Who Gets Left Behind?

Joey and Lauren---two of my wife's special ed students when she returned to the teaching profession several years ago. Their stories always come to mind whenever I read or hear about the successes or failures of No Child Left Behind.

With plenty of enthusiasm and idealism my wife would plan activities to engage Joey and Lauren. And day after day she would come home frustrated. The materials that Joey and Lauren could handle were at the 1st grade level and much too childish for these 8th grade adolescents. But the 8th grade math and reading materials were incomprehensible to them. So she began to look for alternatives.

Lauren liked shopping but couldn't remember the values of the coins and bills and how to exchange them. My wife instituted Friday afternoon store. The students could earn money during the week for their effort and progress and then spend it or save it on Friday. The students rotated through the jobs of banker, clerk, customer, and stocker.

Joey liked cars. The store soon contained models of cars. Joey had a knack for putting the models together without the instructions, but as the year went by began to appreciate the hints that might be found in the diagrams. When my wife discovered that Joey was due to begin driver's ed during the summer, The Rules of the Road became his reading textbook.

As the year progressed, my wife learned that Lauren's dad was a butcher and was in negotiation for purchasing a small market. Lauren's mom reported that Lauren's whole attitude towards school had improved. She was even practicing making change at home.

Joey's parents preferred to avoid the school altogether. Joey had indicated that his dad enjoyed his work as an excavator operator and Joey hoped to do the same. But the saddest day was when Joey's diagnosis came back with a neurological condition that resulted in very poor long-term memory retention. My wife had observed this many times. Joey would rehearse something like basic math facts on a Tuesday to the point of 80% or better accuracy and then return on Wednesday to a retention score of 20% or lower. Although he maintained a fairly cheerful attitude on most days, it was very frustrating. One day, late in the school year, Joey turned to my wife with just the beginning of a tear and said, "I just wish I could learn like everyone else!"

Your reaction at this point might be "how sweet" that my wife would spend all this extra time and money to try to connect with Joey and Lauren in a creative way. Or "how sad" that Joey and Lauren couldn't function at a higher level as teenagers. Or "very mad" that the school system hadn't done more to help these kids at an earlier age. But my biggest frustration is that the current climate in schools, led by government policy and administration response to it, is to shove the freedom that my wife had to see a situation and respond to it completely out of the school day.

Three years later, my wife has been forced by school administration to spend that last hour of the day on test preparation. For six weeks! I doubt that the students who read at a 1st or 2nd grade level are going to be able to engage with the "college prep" level material found on the tests. And I am fairly sure with all of the statistical reminders of how dumb they are that not many of these students are going home and telling their parents how much more they enjoy school. More than likely, they are plotting their escape---to drop out!

Are we so fearful of our children's future that there is no time for creative play? Do we expect every one of our children will be a doctor, an engineer, or a computer programmer? Is going to college the magic answer for future success? Are we too concerned with six figure salaries to honor honest work as a butcher or excavator? Do we think we will outsmart the Chinese and the Mexicans who are willing to do the work for less money? Do we rely too much on institutions to solve our problems for us? Maybe, just maybe, in the case of the thousands of Joeys and Laurens around us, we should just celebrate who they are. Coax them to try harder when we can. Encourage them when things look impossible. And let them be children!