Educated to Death

0032: The money’s not in the cure, it’s in the remediation workbook

#testocracy #teaching #testing #nervousbreakdown

I just watched a kid absolutely crumble because his reading scores are low. It took a while to get to that reasoning, he got incredibly belligerent before he crumbled. He told me to send him to the office. He tried to walk out. He was out of control— he was out of his normal element. He’s usually a smart ass, but generally delightful. I snapped at him because he wouldn’t sing with the class. He wouldn’t participate. I called him up and asked if we needed to call his mom. He said he didn’t care, and he didn’t care if I sent him to the office, or if I fucking failed him. I took his mother’s number down and waited until the end of class. Everyone left. I asked him to stay, and sing his part. He refused. He said, I’m just going to the office. I stopped him and asked if he’d prefer suspension over talking about it. And then this tough middle schooler, much taller and far more apt to play football than I, broke into the ugliest crying fit I’ve seen— crumpled chin, drool, and all. I asked him to breathe, and I if he was having a tough time. Through shallow breaths and spit bubbles he told me that his mom had fussed at him and taken all his privileges away. “Everything?” I asked. “Everything”.

He got a note sent home yesterday stating that he would have to attend after school tutoring because his reading scores were low, and he’s failing science. This prompted mom to remove all privileges. Mom is hard working person and wants her son to do well. She is reacting to the pressure, even she feels, from the great test. The test is some 5 months away. The kid feels like an absolute failure. He can no longer participate in extracurriculars, and he’s on edge. The pressure is too much. I asked what he was doing to improve his reading. He replied: we’re working in the workbook. It’s the answer I expected, but that’s no way to remedy a reading problem. How about guided reading or engaging in discourse about a text or teaching text structure or building his vocabulary. Really! And, to make all this even better the workbooks are provided by the state. State mandated corporately developed remediation workbooks— that are ineffective. The teacher’s hands are more or less tied, or she doesn’t understand that just because it’s in a book doesn’t mean it’s good. All I can say is, what the f**k?