Hugo Bahamon
Spanish Teacher
One afternoon after work, I picked up my daughter from school, and during the drive, she told me that six of her eight friends who had started college with her wouldn’t be able to continue next semester. They were going to have to return to their hometowns.
I asked her why, and she sadly explained that they hadn’t passed their initial exams.
Later that week, while I was waiting to pick my daughter up again, I ran into one of those friends. I asked her friend directly why she hadn’t passed the exams.
She told me that she and the others were in the same boat: the college expected them to know things they hadn’t learned in high school.
Curious, I asked her what they were missing, and she mentioned that in algebra, for example, they were supposed to know about complex equations, but she had never been taught them. The same thing happened to the others in different subjects.
I told her that I had finished high school over 50 years ago, and yes, complex equations are something you learn in algebra.
Since my daughter was taking her time, I asked her friend to honestly tell me what happened with algebra in high school.
She shared this story with me, which I will transcribe word for word.
“We had a great algebra teacher, but after two months, she quit because she couldn’t handle the constant bad behavior of some students. They replaced her with a substitute, who was a nice person, but he let us do whatever we wanted in class because he didn’t really know much about algebra.”
I then asked how many of those disruptive students there were, and she said three.
I asked how many students there were in total, and she said thirty.
My next question logical question was: “What did the other 27 do about those three students who were acting out? And what did their families do?”
She answered, “Nothing. We just let them keep disrupting classes, and our parents didn’t do anything about it either.”
I asked, “What did the school do about those students?”
She replied, “The school has rules, and they would suspend the students temporarily, but they always came back, sometimes with an even worse attitude towards the teachers.”
“When we took the state exams, we realized there were a lot of questions we didn’t know how to answer, not just in algebra but in all the subjects where the teachers hadn’t necessarily quit, but simply couldn’t teach everything because of the disruptions.”
Now, the six students had to go back to their hometowns and attend the local community college because it was probably the only place where they could pass the exams.
My daughter arrived, so I couldn’t talk more with her friend, and by the next week, the six students had already left for home.
This situation really stuck with me because I have students who think they don’t need to learn much in high school since they plan to start working right after graduation instead of going to college.
I’ve also ran into some of them after they graduated, and they told me that employers not only require a high school diploma, but also expect them to have the knowledge they should have gained in school to do well at work.
Some of them had to quit their jobs and find simpler ones that required less knowledge.
I’ve taught in Colombia, and now I teach in the United States.
What has shocked me the most is the level of misbehavior among some students here, but also how the other students go along with it and how indifferent their parents are.
It’s really sad to see how a few students with bad behavior are affecting the future of all the others.
As a teacher, I strongly believe in these two principles:
“Without discipline, you can’t focus, and without focus, you can’t learn.”
“When a teacher lets a student do whatever they want once, it’s like giving permission for all the students to do whatever they want, all the time.”
For the good of all students in the United States, I would love to see a change in school discipline, where students who really want to learn are prioritized over those who are just wasting time.
I agree that no student should be left behind, but if a few are dragging everyone else down instead of trying to move forward, I think the students who want to progress should be given priority.
In the Declaration of Independence, one of the key documents of American democracy, there’s a phrase that says:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
I believe there’s no better way to pursue happiness than through a good education, which allows you to get a decent and well-paying job.
As teachers, we should defend this principle from the Declaration of Independence and not allow one person to take away another person’s right to achieve their own happiness.
Desde mi trinchera 