I am on Spring Break. There has been much to blog about, but no time to do it. Now I have time but I'd rather do other things - like spend time with my 5 month old son (I swear, the fact that the Lord of the Rings just released on blu ray has nothing to do with it!). But I offer up this one thought, which was insired by the recent death of teaching legend Jaime Escalante.
The teachers who get movies made about them are the people who overcome impossible odds - they reach the unreachable kids. The message that gets sent to us is that every teacher should be a Jaime... and truthfully, we should be inspired by these stories. The thing that worries me about it is the idea that every kid, no matter how delinquent deserves to have a miracle teacher turn their life around. It seems to take the responsibility off of the students and parents entirely. Hence, when a students fails - it really is the teacher's fault. Jaime would never have let him fail.
Except that I have a hard time believing that Jaime never "let" a kid fail. True, he started a kick-ass math program at a school where no one thought it could be done - but that isn't the same as saving every child. I'll bet he handed out his share of Fs like any other teacher - what I think made him special is that he had a way of making kids believe in the opportunity that was in front of them, rather than the environment that was beating them down - but the important part of the equation is that he reached out to kids who had the wherewithall to reach back. After all, Jaime didn't take that Calculus test for his kids - they ended up doing that themselves.
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