Missing brain cells and human cloning

I am scheduled for resource room with the self contained ninth grade. Oh the joys of special education reform (as practiced by the DOE). Short version, the self contained group is self contained (or all by themselves with the special ed teacher) for English and math. For social studies and science they become collaborative team teach students (they squeeze in with an inclusion class with two teachers). And for the rest of the day they are just “regular” (as in “regular ed”) ninth graders.

But they don't go to Spanish class.

And after several months of them

a)driving the Spanish teacher crazy,

b) driving everyone else crazy after the Spanish teacher kicked them out of Spanish class

c) following their homeroom teacher around while she tried to eat lunch and go to the bathroom,

d) all off the above

the principal got the idea that they had to go somewhere when the inclusion ninth graders go to Spanish.

So twice a week I get them.

The first couple of weeks went like this:

Me: Take out your books.

Boy: Why are you looking at me?

Me: Sit down and start writing

Girl: I'm so done.

Boy:Why are you looking at me?

Girl: I am sooooo done.

Me: What are you done with? You haven't taken anything out yet?

Girl: You got a bugger up your nose.

Boy: You got an eye problem? What are looking at?

And that was a good day.

You can read more about life in the NYC special ed classroom here.

But their main teacher ate her lunch on the other side of the wall that created two special services classrooms out of one “regular” one and she would come in from time to time to yell at them.

So we got used to each other.

Camden wanted to do his science homework. The biology teacher is the definition of rigorous, high expectations teacher. And they are afraid of her. She had given them an article about a human cloning experiment in South Korea and had given them thoughtful questions to answer about both the ethics and science of the practice.

What followed was a lot of me drawing miotic and meiotic cell division on the board. (as well as some sheep, a diagram of a grossly not drawn to scale sperm and egg uniting and a loose representation of a uterus.)

The light bulbs went on! Someone could use that information to create a “race” of evil doers with that kind of technology, Rex, the ring leader suggested. And now they were shouting over each other to condemn human cloning.

“What if I had a dying a baby?” I asked. “Would it be okay to clone an organism that would provide liver cells? How about spine cells for a paralyzed child?”

Silence.

Then more shouting over each other about those morality issues.

Then me begging them to take their books out and write down some of these very cogent arguments.

The bell rang. And they were off.

The next day I attended a workshop about assistive technology. While looking at some case studies about students with physical disabilities someone raised the question about what medical technologies would become available in the next decade to address their disabilities.

I have always thought about how students with emotional and learning disabilities somehow lose the “oh how sad,” factor on the “understanding” scale. Where a child who drools, walks with crutches and speaks with a slur is considered worthy of our granting that s/he was dealt a lousy hand, those born with fewer brain cells, or mixed up wiring are just our trouble makers or in my principal's case, those who we willingly don't hold to high enough standards.

But if ever there was a group of students who might benefit from a few extra cloned or otherwise brain cells, that self-contained class would be it.  They would find life so much easier with just a little bit more gray matter. But until then.....

I'm done. I'm sooooo done.

Time to remove the bugger from my nose.

Defeated

Louis had his head down when I entered the room Friday. He looked like I felt- defeated .

I knew why I was defeated. Clueless helper was back. And her help made me dizzy first, depressed second and then finally defeated.

Things have not been going well in the category of students with special ed services. Some combination of budget cuts and the inability of administration to make a schedule has resulted in what we call -lack of compliance -lots of lack of compliance and everyone complains to me.

I've been on the horns of a moral dilemma Should I report this obvious denial of services to students in need, or keep playing ball with an ineffective administration- hoping against hope they will eventually get it right. Okay I know what the moral decision is. But I did that once – I reported the abuse of power in another time in another school

And it was HELL. The subsequent school year was categorized by investigations , discipline reports, and threats of loss of employment,

For both the principal and me. And at the end of the year both of us left the school.
I maintain to this day the correctness of my actions, but I could not go through that again.

So I didn't report the principal.
But someone (and I don't know who) did.

Which made the Union come down- to solve these issues.
Which made overwhelmed adminstrator call her support people down.

Which produced Clueless Helper.

Which led to my dizziness, depression and defeat.

Clueless Helper's input:
Only highly qualified teachers should teach special education students in the content area. “With apologies to the Union,” she said, “when special education teachers teach content their students receive 80s and 90s on the report card but only score 20s and 30s on their state exams.” Then she added that she thought she could not teach special education math since she had not majored in math in college. She could however, teach general education students since they may be smart enough to pass the curriculum without a good teacher.

This is what I thought:
Students are granted special education services after a large battery of evaluations that determine their difficulty in assessing the general education with a general education teacher. Then when they cannot meet the arbitrarily determined state standards do we offered any other course of study other than the “rigorous college bound curriculum” everyone is subjected to?
No we have high standards for everyone.
So they fail continuously.
The ability to solve differential equations, adequately understand college level calculus and other advanced mathematics makes one a better instructor for students who cannot accurately sketch the fraction one half. Even is that other person is a learning disability specialist.
Looking at real data is only applicable to situations when it validates Clueless Administrator and her buddies' position. While she could only make conjectures on her ability to get students to pass the Algebra Regents, I have hard data that illustrates that I continuously do.
I thought that for several seconds.

The meeting went on for hours.

And we still didn't have a real schedule.

So that's why I was dejected.

And Louis.

I've been meaning to write about Louis for a long tme.

Five years ago Louis arrived from another country. He didn't speak English.
He didn't know what a fraction was. The ESL teacher put him on a computer ESL computer program. He didn't know how to use a computer.

But he was determined. He was in my room every spare minute. He would stay until six o'clock at night to put together a project. He would take all six hours to finish a exam allotted three hours (He was allowed double time). And he still failed.

After a year he could communicate in English a little better. He took the Regents again. He failed again. He took it over and over again. And failed every time.

I found his tenacity honorable. Most found it pretty annoying. Louis's dedication came off more creepy than endearing. His inability to communicate what he needed paired with his perseverance, made him come off as kind of a stalker. He would follow around the person he thought had what he needed, until they made every effort to avoid him or gave up and helped.
Most avoided him- I ended up helping just a shade less than the amount that would have preserved my sanity.

Louis passed classes. But he continued to fail Regents. He just couldn't remember, process, or write well enough to pass.

But he kept trying.
This year something changed. He kind of got it. He can do more of the academics. He figured out that I am the only one worth the effort of bothering. He leaves everyone else alone. And he figured out he's past the age of the average high school graduate. And he still hasn't passed a Regents exam

A long time ago I learned about BICs and CALPs. A second language learner can master the basic interpersonal communication skills pretty quickly, within a year or two. The Cognitive Academic Language Processing skills take five to seven years to master. Louis is just moving into that time period.

And he got the idea he's in trouble.
He is.

We have high standards. We expect everyone to go to college
We leave no child behind.

Except of course, if you are an annoying English learner with little formal education who happened to arrive in this country less than five years before high school graduation.

And that why Louis is defeated.

I have no pithy summary statement.
It's just sad,