While professionals from all walks of life continue to criticize and demonize those who are working with young people in urban settings, the challenges we face as Educators continue to impact the daily rhythm of our schools and classrooms. This country is full of adults who believe the ridiculous adage, “Those who can’t, teach.” What that adage does not say is that teaching in the urban classroom is always MUCH MORE than the mere dissemination of information. The task, in this setting, also requires the teacher to teach lessons that traditionally have been taught in the home.
Imagine this: My students were reading Lorraine Hansberry’s classic drama, A Raisin in the Sun. While I usually enjoyed teaching this text, over the past several years, it had become more and more difficult to get students to comprehend all of the themes and concepts found within the play. As a result of their comprehension challenges, I was spending a good deal of time interrupting the reading to chastise students who chose to entertain their peers rather than wrestle with information that challenged them intellectually and personally.
On this particular morning, two young ladies walked into their English class 24 minutes into a 55 minute time period. Their tardiness alone was a distraction but the verbal exchange that took place as they entered the room would have challenged any adult, from a trained Teacher to a Neurosurgeon. As the first young lady walked past a female student on her way to her desk, the student who was already seated suggested, “Pull up your pants.” When I heard the command, I looked up to be greeted by the site of bright pink panties. A young man, who also had taken a gander yelled, “I can see your crack.” The young lady, who did not seem to be embarrassed at all, shot back, “You can’t see my crack. You can only see my panties.”
I am not writing a skit. I am not writing fiction. This exchange, in all of its glorious sadness, is but one example of where young people ARE NOT. How in the world can any teacher be expected to teach young people about the literary classics that unite many Americans if they are constantly confronted with what is a normalization of ignorance? Why are many good teachers being judged as a bad, less than, and an unprepared professional when so much of what teachers do depends on the quality of the student enrolled in their class? When will parents be called to the carpet for their lack of parenting skills? When will the lack of morals and respect cease to be tolerated by parents and other adults in the community? When is this country going to begin to ask better questions that can lead to a shift in the current discourse about all that is wrong with those who teach in public education? I can think of no better time than NOW!!!
I am right there with you! I am in the same boat in my classroom (sans the pink panties). I am feeling that I am teaching less and less academics and more and more morals and values.
ReplyDeleteSad. The chalanges continue in higher ed as well. I have students arrive in pajamas, as well as in tank tops that look like bras on a big busted woman.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with you and feel your angst. Having been educated it rural American, I recall morals and values lessons being a major part of our daily learning in school. Our society though, has moved away from spiritual influence and sadly, many of today's parents challenge teachers whose teaching style embraces it. However, educators LET'S KEEP PUSHING ONWARD!
ReplyDeleteBefore we get too self-righteous with our fellowship of disdain, we need to realize that what we are looking at in today's classrooms is the raw, un-cut, version of what many of today's educators were doing when they were teenagers. Today's youth just don't have the home-training to be hypocrites about it. What this generation of disdainful educators needs to do is come straight about their own inappropriate thinking, attitude, and behavior, as young people (moral and otherwise). What we must recognize is that the bad attitudes, poor character, and low morals, of todays youth are a reflection of the cultural, and moral, choices of this elder, and middle-aged, generation of people who actually knew better when they made those choices as young people. Many of today's youth actually don't know what to do or how to be...They're not faking like this generation did as youth. As unseemly, and unruly, and immoral, as these young people are in the schools today, perhaps we would not be so offended by them if they did not present us with an embarassing reflection of our former selves...a reflection that we were really proud of 'back in the day.' That reflection strikes us as being utterly shameful now that we see it in the warped mirror of today's urban youth culture. Let's pray for these young people instead of judging them (lest we be jugded ourselves). Those of us educators who are truly committed to solving the problem of today's immoral, and ignorant, youth culture, will humbly ask God's forgiveness for our own past contribution to the problem. Let's try to avoid looking upon the youth, and their parents, with disdain. We must look upon them with the eyes of Grace, as The Lord looks upon us...firm, yet loving. We must have a sense of humility about our own youthful folly, as we faithfully forge ahead. Consider the abysmal challenges that were faced by our first generation of educators after Emancipation from Chattel Slavery; and,consider their unprecedented success. If we did it once, with God's help, we can do it again.
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