What We Teach Too Often

My parents visited this last weekend and I heard my mom say "shit" more times in one minute than in my entire life. She was reading an excerpt from the book Muchacho by Louanne Johnson about one kid's experience with school. He points out something that too often is true: We teach crap to tests rather than real things that actually matter. I liked the excerpt so much and it aligned with my view of some of the major problems with our education system, that I'm sharing the passage with you all. Enjoy.

That’s the kind of stuff they should be teaching us in school. It’s okay to learn algebra and biology and grammar and all that stuff, but you could always learn that stuff from a book all by yourself. They should teach us the stuff we really need to learn--like how to make somebody really love you and how to turn of that little voice in your head that tells you what a loser you are and how to teacher your dog to pee where it’s supposed to, and how to get over being sad when your little cousin dies, and how to talk to your father without both of you getting so mad. But they probably couldn’t each us stuff like that in school even if they wanted to, because if they teach something in school they have to give you a test to make sure how much you learned.

They need to stop giving so many tests in school because they’re making everybody hate school, even the kids who used to like it. If they have to give so many tests, at least the could give the kind where you have to make up your own answer and not just guess which one is right. Primo says a monkey could pass a multiple choice test fifty percent of the time and he’s probably right because one time T. J. Ritchie got everybody in our math class to put down all C’s or else all B’s for the test and then take a little nap for the rest of the test period. T. J. got busted for being the mastermind of the whole thing but they didn’t expel him because the kids who put all C’s passed the test, including me. In fact, that was one of the best math grades ever which was probably pretty embarrassing for the math teacher who made up that test.

“They got the whole thing backasswards,” T. J. said when we were sitting outside the principal’s office waiting for his mother. “They keep giving all these test because half the kids in New Mexico flunk out of school because they can’t read or do fractions,” T. J. said. “But they keep teaching the same stupid shit. That’s why they keep getting the same stupid test scores.” He grabbed my notebook and drew a picture of a dog. He drew a giant pile of steamy crap behind the dog’s tail and a big bowl in front its head that was filled with schoolbooks. T. J. draws real good, almost as good as Primo who could probably have been a professional artist but he flunked out of art class because the teacher said he had to draw pictures of a chair and a vase and a bowl of oranges instead of lowriders and couples dancing the tango and sexy girls with tattoos on their nalgas.

“You keep feeding the dog the same crap,” T. J. said, “you get the same shit. You can test that shit and test that shit and test that shit and it’s still going to stink because mierda is mierda.”

NPD 3.19.09

*The Treasury Department is giving $5 billion to auto parts dealers who are struggling due to the problems of the Big Three automakers. This is a piece of the argument in favor of auto bailout coming to fruition.

*This is whacky: A school in Dallas was settling disputes in "the cage" by pitting feuding students against each other in a bare-knuckle fight inside of an equipment cage. As Jon Stewart said, "This can't be right."

*As the dollar weakens the price of oil goes up, today rising 7%. Is this a harbinger of what is to come this summer?

*The NCAA basketball tournament started today and my bracket didn't fare so well. With only one big upset--Western Kentucky over Illinois--those of us that predicted a wild ride were on the outside looking in.

Back!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I never would have thought just how hard it is to blog when I have tons of free time. Weird. Anyhow, now that school is back in session* we'll be back to regularly scheduled blogging. Rather than try to recap what's happened the last two weeks, I'm going to move from this point forward as though nothing has happened in the world. Kapeesh?

*Today, after being in the La Grande School System for twelve and half years, was the first snow day ever. We're getting dumped on.

Schooooooooool

My journey toward becoming a teacher took its first baby steps this morning. After a meet and greet with lots of delicious foods, we started classes toward obtaining a Masters in Teacher Education.

You'd think I'd have some commentary about how weird it is to be back in class, go through orientation, yadda yadda, but to be honest it feels pretty normal and good. I guess that's a good thing though. So the ship has set sail, let's hope the winds keep blowing strong.