This article is just another piece of strong evidence for my theory that the only way to "close the gap" between kids from poverty and kids from money is boarding school. In the second half of this post I wrote about the real solution to this problem. Seriously.

The Star Tribune article dances around the truth - poor city kids do better around better role models AND poor city kids don't have the skills/attitudes AND opportunity to stick with it long enough to succeed.

The culture in the inner city is this pervasive scourge of ignorance and instant gratification. This combined with high rates of student mobility and an unstable homelife makes the situation impossible. These kids MUST be taken out of the environment if this thing is ever to turn around. Read the articles (both of them) and think about it. The answer is obvious, and expensive....or not. Is it really expensive if we put a big dent in the cycle of poverty?

Stuff to think about, to be sure.

small successes, 3 grand, some shoes, a cell phone bill and a threat

I'll get to the title in a second.

You know, I've been having 30+ kids come to my after school tutorials, 2x a week. They're all trying to get caught up in my class, because they can't get the job done during class. I like that. They're trying, within the constraints of what they can do.

Damn, though. They're so far behind. These kids have an almost total lack of "basic knowledge" - the stuff that your "typical" 15 year-old kid should know. They also have no metacognitive strategies, and they're too old to convince that they should actively pursue knowledge. It's sad. I come to the above conclusion as a result of trying REALLY hard to get these kids to engage - really engage.

I had almost gotten used to their lack of engagement, which is really scary. My student teacher was my wake up call. He has been reminding me of what students SHOULD be doing, based on what their "competetors" are doing in suburbia. We've been trying to push this year's crop of kids to step up (thus, I think, the huge crowds in my tutorials) but I fear I'm just losing them to frustration in the end. No one else in their lives is pushing them, so my pushing leads to so much frustration. The end result? Right now, I have about a 25% passing rate in my classes. I don't know what to do.

Back to the title. Some kid stole a teachers debit card number (don't ask how), and proceeded to charge 3 grand on it. Laughably, the dummy also used her card to pay off his cell phone bill. Then in class the next day, he threatened her when she told him to take his seat. File this under "stupid criminals".

The Ultimate Truth in Teaching

This is the ultimate truth in teaching at the moment.