Teacher Refuses New Reading Program

WSMV TV, Nashville, TN ^ | 3/04/03 | Dennis Ferrier

[turbocat]

A woman once named "Metro teacher of the year" has drawn a line in the sand. She says she would rather be fired than teach Pedro Garcia’s new reading program.

Ann Zimmerman may never teach again. This 13-year Metro veteran and former teacher of the year has been suspended for refusing to teach a Pedro Garcia curriculum called Language, Exclamation Point!

“They have me working the phones during lunch, and I happened to read the motto on the board, and it said, ‘Do whatever it takes to ensure students are successful.’ That's what I'm doing, I'm risking my job,” says Zimmerman.

What curriculum could be that bad? Language, Exclamation Point! Ann Zimmerman will tell you. “I couldn't use the text because it’s so absurd. Listen to this baseball moment:”

Al ran back to have it, a tack is in his mitt. Al can sag. Al recovering in the hospital. Al can tap his lip.

“We don't call yawning tapping your lip,” says Zimmerman.

Sit Al said the gal you have to sip it to the rim.

“If anything, you sip from the rim.”

Channel 4 News asked for someone at the school board to come out and defend this program. After all, you've got educators with degrees and high salaries. Surely someone can defend a program taught in every middle in Nashville.

No one would come out of this building and talk. School public information officer Craig Owensby said that he didn’t' want anyone grilled over this. His only comment was that students usually advance to 2 to 3 years in reading after one year of that program.

“'The Al can pat the gal, the gal can pat the gal.’ This is being read by high school students its totally absurd. I can't use this because I don't know what I just read!”

Ann Zimmerman remains on administrative leave. On Friday afternoon, she was told by Dr. Garcia that he will notify her by mail of his decision regarding her status as a Metro teacher.

[southernbychoice]

I wish I could give you a good answer to this question. I just flat out don't know. It is not difficult to get into a state university in TN. I know one young man who got all Cs and Ds in high school, and did not have enough credits to graduate with his class. He was allowed to 'walk the line' at graduation, he finished up 3 classes in the summer (with Ds) and is now attending a local state university. I have heard that if you graduate from high school in TN, you are almost guarenteed a spot at a state university. If this is true, it would seem that the problem is that kids are allowed to graduate without having basic english and math skills.

[RightField]

I found this online about Dr. Garcia

Pedro Garcia

[glory]

I didn't know the origin until now, but it too cracked me up everytime I would see it just pop out on a thread. Most recently besides this thread was at the arrest of Khalil-blah blah blah, blah blah and it was one of those caption this photo threads and someone wrote "All your back hair are belong to us" I just rolled!

[Sloth]

Outcome-based education means, among other things, that any failure is due to improper teaching or grading, not any deficiency on the part of the student.

For example: "if whites score better than blacks on a math test," the educrat reasons, "then obviously the test is racist." Outcome-based education ensures that everyone passes it, by lowering the standards to the point that inanimate objects could pass it. It doesn't matter how the good scores are obtained, as long as the "outcome" looks good on paper.

If you have difficulty understanding the American public education system, or how illiterate students could get into universities, good! We wish we found it incomprehensible, too. :( Our education system is no longer based on imparting knowledge and skills to students... it's a social-engineering tool to make people feel good and give power to the teacher's unions.

[southernbychoice]

great post.

[Happygal]

I was reading one of Bill Bryson's travel books recently, and it said that one in 10 Americans are illiterate! I was completely dumbfounded. Don't get me wrong, adult illiteracy is not alien to me, because an uncle of mine (now nearly 50) only learned to read 10 years ago. Because he went through the education system in Ireland, got sick, and was in a TB hospital for two years as a child. He came out, went to school for two years, and left when he was 14. But, he wasn't stupid. And as an adult learned how to read,when, he got over the shame of being illiterate and, told people. (I gave him nightly education grinds..and a friend of ours, a school teacher taught him for a year. Now he's able to read pretty much anything).

Ireland is becoming better with remedial classes for children who can't keep up. But the remedial classes are there specifically for children who can't match the STANDARD requirement. The levels aren't dropped for the slower or less applied kids. Every help is given them through remedial classes, but smarter kids aren't held back by silly, boring classes either.

[Happygal]

Of course, I live in a country where the majority of children come from a similar socio-economic and race background.

Regardless, the colour of your skin, or your social background does not equate how smart you are.

My own circumstances growing up are indicative of that. But it's not something I care to share on these boards. If you want to know, freepmail me.

[AMDG&BVMH]

Thank goodness some countries in the West are still teaching . . .

Yes, you could homeschool if you chose. You probably know more than most public school teachers (at least in the US). My daughter goes to a small, verrrrry affordable private school where she is learning some Latin and Greek. We study German on the side. It is so obnoxious in the US that the kids don't learn foreign languages til high school or college, and many (as we see in this post!) don't even learn English!!

[Happygal]

Ye see, in Ireland NO ONE gets to Uni without a good Leaving. (Meaning good grades in Secondary School/High School).

If you don't get University, you can go to College.

I went to college..(I turned down a Uni place btw, because I wanted to be a journalist, and I was accepted onto a 25 student journalism course out of 2000 applicants..so I took that)..but getting into the 'right' college course for you, demands high grades.

I find the less applied children go to 'post leaving cert courses'...where the girls can at least learn typing, computer and shorthand skills, and the boys might find a skill.

[PoisedWoman]

I just couldn't figure out, what the quotations used in the article referred to. Or how they could be used as an educational aid.

I really don't have a clue either, but they sound a bit like rap music--if it's possible to do rap without the word "ho." This program needs to be ditched immediately!

BTW, Happygal, nuns in the USA had me conjugating verbs and learning ancient history in second grade. They may not go that far today, but they're still pretty good and many parents want vouchers to get their kids out of awful schools that teach programs like "Al" and into private or parochial schools where real language and subjects are taught. President Bush is a strong supporter of the voucher program. It's a wonder that anyone opposes, but most Democrats do.

[Thinkin' Gal]

[Happygal]

In fairness, I learned only English (the spoken language) and Irish in primary school. Once I got to secondary school when I was 13, I was only introduced to French and German then.

But they do say, a child introduced to a second language at an early age, can learn a third and fourth language more easily.

BTW...I didn't stick with German. I took music instead in my curriculum. I've found over all, with my career and interests, I made the right choice. But at least I had the option, Nein? ;-)

[Clara Lou]

This is probably a product created by the superintendent's brother in-law. Or the company called the superI and offered him a kickback. My experience is that good superintendents are as scarce as hen's teeth. They are out for THEMSELVES and no one else.

[Happygal]

I guess they are opposed, because 'state' schools will then be seen as 'dummy' schools.

But for the record, I got my education through the nuns in Ireland. The Presentation sisters in fact. And the nuns were a STATE school.

I listen to the argument for the dissolution of Church and State. And yes, I can understand most of it. I will say, the nuns gave me beatings over the years...but I will not deny them the fact that they gave me a DAMN GOOD EDUCATION!!!

[ladylib]

I don't know how good your educational system is but it's probably better than ours. Almost any parent can homeschool if they want to and do it successfully. They couldn't do any worse than some of the teachers in the public schools.

[Happygal]

Well, I don't know. I only went through one. The one I went through (the nuns) gave me a damned good education.

I'm not sure I could impart the same knowledge on my own children, or instill the fear of God in me the nuns had to make me learn when I got lardy!

[j_tull]

On Friday afternoon, she was told by Dr. Garcia that he will notify her by mail of his decision regarding her status as a Metro teacher.

Sounds to me like the author is also the administrator.

[Lizavetta]

But don't you have to have a teaching qualification to teach your children at home?

No, you don't.

I'm a professional woman, who passed an honours Leaving Cert in 1989. But I'm not sure, I'd be able to 'homeschool' anyone.

Studies have shown that the difference in test scores between the children of homeschool parents who have college degrees, and homeschool parents who only have a high school diploma, is negligible. In other words, it doesn't matter. If you truly want your kids to learn things, you find out how to do it, find out where the information is, and learn about it along with your kids.

It's always amusing ( or sad, really) to listen to people talk about how bad they are in math, how much they hated school, or how crummy their teachers were, and in the very next breath say how they're sending their kids to the same system that made it all possible. I simply don't get it. As for homeschooling in Ireland, I'd contact Home School Legal Defense Association. I understand your neighbor Scotland is experiencing a dramatic rise in homeschooling for the same reasons that the United States is - lack of academics, drugs, violence, etc.

Homeschooling is a commitment but it's not like school at home. It's so much better than that.

[j_tull]

'The Al can pat the gal, the gal can pat the gal.

What's next, "See Spot, Dick, Jane?"

[CFC__VRWC]

I'm sorry I'm not American, so I don't understand what you mean by ``OBE'' either.

I'm sorry about throwing that one at you without properly explaining it (damned jingosim strikes again!) :).

Sloth pretty well sums it up in his post # 84; Rush Limbaugh devoted an entire chapter to it in his book See I Told You So. The theory goes that all kids are equally capable of learning at the same rate, if you take the "competition" (that is, grading performance) out of the learning process. What actually ends up happening, of course, is that the teacher ends up teaching to the slowest and most disruptive students in the class, and very little actual learning takes place. In OBE, actual mastering of subjects like math and language skills are subordinate to preserving the student's "self esteem."

IOW, OBE is one of these competely whack feel-good theories straight out of the 60's, based on liberal ideas of equality (spreading the misery around equally). Everywhere it's been tried it's been a spectacular failure, producing legions of brain-dead "scholars" who can't read their own names on their diplomas, but nonetheless feel really good about their illiteracy and ignorance. The teachers unions love it, though, because it's drenched in confusing jargon and it so lowers academic standards that the teachers themselves can get away without doing their jobs, and not have to fear being held accountable. In fact, OBE further helps the unions because it produces such spectacularly uneducated kids that the unions can go begging for yet more money to be thrown down their rathole.

Rat politicians love OBE as well - ignorant kids are so much easier to brainwash with class warfare rhetoric and anti-Americanism, the better to make them good little government-dependent liberals. This is why OBE keeps reappearing in our schools, always under a different disguise.