sabasabas

As a veteran high school English teacher, and particularly one who has taught predominantly gifted and college-bound students, I feel compelled to write about the increasing disparity between resources that are allocated for remediation and resources that are available for students who work hard enough to earn excellent grades. I say “work hard” because it is apparent that top students’ grades come not from magic dust, their mother seeing a white buffalo, or even stellar-IQ genes. In fact, if students who earn poor grades were compared using IQ only, “A” students and “F” students would correlate much more closely than expected. The work ethic of those at the top is the main source of differentiation. It is heartbreaking that work ethic is never rewarded in the public school system, and is actually punished more often than not.
First, most government programs with serious money behind them reward students to the point of windfall who are developmentally or physically disabled. Acquiring a label of disability is tantamount to a free pass from work, responsibilities, or pressure of any kind. These students stricken through no fault of their own by disabling depression or anxiety will have nothing to worry about, ever. Of course, disabled students require extra supervision and support ranging in scope from unlimited time on assessments to diapering and it isn’t fair to lump them all together as one, but since the government does not distinguish between depression and cerebral palsy, for the purposes of this blog I won’t either.
Almost invariably, students at the top of the heap possess a myriad of uniform characteristics marking them as exceptional, which should guarantee them access to some resources to serve their special needs. Having worked with both ends of the spectrum, this is what I can say for sure. Top students are clean, respectful, thorough, detail-oriented, inquisitive, and kind. A teacher’s classroom at the end of the day is a prime indicator of his/her students’ grades. Top students are respectful of their environment. They never leave trash, produce graffiti, or deface/destroy books, desks, and other school property. In fact, they volunteer their time to ensure a clean, safe environment for all. They treat teachers and other adults with respect, acknowledge the contributions of others and reach out to those in need. Conversely, students with poor grades are often disrespectful, bullying others at every opportunity and pandering for undeserved rewards. The system is designed to support and reward those who perpetrate such behavior, and punishes those who excel behaviorally and academically.
The big money is reserved for often-unnecessary accommodations and ineffective interventions at the bottom of the heap. Schools are increasingly overreaching to usurp the rights and responsibilities of the American family and eroding away both in the process. Dangerous ground is broken when the State presumes to dictate morals, values, behavior and cultural norms. Teachers are not psychologists, medical professionals, behaviorists, or employers. The bottom-of-the-heap students quickly learn that the louder their proclamations of victimhood, the more rewards will be offered. These students come out of their 21-year stint in the state institution not assuming their portion of burden as productive members of society, but ready to accept government largesse in cradle-to-grave benefits including disability, food stamps, section 8 housing, etc. The cycle of poverty is reinforced in public school, not broken.
My students are the high achievers. They passed an entrance exam in order to attend the school where I teach. This sort of tracking is unfortunately unique and rare in the United States, although it is used in most countries we consider models for achievement in education such as Germany and Norway. Situations where students are tracked by ability in the public sector are so unusual here because outraged and misguided advocacy groups protest that majority groups are overrepresented and minorities overshadowed in programs for the gifted. This outrage ignores that fact that the same test is given to everyone and the test itself is color blind. We do not have our own campus, of course, but students take all AP classes and share a campus with another school. The “normal kids” at our sister school often bully my students, teasing them for their rolling backpacks and dedication to their classes. Our books are falling apart, although no students ever complain. They will buy another or carefully tape their books together. The campus is crumbling around them, and they must leave the building to use the restroom, although I have never heard them protest about this. They put enormous pressure on themselves to do well and do not file lawsuits against teachers and administrators who fail to recognize their special needs. They are too special to make a big deal out of it.

I’ve written about selfies before, but having returned recently from a trip to the Yucatan where photo ops were more prevalent than breakfast-nabbing coatimundis, I felt the need to lament the unfortunate trend of living one’s vacations through the graphic screen of one’s camera.

After a particularly enjoyable Japanese dinner in the middle of the rain forest, I stepped outside the gilded doors of the resort restaurant onto the inlaid marble walkway bounded on either side by a lovely reflection pool graced by gleaming koi to enjoy the gracefully humid jungle air and a moment without the clanging of knives. Cloaked in darkness, I looked through the plate glass floor-to-ceiling windows at a large teppan yaki community table behind which a stately ginzu chef adeptly chopped and tossed his knives skyward. To a man, those seated around the large table were viewing the scene exclusively through their phones. In unison, ten flashes illuminated the shrimp flame. Not one of the ginzu guests spoke or interacted with the others.

The distraction of the ubiquitous camera phone, or, worse, the large camera tablets that are rapidly replacing them, is an affront to the immediacy of any moment. Does the world really want to see your awful, shaky videos? Addiction to technology is, may I venture, more annoying than smoking. We have a seemingly insatiable appetite to capture all moments on our cameras, displaying a wonky courage in the face of, say, a charging buffalo at Yellowstone (yes, I’ve seen a lingering mob of camera-wielders refusing to budge in order to preserve the charge for eternity on youtube).  Are we generously turning into an intrepid horde of citizen journalists, or indulging a narcissistic impulse to earn bragging rights as the first to post? Viewing a concert through the camera scene of such a dolt seated in front of you diminishes the concert experience considerably.

“I Forgot My Phone” is a wonderful short film by Charlene DeGuzman emphasizing the loss of the world around the glowing glass. Smartphone addictions cripple relationships, vacations, and can even get you fired. Nomophobia, the fear of losing one’s phone, has settled into our lexicon, and California leads the way in retreats for cell phone addiction. Validating our existence through one’s camera phone has become more important than cultivating scintillating conversation skills, nurturing personal relationships, and letting one’s actions speak for themselves.

In all fairness, camera phones link us during times of disaster and war like no other media. I would simply like to humbly recommend that we use sober restraint, endeavor to live the moment with immediacy, and click only when our purposes are loftier than shameless self-promotion. If we can click politely and discreetly without revealing the baser side of human nature, we might become auteurs instead of voyeurs.