Schools and American Society

After reading about some of the schools that are described in No Excuses I was very impressed with some of the methods that were used to help disadvantaged students.

One of the teachers at Hobart Elementary School is one that I was quite impressed with. Rafe Esquith, a 5th grade teacher shows a genuine care about his students. Although school does not start until 7:58, “Esquith opens his classroom doors at 6:30 every morning and most students are working by 7:00. He also has a program of after-school activities that keep the students who want to stay till 6:00. (Thernstrom 46)

I know that I can honestly say that my elementary school never had when I was there, and still does not have those kinds of teachers that are willing to take all of their extra time to make sure students have a place to go and activities to partake in when they get there.

My schools were closer to the type described a little later in the book, “We have one member of the staff who plays sitcom videos in her classroom until she hears that the accreditation team or other visitors are coming around.” (Thernstrom 46)

There were several times in classes that I can recall in high school and even elementary school when teachers had other things that had to be done so we would watch a movie or some sort, or they would just tell us to read for an hour. I never realized it until college and then especially after reading this book how my teachers wasted my time and were not giving me the educational experience that my peers and I deserved.

Something that was also common in my elementary school was students getting into groups and the teacher only dealing with one group the whole period, “The learning groups were chatting about the things that ten-year-olds find funny.” (Thernstrom 51) This is exactly what used to happen with me, there were times when I would go a whole day without doing anything in school because the teacher was to busy or we would be in groups all day and just chat.

Something else that amazed me was the type of literature that Esquith had his students handling in the 5th grade. “Esquith had his students read aloud books that are too hard for fifth graders to tackle on their own. Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Native Son, Great Expectations, and To Kill a Mocking Bird. (Thernstrom 58) Those are the kinds of books that I was never exposed to until my senior year in high school, and even then, there were some kids who had trouble with them so we occasionally read them out loud in class so people could better understand them.

I was totally amazed again when I read this section of the book because if these students are looking at these books in 5th grade, what are they doing three and