8- Gene Pool

People become teachers for many reasons. I like to tell people that I wanted to be a teacher because I wanted the summers off. This might be partially true, but really I like to teach because it makes me feel great about myself. When you see a kid’s eyes light up and start moving around excitedly, when you see that little look of recognition register on their face, that’s when you feel so happy and so good about yourself as a teacher. Student learning makes all the paperwork and nit-picky crap seem worthwhile.
Teachers are expected to put a cheesy spin on practically everything. Administrators preach about high expectations, telling us things like “we need to create life-long learners.” We are never supposed to call children stupid, or give up on their ability to learn. We speak in codes, “challenging” for “bad”, “unique” for “weird”, “assertive” for “bratty.” Good teachers make an effort to use a positive vocabulary when in the presence of students.
I’ll never forget what one teacher told me when I was a student teacher in graduate school. This particular woman had been teaching for over thirty years and was about to retire. She told me, “When you’ve been around kids as long as I have, you come to realize that there’s no substitute for a good gene pool.”
No substitute for a good gene pool?
I remember feeling shocked when she said this. How dare she imply that some kids were smarter than others! She had broken the teacher code of positivism. All kids have the same great potential to learn! Don’t they? All kids are created equal! Aren’t they?
I am now starting to think that the woman had a good point. There is such a thing as an Intelligence Quotient, and all the high expectations and smiles in the world won’t raise your Intelligence Quotient. IQs and gene pools go hand in hand. I do not doubt that all children can learn, but I am starting to figure out that some of them can learn much more, much faster. Society calls these the smart kids.
I fear that Kramer is an extremely dumb boy. The gene pool tried to drown him. I am well prepared to teach the different types of learners; visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. I am also well prepared to differentiate instruction, so that the multiple intelligences of children will all be reached during a single lesson. I am not prepared for Kramer, whose records show that he has an IQ of 58.
Kramer, with the glass eye, is the sweetest student in my class, and the most polite. He comes in every morning with a smile and a wonderful attitude. You can tell by his ironed shirts and clean white socks that someone at home loves him very much. I’ve started to rely on Kramer to do tasks that only responsible children can do, like take a note to the office or ask the teacher next door if we can borrow something. Kramer is always friendly to his classmates and does not participate when others become loud or unruly.
Sadly, Kramer can’t read. He reads at the level of a kindergartener, spotting sight words such as “the”, “and” and “I.” I noticed his poor reading ability on the first day of school, and have been worried about him ever since. I sent him to the nurse to get his eyes checked, as some poor readers just need glasses. His eyes were fine. I called his classroom teacher from the year before and she faxed over his records.
Kramer has an IQ of 58 and used to be in the Learning Disabled Center. His mother worried that the LD Center would not put him on the track to earn a High School Diploma, so she insisted that he be pulled out of the program and put back into an ordinary classroom. Year after year, his teachers have been instructed to give Kramer barely passing grades so he can move on to the next grade level with the other kids his age.
Now Kramer has been “passed along” to my classroom. I don’t know what I am going to do. He can’t read our textbooks. He sits at his desk and does nothing while I teach a lesson. Always well mannered, and with a smile, he complacently sits and stares at his textbook. If asked a question, he makes a genuine effort to answer correctly, but usually fails. His short term memory is terrible. We will have a conversation and three minutes later Kramer will have forgotten everything we’ve talked about. How can you learn if you can’t retain information?
I feel very torn about this situation. I know that Kramer’s mother is trying to do what is best for her son, but I strongly feel that she is doing him a grave disservice by keeping him out of the LD Center. I don’t know if I can “pass him along” as so many other teachers have had to do. The guidance counselor, Mr. Thorpe, is aware of Kramer’s problems, as is Principal. Hopefully, we will all be able to work together to find a solution for this sweet kid.