bootism-shoe-religion

DISCLAIMER: This is not intended to offend anyone. I just felt that this topic needed to be addressed.
I have many soap boxes. I seem to be on this one a lot. I think this may be one of my favorites. The soap box is tolerance. Tolerance of all people in the world. In class when we were commenting on student papers from Bangor, MI I was really offended that all I heard about the student whose paper needed lots of improvement in mechanics was “this paper is HORRIBLE” “I can’t believe how HORRIBLE this paper is” “I can’t think of anything positive to say about this paper because of how HORRIBLE it is”. The people who read this paper were not in even the least big understanding. There was no problem solving to figure out why this student had problems writing. There are so many different reasons. It could be that she was an English Language Learner (ELL) (his is the new title instead of English as a Second Language (ESL). She could know how to speak English but could not have mastered writing in the English language as of yet. Also this student could have a disability in written expression. This means that the student has great ideas in their head but they are lost in transition from brain to paper. This could also have been a processing problem. This is where the student just can not grasp concepts such as mechanics, and articles. As a teacher you should be thinking of these things. I felt that there was not much tolerance for imperfection. Well for those that feel that everyone should be perfect writers, you are in for a rude awaking. Not everyone of your students will be perfect writers like the one that used big words. That students paper showed me that they can effectively use a dictionary and a thesaurus. Or he could be gifted in language. Not everyone can be gifted. Those that are going into the English field should reevaulate their biases and prejudices before teaching. This is a guarantee that you will run into students who are ELL and who have a disability in written expression.
This saddens me that future teachers would have the attitude that some of my fellow classmates had. I would not want even my child who does not have a disabilitiy in that person’s class. That person the teacher would not encourage my child. They would beat my child down with the nit picky stuff they would find. This is what makes me angry that general education teachers are ignorant to differences. This is intolerance is uncalled for. I think this is why we have such a high drop out rate in high school. The people the teachers who are suppose to encourage our youth are the ones that are basically forcing our youth to hate school because of the lack of positive feedback.
There is a lack of education for general educators in the topic of tolerance of differing needs This issue is that this lack of education breeds intolerance, pity, and indifference on the behalf of the general educator. I think the intolerance, pity and indifference is bred because of lack of knowledge of people with special needs. I have witness so much detrimental damage done by general educators because of this intolerance, pity and indifference. If only we could avoid these harmful things. I hate to see these things done to students. It makes school so much harder. Students with special needs they need teachers that understand. They don’t need teachers who don’t understand. There is a huge difference between pity and empathy. Teachers need empathy.
I will leave everyone with this thought. “Would you want a teacher saying these things to your kid? “this paper is HORRIBLE” “I can’t believe how HORRIBLE this paper is” “I can’t think of anything positive to say about this paper because of how HORRIBLE it is”. There is something positive that you can say to everyone. I will say something positive to those people that made these comment. You are very good in the mechanic of the English language. You know what you are talking about. You can teach others the mechanics of our language. I encourage everyone to practice saying nice positive things to others. If you are in the practice of saying positive comments then it will come naturally later.