🚀 go-pugleaf

        As the author of the short missive that some have dubbed "Weeds and
Roses",
I have been gratified by the number of people who have responded by writing
to me
me at my private e-mail address.  Some lauded my sentiments, others wrote with
derision.  In all cases I am grateful to all who have written and I  am
attempting to
respond to each.

        Professor Showers, however, in an interesting display of hubris, has
chosen
the public pillory as a forum for his pontifications.  Here is a man who has
a great
deal of free time, judging by his prolific e-mail productivity.  But then, I
taught on the
University level for nearly twice as long as he and I remember the time as
one in
which I, too, had a great deal of time to pursue other interests.  Now that
I teach on
the high school level and compare work loads, I tend more and more to regard
University teaching as highly paid welfare.  I asked myself when I had last
read such
pompous, self-congratulatory writing as his and recalled that it came from
teachers
of education, such as he, who taught the education courses that lead to my
teaching
credential.  We high school teachers cannot hope to match your output,
Professor,
for we must work for a living.  I am also reminded of the Christian and Zen
tenet:
"He who says 'I see' is truly blind".

        We in California know you and your ilk well, Professor Showers.  You
see,
as student test scores have plummeted over the past three decades, the state
legislature has responded with a flurry of legislation.  Unable to legislate
student
achievement they have, instead, focused on teachers as the source of the
problem.
The solution, it was decided, is to make it ever more difficult to become a
creden-
tialed teacher.  So it is that we must now take 58 quarter hours, taken as
graduate
students, to receive a teaching credential, compared to only 45 quarter hours to
receive a master's degree in physics.  Because we cannot major in education
in this
state, those 58 units must be taken after receiving academic degrees.  What
intelli-
gent person, no matter how dedicated, would make that decision?  The instigators
of this process, and the only ones who benefit from it, are teachers of
education
courses.

        Even though I hold graduate degrees and have substantial college
teaching
experience, I am not considered 'fit' to teach high school without spending
consider-
able time in education classes taught by professors with little or no
teaching experience
in a modern urban classroom.  By people like you, Professor, who, by your own
admission FLED high school teaching for the security, comfort, and lack of
account-
ability of the college environment.  Of the hundredsof high school teachers
I have
known, I have never met a teacher who was not contemptuous of the content of
those
classes.  Yes, there is no data to support this assertion and it is
anecodotal.  Nonethe-
less, it is true.

        Given the resume that you have provided, what can you know of
teaching in
today's urban classroom?  Each day we enter school grounds through gates in
security
fences guarded by security personnel armed with metal detectors.  We struggle to
maintain our classrooms as havens from the violence and intimidation that
pervades
our campuses.  Those who teach courses in educational theory never experience
this, of course.  Youir time is spent in comfortable offices discussing
educational
philosophy with colleagues and students.  The high school environment is far
removed
from your experience, Professor, but you can watch the process on television
or in
films.

        You teach methods classes, Professor.  That is, you pretend to
prepare students
for the world of high school teaching.  Do you teach the methods that I
learned in my
education classes, Professor?  Methods of classroom discipline such as
"assertive
discipline" in which classroom discipline is to be maintained by writing the
names
of offending students on the board, followed by check marks if the offensive
behavior
continues?  My, how that strikes fear in the hearts of today's urban
warriors who
inhabit our classrooms!  Do you teach students what to do when they receive the
first threat against their lives?  Do you prepare them for the first knife
drawn in the
classroom?  Do you teach them how to respond the first time a student says
"I hate
you fucking teachers"?  If not, then you do not prepare them for today's urban
classroom.

        You call me an educational elitist, Professor, yet I work daily with
students
who span the spectrum of academic ability.  You sit comfortably in your office
discussing teaching philosophy with smiling, nodding acolytes who represent the
brightest and best.  Worse, you left high school teaching for the opportunity to
preach sanctimoniously to others from your secure august tower.  Now, WHO is
the elitist, Professor?  I am not surprised that you feel successful in what
you do.
I well remember from my University teaching days that students were very careful
to curry favor from the professor who had unfettered power over their grades.

        "The choice of words, Sir is disgusting."  This is your response to
the metaphor
that some students are weeds.  How pompous you are!  Because you delight in
quoting dictionary definitions, I assume that you have little understanding
of metaphor.
Let me quote from my own, the Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary.

        weed (n)  A plant that tends to overgrow or choke out more desirable
plants.

        Each year between thirty and forty per cent of our incoming high
school fresh-
man class did not graduate from grammar school.  They are placed into high
school
by "social promotion",  legislation that is designed to prevent older
students from
remaining in elementary school where they could be a threat to younger
students. These
students are operating at a third to fifth-grade level, most have IQ's
greater than one
standard deviation below the median.  Educational convention requires that we
"mainstream " these students into regular high school classes.  Regardless
of ability, the philosophy of our district (you like concrete things,
Professor, this is in writing) is that
ALL students will be prepared for college.  The result is that we have a
substantial
population of students whose sole purpose in school is to disrupt the
educational
process for those who otherwise would like to learn.  Our capable students,
through
fear, violence and intimidation are prevented from learning by students who
actively
and purposefully prevent education from occuring.  That is, they choke the
life out
of the educational process.  Isn't that the definition of a "weed", Professor?

        Your suggestion that I regard these students as having lesser value
is absurd
and offensive to me.  The pretense of training all students for college
means that
most of these students leave high school, one way or another, with no hope
of entering
college and no skills which will allow them to earn a living.  We owe them
more than
that.  Why do we continue to adhere to a process based on wishful thinking and
fantasy, rather than on what is true?  Aren't we, after all, scientists?  We
OWE all
students the ability to earn a living, but social goals prevent us from
giving it to them.

        Regarding my claim that "students mostly think we live inside the
earth".  As a
teacher of teachers, professor,  you must be familiar with the work of
Piaget, who
taught us about the limitations of those who cannot abstract.  Yet, you
doubt that most
of our students see the world much differently than you and I?  You like
studies,
Professor, so here's one:  one recent study has found that more than fifty
per cent of
today's college freshmen are unable to abstract.  The ability to abstract,
as you must
know, has NOTHING to do with finding the Pacific Ocean on a map, but with
drawing mental pictures of something not concrete.  When we use the terms
"atoms"
or "molecules", they do not draw the same mental pictures as you and I.  When we
show students a model of the earth and sun or use a world globe, they do not
make
the connection between the model and the object that they are standing on.  You
will not learn this, Professor, by testing their ability to locate the
Pacific Ocean on a
map, nor by any testing or probing questions.  Rather, you must  listen
carefully and
question cautiously.  Unless teachers of science recognize the importance of
the
ability to abstract, they are only teaching meaningless vocabulary.

        You suggest that my thinking might be corrected by watching the film
"Stand
and Deliver".  As I recall, the protagonist of the story left a secure and
lucrative
job in industry to teach at Garfield High School, a mere stone's throw from
my own
classroom.  I have followed that path, Professor.  You, however, have gone
in the
opposite direction.  Which of us has followed the path of Jaime Escalante?  You?
Or I?

        I recall having teachers of education like you, Sir, whose grades
were based
almost solely on making the teacher feel warm and fuzzy.  In fact, I had one
teacher
of education who informed us at the beginning of the course that the entire
course
grade was to be based on meeting with him privately in his office at the end
of the
semester, and "convince me that you should receive the grade that you want".
He,
too, considered himself a fine teacher.  How nice for you, though, that you
have so
little grading to do.

        Finally, let me say that the diatribe above.. yes, I mean that
literally .. has
nothing to do with my feelings about teaching.  I LOVE teaching.  I love my
students,
I love the work I do, I love all of my successes, large and small.  I cannot
imagine
doing anything else.  What I rail against is a system that seems to work
very hard to
prevent us from doing the job we are struggling to do.  We often feel that
the hardest
part of our job is doing the job we must, despite the obstacles placed in
our paths
by educators and politicians and charlatans and purveyors of snake oil.  If
you believe
in that which you espouse, Professor, then come, join us in the urban
classroom.  Put
your theories to use.  All I ask is two years spent with us.  Then go back
to college
teaching.  Perhaps, like I, you will no longer be so sure that you have all
of the
answers.

        I apologize to my colleagues on the net for using the net as a
forum.  This should
not be the place for discourse such as this, but for the free exchange of
information
and ideas regarding teaching methods.  I promise that I will not repeat this
offense.
If anyone wishes to respond, please do so privately, because working high school
teachers have better things to do than to read commentary such as this.


Wes Davis

                                                     Wes Davis