Teacher breaks down over seniors who can't read
A high school teacher broke down in tears during a lesson with graduating seniors. The educator hopes these students will proceed to college after finishing high school. The class assignment involved reading two paragraphs and writing out one complete sentence. Sentence templates were provided to assist the students. The teacher essentially completed the sentence structure within the model for them. These are seventeen- and eighteen-year-old young men and women. Despite the support, they could not insert four words into the text. The situation was explained clearly to the class. They worked through and annotated the text together as a group. The answers were given to the students before they even started the assignment. Still, they could not do it. It is only the second day of instruction. The teacher has seniors who simply cannot read. There are seniors who cannot write. However, the students can reason. They know how to defend their point of view when talking with a friend. But they could not apply that reasoning to a written text of two paragraphs. The students include young Black boys, young men with dark skin, young Black girls, and young women with dark skin.
Trascrizione (en)
I literally broke down in the middle of class because I'm teaching seniors. These kids are leaving high school and going to college, hopefully, after they finish. we had two paragraphs to read one sentence complete to write I gave them the sentence stems I basically completed the sentence for them in the model these are 17 and 18 year old kids and they couldn't fill in four words four words I gave them the scenario we annotated together I gave them the answers before we even had the problem And they couldn't do it. I don't know. I simply don't know where the problem is. This is only day two. And I have seniors who simply cannot read and seniors who cannot write. They cannot write. They can reason. They have the ability to defend their reasoning if it's talking to their homeboy. But applying that to a written text, two paragraphs. that they couldn't do it. Our young black men, our young brown men, our young black girls, and our young brown girls. Oh, God.
