White-water Rafting

Teachers face many problems in the classroom—little ones, big ones, and some that will never have a perfect solution. Since I am not a teacher or trainer (yet), I had to seek help from teachers at work and my daughters who teach. “Little” problems included being required to teach to a test that is not an accurate measure of knowledge or ability and lack of parental support. Bigger ones included how to meet the needs of both gifted and below-average students while conforming to state standards and how to deal with cheating (both online and in class) on tests (student using phone to record answers for friend that hadn’t taken test yet). And then there are those problems that might go unsolved and follow us to the grave.

The first deals with discipline, but in a little broader sense than a student being disruptive in class. Yes, you can kick that student out of class, but what if that student (unbeknownst to the professor) is one of the students on campus that has violent tendencies? There are departments on campus that know who these students are, but that information is not usually shared with the academic departments. Does the professor risk disciplining an unruly student and cross fingers he won’t come back and retaliate? There have been instances in the building connected to mine when students got in a fight in the bathroom or hallway- and one had a weapon. Fortunately we haven’t had a shooting or stabbing—yet. Is it worth the risk kicking that student out? Because we normally don’t get word of who could potentially be a problem, I was rather amazed (and disturbed) when my boss forwarded me an e-mail yesterday which contained the names and pictures of several students who are registered sex offenders. I don’t think I would be very comfortable teaching that student (if I were a teacher), but I couldn’t kick him out. I guess that’s another problem in itself.

The second “unsolvable” problem deals with truancy/absenteeism. My youngest daughter teaches in high school. She had this to say, “I work in a title 1 school (40% or more of students come from low-income families) and we have quite a few students who work full time jobs after school to support their families. Even though they don’t want to do badly in a class or miss school, they have that responsibility to their family and things at school suffer (GPA, truancy, credits)”. She couldn’t think of any students in her class offhand, but she sent me an article about a student in Houston. A junior missed 18 days of school over the year because she worked two jobs to help support her two siblings—and was still an honor student. But because of the missed classes, she was put in jail. The link to this article is: http://houston.culturemap.com/newsdetail/05-31-12-jailed-honor-student-gets-her-name-cleared-and-100000-judge-sets-aside-conviction-in-face-of-outrage/ .

The problem exists in college also. I was talking about this article to two teachers in my building. They teach traditional classes and skill center classes. Skill center classes are self-paced, but students must attend so many hours a week (they have to clock in and out like at a job) to keep their funding (financial aid). They can make all A’s, but if they don’t attend the required hours, they lose their funding to continue. In both these cases (high school and college), I see the need for attendance. But if a student must be absent beyond what is allowable but still makes good grades, couldn’t some consideration be made on a case by case basis? And I emphasize “must”; I’m not talking about the student who is just too lazy to come to class. I would rather have a student in my class who does excellent work, but due to circumstances beyond her control, misses class a little too often, than a student who just fills a seat in class and submits the bare minimum (if even that) of work. If I ever get the opportunity to teach, I think this problem would definitely haunt me!