#26: "A Conversation With A Bad Teacher"

     The article begins with a brief story of John Owens, a magazine publisher, who decided to go back to school to be hired as a writing teacher. His experience was not what he expected and he only lasted a year teaching. The experiences Owens faced led him to publish a book called "Confessions of a Bad Teacher: The Shocking Truth From the Front Lines of American Public Education." Owens said in his interview that the school he was teaching at in South Bronx in New York City was run by data, making the kids look like they were learning. He said that the school was adding up bogus points to make it look like the kids were passing so that they would graduate. In Owens book, he called himself a bad teacher because the school administrators said that only good teachers could solve all the problems that their students face. Owens said that he got criticized for trying to bring consistency to his classroom and believing that some of the stories his students were writing were their real life stories and when he would try to approach his student's stories to the social workers, they wouldn't listen. Owens mentions that he wrote this book to help parents understand what the teachers in their communities face and how their children are being taught at school.
     I am glad Owens stood up and did something about his experience teaching instead of continually letting the school administration run him over. I agree with him in that not everyone knows what school teachers go through on a daily basis. I really liked where he mentioned in his interview that kids just want someone to talk to and listen to them. Kids say a lot of things about their home/personal life that teachers need to be aware of and when Owens tried to bring this to the school's social workers attention, he got shot down. These kind of things should never happen in a school. Teachers are their to teacher their students the things they will need to know and students are there to learn what they need to know and the administration defiantly does not need to be adding in bogus numbers to their system to make it look like their students are learning and passing just to get a better graduation rate. That's just wrong.