So what's the plan?

After several years of teaching foreign languages and reading at the middle school level, I moved to a high school English position.  My first year I taught 10th grade, 11th grade and 12th grade English.  I noticed that my 10th grade pre-ap class and my seniors were okay.  I mean that at no point was I ever worried about them.  Even the kids who didn't speak English were hard workers and did what they had to do to survive.  The regular 10th grade and 11th grade classes made me want to cry.  Many students had the reading and writing skills of a 3rd grader.  What happened?  How was it that so many students were prepared while others were so unprepared?  I just let that year go by.  I enjoyed my successes and lamented my failures.  As the 2010-2011 school year rolled in, the 11th grade students from last year plus a whole slew of new faces entered two of my classes.  One class was AVID or via Individual Determination and the other was senior English.   

So just some background information...  This year's seniors were part of a cohort which had followed these students for the past six years.  The whole purpose of this cohort was to provide opportunities for success while running interventions for those on the brink of failure.  Well, half the cohort has dropped out.  What is left are those who have an interest in finishing school.  And of those students, I would say based on the fifty I see regularly in my classes, many will go to the local community college and a few will quit after the first semester while a few more will quit when they realize that they have two years of remedial classes to take before they can even get to their "basic" freshman classes.  There of course will be those who will continue and navigate through remediation classes and will complete the freshman "basics" but I would like to know how much of them will really do that.

Then there are those who will be in the same situation at our local universities...

Then there are those who will succeed...  They will have that BA/BS...  They will go on to further their education...  You will always know who those kids are the second you walk into class on that first day of school.

So, here is the plan.  After learning that I will be teaching four sections of senior English for the 2011-2012 school year, I decided that I would do what I could to get these seniors into freshman "basic" classes. 

How am I going do this?

Well, I have been studying the placement exams at the local universities and community colleges.  I have also studied the syllabi and course outlines. 

In the next few weeks, I am going to start preparing what I think is what the students will need to enter freshman level classes.  

Let's see if this works!

XOXO,

Mrs. G

Arthur looked up. "Ford!" he said, "there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out."

And so the planning begins...

My inspiration for attempting this experiment comes after teaching high school seniors for the last two years.  It turns out that most students at the high school I teach at go to the local community college directly after graduating.  I myself graduated from the same high school that I am currently teaching at and although the community college and the lottery scholarship were around at that time, no one I knew really considered attending there as an option.  Well times are a changing and with this current population of students more and more of them are heading to the community college. 

The reason for this is five-fold:

First, the community college no longer has an embarrassing stigma attached to it.  What this means is that the community college is no longer the only option for students after they are rejected by most conventional colleges and universities.  

Second, with our state's lottery scholarship, going to the community college is a cheap way to get your basic courses out of the way.

Third, if the student's attend the community college, they can live at home and save money.

Fourth, with college readiness programs, the students are finding that the only collegial life after high school is at the community college by emphasizing the community college as a primary option.  I think that this is because the students are almost pushed into attending the community college by these types of programs even though the programs may not realize that is the culture they are creating.

Fifth, the students are NOT prepared for college.  These students are not getting into local universities/colleges because:

1) They don't have the GPA requirements.

2) Their ACT/SAT scores are so low.

3) The Compass scores are placing the students into remedial classes.

4) They have not been trained to be in a collegial atmosphere.

5) They have been enabled by certain college readiness programs by the student not having any actual responsibilities (ie actually putting in the initiative to search for information on their own or do anything on their own). 

Well, what does this mean?

In my not so humble opinion, I think that the reason our students are heading directly community college is due to the fact that they have been enabled and held to astronomically low standards that their dreams do not extend beyond any two year associates degree.

Let's get something clear!

I am a believer that NOT everyone needs to go to college.

I also think that there is NOTHING WRONG receiving a two year associate degree.

Most importantly I BELIEVE that all students should be in the position to attend a traditional university/college if they want and that it is MY DUTY to prepare them for that opportunity.

XOXO,

Mrs. G

"Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?"

Greetings and Salutations!

One day in 2002, I was sitting in my parents store, working the counter and completely bored out of my mind, when I looked at the website of my alma matter.  Seems that they were looking for people with BA's or higher to become teachers.  I called for some information and they asked me to fax over my resume and voilà, two days later I was enrolled in a teacher training program.  Nine years later, here I am, a teacher in a high school preparing for what I believe is the most important year of my teaching career.  If I am successful in the upcoming year, I feel that I will be able to publish my work and prepare for entrance into a Ph.D program.  I will be using this blog as a vehicle to air my triumphs and my failures in this experiment.   I hope you all will join me on this journey.

xoxo,

Mrs. G

"Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it."