Ok, I take it back. I'll probably keep talking about this for awhile because it won't go away any time soon.
Yes and Yes is one of my more recent favorite blogs, partly because she writes stuff like this. And also because I admire her general gutsy-ness in dropping everything and taking a six month trip across South America.
So I was finishing up my taxes last night - they were mostly finished, I just needed to wrap it up, sign the thing, and send it in - and I got to thinking. Yeah, thinking. As if I haven't been thinking enough lately. I thought and thought and thought. I went to sleep thinking, I think.
And when I woke up this morning, my brain came to a logical and comforting conclusion. It helped to make me feel a little freer, a little less hung up over the general suckiness of my life right now. And I felt so productive after thinking all night! Like when you leave the disk defragmenter on overnight and when you go to your computer again in the morning, it's clean and running smoothly again!
Anyway, the conclusion is: one isn't exactly "left behind" when one has something else to occupy oneself with. Let me explain using the NCLB law and how I came up with the name of this blog.
No Child Left Behind was enacted in 2001 in an attempt to revolutionize the American education system. There are many many things involved in this law, most notably (and much loved by the media) the idea that standardized testing will improve student performance. The theory is that no child should be left behind by public schools and that all children in this nation should have the opportunity to succeed in their learning. What is meant exactly by "success" and "learning" and "public schools," however, are up to different interpretations.
That's a great idea right? Making it possible for every single child to learn and grow and live to their potential? That kind of thing is rooted in the Constitution for crying out loud! Who won't get behind that? But the truth is, there are hundreds of thousands bordering on millions of children in this country being "left behind" daily. The kid who can't read in my 5th grade class (yes, I still consider them my students - I still consider my China students "my" students) is just one example. Our nation will continue to pass students into higher grades, even when they don't belong academically, because we don't want to leave them behind.
To me, we are doing these students a greater disfavor by moving them through the grades like that. What are we saying? That a kid who can't read can be shunted through the grades like a football even though he's not truly ready for it? That a kid who should be reclassified from EL isn't because the school will lose out on federal money, or maybe just to shelter the kid a little more because even though he has the academics and the English to be reclassified, there is still a huge gap originating in something more socio-anthropological that would cause him to fail anyway.
Now I'm getting into deep waters that I really don't have the authority to even fully understand. But the point is this: my 5th grade student who can't read is an awesome kid. He's smart and capable and has a lot to share in his community, and thus the world. His potential is astounding and just because he can't read doesn't mean he won't find positive success in his life. He's being left behind by a school system that won't take the time and effort to get his reading up to par. But he's also not being left behind because there are things going for him. Albeit these things originate from his own nature, and the school should spend more effort supporting his strengths as well as his weaknesses.
I chose the name, "This Child Left Behind," as a pun on NCLB and also as a joke on myself. I'm a first generation immigrant. I was born in Hong Kong from a family history of poverty and hard work and pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. My parents blew their savings and whatever inheritance my dad's parents left to come to this country so my brother and I could live a better life with a chance at a better education. In a way, their goals were achieved. They were able to provide a nice home, a car, computers, cell phones, internet, travel and other enrichment opportunities to their children. They provided both their children with first-class educations, seeing them both through universities ranked within the world's top 40. We know multiple languages, mix nearly seamlessly in multiple cultures, play multiple instruments, have a firm understanding and appreciation for the sciences, maths, arts. I never felt the pinch of poverty as a child or a teenager, even though I know now, as an adult, the many sacrifices my parents made for my brother and me.
And yet, in the middle of my twenties, I have yet to even reach #2 in that list of traditional adulthood milestones. So despite all the fine opportunities handed to me on a silver platter, I haven't got much to show for it. And I know on an intellectual level that the list of traditional adulthood milestones is really an exception and not the rule, at least for my generation. That doesn't make me feel any less incompetent and left behind sometimes.
Still, you only leave someone behind if they end up stagnating in that one position. Being "left behind" doesn't happen when you get up and move because now, there is no one left in that spot anymore.
Sarah at Yes and Yes hints at the point my mind made as it was working on taxes and sleeping through the night. All those things she listed that make up a "traditional adulthood" and the people that achieve those things sometimes makes me terribly hung over about my own non-successes. That I'm being left behind too, because my peers are getting married, buying homes, advancing in their careers. Which are all really really good things.
But where I am at is a good thing too. Well, sort of. It's not a good thing in and of itself. It's a good thing because I have the will and outlook to make it so (I think). It's a good thing because I think it is so. Or at least *will* think it is so once I've got enough distance from the sucky part.
No comments:
Post a Comment