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The Rice Thresher
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Lizzie Taishoff Thresher features editor While I am thrilled to see the new presidential administration raising the issue of education, I am disheartened by the voucher movement. When I was in high school, I had an experience which taught me that pulling money out of public schools will not fix our educational problems. I met Alex in the summer of 1995. She was 19 and set in her ways. She didn't want to learn, didn't want to work and she certainly didn't want to listen to me. I was 16, scared and the quintessential image of white privilege. I went to the right prep school, ate with the right fork and knew the right people. I'd had a disastrous experience the previous school year; I lied to my teachers, never did my homework and almost failed out of the prestigious girls' school I had attended since I was five. I didn't see the point in anything. Everything I wanted - good grades, attention for my accomplishments - always came to me. I never had to work for anything. With an inspirational teacher and the support of my parents, I managed to get through the year without doing irreparable harm to my report card, but I knew I needed to make a serious change that summer. I needed a challenge, something that would shock me out of my mindset of privilege. Teaching a review course for the GED in Brooklyn was my jolt. I passed the entrance test, a modified version of the GED, with ease. Because I was so young, Alex was my only student. I taught her five afternoons a week. The pay was lousy and the work oscillated between excruciating boredom and wild euphoria. My first three-hour class felt like an eternity. Alex knew she needed a high school diploma and that I was her key to getting it, but that didn't stop her from abusing me every chance she got. She mockingly called me, "The Brain." After day one I was ready to quit. But I couldn't. There was something about Alex and something about the work. On day two we were working on commas, something I did in the fourth grade and something she had never seen before. I figured out she was a visual learner the day before, so I brought macaroni to our session. I stuck the pasta pieces to the chalkboard with tape instead of writing commas. I let her move them around as I wrote new sentences. And she got it. But this moment of ecstatic learning was short-lived. Everything connected with reading, writing and math was a struggle for Alex. And her frustrations came out as attacks on me. One minute she understood everything and the next she was looking at her fingernails, flatly telling me - in her sometimes impenetrable Brooklyn accent - that she didn't get it. I got angry at her. I told her to focus, to pay attention. Those were the days I wish I had to do over again. I made mistakes in the classroom the times I put her down, the times I let my frustration boil over. I have learned from those instances, and they have given me a new form of patience and a new appreciation for the difficulties many people have in trying to understand new concepts. Working with Alex that summer was the best and worst challenge I have ever faced. It was physically exhausting and mentally draining, but it left me with a new perspective on my life. It also taught me a lesson about the failing of public schools in my city and the country as a whole. Alex was failed by poorly funded schools, overcrowded classrooms and ill-prepared teachers. A poor Puerto Rican with parents who did not encourage her intellectually, she was doomed when she was born. But private schooling would not have been the answer. Taking money away from public schools only damages those students who cannot afford the difference between what the vouchers provide and what private schools cost. By senior year, my high school cost over $15,000 a year. Vouchers will never provide that level of funding to students. Those with money will still have more advantages in school, and the poor will continue to be left behind. Vouchers are not the answer. Better funding for public schools and recruitment of solid teachers is a start. We have a budget surplus - let's use it. We can also get involved as mentors and as teachers. I witnessed the effectiveness of this method while teaching Alex. With time and attention, she passed the GED with honors. Lizzie Taishoff is features editor and a Wiess College senior.
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