Educating
Tresa: There are a couple of major shifts in education. The number one shift is that we have become a profession of accountability. In the late 90’s accountability came through the No Child Left Behind legislation when George Bush was the president. No Child Left Behind was a double-edged sword, and it was a good thing in theory. What it said was, as a professional who has a certificate you should be an expert in your area of study, and therefore your students should be able to perform at a certain level. As the legislation became clearer, though, we realized how prohibitive it was, for example, you have to attend 13 classes a year; you have to pay this amount for your certificate; you have to make sure you are teaching in this manner because this is the best way to teach so says the federal government; you have to make sure that 90% of your children come out on a level 1 as opposed to a level 3; you have to make sure that every child gets differentiated instruction, which means in a class of 28 or 32 children you have to plan individually for each of those children throughout the school day. So the process of teaching became more restricted. In addition school districts were put under restrictions; if your school district did not meet the threshold they will not receive any money. If your district does not receive any money you have to fire teachers. We started seeing music, art and physical education programs cut. The activities that we call the ‘soft assessments’ are going away because now we have to put more money into testing, and as we put more money into testing we have to train teachers to test, so now most of the teachers spend their day preparing children to take a test.
Shawntrice: How has teaching to test affected the children?
Tressa: It has in some sense prohibited teachers from teaching critical thinking. Critical thinking is very important because it allows you to make decisions and as you make decisions you learn. The lack of critical thinking has really contributed to some of the things we are seeing, where some children aren’t making good decisions.
Shawntrice: Let’s talk about when you worked at the juvenile detention center. What was your role and what was that experience like?
Tresa: I was at Nancy B. Jefferson Juvenile Detention Center which is a part of the Cook County Juvenile Department. I was a teacher and I worked there for 6 years. I was the youngest teacher there at the time and everyone else was either a retired nun or priest. There was also some veteran Chicago public school teachers. The center was a hidden place; no one even knew it existed. We provide school services for children in the 6 through 11th grade and as soon as the child turned 18 they were transferred toCook County Jail if they were still i custody.
What people should understand about the detention center is that they work hard to try to provide an education for their youngest population. The center works with Chicago public schools and the State Board of Education, but it is an extremely difficult process. The youth that are coming in are there sometimes an hour, a day, forty days or two years, depending on their case. The juvenile detention center classroom is like a one room school house. I had students from sixth grade all the way up to 11th grade. Some days I had kids only in sixth grade; every day was different. I had a group of long timers, as we called them. They were there on serious cases like murder.
Working at the detention center was one of my greatest experiences; I learned how to be better. I learned how to love more and I learned how to really except people for who and what they are and to meet children at their place. A lot of the children there had made bad decisions and got caught up. One young lady was 13 years old and had killed her mother. You can’t imagine teaching a room full of children who are 12 and 13 years old and who have murdered people.
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