Guest Post: Things Need to Change by Matthew Catlett

Here it is, after 5 on a Monday afternoon and I am sitting at my desk trying to envision what I will teach my students tomorrow and becoming more and more frustrated with that picture. A little background: I have worked in education since 2008 in the capacity of a Sign Language Interpreter and now as a Deaf Ed/ASL-as-a-foreign-language teacher. The Deaf and Hard of Hearing students I work with average about a 4th grade reading level and my job is to prepare them for the “real world” through the mediums of Social Studies and Language Arts. These students are years behind their hearing peers which is frustrating enough (for them as well as for me) without me, as a teacher, being required to gear all of my teaching toward a test that they and I both know they will never pass… A test that has no bearing upon their lives or their futures. Case in point: I will begin teaching about the Progressive Era tomorrow. I absolutely agree that my students should know about the progressive movements of the early 1900s and I could have a blast teaching them about how these movements affect their lives today. We could look into the gruesome aspects of child labor, discuss the fascinating idea that prohibition was actually upheld in this country for a short period of time, and imagine the life of a regular worker working 12 or 15 hour days to support his family before the government began to regulate business. But… Oh wait, that’s what I did last unit when I took the time to compare and contrast the Jim Crow Laws, segregation, and discrimination with what’s going on today in Ferguson, MO and other places around the world. We actually took time to see how some things have changed for the positive while others have stayed the same. My students learned more pertinent information during those discussions than in any of the many lectures I’ve given that were trying to prepare them for a test. So what is the con here? Oh… I’m behind now. At least, behind where a group of lawmakers think I need to be. In my opinion, I am right where my students need me to be. Can I hurry it up to make sure they have everything they need from US History by the end of the semester (with emphasis on the word need)? Absolutely and I will! And they will still fail the test in April because what they need and what the testers believe my kids need are vastly different things. When will my discernment as a teacher be valued? I have watched students who I have formed a professional relationship with and care about sit down to take a test that another teacher in my situation did her best to prepare them for. I have watched as they began navigating through each question and the hope in their eyes died as they realized that this was just one more test they would fail. These were not subjects I had taught (all of my classes were non-EOI last year) but I will be watching these same students take tests about the subjects I have been commissioned with preparing them for this year. I am bracing myself for the moment when they look up, some with tears in their eyes, and say, “I’m going to have to take this test again next year to graduate, right?” Why? Because I refuse to devalue them by teaching them dates and names and particular pieces of information that will be gone the moment they leave my classroom. I choose instead to teach the things about life that will leave an impression on their memories for years to come and allow them to have the opportunities they deserve. I choose to teach them, for instance, that there have been two great wars in the World, why and where they happened, who was involved, and how they can help prevent a disastrous calamity of the same proportion by the attitudes they hold and the values they instill. I will teach them these things so that they can hold a viable conversation with other adults when this topic arises. In contrast, I will not take the time to teach them “which third-party candidate split the Republican Party in 1912 and prevented the reelection of President Taft.” Why? Because it holds no bearing on their lives. That question is ridiculous! And yet it is on the pre-test for Unit 2 of US History. So why don’t I just give up? Deaf and Hard of Hearing kids are on IEPs and can easily be switched to “portfolios” where they can do activities like draw lines from a word to a picture and receive a passing grade that way. Why do I only have one student taking an OAAP? Because I refuse to degrade a student who is a top football player or a student who is a highly respected basketball player on Edison’s athletics teams by presenting them with this option. I refuse to treat my students as though they have severe cognitive disabilities because they have missed out on communication at home and struggle with English and all of the intricacies involved with it. These are students who attend leadership conferences, have a high social life within their community (the Deaf community) and can do anything you ask them to do until they sit down to take a 2-3 hour test. At one time we had a modified version that these kids could pass while I taught them all of the things they are missing about the world around them – the things that the world around them learns just through listening. But not anymore. When is enough, enough?? How can I, as a 2nd year teacher who came in with the idea that I was going to change these kids’ worlds, already be burnt out to the point of considering another profession? When will we stand up and say, “I’m the teacher! I’m the one in the classroom every day! I see what my kids need so let me address those needs!” I believe the time is now.