Meeting Joe Jones

For those of you that do not know who Joe Jones is let me fill you in. He is a fictional student that drops out of H.S. in the ninth grade at the age of 17. He has essentially been let down by everyone in his life that could have been a support mechanism. I met Joe as part of an activity I did in my credentialing program at CSUSM. We read a short story about Joe and the many things that led to his dropping out of school. After the reading we were asked to rank from 1-11 the factors that were most responsible for his dropping out. The factors included his mom, Joe himself, his teacher, his first grade teacher, his principle, counselor, society, curriculum, etc. After we ranked them individually we had to form groups and come to a consensus on our rankings. To say we were in the spread formation would have been an understatement. My group of three had one item that was ranked #1 on one sheet and #11 on another so coming to a consensus was difficult. The real value in doing this exercise for me is in looking at all of the times and people in the educational "system" that could have made a difference and for one reason or another didn't. Joe was failed at at every level. As a teacher, as a person, I can only be responsible for my actions and I know that some day Joe is going to walk into my class, possibly late, and I sure hope I greet him with "I'm glad to see you today, let's get you up to speed!" I hope you do too!