Dwayne is the father of one of my very sweet students. I reach out to all of my students' parents during the first week of school to introduce myself and it was then, that I met Dwayne.
"Do you guys have sports?" was the first thing Dwayne asked me. I replied that economy situations have forced us to pause our sports program, but I could give him the names of community sports programs for his son. "Oh, no, I don't wish for him to play sports!" O...K...
Dwayne gave me his background story. In high school, Dwayne was a star athlete. Teachers did "favors" for athletes by altering grades and expectations so that they could play in games. In 11th grade, Dwayne's math teacher arranged for a college-aged tutor to DO his work for him. 40 years ago, teachers must have been different that we are today. When I was student teaching ten years ago, my mentor-teacher started off by telling me, "This school has a ten-time state championship record in wrestling, and we're all so proud. We teachers help the players out when we can." Which translated into, "We fix the grades." I was not willing to be a part of that and asked for a transfer.
This is the very thing that Dwayne wants to avoid for his son. He wants his son to genuinely learn things and enjoy school. Dwayne entered college completely unprepared, resulting in many failed classes and lost tuition money. Eventually he became a police officer but he always felt badly when he thought of his high school education. He wishes teachers hadn't made it so easy for him to not learn.
Dwayne has it figured out. As he says, "At the age of 57, school life is so much clearer than it was while I was living it."
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