Now is the Bitter Winter of Confrontation

 My own New Year's resolution is quite a bit more complicated--to expose in so far as I am able some of the experiences I have had teaching in this country and elsewhere. Readers will have no doubt why American students score so poorly when they see what gives in classrooms. In the coming weeks and months, I will post sections from my memoir Adventures among the Awesomes--A Boomer Teacher Memoir.
      

            In my most recent college teaching misadventure I had a class with a student who had not made the distinction between they're, their and there, and who stomped out the first month!

             One day passing quiz papers back, when I gave him his, I said, “Hie thee to the Writing Center. . .”  (I knew he was a theater major and the 2012 Election was underway.) “Hie thee hither! Hie thee early!! Hie thee often!!!”

            Nowadays, every college has a free on campus center to aid students with their writing and I was suggesting as humorously as possible that the kid use it. He jumped up, stomped off to the department chair and demanded to be removed from my section of English. Before the morning was out, I was called on the carpet. Astonishingly, she did not inquire what error had prompted me. I realized then that I was NOT a teacher; I was a clerk, and this kid was not a student, but a 'customer. I had no doubt he knew the difference, but I wasn't allowed to set the standard.

            It is a measure of how demoralized I am (other teachers are) that it has taken a dozen years for me to internalize the 1 to 1 correlation between the disrespect I have endured in the last dozen years and the mediocre performance of American students. I have tutored German kids with better English skills.
        America needs to cast a Critical Eye on the diminished and undermined role of teachers. Only then will they be abler to force higher standards on students.