The one thing I know, everyone respects the true person and everyone’s not true with themselves. All of these people who are heroes, these guys who have been lily white and clean all their lives, if they went through what I went through, they would commit suicide. They don’t have the heart that I have. I’ve lived places they can’t defecate in.
With the advent of the start of the school year, it’s time to get back to basics. In my opinion, there’s nothing more basic than treating the students with respect. F’real-f’real, most of the “disrespect” I’m thinking doesn’t happen from up close, it’s from afar. It comes in when people use arbitrary measures like test scores as indicators of anything but a child’s proficiency in a given subject (or in the practice of taking the test in that subject). See me, I probably get more upset than a whole lotta people about low test scores, because it affects me in multiple ways. I can handle things that are directed at me, but the kids? And believe me, I’ve got my own set of complaints about them, but I think it’s important to realize that where a person is at a given point in time is very much a function of where they’ve been. Hence the Tyson quote.
Many times, we as people make value judgments about other people without really considering the obstacles that they may have had to face to get to that point. So like Tyson says, many times the people who have the luxury of judging other people do so because they have not had the poverty of that person’s experience. While I think it’s legitimate to tell myself, ‘I wouldn’t have done the things that would have put me into that situation,’ (Mike Vick, I’m lookin’ at you) I think it’s also necessary to consider the opposite as well; if I had been born into his situation, would I be doing as well as he?
So there are some cases where a kid can’t do math; maybe he’s going into 9th grade and can’t multiply 7*8 regularly. Do I think that’s a travesty? Absolutely. I also know that there might be a story behind that inability. Unfortunately, in lots of cases, the stuff we teach at school is way low in the order of importance. And math, the example I normally use, is essential. But when we back it up to stuff like grammar, which is important, but not necessary for survival, school stuff really takes a back seat.
All that’s to say that I’m perfectly comfortable with looking at the results kids produce. But let’s not confuse the numbers with the kids. Let’s recognize that behind all of it, there are people, many of whom need help with more than just academics.
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