This is one area where the administration should get off their own rears and take the primary point on problems and not dump it on the teachers. If there is a problem that may render the child unsuitable for the school or the school unsuitable for the child it’s administration’s job to attend to the problem. And I hope they have both the support staff (a nurse or phychologist available/on contract) and the connections with county social services to help the kids. These are not teacher problems.

How about telling her parents to take them away! These are the same type of parents that will one day blame the schools due to too much HW or whatever. Then they will blame the state when Medi-cal is taking away, then blame the city when things go wrong with their offspring.

Man – I feel as if we, as a nation, forget Oakland, our country no longer has any common sense. We are at the whim of excuse mongers, lawyers, and politicaians- all of whom will gut this country.

So many many lost kids, so many lazy a** parents, and so many excuses.

Brave New World? How about , Brave Old School- damn how things are wrong! Its sad.

Electronic devices waste precious time for a student who has homework, school work, caring for siblings and chores. Imagine how much learning can be done in the time a pre-teen has sent two dozen text messages.

There are so many people in this world, a few on this list for example, who have overcome difficulties by staying focued on their goals that I wonder if teachers, counselors or the principal (vice principal?) should spend time helping students like Guadalupe develop personal goals on which she could and should stay focued?

Guadalupe, would you personally be willing to sit down with a counselor and set personal goals, then check in monthly to make sure you’re on track? Would you be willing to learn how to manage your time better? Would you be willing to spend less time using electronic gadgets if you KNEW you could improve your education?

We all have it better than those that came before us. Stick to your work, and make no excuse> then you will succeed.

My life was very similar to yours. My father left when I was in kindergarten. My mother, who is psychotic and delusional with narcissistic personality disorder, married my stepfather who beat his first wife to death. He came with two children. By the time I was in third grade I was scheduling my own “parent – teacher” conference as well as those conferences for my sister and two step-sisters.

I was responsible for making doctor and dentist appointments, making sure they had birthday parties (very minimal since I couldn’t work), brush their hair, make sure they had baths, do the laundry and try to make life feel reasonably normal. I would help with homework, help them check out books at the library, help them get volunteer positions at the Lindsay Jr. Museum so they could learn what responsible adults actually did.

My step-father was horrid. He was mean, abusive in every conceivable way. And now he had more of us to practice his craft. My mother knew and did nothing.

Through it all my savior, was school. I studied Spanish and French at school (in elementary school I asked for additional work), I learned about European art from teachers who had copies of famous paintings on their classroom walls. I learned science, asking about science in the “parent – teacher” meetings of my siblings. And always, just as I thought I could work, care for children and study no more, a teacher was there to say, make it to adulthood and your life will get easier.

And it did. I worked full time and went to school full time to be able to graduate from college. I paid off my student loans in 3 years by working a full time and part time job while starting a career. I delayed having my daughter until I could take child development classes and make enough money to give her what I didn’t have. And above all I am teaching her that a love for learning will get her through life and give her a life.

I am not unsympathetic to what you are going through day in and day out. You have a choice. You need to make it early on before the doors close on your choice. You need to choose to be an educated person, to put your energy in learning. Not just to pass the tests, but to gain the knowledge your family does not have. I promise you, being an educated adult will be a breeze, even with the ups and downs of life. And with an education you will be able to make a life worth living.

Thank you for your wonderful blog post. Yes, it’s difficult to succeed in school when faced with difficulties at home.

You and your fellow students can find inspiration from the example of Sonia Sotomayor – President Obama’s choice for the most recent opening on the United States Supreme Court. She was born to a Puerto Rican family and grew up in a public housing project in the South Bronx. Her father was a factory worker with a third-grade education, and died when Sotomayor was nine years old. Her mother raised Sotomayor while working as a nurse. Soon, she may serve on the highest court in the land.

I wish you the best of luck in whatever you decide to pursue in life.

The job of a school is to get the students ready for what comes next. It’s harsh out in the Brave New World and it’s getting harsher. My students (when I’m training) are always ready for has to be done. That’s how I was brought up in High School, In College and in Law School. I wouldn’t be in practice as a lawyer (who happens to be black) if I was allowed to be any more symtathetic/romantic/whatever than I am, and many, many others like me didn’t make it, some in the family. And that goes double for the physicians. Some of my family members made it through med school, licensing and practice. Others didn’t make it. I know those who didn’t make it (flunked out of professional training and licensing).

So I don’t think I’m harsh. I train people the way I was trained – this is no different. The teachers are not your mother, not your social worker, and not your pastor. Get into the subject matter or flunk, get appropriate help for your personal problems and leave them outside of a classroom. Referrals for the support groups are available elsewhere, try the counselor or principal’s office. If a student can’t meet the demands of a (an educational or vocational) program they need to go elsewhere and not hold up others.

And that lesson needs to be taught in 8th grade as well as 12th.

I wish Guadalupe well. I hope she notices who among the educators she encounters takes which approach and how their products are doing. I wonder If what I’m saying hasn’t been said to her before in such discussions of educational policy. Looking over her comment again I see the line:

“Teachers talk about how bad their students are, but why don’t they look more at the causes?”

And I think, maybe because “the causes” don’t matter. Either the student is ready, willing and able to do the program or the student needs to transfer out to another program they can get ready, willing and able to do. Or the student had better change in a hurry.

Normal public schools are not “reform” schools. The Reform School teachers get paid more.

Brave New World.

But what just sticks in my mind as I read this blog is the overriding attitude that this work will get done or you won’t be here. I had already had a taste of this from Catholic 1-8 but I was in a public high school at the time. My high school was tough also, but this was more than I’d ever seen before. They were nice, charming, fun people while at the same time business-like to death. These teachers were going places and we were someone on their appointment sheet. It was like spending a summer with a doctor or a lawyer – if that’s the right comparison.

There was no false praise AT All. No pats on the head. A students were noted matter of factly like it was expected. The students who were having not so easy a time were attended to to a point and allowed to pass or fail on their own. Some students dropped out – presumably they couldn’t cut it and were flushed away within a few weeks. There was no drama at all over that. I believe they were told they were failing and were going to fail and they had to make a decision to drop while they could avoid an F or a D and try again next summer or in their own school.

This is how a real school runs.