A Teacher's Delima

As most of you know, I monitor several education blogs. One of the blogs is, "Stories From School" ,and is written by several National Board Certified Teachers. Today's entry gives a different take to keeping students back. It is included below:

Retention

By Tom

I flunked a kid today. Held him back. Retained him. It was as bad as you can imagine, only a little worse. Getting held back is a big deal to a third grader, and we don't take it lightly.

Our meeting was set for 2:30, the afternoon of a non-student day, arranged after a series of emails and phone calls designed to lay the ground work. Of course, the decision itself was the result of a lot of processing and agonizing, trying different interventions and new strategies. And I know in my heart that it was the right decision.

Still, I woke up this morning in a horrible mood.

I set off to school on my bike in a bleak drizzle, after taking a long look at the perfectly operational car just sitting there in the driveway. But it was one of those bad moods that wants to stay that way.

As I took a right out of my driveway I turned to self-loathing. What hadn't I done for this student? How could I have differentiated my lessons to meet his needs? Was I not patient enough? Was I too patient? Too strict? Too lenient? I blamed myself all the way up the street.

Then I turned right at the middle school, and looked at it differently. What about the rest of the class? How come they learned and this kid didn't? If anyone's to blame, it should be the student. After all, he's the one that didn't do his homework, doesn't read his assignments, won't go back and edit his writing. He should have taken responsibility for his own learning to some extent, right?

When I got to the post office I took a left and thought about his mom. The lady that won't get him to bed at a decent hour so that he has the energy to learn. The woman who won't follow up on the ADD diagnosis. Won't check his backpack for homework and sit him down and make him do it. She's to blame.

I turned right at the fire station and thought about his dad. The guy that lives somewhere near Baltimore and hasn't seen his son. Ever. Didn't send them a dime, even when they were living in a car last summer. Probably didn't even know. Probably never even thinks about his son; the kid that thinks about him all day, every day. Let's blame him.

Then I saw my school and thought, "Maybe it's everyone's fault." Me, the kid, his mom, the dad, everyone. We're all one big, disfunctional conspiracy.

Or maybe not. Maybe there isn't someone to blame. Maybe it's much more simple. Maybe I was telling the truth when I explained to the mom that her son "just isn't ready yet for the fourth grade." Maybe he really does just "need another year to catch up." Maybe the elementary grades are really just arbitrary divisions based on chronological age, without respect to skill level and cognitve growth.

I don't know. But I do know this: I flunked a kid today. And it was horrible.