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Why Most Schools Don't have the Nerve to Ask Third Graders for an Evaluation
What an outrage that school is presented as such a negative experience to anybody, never mind a third grader. I have Cade granted permission for this to be posted.
by Don Perl
Our eight-year-old grandson, Cade, entered third grade this past week. On Thursday afternoon he came home with a packet of rules and regulations - lots of "do's and "don'ts" --mostly "don'ts" and what not to wear and what not to eat. Blue and red t-shirts are forbidden as are red and blue shoe laces. No notches in eye-brows, no t-shirts with logos or numbers which could be interpreted to be associations with gangs.
Even for me, with twenty years of teaching in a junior high school, this was way over the top as far as an overreaction to community gang presence. I looked in vain for a philosophy of education-- to nurture our children to discover their talents, to respect their curiosities, something like that. (I should know better, right?)
Cade wrote me a note and put it in an envelope and said, "Zeyde, (Yiddish for grandfather) here's my opinion." I opened the envelope and read on one of my note cards carrying the motto - 'teaching is an act of hope' -- in his very neat eight-year-old script -- all in capital letters -- "DISTRICT 6 SUCKS."
Oh and one of the other "don'ts" in the seemingly endless finger wagging from the district was to not have cookies as snacks. And so Cade's teacher on Friday provided cookies for snacks. (Is this her way of raising a tiny squeak of objection to the tyranny she feels?)
Third grade is the first grade of CSAP testing. This will be quite an interesting year for us all.
Don Perl is the founder of the Coalition for Better Education
— Don Perl with Cade
Coalition for Better Education
2009-08-17
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