Soccer Mom: Unplugged

Over at Moving Out, Moving on, Susan Murphy-Milano shares an experience she had this week in the classroom of a public school.  Of course, having been there and done that for a few years, so many memories flooded my mind.  There is so much right about a culture determined to educate their young and yet there is so much wrong with the way we choose to go about it sometimes.

As a public school teacher, I worked under the auspices of a government mandated program - ESL.  I saw how any kid with an non-anglo, ethnic last name (regardless of whether they had ever even heard a word in any language other than English) were immediately funneled into the program if they underperformed.

Classroom teachers, from K to 12, were overwhelmed with too many students, too much apathy, and a system that throws money at problems instead of offering solutions.  These teachers couldn't wait to get kids into "special" programs because it meant they'd have a more manageable class room for several hours a day.  I knew teachers who had anywhere from 30% to 50% of their class in various specially subsidized programs. 

Any kid surnamed Diaz or Rodriguez would immediately come to me.  The basis for determining a need for services was inherently prejudiced - since it was based on any familial experience with a foreign language.  If Grandma spoke french, you were likely to get in.  Much of that was simply the need of the program to justify it's own existence.  That's the innate problem with most beauracracies. 

Some of my kids were third and fourth generation US citizens and their parents couldn't speak a word of Spanish, German, or Korean.  They didn't need ESL, they needed qualified teachers, smaller classrooms, and caring parents. To me it didn't matter why they came - my obligation was still to get them reading, writing and speaking English.  But it highlighted a waste of funding that could have been better spent by adding regular classroom teachers and reducing class size. In my experience, I'd guess 80% of my students didn't need ESL.

In spite of being the more severely challeneged linguistically, the kids who were actually from other countries, benefitted most from the ESL program. They still had the work ethic of their native lands and didn't feel any sense of entitlement about their education - they were respectful and valued the opportunity to attend school. 

And their parents!  I dreaded having to talk to them because I knew that if I had to discuss an issue with a parent from, for example,  the Phillipines or Venezuela - those kids were going to be hearing about it at home for the rest of the year.  In my experience, the foreign parents rode their kids so hard that they couldn't help but succeed and the American parents asked "What are you, teacher, going to do to get my son/daughter to pass this grade?"

Once, I even met with parents of one of my high school classes and asked them to commit to reading a book from the course with their children so that parents could reinforce to their own children the value of a good education.  Some of the parents were absolutely incensed!  They considered it an affront to be asked to participate.  The parents who refused to sign the commitment letter were the very same parents whose kids consistly underperformed and showed apathy for learning.  They were the same kids who were disrespectful and had other behavior issues.  BTW, these weren't my ESL kids, these were suburban American kids.

The problem with education in America isn't a lack of special programs, it isn't a lack of funding for seminars and continuing education workshops, it isn't even figuring out how to tap into little Johnny's particular learning style.  It's too many kids per classroom, too few interested parents, and a system that places higher value on shiny new computers than phonics and a good dictionary.  The problem is a system compelled to teach character because so many parents aren't doing that at home.  The problem is one of cultural values and fiscal irresponsibility.  It's compounded by the fickle fondness that educators have for novel teaching techniques and classroom management methods.  For a program with the noble goal of educating our young, the public school system in this country continues to fall miserably short of its aim.