Of the “No Child Left Behind Act,” of which I know very little, I know at least that many an educator and educator-in-training are upset about it. From what I gather, the act makes it difficult for teachers to receive certification. It also places so many restrictions on course materials and in-class conduct that educators think themselves mad for selecting for themselves such a bothersome occupation.
Oh, and they get paid beans and rice to educate the unruly, irreverent, snotty little goblins and gnomes that make up America’s troubled youth. That educators are so poorly compensated for their crappy job is ludicrous.
But here’s the catch-22: We’re not making educators jump through hurdles out of simple cruelty. There are some moronic teachers out there. While many educators are committed to the edification and enrichment of their charges, just as many—probably more—somehow slip through the system with less intelligence than it takes to man a Burger King drive-thru window. And I should know, because I grew up in Martinsville.
This article is going to be biased, so I’ll get all my disclaimers out of the way off the bat. Firstly, I’m convinced there are plenty worse places to learn than Martinsville, Va. I’ve heard horror stories from my peers that make my own lame education pale in comparison. On the other hand, I know people who departed middle school with a working knowledge of Shakespeare under their belts. (I didn’t see a full Shakespeare play until late high school; before, we just watched the movies.)
Secondly, my memory isn’t perfect. If I’m stretching the facts here, then aging memories are at fault. I’ve been out of high school since 2002, so some of the facts are fuzzy along the edges. Nonetheless, I share these anecdotes with you because: a) I really, really love chastising Martinsville; and b) because I think it’s important for people to understand why we have to filter our schools for fit educators.
Of elementary and middle school I remember very little. Before the onset of puberty, I never questioned the authority of my teachers. I can’t say which of them were imbeciles and which were competent promoters of young brain matter. High school, though, is a different story.
The finest example is a teacher I had for Astronomy. The class was supposed to be Ecology, but after an in-class vote—as well as a reference to a friendship between teacher and principal and teacher—Ecology became Astronomy. For the record, let me say that I didn’t vote to change the course; I signed up for Ecology.
This gentleman educator, Mr. M, claimed that he used to work on stealth materials for top-secret jets. I was more interested in another story, the story of how he went from stealth science to teaching at Martinsville High School. He never told that one.
I could go on and on about this guy. Mr. M proved his scientific expertise by telling us scientific tidbits and “facts”—such as that a person can suffocate from having their body painted, and that Coca Cola can dissolve a bone overnight. Thanks to the advent of MythBusters, I now know what I only previously suspected: Mr. M was a crackpot.
Mr. M and I were at odds for most of the semester. I was never an assertive individual, and I always respected and even liked my teachers, even the creepy ones who encouraged us to look up softcore porn on the Internet (yes, there was more than one). But Mr. M’s antics proved too much for me. We developed something of a feud. I had the uncanny ability to redden his face by merely entering the room.
I saw Mr. M the year after I graduated. I was working at Wal-Mart as a cashier for $6 an hour. I didn’t think I could afford college, so I hadn’t bothered to apply. Mr. M came through my lane one day.
“So, look what you’re doing with your life. How’s the register treating you?” he asked. He was smirking in satisfaction, and his face was blood red. Whether it was red from residual fury or from the aforementioned satisfaction I can’t say. I was self-conscious about working at Wal-Mart after graduation, but I didn’t want to argue with a grown man. What was the point? I ignored the comment and made small talk. His face lost some contrast and, before he left, he actually wished me well. That was the end of that.
I was originally going to talk about a number of the teachers and educational experiences I knew in Martinsville, but I now realize a Voice column can’t sustain the sheer magnitude of my memory dump. Instead, prepare for the paragraph o’ doom!
I had a teacher who promised a computer to an outstanding student. The computer was never awarded. I wrote a letter to the principal. The teacher wrote me back, upset. The next year, he pulled the same tricks and was later fired. Our high school had a band teacher who had an affair with an English teacher. Did they do the deed in the classroom? That was the rumor. I always thought he was gay—not that there would have been anything wrong with that. And, lastly, the most inspiring teacher I’ve ever had was in elementary school. She taught me more math than I’ve learned since and fostered in me a love for the written word that has yet to dissolve. Three years after I had her, she was formally charged with child molestation and, if memory serves me correctly, she confessed.
Should we be regulating our educators? Yes. If you’re from a high-income area, chances are good that you’ve never known the wackos that poorly funded public schools will hire. Need more examples? I had a teacher who openly talked about his prostate, slandered other students, and insulted homosexuals in the classroom. My Chemistry teacher, a man, had long, curly hair. He was actually an intelligent, well-mannered guy—but he had long, curly hair. I think that’s worth mentioning.
Lunatics and fools beget other lunatics and fools. If a man is teaching us that Coca Cola is so acidic that it can destroy an entire human skeleton, then what of the teachers teaching 2 + 2 = Muslims are evil?
The educational system is broken, and fixing it won’t be easy. We need to find a way to reward those who take education seriously and pour boiling water over the heads of those who don’t. We need to fix all of the Martinsvilles in the world so that we can decrease the idiot and moron population. And how exactly do we do that? I don’t know. I was educated in Martinsville, Va.; I haven’t a clue. Want to look up some softcore porn?
Charles Smith is now a graduate student and has had jobs that pay more than $6 an hour.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Pat Woodruff // Jan 9, 2009 at 10:02 am
I agree that the education system is broken, but No Child Left Behind only breaks it further. It forces teachers to focus on testing, because otherwise they lose their funding. No Child Left Behind, should be subtitled, Teach To The Test. People caught up in the education system forget that the test is just a tool, not the end result. It is a way for a teacher to track the progress of 30 students. No Child Left Behind makes a big deal of using “scientific studies” to support teaching methods, but the biggest scientific study that they ignore is the very *best* way for children to learn is to have a higher teacher to student ratio. The other component is to have the kids actually interested in the subject. This can’t happen when you have set up a testing system that constantly puts a child in a situation where they are always afraid of getting things wrong. Like Ms. Frizzle joyfully says, “Get messy! Make mistakes!” No Child Left Behind does not encourage that adventuresome learning spirit.
Read “How Children Learn” as well as “How Children Fail” by John Holt. If you are a teen, read “The Teenage Liberation Handbook” by Grace Llewellyn. I can’t recommend them highly enough!
- Pat Woodruff, autodidact
2 Julie Ann // Jan 24, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Charles, I too grew up in Martinsville (I graduated from MHS in the mid-80s). However, my experience with that system was vastly different from yours. Let me say, I didn’t grow up on the “right” side of town (nowhere near Mulberry or Chatmoss) and was just an average teenager. However, I experienced some truly talented educators in Martinsville City Schools. For example, my love of modern literature was nurtured by the delightful Mrs. S. in 10th grade and I grew to love biology under the care of the quirky Mr. V. (in one of his last years in the classroom). I loved learning to speak French in the classroom of Mr. T. and World History from Mrs. M. Sadly, though, the system continues to be battered by low pay (and say what you like, pay in the mid-30s for 10 months of what teachers endure is NOT adequate compensation), incompetent administrators, corrupt central offices and boards of education, indifferent parents and communities, and now, federal oversight of nightmarish beauracratic proportions.
No Child Left Behind did address the public’s call for more accountability from schools (please note, the accountability does not, and should not, lie solely with a teacher)–many special needs children were ignored for many years when it was easier to focus on the kids who “could” learn. I do not now nor have I ever endorsed that thinking. However, reducing the measure of a child’s academic progress to one test score, taken on one day of each school year from third grade through graduation is surely as inadequate as the previous policy of “no oversight” ever was. No two children learn in the same way and teachers are told a thousand times each year to differentiate their instruction to reach all learners. Does the test differentiate? Not on your life. Everyone takes the same “fill in the bubble” test, regardless of their abilities. Exceptional children (today’s special education moniker), in most cases, take the same test as their peers; therefore, a 9 year old with the achievement level of a first grader must take and PASS a third grade test. Makes sense, right?
I chose teaching as a second career. I teach elementary students and I love it. I won’t leave because of inadequate pay, incompetent administrators, strangling paperwork, rude and cruel parents, indifferent students, and the general low level of respect I garner from the population at large. I’ll stay because it’s important to me. I care about the children I teach and I care about the overwhelming number of fantastic teachers I am proud to work with. Are there incompetent teachers out there? You bet. Do I think they should be out of the classroom? Absolutely. I’ll tell you a secret, though: raise the pay to competitive levels and you’ll have “highly qualified” folks beating down the doors for a job. Then administrators won’t feel pressured to keep bad teachers because they are guaranteed that there is someone to hire in their place, someone hungry to teach and learn with children.
I love to hear people tell me what a great “part time” job I have. I don’t argue and I don’t complain. I invite them to come to my classroom, any day, from 7:30 to 5. Not one person will find me or my fellow teachers doing our nails, having a party, or wasting time. I also invite them to stop by my house and help me grade papers, write behavior plans, call parents, and fill out pages and pages of paper necessary to disaggregate the data we need for “the test.” Come by on the weekend and watch me surf the ‘net. Not for fun but for lesson plan ideas, for new websites for my students, for innovative ways to motivate students. Or pitch in and help me write lesson plans, making sure my teaching objectives correlate precisely with the state and local curriculums while also keeping up with my school’s “pacing guide” (spend “x” days teaching “y” objective–got to make sure we get it finished by “the test”)–I’ll take any help you’re willing to give. Don’t worry about me wasting my generous salary, either. I only spend $500-$800 annually to purchase items for my classroom that my district can’t or won’t buy. So, yeah, those summers off are great–I opt to break my 10 month salary into 12 payments so I can buy groceries in the summer. I’m not trying to whine about it– I know how to work a second job to make ends meet.
So, complain about the bad teachers, if you must. Just do me a favor, don’t leave out all of the other factors that contribute to the success, or failure, of every education in America.
3 Mr. M // Mar 22, 2010 at 2:53 pm
As you stated in your article… your memory may have been affected by time and possibly by some other outside means. If my memory serves me right, you ended up with a 90% in the Intoductory Astronomy class. Your memory of my stories are somewhat close but, no cigar! I believe your writing skills are trying to make more than what actually transpired into some form of satire. I’m afraid that my industrial R & D work may have been overwhelming for you and that Martinsville was a thriving town with many opportunities for those who had the drive too succeed and make something of themselves. I also believe you may have had, or still have, selective hearing and only listened to part of my lessons or stories. I’ve never been called a “crackpot” in all of my teaching career, but on the other hand the numerous teaching awards that I have recieve tell me otherwise. My ex-students are a testament to my teaching. They contact me often to praise me for giving above and beyond that extra effort, drive that they needed for higher education and for life in general. I am truly sorry that I left within you that I am a “crackpot.” You are truly one of the few!
4 The Man Who Snarls // Mar 22, 2010 at 6:03 pm
To your credit, Mr. M, I’ve heard praise for you from other students I’ve encountered here. No matter what my memories may tell me happened during my own high school experience, it is reassuring that you’re getting through to your students.
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