Great Moments in Teaching: When It Had to Be You (Education Realist)
This post comes from the blog Education Realist. While I usually avoid postings from anonymous authors, this full time math teacher who writes under the pseudonym of Education Realist is someone I have come to know and respect as a teacher and person. This post appeared April 30, 2019
Teachers who work with a large population of Asian students occasionally describe a student as “not getting the memo”. High achieving or just hard working, the bulk of eastern and southern Asians all got the word: school is important.
Taio, who has been in my ELD [English Language Development]class for a year or so, is a tall, plump fifteen year old who spent all of last year on his phone. I’d take it away, and he’d just sit impassively. Miko [a colleague and coordinator of English Language Learners program or ELL] mentioned last year that the kid had said I talked too fast, which amused us both, but when I mentioned to Taio that I’d try to talk more slowly, he was shocked and got out his phone for Google Translate. “I like your class very much,” the text said. Huh.
Taio would do work sheets, and occasionally write a sentence or two. But he hated to talk and would sit, sullenly staring at me, as I gave out sentence starters again and again.
Another conversation with Miko, asking if we needed a parent conference. “His CONTINUE READING: Great Moments in Teaching: When It Had to Be You (Education Realist) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice