Why Jimmy Brown Doesn't Write
by Jay Dubya

In 1972 I had read in local newspapers where the Federal Department of Education 
had blasted American education for being responsible for declining standardized 
test scores. I had to chuckle when I read that one of the suggestions for 
improving the quality of education was to have the school year extended from a 
hundred and eighty to a whopping two hundred and ten days. As usual quantity was 
the oversimplified solution where quality should have been the prime 
consideration.

Teachers know the real reasons for declining test scores from the inside of the 
warped academic fishbowl looking out. The present democratic comprehensive 
American educational system over the past fifty years has generated massive 
waste and is grotesquely inefficient. For education to improve certain simple 
basic steps need to be taken.

Students have to be sorted out and then tracked into academic and into 
vocational curriculums after eighth grade. Rigid academic standards must be 
maintained for the college preparation tracked students. Teacher duties must be 
eliminated so that the professional staff can do more direct teaching and 
individual tutoring of students. The fifty-to-seventy five perpetual 
troublemakers that cause turmoil in the average high school must be extracted 
out of the academic educational setting and placed either in the vocational 
curriculum or in juvenile detention and custodial centers. Teacher duties should 
be handled by aides and tough stints like the cafeteria that require crowd 
control and the stoppage of fights should be the responsibility of the local 
police department. And finally, teachers must become first and foremost 
respected specialists.

In 1972 I had driven to the town Pony League field to watch some of my fourteen-
year-old students play baseball. I never really liked going to local public 
sporting events like organized baseball games because invariably there would 
always be some parent that recognized my identity and then would give me a tin 
ear about how much expertise he or she had about schools and public education. 
Parents have always had the bad habit of trying to impress teachers when they 
automatically christen themselves official authorities on American public school 
education.

I glanced up at the home team bleachers and noticed four parents of students I 
had been teaching that year sitting up there masquerading as baseball' fans. I 
discreetly decided to amble over to the visiting team's bleachers to quietly 
enjoy and view the game. No sooner had I parked my hindquarters on a wooden 
plank that Mrs. Brown, a very attractive and affable mom, climbed up the 
bleacher steps and then occupied the space right next to me.

"Mr. Wiessner," Mrs. Brown began, "my son Jimmy has really learned a lot of 
literature, grammar and vocabulary in your English class!" she voluntarily 
complimented.

"Thank you very much!" I tersely answered while trying to suggest that I 
preferred to be an anonymous Pony League baseball fan rather than an itinerant 
English teacher at that particular time.

"But honestly Mr. Wiessner," Mrs. Brown continued with a forced smile, "I do 
feel that you should have taught more writing lessons this year. As you know 
Jimmy is really weak in composition writing."

"He's not in an Accelerated English class," I reminded Mrs. Brown. "Those 
students in my two Accelerated English sections write two dozen compositions 
every year. Jimmy's section writes two final drafts a marking period and that 
comes to eight every school year."

"Maybe Jimmy will have more writing in his ninth grade English class next year!" 
Mrs. Brown speculated while indirectly criticizing my writing teaching methods 
in my general English classes.

"You're right Mrs. Brown!" I agreed. "Jimmy should have had more composition 
work this year." Then I thought, ‘If Jimmy worked a degree harder and was in an 
accelerated class, he would have had sixteen more compositions to author,' but I 
refrained from antagonizing the overly concerned parent.

"Mrs. Brown, this school year I had almost burned myself' out reading and 
correcting nearly three thousand compositions," I commented before clearing my 
throat, "and I already need reading glasses and have arthritis in both my 
hands!" That remark seemed to silence Mrs. Brown's attitude about my implied 
lazy work habits.

Mrs. Brown saw one of her lady friends ascending the visiting team's bleachers 
so she excused herself to join her acquaintance, leaving me alone to ponder my 
most recent undesired impromptu parent conference with a grandstanding mother.

‘If only Mrs. Brown knew the entire truth rather than bits and pieces here and 
there!' I laughed to myself. ‘Then her opinion of the big picture might be a 
little more accurate than it is right now!'

Jimmy Brown's language problems begin, end and revolve around two central facts. 
Jimmy was a well' behaved above-average student who was well' liked and socially 
adjusted. Because of those sterling qualities, secondly Jimmy was an aspiring 
virtuoso who played saxophone in the school band. In my junior-senior high 
school, band was the ultimate activity besides football. Influential people in 
the community valued band and football over academics. And so the entire value 
system was inverted where academics were treated as extra-curricular activities 
and band and football were handled as if they were core curricular school 
subjects. English, science, mathematics and social studies had been demoted in 
rank and band, football and other vital cherished extra-curricular activities 
had been elevated and glorified.

Jimmy left my English class once a week to take saxophone lessons with the music 
instructor. The message Jimmy received from the sax' practice was that music was 
primary and English was secondary because he never had to leave his music lesson 
to go to English class.

The band student missed thirty or so English classes that school year taking 
once a week saxophone lessons. It then was my responsibility to make sure that 
Jimmy Brown completed all of the work that he had missed while strenuously 
blowing into his saxophone. I had to provide Jimmy with worksheets and homework 
assignments and then make sure that he completed what he had missed when he 
should have been ambitiously working in my third period class. And please 
remember little Jimmy was but one of a hundred and thirty students I had been 
assigned to teach every single day.

I couldn't help but believing that Jimmy Brown was really missing out on some 
serious insights when the class had to read stories by: Arthur Conan Doyle, O. 
Henry, Mark Twain, Washington Irving, Jack London, H.G. Wells, James Thurber, 
Herman Melville, Hans Christian Andersen, Jonathan Swift and Edgar Allan Poe. 
Because of his saxophone playing Jimmy Brown had to read and study all of that 
literature work he had missed in class on his own for homework. The message 
Jimmy Brown received from that time-substitution was that saxophone lessons were 
more vital than the masterpiece works of all of the above distinguished authors.

And then Jimmy Brown missed out on interesting vocabulary words like 
"prodigious, loquacious, surreptitious, assiduous, egregious and avaricious." He 
also could have better mastered complex sentences with relative pronouns and 
adjective subordinate clauses and those other complex sentences containing 
subordinating conjunctions and adverb subordinate clauses not to mention noun 
clauses. So because Jimmy's wonderful mother wanted him to play saxophone in the 
band and have individual lessons to perfect his tooting and blowing, English 
class had now been mathematically reduced to a hundred and fifty day activity 
for little Jimmy Brown.

Jimmy Brown, just like all the other eighth grade students had to take the 
school-mandated standardized tests to determine how his individual skill levels 
compared to national norms. Jimmy spent three English sessions taking the 
California Achievement Test and two English classes were devoted to the 
Differential Aptitude Test for the Guidance Department. One additional English 
class period was used for the Otis IQ Test, the results of which were placed and 
kept in the child's "Confidential Guidance Folder." Now Jimmy's English class 
time was down to a hundred and forty-five sessions out of a possible hundred and 
eighty forty-five minute periods.

Jimmy was absent from school the day the Differential Aptitude Test had been 
administered so he had to leave English class to take the Guidance Test he had 
missed. That same day I had given an English test, which Jimmy had missed 
because he was making-up the heralded DAT he had missed because he was absent 
from school the day the Guidance Department had scheduled it. The message Jimmy 
Brown received from all of that democratic educational bureaucracy was that 
Guidance Office tests were more important than English class, English tests and 
English teachers.

The classroom teacher was the one that really had suffered from all of Jimmy's 
absentee problems and school unfinished business outside of English class. I had 
to schedule a time slot after school later in the week so that Jimmy could make 
up the English test that the boy had missed because he had to take the Guidance 
Department's DAT. The child had missed the DAT because he had been absent from 
school the day Jimmy's entire class had also missed English class.

Standardized tests the year before had identified Jimmy as a "gifted child" that 
had only average academic skills in reading and writing. So now the eighth grade 
student was also in the "Gifted and Talented" program and consequently missed 
several English classes each month to participate in that special placement. 
Then Jimmy Brown had been selected to partake in the countywide "Olympics of the 
Mind" competition that required three more lost English periods in which to 
adequately prepare for the important interschool event. Jimmy's total English 
class days were now down to around a hundred and twenty-two.

Jimmy Brown and his eighth grade peers were to be making a tremendous transition 
to their freshman high school year and to accommodate that serious social 
adjustment, the guidance counselors met with each class section ten times. The 
purpose of the Guidance Department sessions was to ensure that the switch from 
eighth grade to high school was not too traumatic for Jimmy Brown and his fellow 
eighth graders. Of course important matters like course descriptions and subject 
selections, electives, regular subject requirements for high school graduation 
(still over four years away for Jimmy) and college choices were all thoroughly 
discussed.

Even though the ten scheduled guidance meetings were distributed between regular 
English, science, social studies and math' core curriculum classes Jimmy still 
wound-up missing four additional English sessions. Now it was important that 
Jimmy and his classmates knew where the cooking rooms, woodshops, family living 
rooms and auto mechanics shops were located so another English period was wasted 
so that Jimmy could tour the same building he had been attending school in since 
September. Jimmy's grand total was now down to a hundred and seventeen English 
sessions.

Notice how educational academic inefficiency was being generated because the 
school officials were so concerned about Jimmy Brown's sociological and 
psychological needs that academics had been coincidentally neglected. But 
already sixty-three days of English class periods had been squandered for Jimmy 
Brown's delicate mental and emotional needs.

Jimmy Brown was smart, gifted and talented, articulate and sociable (but average 
in academic skill proficiency) so the administration and the class advisor 
nominated the student to be a School Guide for the sixth graders coming over 
from the elementary school to become familiarized with the junior-senior high 
school. So Jimmy Brown (who was developing socially) lost two additional English 
sessions guiding sixth graders around the same building he had lost five days 
being guided in and around by the Guidance Counselors, who were definitely 
experts on all kinds of guiding. His English class total was now down to a 
hundred and twenty sessions.

I am not being facetious, trite, cynical, exaggerating or picayune here. I am 
stating exactly what had happened to little Jimmy Brown that school year and am 
demonstrating that it was quite remarkable that the child got to write and 
submit two compositions each of the four marking periods.

Now I can do some more statistical tinkering. Jimmy Brown also missed three 
English classes because of scheduled school assemblies when the teacher had to 
bring the entire class to the auditorium. And then Jimmy missed out three other 
English sessions where the class was reading the wonderful literature to Charles 
Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" because the band had to rehearse for the annual 
Christmas assembly show that had to be given twice to accommodate the entire 
student body. 

Then also English class had to be postponed twice that school year so that the 
students could view the Christmas movie and the spring Easter movie at other 
school assemblies. And Jimmy missed one other class because of a football pep' 
assembly that had been held in the gymnasium. Jimmy's English class total has 
now been diminished to a hundred and eleven sessions.

And to top everything else Jimmy Brown had missed eleven additional school days 
because of bouts with bronchitis, the common cold, high fevers and the flu. So 
now we're down to a hundred school days where Jimmy Brown must master the 
intricacies of English grammar, composition, vocabulary and literature.

And don't forget that the teacher was also absent ten days that school year 
because of sickness, funerals and personal business. So actually, the total 
classroom teacher/student learning time Jimmy had me as his instructor was 
around a half a school year. Compound Jimmy Brown by a hundred and twenty-nine 
other students, and you can appreciate why teachers often become frustrated, 
cynical and depressed.

Now here is the reason I had gone to the baseball park on that 1972 Saturday 
morning. I was still recuperating from a terrible Friday at school the day 
before. I figured I would watch a relaxing baseball game and then return home 
and mow my lawn.

That Friday morning I was scheduled to have bus duty outside my school wing. It 
was a bleak, damp morning, but since it wasn't raining I had to wait outside and 
supervise the children until it was time for them to enter the building. That 
fifteen minutes was normally spent getting my homeroom attendance cards ready in 
alphabetical order, filling out lunch slips and recording late homework 
assignments in my grade book from twenty-two students that had been absent on 
Wednesday.

That morning a pretty bad fight erupted on the backside of the asphalt and I had 
to run over and break-up the melee as three hundred children were screaming and 
shouting. Then I had to admonish and warn other students that were throwing 
stones at each other to avoid a racial incident if the violators should get 
involved in a second altercation.

When the entrance bell finally rang I had to escort the first two combatants 
down to the main office for fighting. At the office I had to pick up Discipline 
Referral Cards to fill out on both combatants during homeroom period while I 
also had to take attendance and cafeteria lunch counts.

The second period 8-6 class was nerve-racking but I valiantly managed to make it 
to fifth period cafeteria duty. I had to admonish children and students that 
were bending spoons and flinging Jell-o at each other with their newly invented 
catapults. Toward the end of the forty-five minute cafeteria period the din 
sounded like an ancient chariot race crowd that had gone berserk in the Roman 
Colosseum.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if teacher aides could do this job along with a few 
policemen!" I shouted to Tim Amoro (who later in life became a guidance 
counselor and then an elementary school principal).

"Yeah!" Tim agreed. "I already had my nose broken trying to break up that big 
January fight we had in here. I want to retire from this job with two nostrils!"

"If we didn't have to be in here," I yelled to Tim, "then we could be assigned 
to either teach a class or tutor students in writing skills!"

"That will never happen!" Tim shouted above the exodus din. "That's why I'm 
taking graduate courses to become a guidance counselor and evolve out of this 
crazy daily existence!"

At last I made it to seventh period, my PPSA (teacher Preparation, Planning and 
Special Assignment). My eighth period general English class was almost as 
challenging as my second period 8-6ers so I needed the free time to rejuvenate 
and catch my breath. ‘I'll run-off some worksheets for Monday in the office and 
then take it easy!' I thought. ‘Teaching is about the only job where you have to 
have the next school day's work done today!'

Six teachers were absent that day. The high school no longer had permanent 
substitutes so I was notified over the intercom by one of the main office 
secretaries that I had to surrender my prep' period to teach "American 
Government" for the absent seventh grade social studies teacher.

At the time the daily substitute pay was only $35.00, so you could imagine how 
many times teachers were asked to sacrifice their planning time to have a 
special assignment (remember, PPSA) in another teacher's specialized subject 
area. And so the school system had saved itself' a remarkable $35.00 and had 
successfully inconvenienced six teachers that showed up that Friday to cover the 
absent instructor's classes.

During my eighth period class the principal had me yanked out because an irate 
parent had stormed into the office and wanted to see me right away. A science 
teacher had to give up his PPSA to cover my last period class while I was 
confronting the livid parent about something of which I hadn't the slightest 
idea. The parent had misconstrued a comment I had made on Monday (remember it's 
now Friday) and then left the school more peacefully than when he had arrived.

I returned to my English class only to discover that the science teacher 
covering for me had abandoned Edgar Allan Poe's "A Tell-tale Heart" and was 
lecturing the students all about entomology and insects after a certain passage 
in the Poe story described "night watches" in the wall. After the science 
teacher excused himself for the last fifteen minutes of eighth period I noticed 
some drawings and scribbling that had not been on five desks before I had been 
summoned by the principal out of my classroom to appease an irate parent.

Then that entire week after school I had Office Detention, the "Devil's Island 
Howdy Duty Show" (being assigned to teachers at no extra pay by the 
administration). I didn't know six of the twelve students in the detention and 
had trouble with three of the high school children that didn't like taking 
orders from an eighth grade English teacher.

The shades to the side windows were closed and several of the student friends of 
the detained high school children were outside banging their fists against the 
windows for the amusement of their punished pals.

When I finally made it home alive and still breathing I had to work on the new 
computerized report cards. The new system required teachers to use a number two 
pencil to methodically circle in grades instead of writing A, B, C, D or F on 
sheets of paper. Also four comments for each student had to be shaded in 
requiring two circles for each comment. For example 47 (two numbers) shaded in 
means "talks too much in class" and 59 (two numbers) shaded in means "more study 
needed at home."

It required three and a half-hours to do the new report cards instead of the 
customary hour, but on the plus side of the coin the new system saved the office 
secretaries time they used to spend transcribing the written grades from the 
"Grade Sheets" onto the actual "Report Cards."

Because of all the stress I sometimes took "mental health days" when I wasn't 
actually physically sick. But the administration would call teachers on the 
carpet if they missed more than eight sick days of the twelve allotted by 
school/teacher contracts each year. A recent government report indicated that 
teaching is the third most pressurized job there is. An administrator once told 
me, "Teachers that miss more than eight days a school year are unprofessional 
because they are disrupting the educational continuity and hurting student 
learning." Right!

If the public wants to improve standardized test scores, then the answer is 
quite simple. Keep kids inside their assigned classrooms where they're supposed 
to be learning core curriculum academics.

I hope that two things are now quite evident: why good teachers leave the 
profession or evolve into guidance, college-professoring or administration and 
why little Jimmy Brown only wrote eight compositions in his general eighth grade 
English class. And incidentally Jimmy Brown's team lost the Pony League baseball 
game.

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