OOPSIE!

This week my comments concern an email I received through a “Department Directors” group to which I belong. It reads as follows: “Last week, our biology teachers began the evolution unit and on Friday, a student who practices being a Jehovah Witness came to school with a note from his mom saying he cannot participate in learning about evolution because he is a Jehovah Witness.” Most of the replies explained that the parents of students in this district or that had the option to opt-out of certain topics taught in school. These opt-out policies (OOP’s) are common in many public schools. According to the research I was able to do, the most common topics invoking the opt-out option are blood transfusions, diseases, and transplants, objected to by Christian Scientists who don’t believe in medical treatments, sex education, objected to by many religious conservatives who don’t want their children to know that people have sex, and evolution, objected to by those who hold to a literal translation of the Bible. When the policy includes an option related to the teachings of the evil Charles Darwin, it is referred to as an OPPSIE--opt-out option including evolution. I must admit that before I received this email and followed the links in the replies, I had no idea such silliness existed; although, I do approve of opting some students out of sex education--some gene pools should just end. Our state weighs in as follows: Sec. 27-23.5. Organ/tissue and blood donor and transplantation programs. Each school district that maintains grades 9 and 10 may include in its curriculum and teach to the students of either such grade one unit of instruction on organ/tissue and blood donor and transplantation programs. No student shall be required to take or participate in instruction on organ/tissue and blood donor and transplantation programs if a parent or guardian files written objection thereto on constitutional grounds, and refusal to take or participate in such instruction on those grounds shall not be reason for suspension or expulsion of a student or result in any academic penalty. For public schools that have a policy most read something like this: “No student shall be required to take or participate in instruction on XXX programs if a parent or guardian files written objection thereto on constitutional grounds.” I teach in a Catholic School. Catholics do not adhere to the literal translation of the Bible; consequently the whole concept of evolution is of little concern. We teach it now, in fact we have always taught evolution in Biology. I see no conflict. Periodically, a parent will want to meet with me as Department Chairman and try to get “Intelligent Design” included in our Biology curriculum. I always tell them that we do; telling them that evolution is God’s intelligent design. This usually causes a state of confusion, or invokes a mindless rage. In either case, I treat their ignorance with the contempt it deserves. Principals have always backed me up. I really have no problem with an OOP, though science teacher organizations are strongly opposed to them. The main objection being that a student who opts out of a topic like evolution has an incomplete educational experience, prevents the teacher from doing his/her job, and may also impact standardized test scores; but so does not paying attention in class, not doing homework, and being absent from school. More importantly--in my mind at least--it cripples a student’s ability to do advanced work in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics; making it unlikely they can ever become a doctor, nurse, engineer, or geologist. That being said, I would still allow parents to opt their children out of objectionable instruction, though I would like to see parents sued by their children later in life for compensation. If a parent can be successfully sued because a child was abused and needs therapy later in life, why not sue for compensation when remedial instruction is needed to make up for holes in your education caused by a parent’s poor decision?

And Now We Interrupt This Program For An Important Message

If you bother to ask teachers in our building, you will find out that many are quite disturbed and angry about the number of interruptions to their teaching time. In the last two weeks (10 class days) alone, my first period AP Chemistry class has been all but canceled by various interruptions on four separate occasions. The first time it was the day we returned from spring break when nine out of my twenty students took their “personal free day.” The PFD is given to students who raised their quota for the yearly fund drive. I have no real problem with this, except where it involves so many students that I am effectively forced to give a study hall instead of teach. The next day I had planned several important review problems, only to find out that the band members in first period were going to meet with the band directors for an important announcement. We were promised that they would only be 5-10 minutes late, and on time if an exam was scheduled, but none of my 11 band members arrived until 20 minutes into the period. One of the English teachers told me that he had an exam scheduled but his students were 20 minutes late as well. The band director has these students 5th period, but apparently the news could not wait until then. As it turns out, the news was important, but could easily have waited until his class, resulting in another unnecessary class interruption. Thursday of that week the third interruption to first period took place. Twice a year, all students who received a 4.0 GPA for the semester are honored in a ceremony before school. Invited parents and free teachers watch as each 4.0 student is called by name and given a certificate of achievement. The process usually begins at 7:30 and takes 20 minutes, returning students to their first period 5-10 minutes late. This year they got a late start; my 9 missing students not returning until 35 minutes into the period. The next Tuesday all the A.P. English Language students (14 of my 20 students) would miss the whole period for a “pre-administration meeting.” In the past I complained to the Guidance person in charge, suggesting this be done after school. I was told that this would interfere with their sports practice, which is apparently more important than my class time. Ironically, this year the A.P. Pre-administration conflicts with students being let out of class to set up for a performance of the school Musical for local grade school students. The powers that be deciding that the play was more important than pre-administration; class time being placed on the bottom rung importance ladder again. Some of my colleagues will never cease to vigorously complain when these regular interruptions occur. I have given up; realizing that my complaints about the need for more class time fall on deaf ears. While the administration would strongly deny this, what I do in class will never be valued as much as what other people do for the school.

Back Again

I haven’t written anything in my blog since November; not because I haven’t had anything to write about, but because I have been otherwise occupied. During the last two months, five of my high school classmates have passed away, one of them my college roommate.

He had been diagnosed with cancer in March of last year. Over his last 10 months we spoke on the phone every few weeks, and on three occasions we planned dinner, but each time he found himself too weak to attend. His body did not take well to the chemo and eventually it had to be discontinued. The last time we spoke was the day before we were to get together for a Christmas dinner at my home. He said his physical condition was such that he could no longer get out of bed. A week later, on Christmas day, his wife called and said that he was in intensive care; his organs failing fast. I went to the hospital that day to see him, but he was unconscious, a week later he passed away.

I have an email list of our class—supplied by the alumni office—and have used it to inform everyone of some event. I used it to try to get everyone to come to the last reunion, and to announce the death of a former teacher. When I sent out a message about his death I was shocked to find out through replies that four other classmates had died as well; all within about six weeks time. Needless to say, it is quite unsettling to be faced with the deaths of your friends, especially as many as this in a short time. Two of them passed away and were buried before I knew, but I was able to attend the wakes of the other three including my former roommate.

As far as school goes, we had a very successful open house for prospective students in early December, though the numbers at the entrance exam were a bit disappointing. On the bright side, the results of the exam indicate that the scores are up from last year, especially among the top students. All-in-all, our freshmen class next year should be about the same size as this year.

Semester exams went off without a hitch, and for the third year in a row I did not have any failures for the semester. After a somewhat restful Christmas break, the second semester began with a few changes in my class list. Friday we made it to mid-quarter.

My outside tutoring has been busy and I have been feeling the effects of long days, getting home after 8:00pm many times in recent weeks. I leave the house at about 6:30 am each morning. Last weekend I was so worn-out that I slept twelve hours Friday night, napped for four hours Saturday afternoon, and ten more hours Saturday night. I then spent eight hours Sunday grading papers and doing work for school. This weekend I have no school work to do so I am relaxing before another week of long days and late night tutoring sessions.

I have no interest in the Super Bowl beyond the numbers I got in the pool I joined. A batch of beef stew in the slow cooker today is awaiting my wife getting up after working last night at the hospital, and a possible visit from my daughter before she attends her super bowl party later.

Bloom Where You’re Planted!

I received an email the first day of 2nd quarter from one of the office attendants. Apparently, one of my students withdrew, transferring to another school. She failed two classes first quarter, one of them mine, and got D’s in the other four. While the email gave no reason for the withdrawal, I had spoken to the father last month and knew the reason. She left because there are too many black students at our school and she felt uncomfortable--or so the father claimed. In reality, for those of us who had watched her interact with the African American students in the building, she had no problem getting along with blacks. Those of us, who know her, speculate that she wanted to leave in order to escape the work load and exploited the parent’s prejudices in order to go into a less rigorous environment. One of my colleagues even reported that she was rather close to a young African American man, hardly the behavior of a person who didn’t feel comfortable around blacks. As reprehensible as this situation is I would be lying if I did not confess that I see a similar attitude in many of my colleagues who believe that the overall ability of our students has been lowered significantly because of the increased population of African Americans. To this I would disagree.

My graduating class-more than 40 years ago--had two blacks out of 250+ seniors, less than 1%. As the communities that feed into the school have changed, so has the school population. Today, blacks make up about 39% of the students here, and that percentage is going up. It is clear that some day in the future we will probably be an all black school. Whether this happens before I retire (in less than 10 years) is unknown, though not likely. What is certain is that someday, before I retire, I will teach in a school that is more than half black. Based on my experience with the type of black student we attract now, I am not concerned.

Many of my colleagues are quite upset at this state of affairs. Some publically complain that the “students” we get now are not as good as the students we had in the past. While it is never spoken out loud, it is clear they are referring to the increasing number of blacks. When I told a colleague that I saw no such change in the abilities of my students over time she looked at me with the famous, "I just smelled something bad" face and told me I was crazy. Luckily, she is going to retire at the end of this year. Another colleague told me that I didn’t see the drastic change in ability because I teach only honors students, implying that I did not have as many blacks in my classes as those who taught the average students. I was curious about this idea and decided to collect some data.

As I said before, African American students make up about 39% of the school population. My classes break down as follows; A.P. Chemistry 34% Black, Honors Chemistry 37% Black, and Chemistry A 37% black. While the number in AP seems to be significantly low, it is not. If one student changed from white to black in that class, blacks would be 39%. So I can say with numbers to back me up that I have a representative mix of students. Do the blacks do significantly worse than the white students do? Well—no! The average grades (%) for white students vs. minority students in my classes breaks down to; AP Chemistry- blacks 86.7%,white 87.6%; Honors Chemistry- white 90.6%, black 90.4%; and Chemistry A- white 83.7%, black 87.5%. The numbers indicate that there is no objective evidence of a significant difference between white students and minority students in my classes—except if you take into account that blacks do much better than whites in my Chemistry A class. I hypothesize that the suggestion that blacks are bringing down the achievement level of our students is subjective, and based on a pre-existing belief that blacks are not a bright of whites.

The students I have now are as good as any I have ever had—the evidence for this is clear, AP scores in all subject areas are increasing at my school, even as the percentage of minority students increases. Academics are color blind—subject matter doesn’t care if you are black or white. The skills students needed 20 years ago are the same skills students need today,
Many of my colleagues need to silence their prejudices and teach students regardless of the color if their skin.