We don't need low performers and non performers

There is a school of thought in the education system that makes statements that seem incredibly reasonable on the surface but are a simply a new version of discrimination. Jokes are made all the time about gay being the new black but, those commentators are missing the boat. Poor and broken is the new black. While race and gender never cease to be an areas of discrimination, both have been surpassed by the discrimination engendered by the normal result of living in poverty in a situation which does not offer security or offers limited security.

Children raised in homes in which they are unwanted, or in which the resources do not exist to make it possible for them to receive the attention necessary to make them feel wanted, might have priorities that do not include progressing in their education. Their needs are substantially more short-term than that. Will there be dinner? Will there be a place to sleep that is warm, clean, safe? Will entering my owm home result in emotional pain that is too much to bear? These children aren't able to focus on the personal reward that can be found in achieving an "A". They aren't capable of even the most basic long-term decisions. They look at an hour from now, six hours from now, tomorrow morning, this weekend.

Whether their situation is the result of poverty in a loving environment, or a single parent who is absent in an attempt to keep them financially solvent, or a family that doesn't want them whether the family is financially capable or not, or a million other scenarios, these kids can't count on anything and can't see past making it through today or even smaller increments of time. Yet, I speak to people who have all the right paper to be educators and they tell me that these kids aren't motivated. They tell me that these kids don't deserve a public education until they can "put their priorities in order".

I remember learning about the difference between "need" and "want" at some point in my education. What I believe is that these kids need to focus on the things that are going to keep them alive and sane. They have put the "want" for graduating high school on a back burner and they address it as it becomes feasible during the war for the "needs" of simple survival.

I am at a loss trying to explain how these people can consider themselves educators. Public education came into being to create the right for children who couldn't afford to be educated to have that right. Compulsory education was an attempt to get "bad" kids off the street. It never had anything to do with the best interest of the children. Today, we use compulsory education as a tool to engineer society and make families fit the picture that we have of the good family. I can almost understand why some people would think that getting a child into school will make them able to protect the well-being of the child. However, school isn't in existence to make it possible for outsiders to have a voyeur's look at the family. It exists to educate.

How can we educate a person who is focused on their personal pain and their survival? We have to reach them first. Have to help to meet their more basic needs. We have to acknowledge and address the reality of their lives. Then we have to find a way to make an education fit into that situation. Schools are not meant to be the social engineers of the society for school age children. Schools are not equipped to address the needs of these families. We are equipped to listen, to understand, to communicate authentically, and to attempt to motivate and engage these students in an effort to help them to help themselves with the one thing schools are qualified to provide - an education. Failure to reach these students can be extremely costly. Failure will affect the student, their current and potential future families, and society.

These self-proclaimed educators who espouse responsibility as the key to making these students fit the cookie-cutter mold which they think, in their certification-driven eupohoria actually exists, claim no responsibility for learning who their students are or what their lives are. They expect them to look at the golden "A" as the finish lines to all their hopes and dreams. They expect them to focus on standards and anchors, PSSA scores, SAT scores as the culmination of all that they will need to get into college and lead the good life. The good life, of course, being defined as the life of a professional with certifications and the lifestyle contained therein. I fear that these professionals will never understand the definition of the good life for these kids. For these kids, the good life is a life in which meals, clean clothes and utilities are predictable, in which violence is not a regular occurrence, in which adults are people on whom they can rely for love and direction, in which sex is a consensual act which occurs with pleasure and intimacy, in which there is some modicum of justice, in which someone truly loves them.

I watched two movies today. Video watching is what occurs when I am given a day off. I watched a movie called the The Education of Charlie Banks and another called Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer. Each recounted stories of a child's early life that mirrors stories that I hear every day from the students in school. The possibility that these students can turn away from the tragedies that have befallen them to date and try to make a long term change rests with the adults who are dealing with them now. We can not change the lives that they lead. We can not reach them by threatening to throw them out. They have already been disenfranchised on so many levels that they can't begin to describe the emotional devastation that they've suffered. They expect to be abandoned. They expect that we will find them to be insufficient and lose interest. There is no punishment left in exclusion. It is all that they expect.

Let's shock them. Let's not exclude them. Let's not find them lacking or unmotivated. Let's try to find something....anything....that interests them. Then let's use it to excite them about learning. After they want to learn anything, let's then begin to talk to them about putting aside immediate gratification and looking forward. Let's build small, realistic goals that will help them to find success. Maybe, once they have tasted success and acceptance, they will learn to love the taste of it. Maybe they can. Maybe they can't. Its possible that their needs are so immediate that we will lose the battle. But, please, let's take responsibility ourselves. Each lost child is our responsibility.

Let's be willing to alter our expectations and give them time to learn. Just because their situation does not permit them to be ready now does not mean that we haven't reached them. Each of them is worth every ounce of energy that we can offer them. Honestly, they are worth more than all the energy we have left. Don't lose them. Don't leave them to wander through an inexplicably harsh world wondering why no one loves them. Let them know that we care. Let them know that they aren't numbers on a ledger.

I received an email from a woman recently trying to explain why it is unwise to attempt to get truant children to re-enroll. In her brief explanation she included that teachers shouldn't need to deal with so many low performing and non-performing children. Are you kidding me? Teachers not only need to deal with students who aren't performing, they need to figure out why and try to show these students that they care and try to make the students excited about learning and successful. Administrators need to take responsibilities for our "throw-away" kids. Stop being so comfortable with removing non-attending 17 year olds from the rolls. Your willingness to view them as numbers is something with which they have become accustomed. Try viewing them as individuals with their own situations and really shock them. It would be refreshing to have the adults take responsibility as we have demanded that the students do. It would be refreshing to have educators stop talking about which method of teaching works best and start to authentically try to reach all the students....even the ones who don't fit your model and present a challenge.