Winding Down

Just read this on one of my favorite blogs - countryscribe.com ----

“Education is wasted on the young.

So, I have become the type of teacher I would have hated as a student.”

Of course, that quote is taken out of context of the entire blog. But I find it interesting nonetheless. First, “Education is wasted on the young.” An interesting idea I never really thought about. countryscibe teaches at a college, so I imagine he sees a lot of education wasted on those who succumb to the parties or aren’t mature enough to get themselves to class and take those classes seriously. I guess, in a real way, education is wasted on the young. How does this apply to me at the high school level?

When I taught a class four years ago at the local community college, my best students were nontraditional nursing students: ladies in their late thirties and early forties who returned to school after divorces or tiring of their jobs and wanted to take control of their lives. Without exception, they wrote brilliantly and worked hard and rung me out for every bit of knowledge I could give them. If only the normal freshman would have done the same. They, however, repeatedly eyed the clock and chomped at the bit to be off to their lives.

Here at the high school level, education is wasted. I know a significant portion of our student population is here for their peers or that truancy laws demand they be here. But as far as being here to learn something. Well, I’m not going to lie to myself. They are here for the social activities, and let us not forget, sports and activities. I guess that’s the trick of public education: teaching the kids something in spite of all the other things they have going in their lives. I have one student in my advanced comp class. S/he baby-sits her siblings, works upwards of 20 hours a week, maintains an A average, and participates in swimming and softball. And I thought my life was packed. S/he’s only 16!


Yesterday, we had our annual briefing on state test scores. Our curriculum head, who has to have one of the most miserable jobs on the face of the earth, that guy from the Discovery Channel should do a piece on her as one of the dirtiest jobs in the world, handed us a folder with neatly color-coded handouts detailing what the tests mean and the test scores for all freshman and sophomores. Then she went over it in about 20 minutes. It was torture. God bless her, but it was brutal. Talk about information overload. I was lost after about 3 minutes. Rit scores. Mean. AYP. No Child Left Behind. It was overwhelming. I left with my head pounding. Now the folder sits in my drawer with all that other stuff. I know the results tell us a lot about our kids and their abilities, but I loathe it none the less.


I have another football game tonight. No in-house tonight for parents though. So I don’t expect a note on my door like last week. What a sham. It must have been a prank because one parent has emailed me yet with their complaints. I almost hope they will. I’d let them have it. Our head coach does such a masterful job of molding his players into responsible young men, that it’s a shame a parent questions my role as a coach. For instance, as part of our football program, the seniors meet once a week (before school I believe) to talk about leadership and becoming responsible citizens and what football can really teach them. When they have an away game, our head coach brings along cleaning supplies and the varsity cleans their locker room before they leave. At first kids groaned about it, but now it’s a tradition and they kids take pride in it. What lesson does that teach? Be responsible. Take pride in doing your best. And that’s just scratching the surface.