An Exception to the Rule

Do you believe that a teenager with a 1.58 GPA, a baby, parents who never completed a high school diploma, floundering in a failing school has any chance for a future, or are they just "the exception to the rule?" And further, if they are the exception to the rule then is there really any point in giving a damn when it comes to inner-city, struggling students? I mean, if success is an exception and failure is inevitable, then why bother even trying? Just get your paycheck, and get through each day, get your tenure, get comfy and destroy futures.

Sounds harsh, but that is the reality at our inner city schools. Recently at a department meeting, my DEPARTMENT HEAD made the following three horrific comments:

1. These students don't need to learn that, they're not at that level and we all know we're not graduating doctors and lawyers here.
2. The9th grade students that we get here are like the 7th graders at other schools
3. You made it, but that is the exception rather than the rule!

I never noticed racism. Not because it doesn't exist, but becasue it is so permeated in society that I couldn't even see it. UGGGGGGGGH

I wanted to scream and jump out at my skin. But then I would have just beeen another "dumb Puerto Rican" with a hot temper. So I swallowed the monster rage that threatened to make me do something really stupid.

If she believes "these kids" are going nowhere, then why is she teaching them? Since experiencing "Readicide," I have quoted Witty-Wiggy many times (what you test is what you get), and it all ties back to my rubric argument that I brought up at October's meeting. If you expect nothing, you're never disappointed. So if we expect little from them, we get little. We also teach little. So thier lives are little and never amount to anything significant.

Ok, long intro. The point is I wrote something about the incident. Pen is mightier than the sword. It saved me from punching her lights out. I wanted to share it here but I forgot to put it on my flash drive before I left today...

The point is, what you test is what you get. And you test what you teach. If you teach crap, you test crap. If you test crap, you get crap. Is that fair?