I was sitting in the bleachers at a Red Sox game last week. I was so far from the game, it was raining and turning cold and I had not driven (went with one of my brother's customers who got us tickets) so I couldn't leave. It was not an ideal situation as the Sox were losing...again.
But despite all that, the most disappointing thing about being there was the conversation I heard behind me. It was three young teachers talking about the new school year. I wasn't sure if they taught middle or high school. One seemed to be in math, one in science and I'm not sure about the third. I can't imagine why they were teachers. They seemed to hate kids. They talked about them like they were despicable...below them in value as human beings. They were the elite...the teacher...while the kids were lowly servants whose job was to listen to their every word and obey their every command.
I heard one story that really bothered me. One girl talked about a kid who had to go to the bathroom. She wouldn't let him go until he had earned enough of some kind of points. What??? Sure kids sometimes will ask to leave the room when they don't really have to go to the bathroom... The way she was talking, I'd have developed quite the bladder problem just to get out of her sight.
But come on, let's get real. we can't treat kids like that. We have to find a way to teach our kids without treating them poorly. No wonder so many kids hate school. It's bad enough we're making them all learn the material on the same day for a subject. That surely doesn't honor the fact that we all learn at different rates. Let's not top it off by treating kids badly too.
Let's try to find a way to make our class the reason kids want to show up for school. It can be done... and it makes all the difference in the world...in their attitude, in their grades and even their test scores. I know. I saw it happen, over and over again. Let's treat our students like they were our own kids...or how we would want to be treated.
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