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Captcha the Humans!

Some young students I was teaching recently, were locked out of their computers. I had to solve the captcha's for them. They complained it was "cursive," and they couldn't read it. That's when I realized, they must not be human!!!

The Goal is Student Success

Two decades ago, I was working in a school detention room. The problems of student behavior have not improved since then, because lots of people can't handle the truth. Now, as a substitute teacher, I see students of all ages and all races and ethnicities. Not every group is the same. We like to say we embrace different cultures, until an inconvenient issue arises. Then it is blamed on the system. The reporting is altered. And subsequently, year after year, students go through a system that is afraid to change for the better, because someone might be offended. I would rather see all of my students succeed. Even those who prefer to act out, rather than standout. Of course, there is some overlap, but in general, my more recent immigrant, Somali students, are well-behaved. And yesterday, I had a couple of them help me to teach math. But, many of my African American students, disrupt learning, are defiant, and don't want to participate in class. If we can isolate the reasons for th...

Student Behavior Prevents Learning

Yesterday, I went back to a full day of substitute teaching, fourth graders. It was a new district as I had taken some time off, because the district I was working at previously, banned me after I stopped a student from assaulting his classmates. So yesterday, at a new district, in a new school, with different kids--within the first 30 minutes, a fight broke out, and I had to stop it. That's kind of risky, because once you make contact with the kids, even to pull them off of each other, someone can lodge a complaint and you can lose your job. Also, notable about yesterday, was the level of disrespect and lack of discipline. Their teacher had been absent for a while, so they closed the door of the classroom and then started throwing things, running around screaming and playing games on their computers. There was no making them stop, and there's not enough support from the school. I'm not working today, and I don't miss it. And I don't miss being told by a 10-year-...