NEA Calls for Secretary Duncan's Resignation

[BrotherIvan]

32. I love your passionate post

My mother was a teacher for 41 years. She was an excellent teacher and they built a true community around that little school. Former students would request her for their children and grandchildren. She was very tough and rigorous, so the students learned and not particularly because she was nice. She got all of the behavior problem students and by the end of the year, they were all at the correct grade level for reading and math. All the teachers in her group did amazing things in a very economically challenged school.

They were able to do great things with students because they had the support of the principal and they could build the curriculum over years of experience of what their students needed. They did many hands-on units for every subject where one learned an important math or science concept using art or music or a field trip. They invited the community in for cultural holidays, every single one they could muster and then some so students could be exposed to different foods and dress and history. That was one of the most successful because parents would cook up as storm for Cinco de Mayo, Black History Month, Chinese New Year, Chanukah, Diwali, Tet, a Native American drum circle and sun dance, you name it. The students didn't know they were learning because they were having fun and eating amazing food. Students who had never left the inner city, who had never eaten each other's food got to learn about the world.

That is how students encounter lessons they will learn for the rest of their lives. It was the first time most of them had been to a museum, to the theater, or to the forest & mountains (even though it was half an hour away). Sixth graders ran after school bake sales and newspaper drives to pay for their field trips. I saw with my own eyes how many kids stayed after school spontaneously for tutoring because their parents often could not help them with their homework. They didn't want to leave school! That's how you get students to love learning, to love school. How they learn to explore and ask questions.

I believe in public education because I know how great it can be. But the state of it today is just sickening. The Duncan appointment was one of the clearest indications that the administration had no intentions of righting the wrongs of the Bush era. It is the canary in a coal mine for the rest of our society. If I had children in school who were just sitting there taking tests all day I would be furious.