Epilepsy and A Raisin in the Sun??

This blog contains comments from EDUCATORS who find themselves on the front lines of a war that has been waged against public education across this nation since the landmark decision  in 1954 of Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka.  Herein are the thoughts of Educators who serve young people across America today. While the daily challenges to increase student achievement have been discussed in circles across this nation, few of those voices include those who are the true soldiers in this battle to educate young people.

The lessons taught to students, present and past and their reactions to various assignments, can serve as a mini-lesson for those adults who are responsible for raising children.  We are particularly concerned with those students who are being raised in one of the many poor and segregated urban centers across this nation.  This blog serves as an authentic assessment of where our young people are in relation to what is expected of them and it will enable the reader to visit the urban classroom to gain insight into....THE CHRONICLES OF AN URBAN EDUCATOR...

     

 According to my Lesson Plans, today was the day that my students were going to finish the last several pages of Lorraine Hansberry’s classic drama, A Raisin in the Sun.   Like many teachers in urban high schools, if what I wanted was an environment conducive to learning, it was necessary for me to spend the first several minutes of the hour insisting that the students who were in the hallway after the tardy bell “get to their first hour class.”  I entered my room and immediately heard a very spirited discussion led by one of my brightest male students.  I heard him assert that he was angry that a girl would “be bouncing all over the place over and over again and then have the nerve to almost throw up on me.”  A young lady, also a good student, quickly responded, “You are mean.  She wasn’t doing that on purpose.”  Recognizing this as a “teachable moment,” I asked both students to stop yelling at each other and to, instead, explain the incident to me.  As the students detailed the scenario, I listened intently, taking mental notes in preparation for a very necessary impromptu lesson that had to take place before the planned lesson could begin – otherwise my students would not have been the kind of focused an adolescent needs to be in order to comprehend information.

I began by explaining to my students that many people have challenges that cannot be seen by the human eye.  I detailed for them what the central nervous system was, how it worked, and how Epilepsy was a condition that people did not choose but one that they were afflicted with.  You see, when you teach English in an urban classroom, you are required to be knowledgeable and to teach about more than just English.  In order for me to move forward with the lesson that was scheduled that day, I had to quell a disturbance in my room.  My students were disturbed, in large part, because of a lack of information, a lack of understanding, and a lack of compassion for those, who like them, need so much.

Over a four year period, how many lessons do well prepared teachers really teach and how many of those lessons required the teacher to teach a lesson that had not been scheduled in the lesson plans?  And what does that mean for the urban student?  And how does No Child Left Behind address all that students don’t know?