Article #2 in a Multi-Article Series >>>>> Exposure of the Academic Abuse Heaped on Children at the Minneapolis Pubic Schools >>>>>

Note to my readers  >>>>>

>>>>>  Student names given in this and the following articles are data privacy pseudonyms.

 

Importance of a Well-Established Body of Knowledge As Witnessed in Student Academic Sessions of 11 June 2021

 

On Sunday, 20 June 2021, I presented certificates to all of my students who attend New Salem and could be in attendance at sanctuary service that day.  As I wrapped up my sessions for academic year 2020-2021, I presented each student and family a banquet-like array of food of my preparation (oven-simulated barbecue chicken [tastes quite like off the grill with my alternating of high-heat baking and brief, intense broiling in a meticulous sauce of hickory, honey, lemon, molasses, garlic, salt, and pepper]), macaroni and cheese, and a sweet ‘n’ sour cucumber & carrot salad);  along with personal notes written to students and to their families (at least two notes, then, in each case).  Although we have not been in a position to perform my compressed Shakespearean play or the individual displays of student knowledge and skill, with the presentation of the certificate I achieved much of my goal of honoring students nearly as fully as when we were able to stage the banquet.

 

One student who does not attend New Salem but lives just a few blocks down from the church was not present but may be at a later date when I will honor some other young people from the church who could not make service on Father’s Day Sunday.  In all, five students and their families were nored on Sunday, 20 June, and approximately the same number will be honored a later date.  That leaves a substantial number of non-church students;  in their cases, I reviewed with them their accomplishments when I presented them with the notes and food, and made sure to convey my appreciation to their parents personally.

 

Thus, in all, as was the case last year, I have achieved much of the banquet effect, have       honored the students appropriately, and have gotten abundant expressions of love and gratitude (and excellent reviews for the food) in return.

 

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Among the students be honored, one on 20 June, another at a later date, are two students with whom I work on Friday.  I have known each of these students since they were in early elementary school (I bring smiles to their faces by telling them that I remember them when they were “Ga-ga-goo-goos”). Sherisha Mallard was out of town and thus will receive her certificate at a later date;  Carl Bedford and his mom are members but not frequent attendees---  whom I convinced that Father’s Day Sunday would be a good time for one of those infrequent appearances.

I never take lightly what my presenting certificates highly specific to a student’s performance and conveying my personal appreciation for their particular achievements means to the students and their families.  I was very poignantly intrigued when I visited the home of four multi-year participants and found that their mom had framed and hung all of their awards (including hers---  I give certificates to supportive parents) on the living room wall.

 

As with all of my students, Sherisha and Carl represent individually notable and illustrative cases:

 

Sherisha (Grade 7) attends Ascension, a Catholic private school, the deficiencies of which I detailed in a previous article.  Sherisha will come to me on a given Friday wanting to know more about the Spanish-American War or World War I or some such, having been introduced to these conflicts and been given (chills up my spine) packets of worksheets but not having gained any factual content that she could comprehend from class (much of the time, the teacher’s knowledge base is slim in the extreme, and what is presented is done in such a cursory manner as to render comprehension unattainable).

 

So I launch into one of my mini-lectures that inevitably demands side ventures into political concepts and background information not in the student’s store of knowledge.  Think of each of the conflicts mentioned above and the bevy of information pertinent to European imperialism and the myriad vocabulary and terms needed to comprehend the forces driving the powers into one of the most brain-boggling stupid wars of the 20^th - 21^st century phase of human endeavor.

 

And then there is math, for which Sherisha has natural talent and an abundant of foundational knowledge of my provision but which her teacher manages to make abstruse. Thus do we cover order of operations;  positive and negative integers;  factoring and applications of the distributive property;  equations and inequalities;  and many other topics from the grade 7 curriculum, which is quite acceptable at Ascension despite being so poorly taught.

 

Sherisha has been frustrated enough at Ascension to contemplate a move to Franklin Middle School in the Minneapolis Public Schools for grade 8.  I rarely counsel a student to switch schools but neither will I dissuade her:

 

The drama at Franklin is not as great as was once the case, and I can give Sherisha the education that she should have.

 

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Carl Bedford provides one of the best examples I have ever had of the E. D. Hirsch premise that with a strong knowledge base and a store of facts available for instant recall, to the point of what he terms, “automaticity,” a person of average intelligence can perform as well as a person of high intelligence quotient (IQ).  Whatever formal testing would show in Carl’s case, I assign him an IQ of 100 for being right on average;  I by now have such a strong feel for individual natural intelligence that I have very high confidence in the similar designations that I have given for other students, who in my assessment feature IQs ranging from 95 to 135 (maybe higher in the latter case, who I am conceptualizing at the moment at very high but not genius level intelligence, but will continue evaluating as the months and years roll by).

 

I have worked with Carl (grade 9, North High School/MPS) since he was in grade 2, inculcating an understanding and full mastery of the four basic operations, fractions, decimals, percentages,

 

ratios, proportions, and simple probability;  multiplication table mastery was a multi-year exercise, even with my refined technique, but by grade 6 he knew the fundamental table as well as he knew his name.  Such foundational knowledge and disciplined learning became, then, the basis for learning all of the pre-algebra and Algebra I skills necessary.  Carl finished with an “A” in Algebra I and was a fixture on the “B” honor roll;  he has a 3.2 GPA.  At North High, this means very little, except that Carl is doing what he needs to do for school and getting his real education from me.

 

Carl likes geography.  I have taught him the major items from the world and national maps and led Carl through a chart of the 196 recognized nations (UN) that includes capitals, population, land area, GDP/capita, literacy rate, and life expectancy.  Carl also likes reading the newspaper with me, preferring articles that have to do with race & ethnicity, school issues, or other community issues recognizable in his personal universe.  I springboard from those to weighty national and international issues.

 

Carl possesses very much less than a driving intellect, a desire to know.  But I will make sure that he will have viability at any post-secondary option he selects.  He may very well go a vocational route (and has mentioned being a chiropractor)---  but whatever he decides, his strong knowledge and skill base built over numerous years will give him very high chance of success---  academically, vocationally, and as an informed citizen.