Whose Fault is it?

I currently have a position at Frederick Douglass High School; yes the school from the HBO Special. This is my first year at the school and it is disturbing to see the dynamics of our youth. Everyday staff is battling with students who run the hallways, call teachers a b**** or say f*** you as a response to a directive. This has been a failing school despite the many changes that have occurred. Students enter high school reading on 1st -5th grade levels. My question is what is going on at home and in middle school? Many parents of these children are incarcerated or deceased or have just abandoned them. Whose responsibility is it?

My heart grieves because I mentor and do what I can while they are with me during the day but they have to go home, right back into a community with gang violence, drugs and abandoned homes and trash everywhere. Grandparents and foster parents are the care givers for many of these children. These kids are angry at the world. They have no care for you as an adult or authority figure and it is disturbing to me. The parents who are present and active don’t know what to do with their child themselves. They look to the school as a resource when they cannot handle the child at home.

How do we get our children, schools and communities back? Grant it it’s not all one person or one system’s fault. There are many contributing factors but I’m ready to be radical for radical change. Michael Baisden is bringing the Mentor Campaign to Baltimore where it is greatly needed. I’m tired of hearing just save one and that’s all that counts, but what about the others? One is not enough. Parents who are active do not know how to truly advocate for their children. Often time’s parents themselves attended the same school and still harbor that experience from their childhood so they now come to the school on defensive mode and not being supportive.

What is education? Education is the teaching of skills and acquiring knowledge. How do we fix a generation of children whose basic knowledge and skills are not present? We cannot expect students to do well in society when the standard for passing is 60%. What message are we sending our students? Companies do not accept 60% job performance so why do we accept that from our students. With a 60% pass rate students aim for the bare minimum and many miss. If teachers are expected to have high expectations for all students then as a system we need to demand the same with grading.

Students arrive at high school and are not performing on a 6th grade level, let alone a 9th grade level. These students are in constantly in trouble, walking the hallways, have attendance issues, are disrespectful in class and not performing. There is a difference between I can’t and I won’t. I can’t means that I cannot perform the task at hand because I lack the skills and acquired knowledge to do so. I won’t mean that I do not care about your lesson, I do not like you as a teacher and despite my potential to get this work done I won’t do it. The I won’t student does not understand that their defiance does not hurt the teacher but in fact validates what people say and expect of them already. The I can’t child is saying, I want to but I haven’t learned how to control my anger, I can’t read, I can’t comprehend and I am lacking the skills to write.

Many educators get frustrated because of the mandates placed on them but they do not have the proper resources in place to make things happen. It becomes easy for a teacher to pass a student who is well behaved but doesn’t perform. Why, because that student is not disrupting the classroom. Teachers get so caught up in what students cannot do they don’t focus on what they can do. How do we fix this problem? Low performing schools need highly structured classrooms with intense intervention for reading, writing and math. Students do not care about state test because they do not see the value in it.

Where parents go wrong is they value an iPod or cell phone being taken more than the fact that their child cannot read or write. We need to change our focus to educating our children and not giving them so much. We can show them love through giving but we need to instill morals and values in our children. Our children need to understand what respecting authority figures and adults look like. I have experienced situations where the grandmother fought right along with her daughter and granddaughter. There needs to be boundaries drawn. School is not a place for drug sales, gang recruitment, community disputes or sex. It’s a sacred place where the foundation is laid for our children to be productive citizens.

What about the children? Children are having children at alarming rates. In my opinion one in a school building is enough. Our young girls think that lying down and spreading their legs is love when in fact it isn’t. Parents we need to embrace and love our children. Put time into our children so that no matter what happens they will have strong love from home first. Children commit suicide because they feel they don’t matter. They feel neglected or like no one cares. We have to love our children no matter what. Most of all we must teach our children boundaries, respect, how to love themselves, morals and values.

Do your part by embracing and mentoring children. Make children feel like they are a part of their education. Nurture our children and make them feel like you are vested in their future. Every student will not attend college so there must be a Plan B for those students. That Plan B means that there needs to be vocational programs geared around what our children are interested in. Every student will not be a lawyer, a teacher, a judge or even a congressman. For those students that do not fit that mold we should not cast them away but instead give them an option. There are some awesome barbers, beauticians, web designers, carpenters and so forth in this world who do not go to college. Children need a Plan B.

Is Your Child Struggling to Read? How to Find the Right Foundational Reading Program

One out of every four children grows up without knowing how to read. The fact is many students today are struggling with their reading skills. Unfortunately, most of these students are pushed off to the side or find themselves in a class that doesn’t help them progress. Most teachers just don’t have the time or resources necessary to spend even five minutes with each student individually on their reading skills.

The Scary Statistics

According to the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 37 percent of fourth-graders and 26 percent of eighth-graders can’t read at a basic level, or understand what they’ve just read. Forty-four percent of American fourth-graders cannot read fluently.

Most statistics relate reading skills to how many books are in the home, and how much reading is performed at home to income and success levels.

These statistics have been solid about what happens to the majority of children and adults that haven’t learned to read. High dropout rates from high school, high criminal rates, high pregnancy rates, and low incomes. Seven in ten prisoners perform at the lowest literacy rates.

No matter what situation you find yourself in as a concerned parent, teacher, or tutor, you have to find a foundational reading program proven to help your child or student to not only read, but completely comprehend what they’re reading.

Finding a Foundational Reading Program that Works

Finding a good foundational reading program is essential to your child’s or student’s ability to read, grow, and manipulate their way through life. A good foundational program should not only address the letters and sounds or phonics of recognizing words, but convert that knowledge into comprehension.

With the easy distractions of television, video games, and the pull of peers, a program should also be able to keep your child’s attention. Namely, it should entertain them so they look forward to reading and learning. By actively engaging them in not only the sounds and letters of the English language, but the act of recognizing what they’re reading along with understanding what they’ve read; they will gladly enter the reading world with interest and gusto.

A foundational reading program should also give the student the skills necessary to expand on the basics of what they’ve learned so their cognition continues to expand and complement their lives as they progress through school and into adulthood.

Looking To The Future

Reading is essential, especially as we continue hurtling into the 21st century. Technology is injecting itself into every aspect of our lives and we, as a society, will soon not be able to maneuver our way around it. Being able to read and digest the written word and all that will be expected and demanded of us and our children, today’s student’s need the best preparation and every tool possible.

Don’t allow your child or children to continue struggling. Illiteracy in America is a growing and disastrous dilemma. Without the ability to read and comprehend, a child’s future is severely limited. Whether you’ve tried other venues or not, find the excellent fundamental reading program that will take your student to a level you didn’t think possible.

That program should be able to ingrain the basics of letters and sounds (phonics). It should take those basics and expand them into understanding and absorption. It should entertain enough to inspire an appetite for reading and learning. Finally, it should be able to carry your child into the future.