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May 22, 2003
About two years ago, manmade
About two years ago, manmade erosion outstripped natural erosion, primarily due to the construction of the Three Gorges dam in China. The competition started millennia ago, and we finally have jumped into the lead. Our changes involve huge effort, while hers is effortless. Nature is very efficient at wearing things down, one rain droplet at a time. Cities have been buried by the sands of the Sahara, and the Appalachians used to be as tall as the Himalayas, apparently. Drip, drip, drip.
My kids are little elements of nature. My emergency phone is locked in a metal box mounted on the wall next to my door. It was meant to be a permanent fixture, yet it has to be remounted monthly. It is too sturdy to be yanked off, yet they always manage to get it loose. I figure that the kids learned the process from wiggling teeth out of their own mouths. One yank is too much, but endless wiggles seem to do the trick. Currently, it is hanging by the wires coming from the ceiling, dangling like some suicidal suicide hotline. Drip, drip, drip.
The same goes for desks. The formica is designed to resist wear and tear, but a child who can't be bothered to write a single line of notes will patiently tunnel through a desk until it collapses like a termite-infested tree. Don't even get me started on posters, books, and other paper products.
On our final commute to Brooklyn College this semester (our next semester starts June 2), Daphne was commenting on how her initial desire to teach has been worn down by how seemingly hopeless our situation has become after only one year. Our school celebrated the fact that we went from the 2nd worst school in NYC to 170th in English out of approximately 350 schools. This is great bad news. This is great for us, as we went from less than 10 percent of our students passing the minimum standards to nearly 25 percent. However, that means that 75 percent of our students still failed to pass the minimum standards. By the way, these aren't high standards, but rather standards that have been created to allow 'no child to be left behind.'
Our kids are not stupid. Far from it. Well, some are actually rather stupid. Honestly. But there are some brilliant kids in my classes. Our kids can use extensive reasoning and logic to destroy objects, set off the fire alarms, or launch desks from windows. Kids that can't do formal geometry can figure out just how much room is needed to fit a desk through a small window four feet above their heads. I have some amazing kids that are learning despite every horrible thing in their lives, and I have some that could care less about their educations. They look around them, they see the historical abandonment of their neighborhood, or they really don't see anything wrong with it. They feel their lives are complete if they have a Gameboy and can watch TV all day.
I probably shouldn't write about education on Thursdays or Fridays.
Posted by G at May 22, 2003 09:44 PM