Educators have a special flair for coining names for special programs. When my son was a sixth grader I use to go over to his school during my lunch hour to help out on the playground. On several occasions I saw this kid riding his bike around outside of the school grounds. I had seen him around the community and couldn't quite figure out why he was out of school and seemingly very comfortable riding around near the school. Being the do-gooder that I was, I inquired about the reason for this student boldly riding around the school during school time. I was informed that the particular student was in the "OPPORTUNITY PROGRAM". Wow!, the Opportunity program, I thought. I inquired from the powers that be , "what exactly is the Opportunity Program? I was told that it was a program that was created for students that were so far behind their grade level and so disruptive in their regular class, that they only spent a half day at school. That half day was spent in some other teacher's classroom, where that were placed off in a corner away from the other students and given some kind of worksheet to work on. Oh! I didn't mention that this student was a 6th grader. I requested and was granted permission to sit in on the student's morning class. The student was there sitting off from the other students with this worksheet on the desk. The worksheet consisted of a column of alphabets and a column of pictures. The student was suppose to draw a line from the alphabet to the picture that began with that alphabet. Example: a line from the alphabet"H" to the picture of a hat. I looked at his worksheet; had he had gotten the first one wrong. He had no idea what he was supposed to be doing. He was just given the worksheet and instructed to sit and be quiet. Question: Opportunity for what?
Note: The last I head, this student was serving 35 years to life. (Sad...)
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What's in a Name???
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked in IUSD, the cut-off birthdate for students entering Kindergarten was December 1st. When we went to a year-round schedule and school started in early August, that became a problem. We had children, many of whom had not been to preschool, entering school at a very young age. That problem was exacerbated by the fact that as our population was changing, many of them spoke little or no English when they enrolled in school. As a result, a great number of students became candidates for retention because they were not academically , socially, or emotionally ready for first grade. Parents began to balk at the prospect of having their child retained. Our principal, Nancy Ichinaga, in her infinite wisdom solved the problem by creating a "new" grade between Kindergarten and First Grade - Jr. First. Instead of being held back in Kindergarten, students were "promoted" to Jr. First. As a result, all of the stigma attached to retention evaporated and parents were happy when in effect, nothing had actually changed. Go figure . . .
Just makes you realize how fortunate you are to have folks parenting you with all their might. . . .
ReplyDelete35 years to life? Damn.