Harte
Senior Member
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- 4,562
I've been a High School Math and Science teacher for eleven years now. I work in a struggling school with one of the lowest-achieving student bodies in Memphis.
These kids come to us in the 9th grade and 90% lack the skills they should have gotten in Middle School. About half of them coming in are practically illiterate. I've had four or five students in my geometry class over the years that needed a calculator to multiply by 1. That's not an exaggeration.
With this sort of situation, and with teachers being evaluated on whether their students are at grade level on state tests administered in April (with their job actually on the line,) it's not hard to imagine how stressful and discouraging this type of work is.
In truth, the ONLY thing that keeps me (and so many others) going is the fact that, every now and then, I get a student that completely outshines the rest of them. Students that not only immediately grasp what I'm teaching, but take it even further - on their own.
In 2016, one such student graduated from my school.
This girl is one of the top three students I've had in my time teaching. She's brilliant, sweet, and kind. She's also hilarious.
I got to know her quite well. She aced my Honors Geometry course AND my Honors Physics course. She is an intellectual dynamo.
When she was looking at universities, I described my Alma Mater to her (University of Georgia.) It's a good school with an excellent old part of the campus and a Fraternity Row that was supposed to be used by the film "Animal House," but the college nixed it.
Not to mention the SEC football games and all the associated excitement and quasi-religion that goes along with all that.
I talked her into going to Georgia, and she qualified for enough academic scholarships to pay the out of state tuition.
Over two consecutive summers before graduating high school, she worked to earn enough money to buy a rattletrap car for 2 grand. She used her money to get a new engine, fix the tranny, and several other repairs. She actually drives this cheap car back and forth from Athens Georgia to Memphis Tennessee, a trip that would be nerve-rackingly tense if I was driving - constantly expecting a breakdown all along the way. I told her several times I don't know how she does that.
Well, this past weekend when she was in town, some idiots stole her car. They wrecked it and totaled it - dying in the crash. Her car is gone, and she had packed a lot of her stuff in it in preparation for her trip back to Athens. Most of that stuff is ruined now.
Most of Memphis is basically impoverished. The same can be said for her family. She's trying to pull herself up out of that, and maybe pull up the rest of her family too.
Her name is Ashley Isom. My fellow teachers and I called her Ashley Awesome.
She has put up a gofundme site - only asking for 3,000 dollars (shows how selfless she is, in my opinion - she should have tried for more to get a better car, but not her.)
I was hoping some of you cheap b******* here could donate to it. I have. Any amount is fine. If you look at the page, lots of donations have been in the 15 dollar range.
She has to be back at school in less than a week, so it's kind of urgent.
here's the link: https://www.gofundme.com/vg2k8-starting-over
Please help this girl out.
No one is more deserving, and help here would have an impact that could last for a generation.
Harte
These kids come to us in the 9th grade and 90% lack the skills they should have gotten in Middle School. About half of them coming in are practically illiterate. I've had four or five students in my geometry class over the years that needed a calculator to multiply by 1. That's not an exaggeration.
With this sort of situation, and with teachers being evaluated on whether their students are at grade level on state tests administered in April (with their job actually on the line,) it's not hard to imagine how stressful and discouraging this type of work is.
In truth, the ONLY thing that keeps me (and so many others) going is the fact that, every now and then, I get a student that completely outshines the rest of them. Students that not only immediately grasp what I'm teaching, but take it even further - on their own.
In 2016, one such student graduated from my school.
This girl is one of the top three students I've had in my time teaching. She's brilliant, sweet, and kind. She's also hilarious.
I got to know her quite well. She aced my Honors Geometry course AND my Honors Physics course. She is an intellectual dynamo.
When she was looking at universities, I described my Alma Mater to her (University of Georgia.) It's a good school with an excellent old part of the campus and a Fraternity Row that was supposed to be used by the film "Animal House," but the college nixed it.
Not to mention the SEC football games and all the associated excitement and quasi-religion that goes along with all that.
I talked her into going to Georgia, and she qualified for enough academic scholarships to pay the out of state tuition.
Over two consecutive summers before graduating high school, she worked to earn enough money to buy a rattletrap car for 2 grand. She used her money to get a new engine, fix the tranny, and several other repairs. She actually drives this cheap car back and forth from Athens Georgia to Memphis Tennessee, a trip that would be nerve-rackingly tense if I was driving - constantly expecting a breakdown all along the way. I told her several times I don't know how she does that.
Well, this past weekend when she was in town, some idiots stole her car. They wrecked it and totaled it - dying in the crash. Her car is gone, and she had packed a lot of her stuff in it in preparation for her trip back to Athens. Most of that stuff is ruined now.
Most of Memphis is basically impoverished. The same can be said for her family. She's trying to pull herself up out of that, and maybe pull up the rest of her family too.
Her name is Ashley Isom. My fellow teachers and I called her Ashley Awesome.
She has put up a gofundme site - only asking for 3,000 dollars (shows how selfless she is, in my opinion - she should have tried for more to get a better car, but not her.)
I was hoping some of you cheap b******* here could donate to it. I have. Any amount is fine. If you look at the page, lots of donations have been in the 15 dollar range.
She has to be back at school in less than a week, so it's kind of urgent.
here's the link: https://www.gofundme.com/vg2k8-starting-over
Please help this girl out.
No one is more deserving, and help here would have an impact that could last for a generation.
Harte