A real teacher speaks out

The "Pine Room" is in the basement of the building where my technology office is located. A few high school teachers still choose to eat lunch there, in that dark, badly-furnished dump that was once the teachers' smoking lounge. What the Pine Room lacks in ambiance, however, it more than makes up for in conversation. This is where the important political and educational issues of the day are soundly discussed and debated by long-time teachers who care deeply about kids and school. Dennis Fermoyle would feel right at home there.

Fermoyle, a 30+ year veteran high school teacher and coach, sent me his new book In the Trenches: A Teacher's Defense of Public Education, and I took the time to read it yesterday afternoon. I'm glad I did. His voice, speaking for the practicing classroom teacher, is one that is too seldom heard in the debates about public education. In clear, informal language, Fermoyle pretty much "says it like it is."

Students perform poorly not because schools don't care about them but, in the great majority of cases, because students don't care themselves.

Many of us who work in public education might fall over in a faint if our critics ever showed that they recognized how important parenting is to the effectiveness of schools. Our society needs to understand that, no matter how good a school is, it needs competent parents as partners in oder to give a child the best chance to get the education he or she deserves.

...the important thing is how the student who is said to have a disability approaches his education. Once again, the key is usually the attitude of the parents. If the parents view the disability as an obstacle to be overcome rather than as an excuse  to be used when convenient, and if they assume the school has the best interest of the student at heart, the chance that the student will make a good effort and be successful are high.

My biggest concern for homeschooling, as far as motivated students are concerned, is not what they are missing out on, but what our schools are missing out on by not having them with us. We need those kids!

Fermoyle's sympathies are with the students who are negatively impacted by the students who are disruptive and apathetic.  One change he proposes (and I agree with) is that education should be treated as an opportunity rather than a right.

Our public schools would be safer places and test scores would soar if, rather than saying to students, "You have the right to an education." we said, "We will give you the opportunity to gain an education, but you will be required to make an honest effort and to follow some reasonable rules so we can make that happen." 

If you are a consultant, a supervisor or a parent/citizen/legislator who is truly concerned about the effectiveness of our public schools, you should read this book as an antidote to every goofy ivory tower educational change theory currently floating about. If you are a classroom teacher, you should read this book and lobby for the fundamental changes Fermoyle suggests.

I'm leaving my copy as a gift to those dedicated teachers in the Pine Room.