A teacher responds

Regarding my review of Hard Times at Douglass High, a teacher (Mr. McDermott) who was featured in the documentary leaves a comment on Flypaper:

While I agree with much of your global criticism in the NRO article, I find your view of the teachers and staff distressingly shortsighted. All the teacher training and certification in the world cannot fully prepare you for what you're walking into each day at a school like Douglass. It's a constant give and take of expectations, discipline, and academic rigor. If you push too hard, the kids drop out. If you don't push enough, they run wild. Factor in the empty mandates from politicians that every child must succeed, add to it the diminished authority of the classroom teacher, and multiply it all by the impotent curricula created by educrats who are disconnected from the realities of classroom implementation, and you've got a formula for failure.

You think I wasn't pining to make literary allusions during my lesson they profiled in the documentary, to elevate it above the concrete here and now that these kids are mired in? I was following curriculum, sir. Curriculum that I, as a certified teacher, was mandated to work from by the state of Maryland. Curriculum passed down from on high by the same pedantic wonks who feel they have the answers to what ails public education, but don't have the constitution take their philosophies to the front lines to apply in person.

I'll be talking more about Hard Times today at 3 p.m. today on WBAL, to which one may listen live by clicking here and then clicking the "listen live" link in the top right left corner of the page.