Fare Thee Well

I was reading the obituaries from my home town newspaper tonight when I came across the name of a man named Joe who died at the age of fifty. He was living a successful life with a lot of community involvement and a good career. I was quite upset to read his obituary. I hadn't seen Joe since 1979, his year of graduation from Tamaqua High School. Joe was a former student of mine.

I love teaching but I am always saddened whenever a former student dies. I should not outlive my students anymore than a father should outlive his son or daughter. My former high school had an inordinate number of deaths among our students. One year we lost six students. Most were not mine but their loss impacted our school community and Curt, the high school principal, had a very difficult time since he attended every funeral.

I remember an eleventh grade girl who was often careless about keeping her asthma inhaler close by and ready. She died before she could graduate.

I remember Ernie, a brilliant kid with a great personality who belonged to ski club and usually skied in bib overalls. He graduated and was studying to be a doctor when he died. I used to have a lot of fun teasing him.

Greg was my chess opponent in over 300 games through high school. It made us both better players. I won almost 60 games against him before he finally beat me with some new maneuver. I always figured it out and started another streak which he would derail after about ten games with another new maneuver. We got so involved that nobody could watch and follow what we were doing. Greg had a bulldog-like tenacity when it came to our chess games and he never got frustrated, just even. I read almost twenty years ago that he died as a young man from a heart condition.

I had one boy in class, Joseph, who was always in trouble. For some reason we got along quite well, even though he never passed my class. He had a girlfriend, Maureen. She was academically challenged but always had a smile and was great fun in class. Joseph quit school and was living in a car for some time. Maureen tried to stay in school and get a diploma but she didn't make it. A short time after giving up on school, she was murdered by Joseph.

Lori was a ninth grade student of mine and was in my wife's tenth grade homeroom. She died in a house fire when she was in the tenth grade.

Mike was a real character and loved life and loved being a bit of a cutup in class. He even had a crush on my wife. A short time after graduation he was killed in a car accident.

Jim was a junior when he was killed in a car accident. Then there was John, who could be a real pain in the class. His yearbook picture shows him on a motorcycle. Unfortunately the yearbook was dedicated to him because he died before he graduated.

These are the students I think of with fondness and sadness. They will always have a special place in my memories when I think of "what might have been".

At the same time, I have taught over 6000 different students in my career, which spans almost 40 years. I have seen more good things happen than I could ever begin to list. I still teach and I have not "burnt out". I enjoy teaching and my students keep me feeling young. After all, I have to stay one step ahead of them. It is funny to see my students acting out in ways that they think are unique. During my career I have seen every action done by every student multiple times. I have to chuckle to myself when I watch their actions.

The only time I don't chuckle is when I am reminded of a former student who has left this world ahead of me.

I Am Back

I have had an interesting as well as very busy time since my last posting.

My chemistry classes are moving right along. Students are comprehending the material we are covering, even though they have some problems with the tests. I believe they have problems with the tests because they simply don’t know how to prepare for a test. Hopefully they will master that skill by the time they enter college. Meanwhile my physics students are still having problems with the mathematics part of the course. Since it is what should be simple math for them, I believe it is due to a lack of skill in reading a problem and deciding which math to use to solve it. There are two possible reasons for this problem: students don’t have the mental maturity to have the insights needed to relate the appropriate mathematics to the problem and secondly, the way students are taught mathematics emphasizes the mechanics of problem solving over the interpretive skills required for mathematics applications needed for science.

A few weeks ago we decided to modify my ninth grade natural resources class to serve students who have failed the tenth grade biology end of course exam. We were told that students graduating in 2013 or later had to pass this test. Now the state may move it to the class of 2017 and later. These are mixed signals similar to what happened in math. We have also been prewarned that students will have to take three years of science to graduate from high school.

Budget cuts mean that schools will be laying off (furloughing) teachers and class sizes will be going up, so I guess this is a perfect time to increase graduation requirements and push more students into the sciences. I don’t know where the additional science teachers will originate and I wonder what will happen to the teachers who teach electives. Students are able to take fewer and fewer electives as more requirements are dumped onto them.

The state is experimenting with a new system of evaluating teachers. Students’ test results will be part of a teacher’s evaluation. I am not sure how this system will work. One of the big falicies of public education is that all students can be successful. There are always students who will make no effort to be successful and use the school for socialization time. Most administrators will criticise the teacher for not engaging such a student. Now the test scores of such a student will have a negative effect on the student’s teachers. I am also interested in how much of the new system will be objective and how much will be subjective. One big fear teachers have is that the principal will use administrative powers to create a feifdom in the district. Teachers would not be so adamant about merit pay and job seniority if a fair method of evaluations could be devised. Unfortunately no such method has appeared.

I am wondering if I should move to Wisconsin. I understand from the Tea Party crowd that the average state worker makes over $100,000 a year. I think I’ll go there and drive a school bus so that I can afford to own two houses and drive a Lexus. They have decertified their public employees unions and basically took away many of their job protections, using money as the reason (bogus). There are plenty of public service employees who are next to worthless but going after everyone is hardly the best solution.

Next week I’ll write about my natural resources class.