You wrote,
>The school itself
>resembles a prison (I live down the street from it) and, as a teacher, I
>felt somewhat like a prison guard rather than a teacher. The
>instructional capabilities (to engage in any meaningful dialogue or
>interactions) with students was greatly reduced/limited by not only the
>design of the school/rooms but by the idiotic class schedule (students
>would actually walk thru my classroom to get to the other artroom at the
>midpoint of every class!). More importantly, however, what the fact that
>my room was located across the hall from the office and as a result the
>administrators were always "dropping by". Why? Because of the level of
>"noise". As an art teacher, whenever I see a quiet artroom it makes me
>very, very nervous. (As an aside---I never met nor spoke with any other
>teacher while I was a teacher in that school)
Unfortunately I agree with you. Currently I'm visiting local elementary
schools where my students are placed for practicum and I become very
depressed. Let me provide rather typical example. I was in a second grade
classroom. A Black boy came to me and asked how to spell the word "brain."
I had remembered seeing a big poster on the classroom wall with the diagram
of the brain. There was a big title with the word "brain" on the poster.
So I pointed out at this poster. A boy next to us, immediately when to the
teacher reporting about our double cheating (i.e., the first boy asked my
for help, I showed how to find the help on his own). The teacher punished
the first boy for cheating on the spelling test and for "deceiving the
visitor" (i.e., me). In a moment a special ed teacher came to work with
this boy. She told me that the boy can't read or write (they work on
letters recognition). My students were asked by a teacher to record how
many times this boy violate the appropriate sitting behavior necessary for
the school to request learning disability support and students' part of
special ed class. When I asked the teacher why this boy who can't read or
write was asked to do spelling test that is clearly beyond his master, she
replied that it was a state requirement.
Another teacher, whose teaching was much more sensitive and creative, told
me that she constantly felt being on the gun. She said she forced to think
more how to survive than how to teach. Basically, she compromise between
being killed by the school and state versus by the kids. Or, in other
words, between her own survival and survival of the students.
I wonder if a surgeon explained his or her actions during the surgery saying
she or he did what s/he did because it has been required by the hospital or
by the state or by insurance company (unfortunately, it becomes more and
more our reality). Who would care about what patient or student require?
So are we (i.e., ed instructors) trainers of prison guards?
Eugene
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Eugene Matusov
Willard Hall#206G
Department of Educational Studies
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716, USA
phone: (302) 831-1266
fax: (302) 831-4445
email: ematusov who-is-at UDel.edu
web: http://www.ematusov.com
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