By Tom Dodge, KERA 90.1 Commentator
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-500766.mp3
Dallas, TX –
I went with grandson A.J. and his father to a meeting with his teacher regarding why she thought this child should be left behind. Although he reads and writes on a grade level well above his age and he's creative, there's no getting around the fact that he's not making a love connection with numbers. "Can't he be in third grade for language, art, science, and history, and in second grade in math?" I asked.
Silly me.
He's smart but his catalogue of knowledge doesn't outrank his school liabilities. He's the youngest and least mature in his class. He's the only one not white. "I wish I was white," he said. He's also the smallest.
"White? Why?" I said.
"Because white kids grow faster."
The logic of his syllogism may be lacking a tad but there's no questioning the honesty of his subconscious. As in most suburban towns, white flight is as popular as white bread. Our town's population has tripled in the last decade, due mainly to influxers seeking "good schools, meaning, I think, white schools, white teachers and instruction from a white point of view.
"Are there any black teachers in this school district?" A.J.'s father asked at the meeting.
Next question.
His teacher presented some of his incomplete work to show why this child should be left behind. It was a batch of workbook pages. This kind of generic, mass-produced work is A.J.'s nemesis. Last year he often missed recess because he hadn't finished it. Sometimes he ignored it completely and stuffed it all into his desk until it overflowed and then he filled the desk of the neighbor kid. I asked my friend and social scientist Billy Oxsheer about this and he said, "What would you do if somebody brought you some forms to fill in every day that would give you a headache to read? Would you fill them in, or would you stuff them somewhere?"
A.J.'s first grade teacher said he liked to play too much so she segregated his desk from the rest of the class, hoping the isolation would help him focus and concentrate. I think it caused him only to focus and concentrate on how different he was.
Yet he can focus well enough to recognize all the authors of the "Authors" card game we play and remember their names. "Do you know F. Scott Fitzgerald's first name?" he said to me once. "Francis," he said, "the same as the rich kid that stole PeeWee's bike." ("PeeWee's Big Adventure" is one of our favorite movies.)
But this kind of knowledge is of no value in the face of the dread TAKS Tests, the mandatory exams that are at the root of the "No Child Left Behind" program.
Going out I noted a surrealistic drawing of a Thanksgiving turkey that was segregated from the other more "normal" turkeys on the wall. I knew the artist. A.J.'s turkey looked like no other turkey ever imagined. His turkey had knotty green appendages instead of wings, a large round head, thick black hair and dark green face with bulbous eyes and heavy eyebrows. Its mouth was contorted in a grotesque grimace, and showed its carnivorous, ominous teeth.
I asked him why his turkey came out this way. He said, "Papa! It was an Incredible Hulk turkey!"
I think his teacher would have stuffed it somewhere out of sight if she had had the nerve.
Tom Dodge is a writer from Midlothian.
If you have opinions or rebuttals about this commentary, call (214) 740-9338 or email us.