Reflection on Another’s Journey

For this blog post I read Angela Doyle’s blog. I was trying to figure out which blog I should read. I’m sure many of the teachers have great or insightful things to say, but I didn’t have time to read all of them and I only knew a couple of the teachers that we were actually able to choose from. So, I used the clues around me to choose a teacher who I thought probably kept a pretty good blog. Simply, I chose Angela Doyle because I walk past the Outstanding Portfolio Plaque with her name on it as the 2009 recipient of the award. If she kept a good portfolio, maybe she also kept a good blog.

Angela’s first-year blog surprised me. I started the blog thinking not all of the blogs were going to be sunny and rosey, but frankly, hardly any of the blogs that first year were sunny or rosey. Angela gave it to us straight, and as the first semester progressed she became more and more frustrated with the students. She even went to the point of swearing them (only in the blog of course!). I felt bad for her. And when she talked about the football game, I just felt sad. I had no idea that the students' potential is in everything they do, but their lack of motivation or follow-through is also in everything they do.

The major obstacle I found Angela to have was student’s actually caring; she explains this in her “Managing my classroom would be easier if students cared” blog. Angela started out the year with the mindset and goal that she would be like her teacher who helped the students take responsibility for their education. Unfortunately for her she soon came to realize that most of these students do not care and that making them care would be more difficult to the Nth degree than in the school she went to because these students are facing N times more variables telling them they shouldn’t care.

I’m glad the Angela experienced some success with her "successlets" and one student who excelled in mathematics. In connecting with an earlier post, I think it would be easy to look at Angela’s successlets and wonder how she ever term them successlets. Like I said, success is measure based on a sliding standard. You give all that you can, that’s all I can ask.

Ok, a quick switch. I know the MTC second-years and staff members (alumni) complain substantially about inadequate administrative support. When I hear all of this, I have two thoughts: 1) “Wow. How can you operate when the teachers and administrators are at odds? How could they be promoted to such a high position and be so incompetent? Someone please shut down the institution that’s producing these people. 2) How bad can it really be? Teachers have to operate in a broken system, but shouldn’t have to teach in an environment where they are in physical danger. For a principal to put the responsibility entirely on Angela to get a student to stop physically harassing her is incredulous. The principal put Angela in danger everytime they sent the student back to class, refused to suspend the student (or expel because of the nature and habitual nature of the offense), or have the school bring charges against the student. The least they could have done was talk to the student. SOMETHING! Make him know that his actions are not okay and will not be tolerated.

There is a marked difference between Angela’s first year blog and her second year blog. She taught her first year at Holly Springs High School (the same location of summer school this year; with a name like that you wonder how bad the place can be), but transferred the Potts Camp High School her second year. I can tell Angela had an easier time teaching at Potts Camp. The students didn’t come to school just to have meal and/or make life a living hell for the teachers. It seemed her students wanted to actually make something of themselves and cared about their community (the student-made flyer circulated around school addressing gossip illustrates this). But Angela picked up on something worth noting, something that I also thought about. The flyer named “Holly High” explicitly as a bad example, a 1.7. In an earlier blog a parent said the problem with the Holly Springs was the morale. The county, the parents, even other students tell Holly High students they aren’t worth anything. You never want to be that school. I know many students who went to private school in Charleston instead of public high school in North Charleston (No. 7 in 2007 for the most dangerous cities) looked at my school that way. It was the same way people from my school characterized Stall High School, only right down the street but in a different district and a completely different environment.

Do we not think that students recognize this? We do. They do. How can we expect a turn around success when we set them up for failure mentally; when we refuse to even acknowledge the success that do bud.

Let me stop blogging here. I’m beginning to wallow and I can't think to be of any help if I’m caught up feeling sorry for someone. I don't’ know how.

-Radical.