Letting his worries go. At the end of our week together, I listened with mixed emotions while students thanked me for teaching them how to engage in a discussion. I felt sorry and ashamed for a country that has decided to throw away some of the most creative minds in our midst because they are those round pegs and we can manufacture nothing but square holes. I longed to be with them a month, a semester, a year to see if the work I began could make a difference in their level of accomplishment and their sense of success. I want you to know, those of you who are with them semester after semester, year in and year out, that I understand the despair, the challenge, the frustration you face in the alternative school setting.
Students can be loud, intimidating and appear uncaring.
I want to introduce you to Mr. John Johnson, a former teacher in the Alternative Program in Burlington, North Carolina. Mr. Johnson maintains a web site on which he has posted the details of his typical day. In The Life by John D. Johnson 9 a.m. Half the students finish the assignments I give them. Each student in this room is taking a different course.