now understanding the next part is for me very important. if you are going to use figures to,illustrate the various good qualities or bad qualities of sometime you must be able to compare. any stst dealing with our educationsnal syatem as for as comparision is concerned mut deal with firures that are erroneous. 40 0r 50 years age you taook a large segment of the populkation who up until that time had been consideered fourth class by society and therefore handled that way by the public. this is tghe agfrican american population. they had just gone through a period of about 350 where nobody gave a damn abouit the formal education. enough said about that part of it. in the 1950s these people decided they had had enough. the got angry and started demanding whatn was their right all the time. but remember that 350 years, you gave them to us and saidtake them, make than forget all about 350 years of ignoring tham, 350 yrare of not educsating them of notm even inmcluding them in a national staistics./ for example they werent considered significant enough to include when trying to figure out things like national unemployment rates. and the list goes on ad infinitu, in the late 60s you gave thenm to us and said in effect, hurry uop and make up for 350 years of this kind of disasteer, we couldnt do it, we cant do it. it is an impossible task especially when you consider thatafter the 60s, after that initial,burst of activity which resulted in the beginning of so many innovation activitied. we did once again what americans are notorious for doing and have been notorious for doing, we decided that Well maybe weve gone to far overbaord. affirmative acytion i diont think so. school building repair well the budget is tight. and on and on. evetry americasn should be required to spend a day visitin an inner city city in a major urban area. some would run away screamiong. and every problem that these schools and these student are facui g is exactly the same proble they were facing 50 yuears ago. this is really a crucial are in ternms of trying to understand ou r education systm,. if you doit understand this you will never come close tro underrstandingf much else about what is happening. one smmall example,. i taught at an inner city school. project housing, tremebndous drop out rate. i monitored a collecollege accaptane test given to all senior and juniors in a huga auditoriu. walking up and down the aisles, perhaps 1`0 per cent sleeping, 20 or 30 per cent drawing initials or desighns on their answer shets by filling in the squares in that shape. this is not their fault. they couldnt car less about sometinng THE TEST that had no relevance for thenm. one little eight grader asked if she sould go to the washroo,. after she left one of the other students said Pregnant again. payse 4th one.we were told over and pver that no mayter how sure we were that there was abuse in the family we were not to file a complaint unless we saw extensive bruising. no bruise no abuse. our band leader had no instruments, ethree days a week he went to school at 6-30 got the van and then made the round to various other schools in th district to get the instrrunmebt they would lend him for the day,vuisitint-g their hom,es. home of a 16 year old 19th grader. pleasant , smiling parent, who clung to each other ll the time i was there, with their smile never leaving their face. two tooms. one bed with a huge hole in the center of the mattress, my student and his 14 year iold sisted slwept on the bed. i dont know where parents slept. home very neat and tidy. shall i go on. please explain to me waht having a doctorate would do in these circumstances,. do you think it mi=ght be true that even though i must have knowledge in the academic part icertainly need some help in the what you call the SNEERINGLY THE EDUCATION PART. this is something that goes onn day after day after day in our educational system. and i ambetting that you and for that matter most of the critics of the system dont have the faintest idea what you are really talking about. remember you in the fiorm of society gave us these children and tese tasks. and then (till now ) you g=havwe completely gforgotten about us,same resources, same yearly battle to get enough money to teacjh. i will give you one more example. one year the saint paul minn school district was unable to get what they neesde to teach , as a reault we had to sign out for every sheet of paper we used every sheet. tell thenm what we were going to use that sheet for,. if you nmade a mistake on th=at sheet you had to turn in at the end of each dy, a list showing what you had tried to use it for and what had happened so that you could no use. it., im sorry jock you dont know what the hell youre talking about. cai and doctorates are not going to be oof much use when trying to figure out how to get these kid to learn whatb they are supposed to lear. im not takling about 3 or 5 kids scattered here and there. im talking oabout 30 or 40 percent of the school population,. i rewtired 17 years ago and my friends tell me that if anything things have gottten worse. no attempt by the population to pass realistic budgets. they have so fallen under the spell of conservative automaticlly grabbing their groins doubling over and grunting whenever they hear the words budget increase. that that avenue of help is gone. bigger classroom in lower grandes, less capable students i n upper. and anon and on. sorry i got a little carried away. i havent had a chance likr this with a ready made place to vent for a long timee, ill tellyou what rally pissses me off. i went into teaching with very high ideals, i believe most dio, it cant be trhe money. in just a couple of years the system had wiped thos iddeals out of me laughting all the time.
