Remember that strip of pictures and letters that wound around the top of the chalkboard in first grade? It had a picture of an apple for an Aa and a Dd for da-dog and a goose for Th—“The goose says, ‘Tttthhhh,’’ which was pretty much the end of school enjoyment for those of us children who were missing our front teeth. “No, honey, not ‘Ssssssss,’ let’s work on it during recess.” (OK, maybe you had a mother for “Th.” Will the humiliation never end?)
Obviously, school left some of us deeply scarred, so we thought we’d try to come up with a better alphabet to help parents and students better prepare their minds for heading back to school in a matter of days. We’re sorry, it’s just something we do every year. You’ll be all right. It gets better.
BOO Y V K A
S
H E
ACT (A n d SAT).
These are the targets at which students will aim, or be aimed at by their parents, from nursery school to 12th grade. As the students become aware of the importance of these be-all and end-all objectives, they will learn other important things about the world—that one size fits all, and assembly lines are the way the world works. And when the tests are behind them, they will be introduced to that empty feeling that will keep coming back when things of importance don’t live up to their billings.
B ook S . While textbooks seem to be a fading
medium for the dissemination of knowledge, we know students will still be carrying backpacks around that weigh up to 30, 40, 50 pounds. Still, the move to e-textbooks is far from a perfect transition, as those of us who prefer e-books can attest. While e-books can broaden and deepen discussions with outside links to databases or websites, sometimes charts and graphs don’t render correctly, the internet is not yet ubiquitous, and its spottiness may in fact help to reinforce the cycle of poverty. And nobody ever forgets to charge their textbook.
C l A S S . Go to class. That’s pretty easy
to do when you’re in elementary school and your mom drops you off in front of school or the bus pulls up right in front of your house, and you can’t really think of anywhere else you could be, but it’s tougher to remember to go to class when you’re older and you have friends with cars and drugs. But go to class. You can fake your way through a lot of stuff at school, but you can’t convince anybody you’ve been doing the schoolwork when the teacher doesn’t know what you look like.
d ropou T S . This is a deadly term, one
with such formidable negative power that some students stay in school just to avoid it. So, naturally, the powers-that-be stopped using it, opting instead for at-risk. (In Tennessee, “The term ‘school leavers’ is preferred here over the more pejorative ‘school dropouts.’” Tennessee Youth Community Needs Assessment, 1994.) Just two months ago, an arm of Tufts University issued a report, Don’t Call Them Dropouts. So dropping out becomes easier when the term being faced is the less stigmatizing at-risk. As it happens, though, as time goes on, education folks are now also trying to redefine at-risk. National At-Risk Education Network: “There is some serious debate over exactly what the term ’at-risk’ means.” It’s hard to keep up.
E duCAT ion . Let’s be honest. Kindergarten through 12th grade is
filled with hours of unadulterated boredom, better things to think about, and nuggets of things worth knowing. Now, let us put one notion to rest: You will use algebra after high school. You will use it in college, and if you can neither do algebra nor get accepted into college, you can expect to earn around $20,000 a year less than someone who got a bachelor’s. Do you know how many fewer dollar meals that is a year? Well, first, you’d have to figure out what amount 12 | RN&R |
JULY 24, 2014
