There should be a High School Entrance Exam

At our staff development the other day, many teachers complained about being faced with trying to simultaneously teach remedial skills as well as the grade level standards. Someone joked, "There should be a high school ENTRANCE exam." I hate the CAHSEE. It is a big joke. Last year 4% of seniors in CA did not graduate because of the CAHSEE. Some would say that that is a small percentage. But looking at the percentage, I can make an educated guess that most of those students are English Language Learners. Not passing this exam can stunt a student's desire to continue learning. Drat. I have a student who I feel was mainstreamed way to early. She can't process simple words in reading or writing, but socially she is fine. Because of this she has trouble not only processing definitions, but abstract concepts like author's purpose, themes, main ideas versus supporting details, etc. All of these things that are easily grasped by other students are like climbing mountains for her. Also, her native English is not Latin based and has a completely different alphabet and grammar structure. I see the numbing level of frustration in her face when I am tutoring her. I see the days of the calendar getting closer and closer to her "last chance." She will most likely not cross the stage on graduation day. She will be among that seemingly small percentage that will not graduate. Conservative talk show hosts will scoff, "Too bad! You don't have basic skills! You don't deserve a high school diploma! You didn't try hard enough." They don't know this girl. They won't see her buckling under her tears when other students celebrate their results in front of her in my CAHSEE class. I hope this scenario doesn't repeat from last year.

Each year that passes, I can fondly remember this student or that student. The student that will always get an F, but can remember a vocabulary word of theme from a Shakespearean play we studied 3 years before. The student who always made you feel like you had a booger on your face and toilet paper stuck to your shoe and then asked to be your TA the next year. The student who came back the next year to say she wishes she had you this year and wishes you'd stay just one more year. There are so many. The student who stays after an hour to talk about a book you lent him/her. But each year, I carry around these small ghosts of students whom I felt that I failed. Not as in F. But that because my best wasn't good enough, their life suffered. People might say that that is ridiculous, that I give myself too much credit. But I can't help it. I can't say their names here, but I could tell you how beautiful they were. And they showed me parts of me I didn't know existed. And even though I may have had their numbers on day one (you're beautiful and you don't know it / you're scared so you try to scare others / you will be fine after all this even though you don't get a diploma), I can't help but keep their ghosts close and play out different scenarios even though I know the way it ended.

Destroy the Teacher

Global warming exists. Is it anthropogenic or not? What does history tell us? What about the rate at which the earth is warming? What explains the dryness of last winter versus this winter? So many questions, and so many ways for opinion to skew science. Science is not always science. Like any argument, we pick and choose the facts that support what we believe. People have become so limited in accepting this duality, that few choose to stand up for anything anymore. "It depends," and "Both are true," plague classrooms and conversation. What happened to "I believe," or "I know for a fact"? The truth is, we are wiser for acknowledging our ignorance, and therefore forgiven for what we don't know. It seems like a cop out. This is an exercise in babble.

Yesterday I witnessed something beautiful in my classroom. A student actually went through the process of changing her opinion through a heated discussion. She called people out when they contradicted themselves, she was aware when she changed her mind and made note when she agreed and disagreed with others, even when she had started with a different position. It was great. And although every time the word "like" was uttered, I imagined a little *ding* going off in my head tallying them all up, I think I am beginning to understand what Whitman meant when he said, "He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher." Not that the student performs to honor the teacher, but that the teacher is most honored when she is no longer necessary and in awe of the student.