doodledee

Last Sunday's Strib featured an interesting pair education-themed articles. I say "interesting" because after I read the second one I went "huh, that's interesting" and then more or less read them both out loud to Libby. She more or less pretended to listen, said "huh", and then went back to doing her cryptoquip. Ahh, routine.

Since I normally grab my coffee and dive right into the hypefest that is the OpEx section, the first story I read was an editorial feature titled "How'd I'd Fix My High School". The article was a follow-up piece from a request the OpEx editors issued a few weeks back for high school students to write in with their ideas on how to 'fix' their [broken?] high school. I guess like 130 kids submitted something. Is that a lot?

The 130 were culled to 19 for the story. Of those 19, here's a breakdown of what the kids mentioned as 'fixes'. And yes, I'm dumbing them down to fit them into my little category buckets.

• Deal with disinterested / troublemaker kids [6]
• More funding / better spending [4]
• Smaller classes [3]
• Downplay Sports [2]
• Better security [2]
• Other - diversity, grading changes, teaching values (!), etc

[Note that I separated 'funding' from 'class size', but that some kids mentioned it in the same context.]

While I wasn't surprised by the "no money for chalk" comments, I did find it curious that so many kids mentioned the 'rotten apple' issue. (And, to a lesser extent, the sports stuff; as a former b-squad soccer player, that one stung a little bit.) So while the kids recognize that more money would help, many of them seem to think that what [little] money there is is being wasted on doofs who take up all the teacher's time.

Huh.

After flipping thru the comics and the Target ad, I stumbled onto the other story. This one being an above-the-fold feature in the Metro section titled 'Making a Wish'. In it, a reporter went around and asked teachers what they would spend money on if they were given a blank check to improve their classrooms. Presumably the check would bounce if it was too big, but the maximum was never explicitly stated.

Here's what they said:

• A set of drums for the band
• New HVAC for the school
• Additional teachers
• A belt sander
• Subsidize sports fees
• Video cameras
• Laptops
• Graphing calculators

Ok, I think there are more, but that's enough. The laptops and graphing calculator requests are starting to get me worked up.

So on one side you've got kids saying that troublemakers and huge classes are the problem and on the other you've got teachers asking for belt sanders and video cameras. I'm not saying either side is right or wrong, I'm just saying that it's interesting that NONE of the teachers mentioned hiring additional counselors for the 'troubled' kids, and only one mentioned hiring teachers at all. Maybe they're just hoping that the elephant in the room will be able to hide behind the new drums for a while? Or maybe they're just being defensive?

At this point I'm sure it's somehow painfully unfair how I'm interpreting the teacher's responses. (Seriously, I'm sure it is, but that's the fun of having a blog, I get to say all kinds of crazy shit.) I'm also sure that the problem of 'difficult' students and misdirected spending is so big and complex that when a reporter shows up with a fake check and asks what you'll spend it on it's easy to say "uhh, some video cameras?" instead of going on the record as saying some of your kids are a real bitch to deal with. But I still wish they would have. When people see teachers daydreaming about laptops for every student, it might make them wonder how bad things really are. And in some cases I think it's actually pretty bad.

How I'd Fix My High School [strib]
Making a Wish [strib]