In this episode, we sit down with Vanessa, a public school teacher who has been teaching 7th grade language arts throughout the pandemic in Jacksonville, Florida, and has been teaching in-person this whole school year.

She says she knows she is risking her life, but she cares so much about her kids that she is willing to risk it. 

She tells us about how the school is trying to shift its focus away from reading and writing towards STEM subjects, but talks about how you still need to be able to read to do those subjects. On the topic of reading levels, she says 'My grade should be at about 975, and most kids are between 500-700. That's a 4th grade reading level.' And then you have the ethical question of whether you should pass the students even if they're not doing well because when they fail, they have to repeat the grade. Then you have kids as old as 15 or 16 in class with 12-year olds and their chances of actually passing eventually diminish to almost nothing. So do you choose to pass them anyway so they can eventually get their diploma and have a chance of being employable? Or do you keep failing them?

We also talk about charter schools and how they gentrify public school systems, why there are such high turnover amongst teachers, and truancy rates and other experiences of teaching during the pandemic.

Links:

Vanessa's podcast, the Dignified Delinquents: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dignified-delinquents/id1400580198

Music is The Beauty of Maths by Meydän.

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