Friday, February 04, 2011

Snowy morning was really beautiful, especially first thing before there were tracks. Liam ran to the back door and surveyed the scene, excited. "K.K.'s house is covered with snow."Then he and his Daddy went out onto the deck and built snowmen, one medium sized and one tiney, a Daddy and Liam pair. Bob has been tutoring for Sylvan, science in a middle school with a bad reputation and is encountering the same kind of awful behavior he found in the classroom. There were six pencils enbedded in the ceiling by the time the session was over yesterday. And it wasn't just Bob.Other experienced teachers on the team reported similar behavior, as well as refusal to work at all and a huge emphasis, especially for hte boys, on being perceived as "cool" in an anti-teacher way. This is so sad and scary to me. I just don't get it, that so many kids have such a sense of entitlement and egocentrism or that excited loving teaches can't break through it. And what about the inherent excitement from learning? It seems so part of humans at birth, enormous in
Liam? Even articles I read about high achievers seem to emphasise test scores and ambition above the magical joy of putting pieces of the pattern together in a new way. that is one of the greatest sources of delight in my life and I have trouble relating tho the idea of it being missing in many, especially children.

2 comments:

Joe Hendricks said...

It is scary to see anti-education/teacher trends in your observations & Bob's experience among students. I can't help but recall the wonderful old movie, "To Sir With Love" with Sidney Poitier.

Mary said...

Behavior like this is just so discouraging! So many young people with no ambition and negativity.