No child...

Hi to Georgina, Rose and Tamsyn.


Classroom drama
Play set in HS gets an A from teachers

BY CARRIE MELAGODAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
It's an unlikely way for city teachers to unwind - watching a play about impoverished students struggling to learn in a crumbling Bronx classroom. But night after night, teachers fill the audience at the Barrow Street Theater in Greenwich Village for Nilaja Sun's one-woman show, "No Child ...."
They howl at her depiction of an earnest but clueless new teacher who can't control her class in a fictitious Bronx high school. They snicker at the school's domineering principal. And some weep when a student disappears from class after his brother's murder. "It was astounding. I was tearing up throughout the show," said Darnelle Pierre-Louis, 27, a teacher at Public School 179 in the Bronx and one of about a dozen educators who saw the play on a recent Wednesday night. "So much of it resonated with me." The word-of-mouth popularity of "No Child ...," so strong that theaters in other large cities have shown interest, has attracted Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and other high-ranking education administrators - much to the surpise of the playwright.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/482787p-406388c.html

Even though school is a million miles from my thoughts, I did try to get tickets to see the play "No Child". Suzie (the woman who owns the apartment we are in) told me that at her school, (primary school in Harlem with high quite a few bi-lingual kids: Spanish/English) teachers spend time tutoring their students to colour in B. What this means is that on a multiple choice test with 4 possible answers, those who colour in the bubble for B all the way down the page will get 25% of the answers correct. This, in fact means that the person doing the test knows nothing - nothing at least that is being tested (because there is a one on four chance of being correct on a multiple choice test).
If, however, they do not colour in a bubble for each question, regardless of the answer, then it is possible to score less than 25% and thus the candidate demonstrates that they know less than nothing. So, teachers whose school's funding, professional reputation etc are linked to test results are in a position where it is a good idea to teach kids to colour in B. This all comes from the "No Child Left Behind" policy, whereby testing will show the way in education.

Meanwhile, when I went to pay at the Museum of Natural History the young woman at the cashier asked for a zip code. I told her I was Australian and did not have a zip code. She responded that I had really good English, "almost perfect" in fact. Oh, the sad irony.