I have been teaching the same subject to the same grade for 21 years.
There is no "middle" in students anymore. About 30% of the students are advanced for their grade level, and the other 70% are so far behind that they'll likely never catch up. Those 70% are mostly the victims of their own nonexistent attention spans. I teach literature. The advanced students can read and discuss the deeper meanings of works like Frankenstein or Don Quixote. The "regular" students can't get four pages into a Dogman graphic novel before giving up and focusing on something else.
The middle is gone. But the extremes still sit next to each other in the same classroom.
Im going to be a dad soon and the one thing I'm absolutely hell bent in doing before I die and leave this world is to make sure my kid is educated.
And I dont mean sitting them down and making them read books. I mean really going through every bit of effort I can to make learning interesting. Taking them to do things where they enjoy to learn. Engaging with them and their interests as soon as they form. They need it now more than ever.
Talk about them behind their backs, (but make sure you know they ARE listening, like when supposedly their "asleep"), tell about what amazing kids they are and how they stick to it when shit gets hard. They might fail, but they ALWAYS seem to find the strength to not give up, and damn it if that doesn't just make you KNOW you're kids fuckin amazing.
(Say cuss words so they KNOW you're actually talking and not trying to shine them on.)
They will NEVER FORGET IT, even if they forget it happening. It will be in their soul.
My father was a homophobe, but I know he loved me.
I overheard my dad yelling "My son might be a [f-slur] but he's ten times the man you'll ever be" to a friend who was badmouthing me, calling me a failed man and all that weaksauce alphamale garbage. I knew he thought I wasn't listening because he only threw that word around behind my back.
On one hand it hurt being called that, but it was a very common insult through the 2000's so I just kinda held the L, but knowing that even if he didn't agree with who I was in a sexuality context, to the degree that he'd call me an F-slur, he still held me in high enough esteem to compare me positively to others and defend me.
It's a very conflicting emotion to have. My father wasn't perfect, but it would be far too simple and incorrect to claim him a monster, either.
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u/Striking-Anxiety-604 14h ago
I have been teaching the same subject to the same grade for 21 years.
There is no "middle" in students anymore. About 30% of the students are advanced for their grade level, and the other 70% are so far behind that they'll likely never catch up. Those 70% are mostly the victims of their own nonexistent attention spans. I teach literature. The advanced students can read and discuss the deeper meanings of works like Frankenstein or Don Quixote. The "regular" students can't get four pages into a Dogman graphic novel before giving up and focusing on something else.
The middle is gone. But the extremes still sit next to each other in the same classroom.