K-12 Teachers not doing enough??

In an education blog about schools in Central Texas in the Austin American Statesman entitled Homeroom, a middle school teacher argues that many of the schools are asking their students the wrong questions. Patience Blythe, a teacher of three years at Garcia Middle School here in Austin, writes about her experience that led her to this argument. She describes that in her seventh grade advisory class, half of the black students and a very small number of the Hispanic students lived with both of their biological parents. Also, half of the students say that neither of their parents graduated high school and all of them have seen drugs in either their homes or neighborhoods. She then asked her students the question, ““If you could meet anyone in the world, living or dead, who would it be and why?” She said one of the girl’s responses was that she would want to meet her mother. The girl says” I don’t know who she is. I ain’t never met her befo’”. Blythe asked her if she was adopted and the girl replied, “ I ain’t adopted! I live with my sister.” I like how she uses this conversation between the student and herself because the way the girl responded, not just her answer in general, but the vocabulary she used is a great example of the education level of those students. It shows that many students are far from achieving the goal of attending college. Blythe goes on with her argument saying that a huge problem is that they keep asking kids if they want to go to college or not, while all of them will raise their hands in saying “yes”, 60% of those kids will drop out. Blythe strongly urges that teachers need to quit asking the simple questions and start asking questions such as, “How can we help them get there?.”
I strongly agree with Blythe’s argument, I think her way of approaching the issue was very successful. I think the K-12 teachers need to do more to figure out how they can not only teach the students their basic subjects, but teach them how to become more successful on a more personal level so that they can go on to apply the knowledge they learn in the classroom.