school was an endless session of memorizing unrelated, random facts that had no connection with their lives.  Every day the children were either taking a standardized test, taking a "formative assessment" in preparation for the test, taking a prior year's formative assessment test for practice, completing homework assignments from old formative assessments, penciling in bubbles, or being taught disjointed lessons on the skills covered in the formative assessment tests. By November they couldn't stand the sight of these assessment booklets. By December the students were either incredibly angry about school or in tears during these cramming sessions. 
 
They rightly wanted to know: "WHY AREN'T WE TAKING ANY FIELD TRIPS?", "WHY CAN'T WE DO SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS?", "WHY CAN'T WE WORK IN PAIRS OR GROUPS?", "WHY DON'T WE EVER OPEN OUR SOCIAL STUDIES BOOK?", "WHY CAN'T WE PLANT SOME FLOWERS?", "WHY CAN'T WE HAVE LESSONS OUTSIDE?", WHY CAN'T WE GIVE PRESENTATIONS ON TOPICS WE'RE INTERESTED IN AND CHOOSE OURSELVES?", "WHY ARE WE ALWAYS SITTING AT OUR DESKS?", "WHY CAN'T WE GO TO THE READING CENTER/LISTENTING CENTER/SCIENCE CENTER/COMPUTER CENTER?". And the parents wanted to know why, too. At least they did when they had the luxury of time to question these practices. Other parents were dealing with homelessness, joblessness, working two or three jobs, getting beat up at home, addiction to drugs or alcohol, constant violence and death in their neighborhoods, living in urban blight, surviving without food at home, etc,etc. And therein lies part of the tragedy: we are punishing the children of marginalized parents who face too many obstacles to reflect on and actively oppose the current methods of accountability in the schools. 
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