I Can't Do It Alone...

It's the week before FCAT.  Let's take a peek inside a middle school classroom...

The bell rings and some of the class begins their Do Now for the day.  The class is working on connotative and denotative meanings of words.  It's a review.  There was a unit previously taught covering this concept in both reading and language arts.  There are four students who immediately grab their notebooks, and begin working as the last chime of the bell is fading away.  One of them looks extremely frustrated as he is trying to concentrate, but is distracted by the student next to him yelling for a pencil.  Another of these "on task" students is already finished with the Do Now within a minute and is now sitting at his desk with a bored expression on his face.   Furthermore, there are three students who do not have a pencil despite the fact that it's the last period of the day.  Two of them are up walking around the room trying to find a pencil rather than ask the teacher.  The other one doesn't even bother to mention that he needs a pencil, and he just continues to sit at his desk without said pencil, without a notebook, and without a backpack, and he eventually falls asleep.  Meanwhile, as one of the teachers in the room tries to round up some pencils, and take attendance at the same time, the other teacher is trying to settle down a very visibly angry young lady who is screaming "Shut Up" across the room because someone asked her if she was okay.  One young man with permanent marker all up and down his arms is attempting to hide the cane of a visually impaired student as she puts her head down on her desk because she feels defeated.  Now that one of the teachers has finished attendance, she is asking a student with his nose in a Pokemon book...again...to put his book away and begin working.  He whines loudly as he is obsessed with Pokemon, and claims that he has no idea what connotation even means anyways.  Eventually, the teachers manage to get every student somewhat on the same page, and they can begin their review.  It's probably important to mention that all of this has happened within the first five minutes of class.  

This is the struggle that I go through with my sixth grade, co-teach language arts class every single day.  It's my reality.  It's my frustration.  It's my passion.  It's my reason for this blog post today.

Today, I am speaking up.  I am speaking up to change our educational system.  I want my voice to be heard in every school, in every county, in every state.  I'm not naive.  I know that the chances of me actually changing our country's educational system by myself are slim to none. 

But...quoting the brilliant Malala Yousafzai, "One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world."

I have hope.

There are teachers who speak out and "complain" about the system every day.  It's in the newspapers, and it's all over social media.  They protest performance pay, and they advocate for teacher's rights.  Don't get me wrong, I wish we got paid more.  Who doesn't? Guys, it's more than that.  To me, it's not about the teachers.  

What about the students?
Who is speaking up for them?

Right now, our educational framework is failing our students.  I honestly hate to be negative, but it's the truth.  I see it every single day.  I have students in my basic sixth grade classroom who literally can't read.  They can't write a complete sentence, and they can't tell me the difference between a noun and a verb.  Unfortunately, these students are the ones with behavior issues.  They act out in class because they literally have no idea how to do the work that I am giving them.  They can't spell three-letter words, yet we are reading Chapter 1 of Treasure Island to prepare for FCAT.  Can I blame them?  

The one thing I keep asking myself over and over is, "How in the name of Hogwarts have some of these students been passed on grade after grade without basic reading skills?"

I'll tell you how...it's a combination of No Child Left Behind, standardized testing, politics, and placement and services offered for ESE or Non-ESE students.  Our off-track students are LITERALLY FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS right before our eyes.  The system is failing them.  Both literally and figuratively.

Trust me,  I understand how support facilitation and inclusion are SUPPOSED to work.  I understand how differentiation is SUPPOSED to work.  The problem is they aren't being used properly.  Support facilitation and inclusion only work if there is a proper ratio of ESE students to non-ESE students.  They tell us that the higher level students will help bring up the lower level students.  That's all fine and dandy, but it's not reality.  In my ONE co-teach class alone, I have students labeled SLD, Autistic, Visually Impaired, EBD, OHI, and all of them are of varying abilities and levels.  This is combined with 3 or 4 higher level students, and some non-ESE students still sitting with Level 1's on FCAT reading.  It just IS NOT POSSIBLE to differentiate to meet the needs of all those students.  Someone is always left behind.  Someone is always slipping through our fingers.  

This week, as I am completing last minute FCAT reviews with my classes, the detriment to these students is becoming apparent to me more than ever.  I am reading poems and passages with them that were written in the 1800's, and that use language that they've never even heard before.  They shut down immediately because they don't have the stamina needed to get through a tough reading passage.  They shut down because they have no idea what "alliteration" or "antagonist" even mean, much less be able to connect those words to the text.  It's not that they aren't trying.  They just can't do it.

I'm just going to say it...many of my lowest students can't pass the FCAT this year.  It won't happen.  

At this point, they are too behind.  And instead of placing them in a setting where they can somewhat catch up, they are simply passed on year after year.  The distance between their ability levels and the difficulty of the content they are being asked to process is getting greater and greater.  With Common Core, it will only get worse. Unless we do something about it.  I'm not trying to be a pessimist, and you might be thinking, "What kind of a teacher is this, saying the dreaded word CAN'T, and that her students won't succeed." 

I'm the kind of teacher that calls it like it is.  I'm realistic.  I'm not going to keep quiet any longer.  I realize the problem we have in our schools, and I realize the magnitude of it.  It's time for me to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!  I want to be the voice that my students don't have.  They don't know any better.  Something has to change.  I can't look at their faces any longer when we are reviewing FCAT passages and questions and they have very clear realization that they aren't going to pass.  Again.  My kids aren't stupid.  They have just given up.  We, as educators, can't let that happen.  I had a young lady ask me, "Mrs. Ebert, why can't I read stories on my reading level in class?  I can answer questions about Magic Tree House, but I have no idea what happened just now when we read "Eleven" (by Sandra Cisneros)."  How am I supposed to look at that student, and tell them it's because the state standardized test that is the very center of your educational universe says you can't?  It's like a continuous game of catch up, or like a hamster on a wheel.  These poor kids aren't getting anywhere.  They can't analyze the use of personification in a text because they don't know the meaning of personification, and they can't read the lines of text indicated without one on one assistance.  

We need to take a good hard look at the placement of our at risk kids, and the big question that needs to be answered is...

"Is it the needs that drive placement, or the label?"

I can't tell you how many times I've had a student in my classroom that simply does not belong there, whether it be in regards to academics or behavior.  Their needs aren't being met, and the needs of the kids around them aren't being met if they have behavior issues.  We're always told that unless they have a certain label, our classrooms are the only place they can be.  This is just ridiculous.  Deferring to labels is completely political, and we are ignoring the true needs of the student.  Maybe a teacher in the past didn't bring them up to be labeled with a disability, or maybe the paperwork takes a million years to process.  Meanwhile, they are not being successful in a basic education setting, and again...falling through the cracks.  How can you have a student who's been in a self-contained environment with no more than 8 students in their classroom, and 2 teachers, for all of their school life, and then the second they get to middle school...BAM.  They are now in a class of 25 students with 1 teacher, and are expected to be successful because "there isn't anywhere else for them to go." Tell me how that makes sense?  

For so long, politics have run our educational systems.  What's the root of why so many students aren't passing standardized tests?...politics.  What's the root of the process for placing students in the proper classroom setting?...politics.  What's the root of passing kids on grade after grade even though they don't have the skills necessary to thrive?...politics.  

As the adults in the classroom with these kids every single day, we need to let our voices be heard!  As the ones who struggle through every sentence of a reading passage, every math problem, every behavior outburst, every tear, every laugh, every success, every failure, with our kids...we need to speak up! Speak up for every child that you have seen pass through your door with grimaces of defeat on their little faces, and words of "It's just too hard" ringing in your ears.  

We are teachers! We have the power to make a difference in the way our schools are run.  We have the power to create changes, and to move our students towards TRULY becoming global, passionate, proud, twenty-first century learners.  Let the teachers create the tests, let the teachers decide the placement of students that they work with every day, let the teachers decide if a student is ready to move on to the next grade.  

Let the teachers teach.

I don't care about how much money I get paid.  I'm not in this profession to be rich.  The problem isn't about tying my pay to my students test scores.  I'm actually okay with that.  The problem is the test itself.  I care about my kids. PERIOD.  Things have got to change.  I want to walk into my co-teach class every day and know that there is true learning being done.  FOR ALL STUDENTS in the room.  

I might have the kids that don't bring a pencil to school, the kids who fall asleep every day, the kids who refuse to do work, or the kids who scream "shut up" across the classroom.  They might make me want to pull my hair out somedays or make have to vent for hours to my husband after work a time or two...or three.  

But they are my kids.  I love them.  I will stand up for their right to a fair education.  I will not give up on them.  I will fight if I feel they are not having their needs met.  I will be the voice that they don't know how to be.

But Guys...I. Can't. Do. It. Alone.