Jenny,
Being a middle school science teacher in a "ghetto" school, I figure you might benefit from my experience.
Ninety percent of my students come from broken homes and destructive environments. I diversify my teaching to accommodate all learning styles, but many of my students have been taught that education is a lost cause anyways. So, not surprisingly, this middle school has a "prom" where most of my students will go to their last dance before dropping out in 9th or 10th grade.
Make no mistake, I love my students, even the drug dealers, gangbangers, prostitutes, pregnant girls and petty criminals who pepper my classroom at ages 13-16.
We good teachers sit around the lunch table and try to arrive at a consensus solution for these poor young people. I am reminded of a conference where the student, her mom and her grandmom were all there, all pregnant. Still another conference where a mother threatened to sue me for defending myself against her angry son who was later convicted of raping a 13 year-old student at gunpoint.
These situations are much more prevalent than most people think. How else do you explain nearly 80 percent of inner-city youth never graduating high school? Why graduate high school when college for these poor people is crack pipe-dream, fueled by their own parent's bitter resentment for their own failed educational experience.
The only solution, I'm afraid, is to completely remove such high risk young students like these from their household and create schools far away from their crippling world before it's too late. This must occur despite the "parent's" wishes. The cycle of disability must stop with such tough decisions. What's more, I am beginning to question a person's right to have children when neglect is so rampant. Should those who perpetuate the misery of the innocent be allowed to remain fertile?
I realize this sounds awful. But I see the worst examples of parents in my school: parents who make their own kids do the drug-running so they won't get caught, parents absent for weekends-on-end with no food left at home, parents who push their children into prostitution.
When all the thinktanks and analysts weigh all the data, I wish they'd simply get consensus from highly qualified teachers in this warzone. You might find that my words resonate with truth and urgency.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
http://frisbeepainting.com
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