Education - You Can Lead a Horse to Water but You Can't Make Him Drink

I am truly saddened about what is going on in my school district, especially in the school where I am currently working.

What is wrong with the urban school district? Why are so many students not doing well? Why is there such a huge achievement gap between urban and suburban students? I may be dead wrong, but I do believe the practice of the prejudice of low expectations must come to a screeching halt. Just this week , in my school the seven grade team leader called a meeting to discuss academic detention . The purpose of the detention is to allow students who are doing poorly a second chance to redo the work . Now if a student did not understand an assignment I have no trouble allowing that student to redo a test or give some extra credit work, but if a student did poorly because he/ she opted to not do the work out of cheer laziness that student should not be given a second chance. I nearly got my head chopped off when I made it clear that students with poor grades due to lack of effort should not be given a second chance. Out of seven teachers, I am the most experienced, the other six are in their twenties and they are second year teachers. What is being taught to these students? That it is ok to slack off and good old Ms. so so will let me make up the work so I get get a good grade.

Well this is exactly what is going on in my current school. We have to find ways to help those poor minority students to get a good grade, after all we are here to save them. Whatever happened to good old fashion hard work? It truly makes my skin crawl just thinking about this. All students should be held to high standards, making it easy for them is setting them up for later failure.

Lastly, parents should be held accountable for their children. That is another reason why there is such a huge achievement gap. It is a sobering reality, but one that must be addressed before any true change can take place. All children should be monitored at home in order to achieve great success in school. Perhaps it might be a great idea for urban school districts to offer free classes to parents on how to help their students at home. Of course this idea is far fetched, after all we do not want to offend the parents. What we will do instead is to spend a fortune on teacher training because if the kids are not doing well it must be the fault of the teacher. That kind of mindset , if allowed to continue will be a perfect recipe for greater achievement gaps.

I started working at my current school in August, since then I have been so overly burdened that it leaves me very little time to write. The teachers at my school are being asked to do an awful lot in the hopes that all students will succeed, I do not mind hard work If I did I would not have lasted 25 years in the teaching field. What I believe to be true is you can lead a horse to water but you sure can't make that horse drink. You can't force kids to change bad habits overnight, nor can we afford to lower standards just so a kid can pass a class. That to me is shameful. I hope and pray that I will be able to transfer to a new school next fall. Until then, I am doing my best to hold on very tightly to what I believe will best benefit all students .