Teacher Do You Care- The Pete Chronicles

Tough day for Pete

His teacher allowed him return to his work-study job. I bumped into him as he was walking off campus with his class. We exchanged a high five. He did not attend last week because of his behavior. We talked about it all everyday, Pete really wanted to attend this week.



A little later in the hour, I received a call from Pete’s teacher and she informed me that he was sent back to campus from his job. According to his teacher, he started his cartoon scripts as soon as he started work. She said she wanted to give him a chance but she could not have him laughing and repeating. After the work incident Pete was to attend my class.

Needless-to-say he was persistent about his self-soothing (his cartoon phrasing) and it took a while to try and reconnect with him. Staff was short today and many students needed extra help. I did my best. Pete did not shout out in my class today. He did say his cartoon phrase to himself a few times while I was trying to talk to him. Each time I asked for his attention he gave it to me and he took my direction.



The struggle of transition before a break in school is typical. This is often the story with students that struggle. The students crave the structured environment of school. Structure is safe and unstructured time and activity is unpredictable. I suppose Pete deep down knew he would be spending many hours with the television, no phone calls to friends or contact with others. I hope I am wrong.



I’ll send him a postcard or two to let him know he is not alone.

Teacher Do You Care- The Pete Chronicles

Today, Pete got a D on a spelling test in another class and an F on last week’s test. He disrupted that class and was sent out several times. When Pete comes to my class, I check in with him to see how his morning went in his other classes. This morning, Pete told me about the poor spelling test. I asked him how he felt about getting a poor grade. He was stared to repeat the cartoon phrases he uses but he stopped to answer me. He said he did not feel good about it. I asked him if it was possible that he interrupted the class because he felt bad about the test. He listened. I reminded him about sharing his feelings and suggested he could share how he felt with his morning teacher. He was willing to do so.

When we went to see his teacher, Pete was nervous and started to repeat the cartoon phrase that brings him solace. I helped him stay clam and he told his teacher how he felt. His teacher quickly dismissed his feelings and gave him a motive of wanting to disrupt the class. Ouch!!! I asked Pete to walk away while I spoke to his teacher.



Do I blame this teacher? No, this teacher represents the cycle of overburden, untrained people. Where is the compassion for this boy?

Go where the love is Pete. He had another great day in my class! We worked on his spelling words together and he practiced expressing his feelings. I’m proud of him.

Teacher Do You Care?

A student in my class has been struggling over the last month. The student (I’ll call him Pete) yells out lines from a cartoon show, coughs excessively, and laughs in a hysterical cartoon voices during instruction. The other students’ educational progress is disrupted. The home teacher for the student tried a couple of things to try to help his behavior in my class. These interventions were not what I would have done and were just as disruptive as the behavior.

I refused the help offered from the other teacher and personally sat down to get to know Pete. I found out more about a young man who spends all of his home time alone. He’s no child; he is a teenager, and he needs interactions with others. He has no friends and no phone calls. His pal is television and the laughs it has to offer.
Pete has not disrupted my class since I took over his behavior problem. One day he was upset about being hot after a morning of PE and not receiving water after he asked once. We should teach him self-advocacy.



Another day he missed a planned activity because of his behavior and he felt bad about it. He does not share his feelings with others. We should teach him how to communicate his needs and desires.

On the last day of the week he was mad at his single mom. Sometimes when I work with students I know God is present because things will come out of my mouth that are inspirational and just what a kid needs to hear. That’s what happened in this situation.

I taught Pete about being grateful and expressing gratitude.
“Have you ever told Mom how much you appreciate everything she does?”
He said, “no.”
“I think you should try it tonight when she comes home,” I suggested.
“Have you ever told Mom you love her?”
“No,” he said.
“I think you should try that too,” I suggested.
Then I mirrored his experience back to him.
“Your mom works long hours, comes home, makes you dinner, makes sure you have a shower and gets you to bed. Those actions are love. Pete you are well taken care of and you are lucky.”



Pete nodded. I don’t know if he got it. I will encourage Pete to live in this world not the cartoon world he has created to connect. I care.

How many Pete’s are struggling in the educational system? If you notice a Pete in your life stop, listen and show you care.

Colleges Remediate-We Are In a Race To Nowhere

The New York Times reported that City University of New York is not providing higher education but remediation. This is not a shock. Education is currently based on state testing. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, increased the role of the federal government in public education and also expanded the role of standardized testing. These alleged benefits of standardized testing permeate the public educational system causing harm to students, teachers and the future of public education as a whole. Colleges offer remedial, developmental and basic courses.

According to the California Department of Education, the purpose of standardized testing is “to measure how well students are learning the knowledge and skills identified in California’s content standards.” In addition, standardized testing results will assist with focusing curricular instruction and organizing teaching methods. The goals of standardized testing seem to be falling short; instead of measuring student knowledge and focusing instruction and methods, the rigor of testing seems to be a silent erosion of our school system.

According to the California Department of Education website’s data for July of 2008, 13, 237 students took the Math portion of the California Exit Exam and 13, 373 students took the English portion of the exam. 29% of the students passed the Math and 30% passed the English portions of the test for the state. When we superimpose the same standards on every student, teacher and school, we receive results that are disappointing—a race to nowhere.

These disappointing results are rooted in non-profit school communities maintaining for-profit activities, i.e., test scores. Data has become the catch phrase and teacher’s names are associated directly with their student’s scores. Improvement has been demanded on the back of a shocked system, and therefore an increase of assessments and pacing guides has followed. This increase of standardized testing is big business for the private sector.

Now colleges are feeling the results of a broken system. The documentary, "Race To Nowhere", chronicles the culture of today’s youth in public school. According to the documentary, the epidemic of standardized testing has produced a culture for cheating, disengaging students, stress-related illness, depression, burnout, and of compromised young adults seemingly unprepared and uninspired for the future.

Each community can stop the the “Race to Nowhere" by challenging the current system. This documentary is showing all over the the country, go see it. Spread the news to educators, parents, students and your community. Join the "Race to Nowhere" Facebook Page in your area. This is the link for the Los Angeles page. If a page or community group is not available for your area, start one. Let’s continue a dialogue to examine the facts regarding our educational system and make it our own again.

“UP” was a Downer

Oscar nominations are out! Two times this past year I was dumbfounded by a movie I thought would be entertaining. One of my movie bloopers got several Oscar nominations!

Am I so off the beaten path that I cannot see greatness? Or could it be our society is making adult themed movies in animation form. The movie “UP” was supposed to a delightful ride when I rented it a few weeks ago. What did I have to loose, it was animated, the commercials were so cute and it looked so fun? I knew I was going to have an evening of laughs. Thank God my children are older teens. What was the writer thinking? The movie was emotionally devastating and I hope no one took their children but I know people did.

This animation film had the themes of miscarriage, grief of losing a child, lost dreams, death of a spouse, assault and developers over taking neighborhoods.

What is it with adult themes in animated films? Do the big kids need a new playground? I don’t want to see it and neither do young children. I’m tired of being highjacked after I’m in a movie. This is a manipulative ploy to trick people into the theater to suck more money out the middle class pocketbooks. Writers, animators and advertisers let consumers know on the front end about the adult themes so we can make the decision.

By the nomination of Best Picture, I wonder what Hollywood is saying to young people and parents about the future of animation. Is it for the big kid that wants to work out their childhood issues instead of therapy? Is it now a free for all for Quentin Tarantino types?

Well, I’m not game and many other parents would not be either. I use to trust Hollywood when it came to children’s movies yet, the system has made it very clear by the Best Picture Nominations that bloody war dramas, child abusive, adult themed animation, scary aliens, evil humans and alienated businessman are what makes a good film.

HEY HOLLYWOOD, LEAVE THOSE KIDS ALONE!
(Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall)