marco: “It’s pretty hard to teach a kid who has...

12th October 2010

Post reblogged from Marco's stuff with 204 notes

“It’s pretty hard to teach a kid who has been raised by the television, when he hasn’t eaten breakfast, when the family has been kicked out of their home, when he has to work a job to help feed the siblings, when the parents have just gotten divorced or lost both of their jobs, when no-one at home speaks English, or when their most alluring role models are dope dealers, pimps, or gangsta rappers. Imagine, then, trying to teach a room full of such trauma cases. […] If you want better schools, work for more stable incomes, families and neighborhoods.”

— Robert Freeman (via AZspot), addressing the biggest problem our modern educational system faces: not bad teachers or bad schools, but the downward spiral of poverty and the decimation of the middle class.

If you want more stable incomes, families, and neighborhoods, work for better schools.

I don’t deny that it’s “pretty hard” to teach these kids — but it is most certainly possible, and I do it every day.

EDIT: To add that I RTFA’d and it turns into some tin foil conspiracy theory about charter schools being some sort of hedge fund ploy to suck profits from the educational system. What the hell are you reblogging, Marco/azspot?

Source: commondreams.org

2arrs, 2ells