High-school teachers, sound off

[Hammock Parties]

Is it really this bad.

Today I began student teaching at my old high school. I'm still not entirely sure what I saw was real.

When I attended, we had our share of bad students and bad teachers but it was still strictly organized, run fairly, and I was pretty proud to be a student there. Today, however, was the equivalent of finding that your childhood home has been turned into a crack den.

When I walked into my room, the teacher greeted me and we talked a bit about who I was and who he was and what was expected of me. His words exactly were, "You can come if you want, but you really don't have to. I'll fill out whatever you need." I mistook this initially as pure laziness on his part with not having to deal with me but I was proven wrong soon after.

As students began to file in for his first class I noticed that a quartet of sagging pseudo-thugs immediately sat in the corner and produced a pack of cards and rolls of money. Every other student that entered was talking openly on cell phones, and eating and drinking and throwing their trash wherever.

When the bell rang, the teacher told them continually to sit down and stop talking so they could begin ****ing 9-week testing. It was 15 minutes before anyone was quiet enough for him to be heard, and still they continued gambling, talking on phones, and I saw one kid taking swigs out of a Jack Daniels bottle in his bookbag. He passed out the tests (which was 15 questions on the shape of the earth, I shit you not), and halfway through the class an assistant principle knocked on the door and had a hush-hush conversation with the teacher. What was the conversation about? The students gambling? The cell phones? The LIQUOR??

No. The administration found it appalling that these students were being tested and the answers weren't being displayed on the expensive new projectors that had been installed. I was flabbergasted that he was being required to give the answers to the tests.

After three periods of this I had heard plenty of stories from him (and a total of 4 partially completed tests). Students were not allowed to fail. All answers were to be provided to them during test taking so that no one failed. Even if someone turns in a blank page, the lowest grade you can give them is a 70. The month before the teacher next door to him had been hospitalized after being assaulted by a student after she told the student to put out a cigarette. As he was beating her, students were cheering him on and it took security ten minutes to get there and stop him. The student in question was sentenced to 30 minutes of after school detention.

The teacher told me that he has no control over his class and his first class was actually the best class he's had since he started teaching there two years ago. He said that it is impossible to teach them anything as they don't listen. You can't tell them to be quiet or stop doing anything because they turn violent and security is no help. He said he has written up about 30 students in the last month but the administrators do nothing but send them back to the classroom.

It was then that I understood why he had told me he would just fill out any form and I didn't need to come: because my effort at teaching would be pointless. I wouldn't be able to teach them and nothing would be accomplished. I thought surely it's not like this all over the school. I peeked into every classroom on my way to the office to sign-out and it was the same story in every room. Students doing whatever the hell they pleased while the teachers uselessly tried to restore some semblance of order.

Is this what has happened to my high school? The high school with the unbeatable education, sports, music, and arts programs? Has it really become a stereotypical poor-SES urban school from a touching movie? Is this what No Child Left Behind does to schools? I've been sitting here all day convincing myself that I didn't imagine all of it.

Are all public schools turning into this? I'd heard the horror stories of NCLB, but now that I've seen it firsthand I'm horrified and terrified that my future as an educator will involve me simply babysitting the dregs of society.

Someone tell me this isn't true and that I have a future.