Going Back Generations

Okay, so we teachers teach all day long. Before and after the day we even make ourselves available to our students to help them get over the learning hump. Shoot, with the mandatory state testing just over the horizon, SLHS has even offered students an out with detention if they go to state testing focused tutoring mornings before school. Guess who they have leading that: the teachers. Wow, on top of bending over backwards to get our own students on track, this school is forcing face time with the delinquents. It’s like instant Dangerous Minds. They aren’t going to make me do the butterfly too, are they?

You’ve got teachers tutoring kids all kinds of ways. Not only that, but The National Honor Society students offer free tutoring to their peers, yet the school has come up with a new way to increase tutorials. Pècan has assigned a counselor, a Ms. Sharp, to spearhead a new group to reach our learners in extra need.

We learned of the new group through an e-mail that Sharp sent out to the teachers. She is asking teachers to volunteer their children to take on the responsibility providing an education for the students. Now by “children” she is not talking about the kids on our rosters. She means our flesh and blood, our sons and daughters. Sharp is positive that our spawn will have a knack for teaching since that is our trade.

Yikes, what is this? Medieval Times? My kids are destined to have the same job as I do, as will their children and so forth? That’s not oppressive. What? Is Sharp’s kid filling up the counseling office’s pamphlet display rack with community college literature as I write this?

Now I don’t have any chitlins of my own, but I can’t imagine asking my kids to lend a hand in getting my school out of the academic dumps. That’s something I chose to get myself into. I certainly don’t expect kin to go down with me. (I don’t live on The Titanic, for crying out loud). Besides, if we must resort to this many tutors, then I’m not so sure that it’s the best avenue to take to improve things.

And what if the teacher has a three-year-old? It’s not like the kid is in any position to enlighten a high school senior. Well, I say that, but the more I think about it I’m not so sure.