Three years in third grade

Teaching Pre K-8, Mar 2005 by Raymond, Allen

If you want to liven up a dull conversation - or perk up your classroom on a dull day - try this gambit.

"I was sitting in a fast food restaurant," you might tell the children, "watching a man and a woman add up their check. Apparently, or so I thought, they felt they'd been overcharged. Imagine my surprise when the man walked over to the cashier and said, 'I think you forgot to charge us for the onion rings.'"

The moral is obvious, of course; if we gloat over the free onion rings - "gotcha" seems appropriate - where does it end? What if a restaurant forgets to charge for a $5 dessert?

Tempting opportunities to bend the rules - just a tiny bit - pop up all the time. Those old dents on the car? Might as well have them fixed, even though they're unrelated to the current accident, because "the insurance company pays for it."

Well, I'm sure you get the point. The answer to all this stuff is of course obvious, but probably not to the kids.

That's another important reason why we need good teachers. When adults ignore these moral and/or ethical questions insignificant though they may be - there's always the teacher.

Some might say that, on a scale of one-to-ten (where ten is most important), morals and ethics are at the top of the scale. I hope that's true.

However, as teachers struggle to be mother, father, friend and, yes, teacher, there are moments when we run out of time, and something has to give. When that happens, the choices teachers are forced to make, even under the best of circumstances, can be Solomon-like in their impact.

So, let's vicariously go to Chicago, where we can meet Paige Bonds and her mother, Kimberly, who are dealing with the effects of Solomonic decisions made by others trying their best to do what's right for Paige.

On Sunday, January 16, 2005, the "Education Life" section of The New York Times introduced us to Paige, whose claim to fame, if you can call it that (and we shouldn't), is that she spent three years in third grade.

That happened because the Chicago Board of Education, like much of the country, decided that what is known all over the world as "social promotion" is finished. Kaput.

Give credit to the Chicago Board of Education however; The New York Times reports that "Just last year school officials reduced the number of times a student could repeat a grade: no more than twice between kindergarten and eighth grade, and the same grade only once."

Equally important, The Times reported, "Failing math scores alone would no longer hold a student back."

Paige is now with children her own age but she's been placed in special education, which neither Paige nor her mother - nor her teachers, we suspect - think is a very good idea.

My heart aches for Paige Bonds and her mother - and for the teachers who have tried but have not yet unlocked the door that will help Paige fulfill her life's ambition which, she says, is to be a doctor.

"I want to live far away from here," Paige says. "I want to go to a nice neighborhood."

As desperate as this situation sounds, I still believe that Paige and her mom's strongest allies are the struggling, caring teachers who will ultimately find the key to the future for Paige. Indeed, teachers are miracle workers.

Allen A. Raymond