How to fail a black boy

A boy in special education program came to my “Homework Club” room intending to do some work. This ninth grader noticed the teacher in charge was his own English teacher. The teacher asked him to redo his paper on, ”House on Mango Street” since he handed in someone else‘s paper.

He proceeded to get that book out. The black boy did not seem to know what he needed to do yet his teacher would not tell him. The teacher proceeded to scold him by saying, “You did not pay attention during class and this is why you do not know”. She said, “You were misbehaving and this is why you have no clue”. She is, however, paid extra to work Homework Club.

After observing this for about five minutes, I realized that he would not be able to get help. I decided to help him by asking the teacher for a guide to this assignment. “He knows”, was the reply from the teacher. After about tem minutes of back and forth, I was not able to get a clear idea of this assignment. I asked the boy to go to the hall way and see if he could find anyone else who might know what to do.

At this point, she said that he was supposed to write the definition of “culture” followed by three paragraphs of examples found in the book. He and I started to read the book.

I quickly found out that he was probably reading at a second grade level. He could not read “Chinese” as a word. I helped him a bit more and left at 3 o’clock.

When I saw him the following day, he said that he was never able to finish those four paragraphs.

Every 15 Minutes program book

Every 15 minutes

4/30 at 3 p.m., I boarded the bus. A total of three teachers and 43 students went to Pumphreys Funeral Home (http://www.pumphreyfuneralhome.com/history.html) then retreat house. We went to the Rockville location and funeral director Bob showed us around and explained the funeral processes and costs. He is a great speaker.

The retreat house was near Potomac River in the woods and was beautiful. We got there an hour late and parents already had snacks and drinks ready for us (thanks).

First speaker was Lisa Bard (http://www.lisabard.com/) at around 4:35. You can read the details by following the link and read her long bio. She gave gifts such as pins, star fish...

Mrs. Sandy Myers spoke next with a powerpoint presentation. She is the older sister of Nicole Lee.(http://www.love4nicki.com/). She said that young folks need 9 hours each night to sleep. Many of them do not get that. 30% driving fatalities are due to drowsy driving (More than caused by text msgg). Some resources memtioned or found: http://ut.zerofatalities.com/index.php/index.php, http://www.tompkins-co.org/wellness/drowsydriving/Links.htm.

After a pizza dinner, we "heard" from Sheila Deriso, R.N. of Montgomery General. She gave a lot of practical but "in-depth" information about drinking. Major items are, "Off-switch, Perception, Coordination, and Protective Reflex". Many tools and skills were shown. A very powerful speech with humor.

Keri Roth then spoke about her experience with her brother;s accident and her journey since the tragedy. She was really crying and the entire experience was moving. (9:30 p.m.)

Only students stayed with a program of some kind.

Students started writing their speeches. Adults helped correcting some. A 11, we moved to an area next to one of the dorms. Students finished and 16 of them rehearsed their speeches. Very good work. We went to bed after 12 while rain started.

We arrived school at 7:20 in the rain on May 1. Folks rehearsed and our program started at 9:20 or so.


Booklet(By Mrs. Harvey):

http://ntuaadc.blogspot.com/2009/05/every-15-minutes-program-book_01.html


Mr. Evans opened the program with his remarks.

Ms. Jenny Foster gave her directions.

MHS every 15 minutes video was played.

Dan McCoy gave an excellent speech on his own experience and the consequences.

Megan Griffin, Kristen Barnett, Joseph Gonzalez, Blythe Dellinger, Alison Iovino, ... gave excellent speeches. Audience received well.

Laytonsville Fire Chief Stanley Sutton gave a very short speech and encouraged students to help one another with good choices.

MCPD Traffic Division Director Ron Smith spoke about consequences given by police.

Allie Huffman, Christine Cook, Brian Borst, Bethany Lemanski, Cynthis Perez, Casey Davis gave great speeches.(I forgot 1 or 2 names, pls correct me)

Sober Pledge was excuted and it went well.

Reception afterwards went well.

Thanks to all who helped especially Mrs. Winters and Foster.

How to prevent minority students from learning

A teacher, usually a strict one, may not like minority students since they are not as obedient (Research has shown that minority students do not do well in strict environment).

One of those teacher came to my room while a black student was there doing work. The teacher taught the student before and the experience was not so good. The teacher went to the student and ask her why she was there and demanding a pass. Student refused to answer.

The teacher proceeded to write a referral for, "Failing to answer to a teacher".

Media Center

Some students are not able to type or print reports. Media center is important for them.

A student is required to present a signed pass on an "Agenda Book", not a pass. The book costs $5 so some poor students do not buy them. As a result, a poor student might not be able to print a report either at home or at school. English papers are required to be typed or else. Some poor students just skip the paper and fail......

NO Bread for hungry students

I noticed that some students came in hungry so I was buying a loaf of bread every day. The bread was usually gone by third period. Kids loved it.

I was told that I could not let students eat or drink in my room next year. The reason? If you let kids eat in your room, it will be hard for other teachers to say "No". ????

Nancy, the girl good with numbers

Nancy came from Africa and found herself in my pga class as a 10th grade student. Few days after we met, she wanted to go to a harder class since she had learned much at her own country. I gave her a test and she indeed was able to score better than an average algebra2 student.

I went to see the counselor. On or right after 20 days into school year, I was finally getting an “OK” to fill out a change form. I signed the form and called the parents to sign for it. It was turned in and I was assured that the form would not be processed right away but it will eventually be executed.

Soon after that, I was given a choice to keep her in my room until official change was sent in or move her to a pd1 geometry class. Student wanted to move right away.

Now, I was blamed for “moving student” without permission. I will need to sign something acknowledging that I did something wrong.

I thought we promised to give “all” children a fair education. Nancy was in 10th grade and most students took geometry in 9th grade or earlier so she was already behind. She was more than ready for it and she told me she wanted to take as many hard math as possible.

EPILOGUE: I met her prior to summer and she said she did very well in geometry. I just smiled. I do not regret trying to get her in an appropriate class. I did the right thing.

EPILOGUE2: She did well in honors algebra2 and now is in honors pre-calc. :)

Walker

She walks the mall all day long. Why won't she go and get a job?

She is Debt

She is paying about $25K per year on tuition. This is her first year in college. She will ring up to $100,000 for the degree. Is it a smart thing to do?

Student drinking

Students tell me that more than half of them drink on a regular basis on weekends especially. Do parents know? Is this not a problem?

Ouch my tooth

His tooth has been hurting for days. The top half of the tooth is not there so at least a crown is needed. How much longer is he going to wait?

Jail Bird

She has not been in class for many days. I have heard that she lost her job and was sad about that. Once a person spends time in jail, jobs are hard to come by. So you lie to get the job. Few weeks later you get fired since the security check failed to go through.

A Drop Out

He works at the mall. I am sure that he did not graduate high school. I was happy to see that he is (temporarily) OK to hold down at job and a presumably low pay to ride life through.

Unexcused absences

I have not seen her for days. She has been back in her own country visiting a sick aunt. I hope that all her teachers will allow her to make up work. The visit is classified as, "unexcused" so she might even get the credits.Why?

So sad. So many sick people in her family. So many relatives died young.

Smart math student in a bind

He is really smart and attentive at the beginning of each class. He finds out what is being tought and learns it. If I do not move on fast enough, he falls asleep. However, I can not move on too fast in algebra2 classes since almost half of the students can not add, subtract or multiply.

He has excellent knowledge of basic mathematics and is not disruptive at all. He should go to an honor's class but he does not want to due to a lack of study skills perhaps.

Poor ADHD student

Just had a parent meeting about her. She is really smart, friendly, pleasant, and good with basic mathematics. However, it has been hard for her to concentrate so her grades are not the best. Parents were upset about the bad grades and blaminging her for able but not trying.

I finally mentioned to the parents to look at her strong areas. She will graduate and find a good job. In a real job, people do what they need to do. No one need to sit all day, memorize stuff and write them down in tests during real life.