Mayor Bloomberg is very, very intent on firing bad teachers. He seems equally intent on firing good teachers, but let's just give him the benefit of the doubt and say that some of the teachers that he wants to fire are indeed very bad teachers. We all know he puts children first.
And I have no doubt that there are some really bad teachers in New York City. I have no doubt of this because I was once the victim of one of the worst teachers to ever step inside a classroom. It was second grade, and everyone in an overwhelmingly white, Catholic, Republican town knew I was the "girl whose parents didn't speak English." Never mind that my parents spoke English. People just assumed.
This second grade teacher was a mix of bitter, mean, bigoted, and just flat out ignorant. She taught us that dolphins were fish. When I raised my hand and said they were mammals she screamed at me and I was too terrified to say anything more. She said that thunder came before lightning. She made us recite the times table but screamed at us when we informed her of facts like 5x5 = 25. She taught us so much wrong information that I told my parents who were alarmed and came to the school. They had a conference with her. She told my parents that I was a dishonest and troubled child who would never amount to anything unless I changed my evil ways.
That was when my torture really began. I think she was angry that her authority was challenged by my parents. She would look at me and say, "Blond hair and blue eyes are beautiful." (I have black hair and black eyes.) When that didn't get the reaction she wanted she said, "Go sit in the back so I don't have to look at your ugly face." By that time I was all too happy to sit in the back. I could sneak a book into my desk and just read. Sometimes I feigned sickness so I wouldn't have to go to school. I think it worked once or twice.
Here's the thing though. You know what? I lived. I went to third grade, and my reading and math scores were just fine. I think my second grade teacher might have inadvertently done me a favor because I hated her class so much I began to sneak out to the school library. There I checked out all sorts of books and thus began my love for reading. My third grade teachers liked me, and memories of second grade faded. I went on to have a variety of teachers, some very good, some okay, but I never had a horror like my second grade teacher again. Years later at my high school reunion one girl who had been in my second grade class said, "I used to be 'sick' all the time because I hated going to her class." I was like "Oh my god me too!" and we shared a laugh.
I think there's this attitude today that one bad teacher will ruin a child's education. Not just that, one bad LESSON will ruin a child's education. I once had an AP intone to me seriously "You are entrusted with a child's future and one bad lesson could be the difference between him graduating or not graduating high school." He was fond of such portentous statements. Quite frankly, that's nonsense. No evaluation system will ever weed out all the "bad" teachers, but if you are stuck with a bad teacher, one that doesn't know the material, a teacher who is rude and indifferent, here's my message: you'll live. If you study hard enough, you'll pass. And you'll go onto new classes and find better teachers. Life is what you make of it, and that goes for the classroom as well.
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