Teachers Lounge: Games People {and Institutions} Play
Written by biscuit on October 11, 2008 – 9:31 am -I don’t know, maybe it all came to a head for me when another teacher was telling me what her husband (a counselor) had observed about our campus, and this all a mere day after I’d sat in the VP’s office ranting about how certain of our teaching policies are no less than cruel only to get the response “Then aren’t you grateful you’re the one teaching these students” I mean like OMG wtf??
But those things are institutional. I don’t run the institution. All I can do is try to nudge the institution this way or that. Doesn’t make it any better, doesn’t make it any worse. It’s like the firmament of the skies or something. I can push on it, but what I really need to do is watch my own, erm, stuff.
When I see students who are playing incredibly self destructive games, though, I got to intervene, even though it inevitably gets down to the do as I say, not as I do thing.
And I’ve always had some doozies, but I got a real doozie now, one so smart, he screwed with the standardized tests. So I know he’s really smart and probably bored, and I know he likely went to a high school that rewards mediocrity and slaps the hand of any student who dares stand out in anything other than the blonde haired blue eyed cheerleader football player way. And I know he can talk for hours intelligently and that he’s looking forward to a letter being sent home over Christmas break telling him not to come back because he’s flunked everything even though he hasn’t, not by any means, but he’s determined to fail because anything other than mediocrity attracts the attention of others and that attention will always always bring with it awful things including being whooped on by the blonde cheerleaders and football players.
Oh, there’s more to it than that, but good gawd almighty, I’ve barely finished my third cup of coffee. But while I’m painting the trim and mowing and admiring the new pots I got for my ginger and lemongrass plants, my mind will be working on this new one.
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3 Comments
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Later, peeps. I am exhausted!
Don’t forget to take a nap, biscuit!
How sad, that smart students are pressured to dumb down. It’s nothing new - I’m sure that most of us have experienced that sort of pressure in one way or another. The damage is compounded if there is no support or expectation of good performance at home!
Would I have bothered making an effort in school if I did not think I’d catch h*** at home for bringing home a bad report card? I could have skated through Texas public school without cracking a book if there had not been Mother and her disapproval of “C’s”.
Once I got into college, I had assimilated those high expectations myself - and it was my ego that made me push that much harder for the A’s and B’s…and then I wanted to go to medical school, so there was another goal to look forward to.
That student of yours needs someone else to expect good things of him.
Cheerleaders can become good students - or they can become Dubya or Sarah Palin, and that’s scary!
I know the school he came out of, and he learned fast that he needed to fly under the radar to survive. So he did and, in the process, he’s developed a whole complex of beliefs and behaviors to ensure his protection.
It’s sad, isn’t it? Worse, there are so, so many like him.