By Tom
I flunked a kid today. Held him back. Retained him. It was as bad as you can imagine, only a little worse. Getting held back is a big deal to a third grader, and we don't take it lightly.
Our meeting was set for 2:30, the afternoon of a non-student day, arranged after a series of emails and phone calls designed to lay the ground work. Of course, the decision itself was the result of a lot of processing and agonizing, trying different interventions and new strategies. And I know in my heart that it was the right decision.
Still, I woke up this morning in a horrible mood.
I set off to school on my bike in a bleak drizzle, after taking a long look at the perfectly operational car just sitting there in the driveway. But it was one of those bad moods that wants to stay that way.
As I took a right out of my driveway I turned to self-loathing. What hadn't I done for this student? How could I have differentiated my lessons to meet his needs? Was I not patient enough? Was I too patient? Too strict? Too lenient? I blamed myself all the way up the street.
Then I turned right at the middle school, and looked at it differently. What about the rest of the class? How come they learned and this kid didn't? If anyone's to blame, it should be the student. After all, he's the one that didn't do his homework, doesn't read his assignments, won't go back and edit his writing. He should have taken responsibility for his own learning to some extent, right?
When I got to the post office I took a left and thought about his mom. The lady that won't get him to bed at a decent hour so that he has the energy to learn. The woman who won't follow up on the ADD diagnosis. Won't check his backpack for homework and sit him down and make him do it. She's to blame.
I turned right at the fire station and thought about his dad. The guy that lives somewhere near Baltimore and hasn't seen his son. Ever. Didn't send them a dime, even when they were living in a car last summer. Probably didn't even know. Probably never even thinks about his son; the kid that thinks about him all day, every day. Let's blame him.
The I saw my school and thought, "Maybe it's everyone's fault." Me, the kid, his mom, the dad, everyone. We're all one big, dysfunctional conspiracy.
Or maybe not. Maybe there isn't someone to blame. Maybe it's much more simple. Maybe I was telling the truth when I explained to the mom that her son "just isn't ready yet for the fourth grade." Maybe he really does just "need another year to catch up." Maybe the elementary grades are really just arbitrary divisions based on chronological age, without respect to skill level and cognitive growth.
I don't know. But I do know this: I flunked a kid today. And I cried on the way home.
Lots of great comments and unanswered questions. It’s hard to explain to someone that they’re “just not ready” to move on with their peers. At some point it wouild be nice to work in a system in which “not moving on” didn’t carry such a stigma. And it will be interesting to see what eventually happens to the kids who don’t pass their tenth grade WASL. So far, it seems like we haven’t had the guts to follow through on our “threat.” And I can see why. This was a very difficult period for me.
Tom, you very eloquently described the situation, and the varying emotions of being a great teacher. You know this child and all the factors that made your student just not ready. It almost doesn’t matter why, because you can’t control much of it. What matters is that you understand the situation and care about all of it.
This also makes me think about the benefits of an ungraded or true multi-age system. Retention would not be an overt issue if we eliminated the ‘graded’ system of promoting and retaining. We’d still have students with issues and varying levels of achievement, but that stigma would be eliminated. Wouldn’t it? I’m not sure, need to do more thinking and research.
Mark, search key words one-on-one learning and individualized learning. They exist with and without advancing technologies, including in public schools. They’ve been around long enough to report academic results and problems.
throw not through…at not a… I do know how to spell; proofread, not so much.
@ Chelsea, I’ve had the same idea simmering in the back of my mind for my high school. Presently, we have the straightforward English 9, 10, 11, 12, with AP and pre-AP scattered amongst…and rather than a high trajectory toward advanced skills by year 4, we see little more than a rehashing of familiar topics and themes, perhaps scraping to slightly deeper depth and breadth each year, but often re-teaching rather than furthering development. In my opinion, the model results in us underserving the top 15% and the bottom 15% of mainstream kids (not counting AP or special services). If you find a model (I’ve been looking) post it please, as I am very interested. I’d rather see us transition to a system that instead of four one-year, catch-all classes, consists of a broad sequence of say 10 or 12 semester-long courses which track kids (gasp! yes, I said it, TRACK them) into a sequence that meets them where there needs are and progresses them upward. We can argue about homogenous versus heterogenous groupings all we want, but through a 9th grader who reads at the 3rd grade level (but doesn’t qualify as SpEd) into a room with a kid who reads a the college level, where the teacher teachers at grade level, and both those kids will be less well served than if they were in a room which targeted their specific needs with age-appropriate texts and contexts…
It might be a scheduling nightmare, but the university model might just be a way to go (?)
Yes, we get paid to make some difficult decisions. Best wishes to you, Tom, and to your student, as you each move to your next decisions. Will he be in your class next year?
I agree with you that fault finding doesn’t seem relevant.
My colleague and I were just discussing our system of placing kids in a grade based on their age vs. what they are academically ready for. I would like to look more into the possibility of a middle school where there is no 6th, 7th, 8th grade….but rather kids placed in classes based on their skills. The complexity of how this would work is daunting. And then I think about those kids that I have that are academically capable but I just can’t find a way to motivate them, and there is little to no help at home in regards to the importance of school.
Are there schools in the US that operate by placing kids based on skill rather than age?
We’re considering recommending retention for a student. Honestly, I don’t think my school or district will go for it (they tend not to, because it costs money), but he’s failed almost every class all year. I don’t know how it will affect the student if we do, but I know that if we pass him on, he’ll just keep failing, because he hasn’t actually learned anything this year.
It makes me sad, and your post makes me sad, but I don’t know what other choice there is sometimes. It wouldn’t serve the student well to just let him continue when he doesn’t have the background to be successful in the future, would it?
This is a perfect discussion of all the complex factors which contribute to a child’s “failure.” You’re right, though, this is more about the system which uses chronological age to determine readiness for cognitive tasks. The two are not a perfect linear relationship. I have so many 9th graders who are just not ready for high school…physically, emotionally, intellectually. Would retaining them destroy them emotionally and socially? Who knows. I bet they’d to better academically (and thus be better served in the long run) if the system (and society) had a different view about promoting students to the next grade. What about the recent studies which suggested that many kids diagnosed with ADHD/ADD were simply two or more years behind in cognitive brain development, a gap which closed eventually for many kids: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/science-news/2007/brain-matures-a-few-years-late-in-adhd-but-follows-normal-pattern.shtml …quite the case against medicating kids and for helping kids be placed at the right “grade” for their cognitive development. Unfortunately, I don’t see this change coming any time soon as long as we remain entrenched in our perspectives about social promotion and “the way its always been…”