| Classroom Distractions By Jim Correale (Published in the East Boston Sun Transcript on August 24, 2001.) With the new school year just a couple of weeks away, debate will almost certainly heat up again on the MCAS, the test that students in public schools throughout the state must pass in order to graduate from high school. In the past, there has been a load of media coverage, as well as slick television ads paid for by both proponents and opponents of the test. While I have listened to arguments on either side of the issue, I would like to point out something that I -- having taught high school in Boston -- feel is a much bigger obstacle when it comes to the education of our children. Bees. That's right, the little flying pollinators with the needle-sharpened backsides. Nothing causes more havoc in the classroom than the entrance of a single buzzing black and yellow visitor. Somewhere on her journey, the stinger-brandishing insect has taken a wrong turn, mistaking a school building for a flower-filled meadow. Instantly, half of the students are ducking and screaming, while the other half are in pursuit of the intruder, ready to bring their textbooks down upon the creature. The teacher attempts to calm his or her charges by repeating the same mantra: "Relax. Sit down. The bee will not bother you." But the teacher's wisdom is lost on the students. The bee zigzags through the air, the squeamish cry out and the brave-hearted swing their books wildly. Well, at least the texts are getting some use. The bee eventually finds an open window and departs to continue her search for nectar and pollen. With the threat of being stung passed, order slowly returns to the room. Some may say that keeping the classroom windows shut in the springtime would keep any invading insects out; however, all of the human occupants of the room would pass out from heatstroke because, after bees, the next most important item on anybody's education reform agenda should be climate control. The average classroom is nearly always at one of two extremes -- either meat-locker cold or as warm as the equator at noon. There is rarely any middle ground. Whoever it is that has control of such things in a school (and no one seems to know exactly who that is) cannot fairly be blamed for these conditions. More than likely it is old or faulty equipment at the root of the problem. So the students are usually either shivering or sweating -- neither the ideal condition for learning. Of course, considering the proximity of the school where I was teaching to Logan Airport, the optimum environment for instruction was difficult to find. The rumble of jet engines sometimes made it necessary for me to pause in mid-sentence while aircraft were either landing or departing. At one point last year, the roar was particularly noisy as the students in my room attempted to read Shakespeare aloud. Such a task would be difficult enough if we were sequestered in a soundproof booth, but having students read the Bard while sitting under a flight path is flat-out impossible. I might as well have just shut the windows because the stifling heat couldn't do any more damage than the subject at hand. The students had passed out anyway. |