Now Is The Time...

In April or May of 2003, I received a newsletter/magazine in the mail that had the headline….Now Is The Time To Tell Students: If They Don’t Do Well In High School, They Won’t Do Well In College (or on the job). When hasn’t it been time to tell students this? Or is it that now is the time to tell this to inner city school students? This is ridiculous! I mean, what were you telling them before? And I cringe to think of educators who may see this as this great message whose time has finally come. This is a message that should have been going out to every parent (at least junior high and high school) at the beginning of the school year beginning in the ninth grade. How much money did they waste to send this newsletter to teachers nationwide? This should be common sense for educators. And if it isn’t, I don’t believe you should be teaching. If now is the time to tell students this, here are few other issues I believe whose time has come (or should have come years ago)



Now is the time for school boards to stop allowing the disruptive students to stay in school and take over classes and schools due to their population! Simply because of their numbers these students represent a lot of money within a school’s budget. But should the children who are good students not have the opportunity to become great students because a teacher has to repeatedly waste ten, fifteen or twenty minutes of instruction time in a class that lasts fifty minutes to deal with these problems that in my experience are constant from the same students. Can principals of public schools not form a coalition in order to strengthen their voice collectively and deliver their message to the state and federal agencies? Many of the children that they worry about leaving behind, don’t want to go where you want to take them. The administrations of schools have to have the power to send these kids home without fear of losing huge amounts of money. The new federal administration’s policy makers have to be informed of this problem. Parents need to be able to be held accountable for their children’s actions. Whatever happened to being able to call a parent at work and telling them that they had to come and get their child? Why are we constantly inconveniencing the educator or students who are in school doing the right thing and trying to succeed? Parents should have to call off of work and come get their child. Maybe with the loss of revenue or threat of losing their job after having to leave work repeatedly for their misbehaving child, many of these “parents” would do what they are supposed to do… parent. I have a student who has recently returned to school after being removed from school, and placed in an alternative school because she brought a knife to school with intent to do harm. Folks, its February 25 as I write this. This young lady is angry/frustrated because she doesn’t understand. Of course, you don’t, you haven’t been here for close to four months. We (my co-teacher and I) explained to her that she has to take notes and then come in after school in order to catch herself up. This isn’t the answer that she wanted to hear so she becomes a problem. And I put her out. She’s upset because we’re able to help other students and not her. As I tried to explain to her and the security guard, the other students have been here and most of them are working hard to continue to grasp and succeed at what’s going on. I can’t teach this concept to you in the time it takes for me to assist someone.
 “So, you need to come in after school in order to really be able to learn the concepts in order to understand the steps.”
“I ain’t got time to be coming in after school!”
“So, what you’re saying is that you don’t have time to learn?”
I have two male students that I have to constantly put out.  They do very, very little work if any at all. I’ve called home talked with parents and guardian, only to be told that actions and attitudes will change and it doesn’t. And I’m not the only person that has to put these two out. I’ve spoken with their other teachers and they tell me that they have experienced the same things, followed the same actions of referrals and calling home without any change. Why are they still in school?

Why should a class of students suffer because of the negative actions of two or three? Let these kids hurt themselves and not others. I can’t/won’t go back three to four months during class for one student and hold the others back. My other productive, succeeding students, many who have worked very hard, deserve more than that during instruction time. They also deserve to have their right to an education defended with my action of removing external obstacles that may be in their way of getting that education, if I can.

Now is the time to give more time to the good kids. It’s time to allow them to excel and to allow their teachers to excel as educators because they can teach instead of police. Too often these good students are ignored because they can do the work, are not problems and can be trusted to act like they have some sense. But that’s not fair to their growth as a student and person. And they (as well as their parents) are the ones who are responsible enough to be active, involved, respectful and caring. As a parent you shouldn’t have to wonder if your child’s ability is dropping due to his or her lack of being taught. It’s not fair. And this year for me, it’s really not fair because my students are mostly international students who are working very hard in class to not only understand the course work but to improve their command of English.  They work hard but a student or students (usually American), whose sense of entitlement is an obstacle for any student tying to achieve on merit and hard work is constantly cutting short their instructional time by being disruptive. This cut in time can cause students who want to learn to fall behind in being prepared for quizzes, tests, or state and federal mandated tests. This in turn causes their school to receive a report that isn’t a fair indicator of its student’s abilities. The bulk of attention must be shifted back to the positive students. For this to happen, the negative aspects of the school must be dealt with or eliminated. Before you start, I’m not trying to deny anyone the opportunity to get an education. I am saying some students need to decide if they really want to get an education or learn how to get an education. Because I am not going to allow five students out of a class of thirty-two to deter, slow down or eliminate the opportunity of getting the best possible education for students that want it. Today, the young lady I was speaking of earlier was bragging (loudly) about how she used to get into trouble due to the regularity of her mother having to constantly come to her middle school and snatch her up. “Shit, everybody knew who my mama was at that school!” Unfortunately, they knew her for negative reasons and the other sad thing is that this may be the only way that she knows how to get attention.


Now is the time to stop allowing the negative behavior to become the norm by laughing at negative behavior as if it were cute when your toddler imitates negativity from either the television or you. It’s time for some to parent and stop waiting and or expecting someone else to do it for you. No school or program should have to raise your child. Young parents have to realize that programs like HeadStart, has to begin at home. School cannot and should not be the only place where your child learns. Education needs to be a constant message at home or your child may always be part of the StartOver group. It’s time for responsibility to stop being a bad word. It’s time for “you know, that’s just how we act” to mean achievement and describe positive actions and not be a cop out for your color or economic situation.


Now is the time for more male teachers. When last I checked, male teachers made up 2.4% of the teaching population. Black male educators made up less than that. This profession has to be able to compete with the business sector for men coming out of college. In the book, Teachers Have It Easy by Moulthrop, Calegari and Eggers there are stories from teachers explaining why they left the profession. Almost every letter from men talked about the need to make more money (in order to raise a family) based on the amount of work that is required of this job. One gentleman left for the business sector and was very successful but spoke of how he really did love teaching and was sad that he felt like he had to leave. Don’t get me wrong we need folks in the business… but when you have a person, male or female who wants to teach and loves it, you need to hold on to these people. They say that fifty percent of teachers are quitting the profession within their first three years of teaching. Are we going to allow for the burnt out teachers who are not energetic, enthusiastic or current to continue to teach? Will we continue to allow noncompetitive wages, bad administrations, bad schools and parents to run young, energetic, good educators out?



Now is the time to realize that we are sending inferior students to universities.  My friends who teach at this level constantly ask, “What’s going on in schools today, Fletch?” Their biggest complaint is that the kids don’t know how to think, not to mention don’t think that they should have to do so. They tell me of the low ability in expression, technique, as well as work ethic of in-coming freshmen. And this is coming from professors at well-known schools and smaller universities also. We have to realize that social promotion to the next grade at any level of education is not preparing children for the future and that it not only hurts them in the future but society to have so many poorly educated people that we expect to be leaders.

Now is the time to stop believing that money without a cultural change towards education will ”fix” the problems in schools nationwide. With the building of new schools, programs or services, there must also be a building of a work ethic and a desire to be educated. Unfortunately, while we are teaching this to our students we at times must also teach this to parents. This need for work ethic isn’t just in need within what we call bad schools either. Many children from the good schools feel a sense of entitlement also. And they too, are lazy and expect things to be made easier for them. Oh, and simply putting the word Academy at the end of your school name will not be enough to change the atmosphere of education without work.

Now is the time to end the delusional sense of entitlement within society. I am so tired of people believing that they deserve something for nothing. And many of you have had to deal with this too. As far as my students are concerned it comes in the form of expecting or demanding a higher grade than they deserve. I constantly hear:
“Why isn’t my grade higher, I came to class everyday!” So what…where is the work?
And I love,  -“Why am I only getting half credit? I did some of the work.”
    -“ I know… and that D represents some of the work”

You think that he would have realized that he just answered his own question. I’ve spoken about this in other sections of work so I won’t spend too much time on it. But parents, from where are your children learning this? And why is it allowed to continue? It doesn’t help them when they come across people in their lives who won’t allow them to coast through. And you will not always be able to shield him or her or fight their battles. My same friends who are university professors tell me stories of parents trying to contact them to talk about what can be done to change their child’s grade. That may work in high school folks but not college. Friends who work with teens in the food industry tell me the same type of stories. You can’t call a manager and demand that your child gets his/her job back! Now your child has to be responsible for his or her actions (or lack of). And this is where for some, the realization begins. Work, discipline and accountability along with the ability and desire to think are the things that your child needs. Let’s hope he or she has these qualities.

Now has always been the time why we can’t wait.