A district person who is in our building a lot has become aware of jGR. She wants me to address our science department on Thursday about what we are doing.
The district person told me that the science department is very negative about what the kids can do and that they as science teachers are caught between the pacing guides and the need to work with kids, and it seems that they prefer the pacing guides.
Of course, these are Latino kids with, in the vast majority of cases, limited English, and so one could well understand that between the language challenge and so many of them being undocumented, they are not exactly the most gregarious kids in the district. However, they are so talented intellectually.
It must be so hard for these teachers. They have essentially thrown up their hands over this issue. But the person who invited me to their PLC has a clear vision of jGR – she is a former Spanish teacher and gets Krashen. Can you see where this is going?
I will tell the science teachers what we are doing with jGR in the WL Department, and that a lot of what we do is about communicating in a real way with kids. Then they can respond as they wish. They can continue to teach as they have, or they can decide to do more with the social piece and try to build some trust and let the kids be treated in perhaps a different way, one that is more honoring of their intellectual capacities.
I guess I should say what I mean. Those science teachers need to get off their asses and do some real teaching, like the real kind, which puts the kid first. Perhaps they might develop a rubric of their own so that they can demand the same kind of rigor that we demand in WL, and in the meantime take a look at whatever it is in themselves that is keeping them from seeing these kids for who they really are.
