Middle School Parents

The BBQ Pit
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English and Economics and Academic Decathlon (academic competition team) teacher over here. At this point I teach all upper classmen and all AP/gifted courses. I have a couple points.

First, nothing can showcase how different schools in the same district can be completely different like Phouka’s post: I’m also in DISD, and in one of the “good schools”, though not a magnet, and we have fabulous programs–kids that go to college as juniors because they have passed so many AP exams, kids in professional sports, kids that get into the best schools in the country year after year, and they are not all children of privledge–so some are. We had a war refugee get into the six Ivy’s she applied to, MIT, Cal-Tech, and Stanford last year: I’ve got students who have never seen their parents sober who are in good four year schools. But we do have parents of privledge, and it certainly makes it easier to serve all the kids. It’s not just a matter of trophy wives who have time to contribute–it’s people with the degrees and the experience to know how to organize time and money effectively. It’s doesn’t just take time and money to plan homecoming–it takes experience with that sort of thing. It’s having dads that own powertools that can come down on a Saturday and build sets for the drama department. And a lot of our wealthy parents do believe they have a responsibility to the school as well as the kids, so they donate above and beyond what they need to to things like extracurriculars so that other kids can participate. They take in teammates and friends of their children when those kids have to leave home for whatever reason. Involved parents help everyone, not just their kids.

As far as getting into advanced classes, I will defend the practice of open-enrollment to the death. Kids that want to try should be allowed to, and I think it’s my job to find a way to make that work. The way I do it is to really be running two classes: to get an “A” in my AP Language and Comp class means working on an extremely high level. The standards are strict and the workload intense–you make an A in my class, you’re passing the AP exam, and probably doing better than a pass. A C in my class is a very different thing. The way we rank grades, that’s about like an A in a regular class, and a kid that is consisitiently making a C in my class is learning about what I think a kid in a regular class should be getting (or they are brilliant but lazy and don’t care to do what doesn’t interest them–I’m ok with that). I can make both work, and having both “paths” avalible means that kids can always move up. That doesn’t happen if they are sitting in a regular class making As. And I don’t think it drags the rest of my class down.

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[QUOTE=Manda JO]
As far as getting into advanced classes, I will defend the practice of open-enrollment to the death. Kids that want to try should be allowed to, and I think it’s my job to find a way to make that work. The way I do it is to really be running two classes: to get an “A” in my AP Language and Comp class …
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I am an English teacher, and I think English is different from math in that all the math builds on previous lessons. You can’t go on to the next concept if you don’t know the concepts that came before. This is why kids who struggle in the advanced math class slow down the whole class. In English, I feel like the kids could jump in any time during the school year and be able to get up to speed. Not so in math. This is the rationale the math teachers use when they bitch about parents overruling them and insisting their kid be in a math class they can’t handle.

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[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
I am an English teacher, and I think English is different from math in that all the math builds on previous lessons. You can’t go on to the next concept if you don’t know the concepts that came before. This is why kids who struggle in the advanced math class slow down the whole class. In English, I feel like the kids could jump in any time during the school year and be able to get up to speed. Not so in math. This is the rationale the math teachers use when they bitch about parents overruling them and insisting their kid be in a math class they can’t handle.
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So does that mean that if a kid doesn’t get into Algebra in the 7th grade, they just have to rule out calculus entirely for high school? We’ve had kids successfully double up on math one year to get caught up, and we’ve had kids go from regular math one year to honors math the next and also be successful. And we’ve had more fail when they tried to. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have been allowed to try. Now, I can see the problem with moving a kid in mid-year, but if a kid want to leap from “regular” to “honors” in a new year, I think they should be allowed to–advise them otherwise if it seems like a bad idea, but if they are determined, don’t block them.

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[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
What a bunch of bullshit. Some of my favorite students, and biggest success stories, have been kids whose parents weren’t involved in their education. In some cases, the parent was in jail, or dead, or had 5 other kids to take care of. They needed more TLC from me and the other teachers, but they really appreciate the extra attention. You can really make a difference with a kid like that. Kids with over-protective uber-parents don’t need me as much, which is great on one level, but I’m there to help every kid, not just teach to kids who would learn just fine regardless.
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Yeah I hear that pap all the time, ALL THE TIME, in the teaching field. I swear teachers are the most self-congratulatory lot on earth. But the fact is that I see an individual student for about 150 hours total out of their whole life, with maybe about 2 hours of actual individual one-on-one time. Teachers are small players in a person’s life, and they should be. It is not my responsibility to raise your kid, its my job to help them learn to the best of their ability the subject matter I teach.

God forgive me, but I didn’t become an 8-12 teacher to spend hours a day teaching kids the most basic kindergarten-level skills of human interaction which they never learned at home as toddlers. Meanwhile the students who take life seriously are forced to sit bored in class all day, reviewing things they picked up from their parents years ago.

I see it all the time and it’s infuriating. The bad kids who constantly act out are given all the attention at my school. This year’s worst hoodlum takes up about 10 minutes of class time (out of 50) all to himself. The school administration and most of the teachers have made a pet project out of him - save him from his fate. Yes he has a tragic homelife, no father, two siblings in jail, poverty, etc. I feel sorry for him. Yet I have 80 other students who should be getting an equal share of my time. It’s the smart and well behaved kids who get the short end of the stick in public schools. School is not there to even the odds between the rich and poor, smart and dull, and the civilized and savage. It is a place for learning, not an institution for social justice.

Its all fine and good to hear talk about inspirational teachers who take bad kids and turn their lives around. That is until you discover that your own 8th grader will learn nothing this year because she’ll have spent her days watching her teachers try to teach a 13 year old how to sit still for ten minutes, rather than learning algebraic function. That’s why these parents are begging to have their kids put in honors classes, because they hope that those classes will have shorter periods of time spent of basic behavior modification and more time spent on academic pursuits.

monstro-
That’s funny, I see it the other way around. I see kids who are full of nearly unlimited potential held back by asinine public school policies that pretend there is no qualitative difference between great students and poor ones. Mixing classes punishes those who can achieve.

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[QUOTE=neorxnawange]
Mixing classes punishes those who can achieve.
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Part of me wants to agree, and part of me wants to scream “Bullshit!” I love my AP classes. They are focused, attentive and driven, so we can do things a regular class could never do. OTOH, my mixed Government/Econ classes are so much freaking fun to teach! The brighter kids get exposed to a segment of the school population they may never have interacted with before, and the lower kids get some positive role models to emulate. You get spark plugs and fuel that just needs to be sparked. Granted, at the Senior level we have pretty much weeded out the hard-core trouble-makers. They have dropped out, been expelled, transferred to Adult Ed., or otherwise absented themselves from the program. But the rest of the students need that interaction.

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[QUOTE=neorxnawange]
It is a place for learning, not an institution for social justice.
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I really disagree with this statement. Not the sentiment that one can’t expect the schools to solve every individual case of social injustice. With respect to your specific situation, I don’t disagree with you.

But schools, and education in general, are institutions for social justice. Why else all the emphasis on getting away from seperate but equal? Or the need for special ed programs?

I know I’m nitpicking - feel free to ignore me for it. I just couldn’t let this go unchallenged, even if I don’t believe you really meant that the way I’ve taken it.

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[QUOTE=neorxnawange]
School is not there to even the odds between the rich and poor, smart and dull, and the civilized and savage. It is a place for learning, not an institution for social justice.
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If you’re a public school teacher, your job is to serve the public, with all of its inequalities and problems. Don’t like that? Go to the private sector. I’m sure there’s a Stepford school somewhere where all the kids are smiley-faced geniuses and all the parents kiss the teachers’ asses all the day long.

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[QUOTE=monstro]
If you’re a public school teacher, your job is to serve the public, with all of its inequalities and problems. Don’t like that? Go to the private sector. I’m sure there’s a Stepford school somewhere where all the kids are smiley-faced geniuses and all the parents kiss the teachers’ asses all the day long.
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“The public” includes all the smart kids you want to punish for no other reason than for having good parents. Don’t like that then go try and fund a school without the tax dollars of said parents.

This what I mean by people who see schools as tools of social justice. You see separating the bright from the average as unfair to the average. I see it as fair to both groups. Putting kids in classes that move at their level of learning is not punishing them.

Nor do I want parents who kiss teacher’s asses. I just want parents who at least know my name. I would welcome an argument about content or educational philosophy.

BTW, my job is defined by the school district I work for. Nowhere in my job description have I been charged with such a nebulous term as “serving the public”.

ABTW, as a school-tax payer and a voter in school board elections I too am a member of the public, and I have as much say as anybody else on how we should run our public schools. Working for the public sector doesn’t make me some kind of mindless slave. Sorry.

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[QUOTE=neorxnawange]
Yeah I hear that pap all the time, ALL THE TIME, in the teaching field. I swear teachers are the most self-congratulatory lot on earth.
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I’m not congratulating myself. It’s my job. I get paid for it. I don’t require congratulations for it. Maybe you do, and you’re not getting it, which is why you’re so bitter.

First of all, we work on a team, so we do work as a unit trying to help the kids across the school day. Sometimes kids see their teachers more than their parents, due to work schedules and family situations. We have an obligation to try to teach them how to exist in the world, because they’re not going to learn everything they need to know at home. How could they? There aren’t hundreds of other people, deadlines, intellectual dialogues with groups of peers and adults with specialized knowledge, at their homes, most likely.

This is an exaggeration of epic proportions. Unless you work in a much worse school with much more fucked up kids than I do. You really have a crap attitude. And that’s not to say that you’re not right, that the “bad” kids get more attention than the good kids do, and that sucks. But I do think it’s my job to teach them all, not segregate the “bad” ones, and just write them off. Mine are freakin’ 12. I’m not willing to give up on them.

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[QUOTE=silenus]
Part of me wants to agree, and part of me wants to scream “Bullshit!” I love my AP classes. They are focused, attentive and driven, so we can do things a regular class could never do. OTOH, my mixed Government/Econ classes are so much freaking fun to teach! The brighter kids get exposed to a segment of the school population they may never have interacted with before, and the lower kids get some positive role models to emulate. You get spark plugs and fuel that just needs to be sparked. Granted, at the Senior level we have pretty much weeded out the hard-core trouble-makers. They have dropped out, been expelled, transferred to Adult Ed., or otherwise absented themselves from the program. But the rest of the students need that interaction.
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It may be a matter of perspective. I’m at a small school where there are no groups of students not interacting with one another, so forcing a mixed class for that reason would be pointless. Another difference in perspective I think is the type of classes taught. I don’t have a problem with a senior level government class being mixed. My concern is with core classes with such mixed levels. I teach 8th English. I have students who can’t write a complete sentence, who literally read at second grade level. Sitting next to them are students who are reading Austen and winning national writing competitions. Putting them together for such an important course as ELA is unfair to both of them.

More important than that though, my concern with mixed courses is behavior. Behavior problems are what really eats into class time. You may not experience the type of behavior training I have to do at the 8th grade level. There is a behavior education component with middle schoolers, but by this age it should be of secondary concern to academic education. So a typical class has 25 students, 20 of whom are able to sit and pay a moderate level of attention to the day’s lesson. Yet 5 are completely incapable of sitting still for longer than 30 seconds. Nor are they capable of refraining from yelling out loud, kicking, punching, pinching, or touching other students, making stupid noises, dropping their belongings all over the floor, burping, farting, spitting, or masturbating for the course of a single class period. They are a constant distraction to all the other students, and they shorten the actual lesson time in class by about ten to fifteen minutes every day. But in the name of social justice we keep them in there, dragging every one else down, down, down.

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[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
First of all, we work on a team, so we do work as a unit trying to help the kids across the school day. Sometimes kids see their teachers more than their parents, due to work schedules and family situations. We have an obligation to try to teach them how to exist in the world, because they’re not going to learn everything they need to know at home. How could they? There aren’t hundreds of other people, deadlines, intellectual dialogues with groups of peers and adults with specialized knowledge, at their homes, most likely.

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This is where we differ in core philosophy in every way. I work as a specialist in a particular field of study, my job is to educate my students in that academic field. My job is not being a substitute for parents, nor should it be. You also take the position that school is essential for learning life skills that can’t be taught at home. I say bullshit. When it comes to behavior, social interaction, and character there is nothing that a public school can teach that can’t be better taught at home. Whether it is being taught at home is a different story.

And there y’all go again with the social justice angle. I recommend separating the bad from the good and you equate that with “writing off” the bad. Nope, sorry. Both parties are better off in that situation. The only people who benefit from mixing are those whose twisted sense of social revenge is satisfied by holding achievers back.

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[QUOTE=neorxnawange]

And there y’all go again with the social justice angle. I recommend separating the bad from the good and you equate that with “writing off” the bad. Nope, sorry. Both parties are better off in that situation. The only people who benefit from mixing are those whose twisted sense of social revenge is satisfied by holding achievers back.
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In this world where all the bad ones are separated from the good ones, do you envision yourself being assigned the former? Or is that some other sap’s responsibility?

I don’t have a problem with disruptive kids being punished severly and behaviorally maladjusted kids being placed in separate, instruction-intensive programs. But earlier you espoused separating kids based on family life. That’s entirely different than separating kids based on their own actions.

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[QUOTE=monstro]
In this world where all the bad ones are separated from the good ones, do you envision yourself being assigned the former? Or is that some other sap’s responsibility?

I don’t have a problem with disruptive kids being punished severly and behaviorally maladjusted kids being placed in separate, instruction-intensive programs. But earlier you espoused separating kids based on family life. That’s entirely different than separating kids based on their own actions.
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I’d teach both. As for your second assertion, as I said earlier I see a nearly one-to-one ratio between bad behavior and poor parenting.

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[QUOTE=neorxnawange]
I’d teach both. As for your second assertion, as I said earlier I see a nearly one-to-one ratio between bad behavior and poor parenting.
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No shit. I totally agree. Every “bad” kid I have ever encountered has had either bad parents or incompetent ones.

I blame fluoridated water.

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[QUOTE=neorxnawange]
This is where we differ in core philosophy in every way. I work as a specialist in a particular field of study, my job is to educate my students in that academic field. My job is not being a substitute for parents, nor should it be.
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Not a substitute for parents, an augmentation. You are legally acting in loco parentis when the kids are in school with you, so even in the eyes of the law you have some parenting responsibilities when they are in there. Schools have been teaching citizenship as long as there have been schools. This is not a novel, new age, hippie concept here. You’re seeing kids in a much different setting than the parents are. You have opportunities to educate them in ways their parents don’t. That’s just a fact, I don’t see how you can dispute it.

Oh, it helps when there’s good home training, no doubt about it. But kids who have disinterested or downright negligent parents deserve the same educational opportunities as kids with great parents. You seem to have a very deterministic attitude towards kids, as if they are doomed to suck if their parents suck. I think it’s pretty shitty.

“Separating the good from the bad.” Wow, black and white thinking, so binary, so… fucked up. It’s not that easy. I bet your list of the bad would be much longer and probably different from mine, from your fellow teachers, from the administration’s. Sure, some names would be on everyone’s list, but those kids wind up kicked out, in special programs, dropped out, or whatever, without your help. Possibly because they are unhelpable, possibly because assholes like you treat them as unteachable, so why bother with school?

I rarely, if ever, call a kid “bad.” I am flabbergasted by your attitude here. If kids have “bad parents,” at least the school can provide them with a positive environment, where adults are responsible, care about them, and set meaningful boundaries. They can learn how to function in society, maybe a little better than they would if they were ghetto-ized into “good” and “bad” classes. And like monstro said, who the fuck are you to decide who is good and bad?

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I think that whether or not mixed classes are OK depends on the size of the class and the quality of the teacher. In 9th grade, I had a wonderful world history class with about 15 people in it. The teacher to this day remains the best teacher I’ve ever had. She ran the class in such a manner that the people who were dedicated to academics were constantly challenged and pushed a bit while those with bad home lives or other learning problems were also pushed but got some slack when they didn’t get an assignment done.

This was just fine with me. I worked my ass off and got an A by doing exceptional work on time. My friend, who had some drama in her family life that year, also got an A by doing good work and using the extra time Mrs. S gave to her. Others didn’t use this time and failed, or got D’s and C’s.

In 10th grade, I had a chemistry class of about 30 people. 5 of which learned on an advanced level. The class went at the speed of the lowest common denominator and I was almost literally bored to tears. I had to resort to my excellent memorization skills before the tests because I literally could not focus in that class. It was akin to watching paint dry.

Fast forward to today. I got A’s and 4s on the AP tests for both AP Euro and AP U.S. history following the great freshman world history class. This year, I’m struggling to keep my AP chem grade above a B and I believe it is partly because I didn’t retain anything I learned in 10th grade chem for the long term.

Mixed classes can be great if done right; If they are taught poorly, they can be hellish for those who need more challenging material.

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[QUOTE=silenus]
No shit. I totally agree. Every “bad” kid I have ever encountered has had either bad parents or incompetent ones.

I blame fluoridated water.
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Right, but not every good kid had good or competent parents.

I think it’s like being an oncologist. Half your patients are doomed, but you can’t be sure which ones, so you have to try to save them all.

I also think there are three different models here, and people may be conflating them:

  1. Have honors classes, with strict standards for admission based on test scores and/or teacher recommendation.

  2. Have honors courses that students can self-elect into.

  3. Have no honors courses to level the playing field for all.

I am a big fan of 2, but find 1 and 3 both to be bad ideas: the former leads to elitism and dooms kids to a track, and the latter doesn’t serve anyone.

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[QUOTE=Manda JO]
Right, but not every good kid had good or competent parents.

I think it’s like being an oncologist. Half your patients are doomed, but you can’t be sure which ones, so you have to try to save them all.

I also think there are three different models here, and people may be conflating them:

  1. Have honors classes, with strict standards for admission based on test scores and/or teacher recommendation.

  2. Have honors courses that students can self-elect into.

  3. Have no honors courses to level the playing field for all.

I am a big fan of 2, but find 1 and 3 both to be bad ideas: the former leads to elitism and dooms kids to a track, and the latter doesn’t serve anyone.
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No, I think #2 on your list leads to elitism, because the kids who self-select into the class without or in contradiction of teacher rec usually do so not because of ability, but because their parents can’t stand the idea of their kid not being in the honors class. If we just went by class grades, test scores, homework completion, etc., objective criteria only, then ANY kid who was qualified to get in would be in. If your kid did A’s in the regular math class, maybe he could transfer in later.

I’ve also seen a phenomenon where a kid who can do the advanced work won’t self-select in, for the opposite reasons-- their peer group doesn’t support an interest in academics, they have no self-confidence, etc. That’s why it’s better if they are automatically recommended. Then they at least know that the teacher thinks they can do it.

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[QUOTE=Rubystreak]
No, I think #2 on your list leads to elitism, because the kids who self-select into the class without or in contradiction of teacher rec usually do so not because of ability, but because their parents can’t stand the idea of their kid not being in the honors class. If we just went by class grades, test scores, homework completion, etc., objective criteria only, then ANY kid who was qualified to get in would be in. If your kid did A’s in the regular math class, maybe he could transfer in later.
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Except that sometimes parents and the kids themselves have access to knowledge that teachers and test scores don’t. I’ve seen kids who never distinguished themselves have epiphanies and decide they want to try more challenging classes and have it work. I’ve seen kids who would rather borderline pass and be in an interesting class than make good grades easily and be bored. Your system excludes the second-language learner, the bright slacker, the late bloomer, and any child with a learning or testing disability. I’d rather have the status-seeking kid come into my class and fail out and learn that “AP” isn’t code for “wealthy and white” than to exclude him at the cost of those other types–many of whom crash and burn, but many of whom end up successful. I’d rather err on the side of ambition and progress.

I am not saying you don’t give those kids guidance–you do, and you don’t whitewash it. I tell kids that want to leap to AP English that they will work harder than they’ve ever worked in their life and that they will still make Cs for the first semester, that they will be in my room an hour before school starts for tutoring at least once a week, that it’s going to hurt. And I am not saying you alter standards for them–you don’t. You offer support to help them make the leap, but you don’t give them a net. If they have to go to summer school, they go to summer school. Not the end of the world. But I just can’t get behind not letting a kid try if they are ambitious.

Of course teacher recommendation plays a huge part in this, but the ultimate choice should be the student and parent. I’ve had straight up GT kids working 60 hours a week to support their disabled parents–you going to insist they take a full course load of honors classes because their test scores clearly show that they can handle it? I’ve got a student right now who dropped out of AP Chem–a class she could easily handle, and has the test scores and grades to prove it–because she wants to spend more time on the school newspaper and sports. You going to tell her she’s gotta be in that class? She’s in five other honors classes, she doesn’t have to do it all.

Kids select out because of their peer group and background, yes, and that’s why you pour over test data and talk to teachers to find these kids and you nag and cajole and call home and send other students to talk to them and send them to the counselors and figure out where the problem is and try to fix it, but it doesn’t mean you get to decide. End of the day, it’s their education.

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I am in agreement with #2, which is how we do things in my school. My class is usually the “selector.” It’s the first AP class a student can take, and is by far the hardest class on campus (outside of AP Physics & AP Calculus.) A large number of kids skip AP Euro, select to go into AP US History, don’t excell, then switch back to regular Govt./Econ.

No kid should be denied the opportunity to push themselves just because of their test scores or what somebody else thinks of their abilities. Besides, just being in the class means a lot to the educational experience of kids who don’t do well. I’ll bet they learned more in an AP class where they got a “C” than in a regular class where they got an “A”.