Poor Frankie

           “I’m dumb, dumb! Everyone else in the class gets this math and I don’t.” The adorable and affable second grader tears.

            “First of all, Frankie, you are not dumb! Not at all! Secondly, there are at least 12 other students who do not understand this lesson.”

            “I didn’t get it last year and I don’t get it this year. I hate science, and I hate math, and I hate school!”

            “Frankie, do you do your homework?” I ask.

            “Uh, not so much. I usually play outside after school. Then, I watch TV.” Home alone?

Poor Frankie never completely understood adding one number to another. He probably blinked in kindergarten, missed a couple days of phonics and the abacus, and never gained ground. No rescue.  Knowledge sequencing was impossible.

It does not take much to loosen the fundamental glue of a lesson: daydreaming, bending over to pick up a pencil, fatigue, confusion, distress, teaching too fast, lean or toxic home support, a friend’s toy, an orthodontic appointment, any frivolity that supplants education.

Since pupils are unaware of having missed integral, vital specks of a day’s lesson, the pupil perceives him/herself as dumb. Just ask him, her.

The truth is that the teacher, the school, and the administrators all know what was missed, when, and why. The who is in the grade books, self-blaming, being ignored/cheated.

NEXT:  “Stupid in America.”  John Stossel