tembok. cek ku kau, ramai berbicara tu kat laju...N.Y. TIMES OP-ED
Brett Murphy / OP-ED WASHINGTON
The American teacher’s battle is coming to an end
Olivia, a ninth-grade honors student, had fallen to the floor in a state of what would soon become utter despair. A few minutes before, she had said to me, her hands in the air, eyes closed, that she would be “kaput” if she could not pass trigonometry. This was the fate she now begged me to intervene on her behalf.
“I’m not going to sleep,” she said, as we walked to the school library, the worst place for her to be on a Friday afternoon. “I need help.”
I had to make a choice: One was to tell her that the test was over, that she had failed. The other, which I chose, was to tell her that I did not believe her, and that she could pass the test if she learned the material and studied. In this I knew I was wrong. It is a truth I have not yet been able to admit to myself.
Olivia had been getting Cs in math and nearly failing in science. In March, I started my “flipped” version of the school year. In lieu of having the students study in class, I put them on a three-week delay of a math class in the middle of the semester. Their math teacher, who has a Ph.D. in the subject, told me that this would help Olivia.
To test her, I wrote a short practice math test on a Friday. I tested her with another student. After 30 minutes, Olivia entered the room and sat down. She began to cry. She had passed.
In the weeks that followed, as Olivia and I talked, I learned much about her in those hours. She admitted to me that she could not read. She said she wanted to pass trigonometry. She said that she wanted to learn trigonometry.
I had spent the previous two months trying to convince her, but this did not happen.
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