Not so rational choice

I ran across this on Slate when I was over visiting Tantulus Prime and left this comment.

As this is something close to my heart, I decided to put it here, too. So here it is.

I can't begin to tell you how much this scares me.

Hope is indeed a powerful drug, especially when it blinds one to reality or to the possibility of something better.

As a parent I can undestand the absolute agony of trying to love and care for an autistic child; the absolute agony of having to admit that you may have done/passed on something that damaged your child. But blinding yourself willingly or unwillingly to reality is just another instance of doing harm.

As a teacher I've seen a steady increase in the number of autistic students over the last few years. Every predictor of future student population dynamics suggests that will continue at an increasing rate.

Of course parents want answers.

It's particularly difficult for parents as their students enter high school, facing the knowledge that they are coming to the end of what public education can provide and worrying about transitioning their child to the next phase of life.

There is a lot of information to be considered; a lot of factors beyond one's control, and a host of intangibles.

I see a lot of parents trying to cope with the reality of their child's disconnect from social norms, but willful blindness or ignorance does not serve the best interests of the child.

In spite of propoganda to the contrary, very rarely are any decisions made with any clear sense of the best interests of the child.

Approaching the Fourth

As far as holidays go, the Fourth is pretty easy to prepare for. No turkey or presents or baskets to get or make. It doesn't even require any special decorating. My kinda holiday.

We've got our big box o' fireworks for blowing up, some charcoal, some burgers, and some other stuff. So I figure we're good to go.

But as I sit here, I realize that I have yet to have a day off from work, which is unusual as I am a teacher and school got out about a month ago. And everyone knows that teachers get all summer, every summer off. That's why we became teachers, right?

But here I sit, again, re-doing my slightly less than one thousand slide PowerPoint slideshow for the notes I will be giving my class during the upcoming year.

Why? Because this way anyone (not that many do) missing a class can go on-line and find out exactly what it was that we covered the day they were gone, get the notes they need to bring themselves up to date. So that my non-readers (the students I get every year that have a second grade reading level) can see the notes up on the big screen and write them as I read them and discuss them with the class. You know that whole combining auditory and visual learning styles stuff and such.

Because this way I can pull all the information that I need to cover to address content and testing standards and state mandates while streamlining the process so that I can cover an impossible amout of material in an improbable amout of time. Because this way I don't have to worry about giving out books that won't be used and won't be returned, because we don't have enough books for all the kids that take the class anyway.

And I wonder why I work harder than my students to make sure that only an 'acceptable' number fail. The only way you can fail my class is to make a decsion to do so. Even students that fail my class say that. You have to decide to fail. Decide to come to class everyday and do nothing. Or don't come to class and do nothing. I have about an equal number of students in each camp, a fairly recent phenomonon. More and more students enter my class and their high school careers ready, willing, and able to do nothing.

And I have no idea how to address that. No idea how to leverage the students who will do nothing and have no problem accepting failure as their option of choice. This bothers me no end as I do an incredible amout to present options for success. But you do have to do more than just show up. That's a huge part of life, I admit, but it isn't enough to successfully push you over the finish line.

So I sit here redoing the slideshow, rethinking the logistics of switching from block to trimester scheduling, rethinking approaches strategies and updating resources and materials, knowing that my incoming freshmen in the fall won't know who Lewis Libby is or why he isn't going to jail or why that's important, who think that Bill Clinton got into trouble for getting a blow job from Monica Lewinski.

Who won't know about genoicde in the Darfur, or the Death Map of Baghad, or Iraqui refugees in Jordan; but who will know about Paris Hilton, who will know about Chris Benoit because they and their parents are wresting fans, who know about steroids because they know football players and wrestlers and coaches who use them. And yes, that's important and yes, that is a tragedy.

But it is also a tragedy that we are producing a generation so willing to settle for nothing, so willing to say that it is all right for only a small, privileged few to succeed while the rest don't.

And it is beyond tragic that so many are so willing to blame me for that failure when so much of that is beyond my control. Teachers in the past had support networks working with them not against them in their students' families and society in general. Valuing education is more than half the battle here.

Abrogating responsbility and accountability, refusing to entertain alternative methods of presenting options to students, helping to secure the tools and resources and viable options needed to at least make success an option for them, even after years of being shown and not just told what those options and resources and settings are, is beyond negligent.

Or maybe I'm just cranky.