Oh yeah, did anybody see Cold Case last night? It was a portrait of Kozol's book. Two kids, one rich, white, one poor, black. Ironically they each were shot at the same time on their school grounds for related reasons. I looked at the story from such a different perspective because I knew the truth about the haves and the have nots. There was a teacher at the have not school who was the epitome of teachers who need to be tried for child abuse. When a high school student could not read, she ridiculed him in front of the class. I would be appalled if I ever heard a teacher treat a child that way, but I know it must happen. How sad.

I did not see it, but I agree that no one should be in education who dares to ridicule any student.

It does happen and when it does we should make every attempt to put an end to it. Again, we should want the same for our students as we do our own children. Do your best to see that they get it!

Billy,
Remember what Suzanne told us in class? It is our job to make sure that we leave our schools in better condition when we leave than when we entered. We are morally obligated to make sure that the "chaff" is removed. We should ask the question - Would we want our children subjected to that teacher?

Unfortunately there are teachers out there who are in education for the wrong reasons. It is our job to make sure that this does not continue to happen. I don't know which is harder: getting rid of teachers like this or trying to change their teaching style/attitude. This is a tough situation for administrators to deal with, but we can't run away. From our role plays in Dr. O'Neal's class, we saw that we have to deal with these cases professionally. Students come first.

Jackie,

We did get the chance to see Cold Case last night and we were both shaking our heads in disbelief that that teacher was saying those degrading words. What a shame, but I am sure that it happens more than we know.

Chris,
I saw it in action today. A vocational teacher came to complain because she had 4 occupational students in her class and wanted me to take at least two out. The director of vocational told me the rule was only 25% of the students could be occupational. I asked her whose rule. She said, well rule of thumb. I asked her whose thumb. She justified her actions by saying she was just doing her job. I moved one student because I know he would not have a chance to pass her class and he is a senior. She hasn't tried to work with him. She just wanted to teach what she thought were the "good kids." I was literally sick after that meeting.

Jackie, I would not dare try to justify that teacher's actions, but I think the teacher's response is a symptom of a deeper problem. The inclusion movement and legislation that supports it has said that these students should be in the regular class room, which most would agree is a good thing most of the time. The problem is that this is often done and the teachers in that class room have not been provided with specific training to meet the needs of these students. Yes, they may have had some kind of workshop or class that focuses in general on meeting the needs of special needs students, but I think the system needs to provide these teachers with even more training. In this state, you have to be certified to teach AP students, which even when you have the worst teacher in America, these students will learn something. In North Carolina you do NOT have to have any special certification to teach an inclusion class or any special education students. IN addition to the training needs, these teachers may also need a teaching assistant as well, which we all know is not done. There is a problem here.

Jackie and John,
You have both hit on a problem that is prevalent throughout the High Schools and Middle Schools. Because of funding cuts there are not as many choices for electives or exploratory classes. Due to that fact, the special needs populations who also need these classes are placed in classes that have strict guidelines. We have recently been through an OCR audit and in fact were "written up" for having too many special needs students in our Vocational classes. If you want a good read there is a 141 page document concerning the SCOS for CTE classes at http://www.ncpublicschools.org
Here is a portion of it.

As a former Math/Science and believe it or not Vocational Teacher at both the high school and middle school level, I have found that the guidelines for Vocational Teachers are much more stringent. Yes, there are rules of thumb, but that teacher/director should have been able to show you or at least explain the problem a little more professionally. The worse problem we encountered in these "Encore" classes is that the TAs that were with these students in their academic classes did not come with them to encore classes because they were spread too thin. These vocational classes are required to participate in VoCATS, but until they are also part of NCLB I guess it is ok to turn a blind eye. Sarcasm!!