There are outwardly tough teachers. There are truly tough teachers. And then there are the intellectually abusive teachers. If you�re lucky, you�ve never had one. If you�re not, you�ve sat through their classes in which words like �rigor� and �higher thinking� seem to be code words for �I�ll prove you�re not as smart as you think you are� rather than for any legitimate educational concept. Sometimes people mistakenly believe that the tough teachers are abusive ones but there are key differences. The tough teachers are consistently impossible. The intellectually abusive ones are inconsistent and keep moving the targets. They also seem to have a fondness for acting out in classes full either of kids at the top or kids at the bottom.

Kat�s history class is an honors class made up of kids that the school believes are the very top intellectually in the humanities. It works in a block of sorts with an honors English class so dropping down a level totally disrupts the schedule and, for Kat whose strength is English, is not a particularly good option. This history class has a teacher who may be one of the intellectually abusive. Many of the parents of kids in Kat�s history class are up in arms and a storm is on the horizon.*

I�m trying to decide for myself whether the woman is tough and misguided or intellectually abusive. I�m trying to decide if it matters. The woman has been there for 30 years and she�s not leaving anytime soon enough to make a difference to our kids. I�m trying to decide what, if anything, could be done now and whether to continue with my �she�s not going to change so you�ll have to adapt� philosophy or to throw in my lot with them. Maybe the two are not mutually exclusive.

Kat�s certainly tangled with the woman. Kat has her last hour and often comes home muttering. My initial perception of her was that she cares. When Kat had some difficulties with the transition to high school, this teacher was the only one to call and tell us what was going on. I also know that the woman is rigid. Everything must be done a certain way. She rarely (although she did once) takes papers early. You must hand them in on exactly the right date. She also believes in volumes of work.

Because Kat was spending hours on stage crew and has a very, very rigorous academic schedule, I agreed to help her study for the last history test. I read over all the material. The reading was challenging and detail-oriented. The reading came from numerous sources and no source gave an overall view of the Reformation or the Renaissance. Initially, I had no problem with that type of reading because I assumed that the teacher pulled it all together in class. And then I took the study guide and started going through it with Kat.

The teacher does not pull the material together for the kids. Kat is a very auditory learner. She remembers, almost verbatim, much of what she hears. There is no way Kat could have had the gaps in understanding that she had if the teacher were pulling it all together in class. Kat explained to me that the teacher just focuses on other details in class. Given her level of understanding, I believed her.

When Kat got her test back, I initially thought that my work with her did not help. Kat had a 78. The other night, I found out that the scores on that test were so bad that Kat actually had one of the highest scores on the test. Based upon what I know of the questions and what I know of the reading, I truly believe that, without help pulling concepts together, the kids could not have passed that test based on the readings alone. I could have but my advantage is that I�ve had the material before and I knew the broader concepts before I did the detail reading. Is this a misguided attempt at rigor or is it intellectual abuse?

The kids already have banded together against the teacher on some things. She moved an assignment that was simply too much when they declared that none of them would do it because it was impossible in the time assigned. Do I join the posse, knowing it is likely to fail, or do I latch onto something the kids have started and help them work it through? The kids have been holding study parties before tests. I could ratchet up the parties by reading the material, using her outline, and preparing a study guide or by getting in there and teaching what they should have been taught. Would that be more productive or should I do both? (No, I am not looking forward to the extra work.)

Part of me says the situation is insane and should change. A bigger part of me says that, while it is true that the situation should change, it likely will not. The biggest part of me says that these kids are in high school and it might be more productive to help them figure out how to cope and to help them cope than to try to change the world for them.

Work with the system around the edges or go after the system? That question seems to be one of the central ones of my life. It keeps coming up time and time again. Several of the parents seem to be looking to me to provide some direction and no one seems to have noticed that I don�t know left from right, at least not automatically (for real. Mr. Philately and the kids often sigh and say such things as �the other left.�)

Well, I�d best go off and make up my mind�before the phone starts ringing again.

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*The high school is in a separate school district from the one for which I am on the school board so I�m just another parent here.

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