If You Build a Better Crutch, We’ll Make a Lazier Student | Mr. Teachbad

If You Build a Better Crutch, We’ll Make a Lazier Student | Mr. Teachbad:

If You Build a Better Crutch, We’ll Make a Lazier Student

Isn’t that the truth?

I was talk­ing to a friend from my old school the other day. They had to read the arti­cle from the last post about the kid who went to DC pub­lic char­ter schools and then was unpre­pared for his fresh­man year at Georgetown.

Sur­prise!

You weren’t pre­pared because your teach­ers had to spend most of their time cod­dling and cajol­ing the way-behind, the lazy and the dis­rup­tive in your midst. (If you are poor and your mom is a drunk, that’s sad. But it is sec­ondary. The teacher still has to deal with way-behind, lazy, and dis­rup­tive.) This takes a great deal of time and effort. In DC, pub­lic edu­ca­tion is all about cre­at­ing the appear­ance that the bot­tom is being brought up. Increas­ingly we see that this is a poorly exe­cuted illusion.

Here is how it works at my old school, the Colum­bia Heights Edu­ca­tion Cam­pus, where I taught U.S. Gov­ern­ment and