May.16.2008 Teacher makes students do awesome list
Far be it from me to question a teacher’s lesson plans, but I’m thinking asking sixth graders to vote on who will be the most likely to get pregnant or HIV or go to jail or be poor might not be the best curriculum for a science class.
A sixth-grade science teacher at Chastain Middle School could face disciplinary action for forcing a class to list the students most likely to die before 19 and most likely to get pregnant before they graduate from high school.
Teacher Roshondra Sipp on Monday told the students to fill out a paper with questions such as who in the class is most likely to contract AIDS/HIV, go to jail and be poor, Curtis Lyons said. His daughter is in Sipp’s class.
Jackson Public Schools apologized to students and parents Wednesday, saying an “inexperienced teacher” used “poor professional judgment.” JPS did not name the teacher.
Lyons was told by his daughter the class of about 19 students did not want to do the assignment, but Sipp insisted. After the students gave the teacher the answers, she tallied the totals and put them on the wall, Lyons said.
Lyons said his daughter was listed as the fifth most likely to become pregnant in high school.
“That’s when they began to make fun of each other,” he said. “This is just ignorant. It shows that not only is there a need to educate our students, but we need to better educate our teachers.”
Lyons said it was not clear if the assignment was meant to motivate students to do better or if it was meant as a joke. He said the assignment could negatively impact the students’ performance on the Mississippi Curriculum Test, which began Tuesday.
I guess that might make sense if this is some sort of longitudinal psychological study in which you determine if having these children vote for their most likely candidate made the winners any more or less likely to actually complete the tasks. Like a scavenger hunt in which the prize is AIDS or a fetus. But that’s not much of a prize at all. What an awful scavenger hunt. Who organized this? It’s like that time I was bobbing for apples at a Boy Scout retreat and the prize was a blindfold and some sort of meat flavored lollipop. It’s like my mouth was already all sore from bobbing for apples, but then to force my face onto some prize I didn’t really want, I dunno. And there wasn’t even like a Tootsie Roll in the middle. It didn’t even melt away! It just like shot some sort of gooey bleach down my trachea. Waiiiiiiiiiiit…oh…oh nooo. I’m guessing they weren’t really taking my temperature either. Sigh. At least I got to wear short shorts.
My childhood traumas aside, they’re poor black kids in Mississippi. Let’s be real here, they probably celebrated their triumphant showings in the polls with their newborn babies by doing some intravenous drug use. It’s nice to pretend that everyone has a great chance at leading a productive life, but welcome to reality, kids. Perhaps that was the lesson the science teacher wanted to impart most of all. A lesson about tempering expectations.
[Thanks to the lovely Dena for the tip]
OMG! I had no idea.. you too, with the meat lollipop?? Wow, we should start a support group…
Is this why I have a bastard child and HIV at the age of 17? It’s all because of that damn poll in 6th grade? I showed them though, not only did I live up to my “Mostly likely to get pregnant”, I snagged up Shanella’s “Most likely to get HIV” too. Mom’s so proud.
Livin’ in the dirty south is tough on a ghetto girl…