Entry #3 - Sept. 21, 1998

''When one person queried how they could 'make' teachers do this and that, something crystallized for me: where is genuine reform going on that involves classroom teachers as partners in change? Seems like everyone and his brother has a plan for improving the schools -- if it weren't for those dratted teachers!''

Now that we're starting to get into a routine, harsh reality rears its ugly head. Call it: GREAT IDEA MEETS THE TIMETABLE. Bloodcurdling anguish! Suppressed screams of dismay!

The idea of clustering the most academically needy students was to enable them to be withdrawn for more intensive assistance in the core program: our principal suggested it be for "half a day." Well....30 minutes here, 40 minutes somewhere else...there's no escaping the giant maw of the rotary schedule, making it impossible to organize a truly coherent, integrated program for at-risk students.

I shudder to think how much valuable potential instructional time is lost simply to class changes, especially for kids who have trouble settling or focusing in the first place. At a conservative estimate -- say, 5 rotations a day (there are 8 periods, but some would be doubles), times 5 minutes lost each time (a VERY conservative guess!) times 200 instructional days -- that's almost 5 full weeks of school!

It's not politically correct to say, but I think many of these students would be better served in a small, self-contained class for the core subjects. I taught in one in the "old days" and KNOW that they worked well, provided the instruction was demanding and fast-paced, and staff and parents worked together with the student to advance his/her academic standing. It's much harder to get in the intensive time on task needed by these students when they have to be somewhere else every 40 minutes.

Most of my group this year CAN read, to some degree -- average at about a Grade 3 level, which is better than last years' bunch. One student, however, seems to be seriously misplaced. He was suspended the very first day for threatening two students with a knife. Apparently, this young man has more labels than Campbell's Soup, and a veritable alphabet of diagnoses. Not only learning and attention problems, but also violence, criminal behavior and self-mutilation. We are just NOT equipped, at a school with zero resources, to handle a youngster with such severe difficulties.

One wonders, why did the Powers That Be send him here, when another school in the district, not far away, has more resource personnel, a youth crisis unit, and a lot more besides. . . . Why was this boy not assigned to that school? Hmmm, could it be that that school has a politically active parent group, and it was anticipated there would be complaints?

Perhaps, though, Riverside's days as "the dumping ground" of other school's problems may be coming to a close: there was a large turnout at the year's first parent meeting, and a number of volunteers for the new school council. Yee-haw! Involved parents are just what we need! There is a large transient population in the school community, but an equally sizable number who stay for some years, and we need those people to speak up for the kids and their needs and rights.

Meanwhile, we have a case conference coming up for the boy with the many problems: he really needs to be in some kind of treatment program. Why hasn't anyone acted on this before now? On the weekend I went to a meeting of an organization dedicated to education reform. These are very committed, concerned people, of immense good will, sharing ideas and strategies for improving schools. When one person queried how they could "make" teachers do this and that, something crystallized for me: where is genuine reform going on that involves classroom teachers as partners in change? Seems like everyone and his brother has a plan for improving the schools -- if it weren't for those dratted teachers!

This is why top-down reforms, and edict-driven changes, don't produce lasting effects: when ordinary teachers are not part of the process, they do not invest much in its implementation. I'm reminded of the (possibly apocryphal) story of disgruntled auto workers, frustrated on the job, sealing Coke bottles inside the doors on fancy cars, as a form of self-expression-cum-sabotage. Teachers tend to be a more compliant lot, but we are masters of passive resistance. Ignore It And It Will Go Away has worked for more educational fads than I care to remember! Instead, how about asking US how to enhance student achievement?

So, thinking globally, acting locally, I've worked up yet another tilt at the timetable, hoping to minimize the fragmentation for the students, and allow us some longer blocks of time for meaningful reading and writing. The other resource teacher and I may have to swap some students around but we'll find way to improve on the status quo.

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