He’s a high school teacher. It was the second day of class.
He gave his seniors two paragraphs to read and one sentence to complete. He gave them the sentence stems. He annotated the passage with them. He gave them the answers before he gave them the problem.
They needed to fill in four words.
They couldn’t do it.
“I have seniors who simply cannot read, and seniors who cannot write. They can reason. They can defend their reasoning if they’re talking to their homeboy. But applying that to a written text — two paragraphs — they couldn’t do it.”
Then he breaks down on camera.
Pastor Will Ford joins John Amanchukwu, and his first observation is about the man himself. A lot of people know him as a chef — the recipes, the cooking videos. Ford’s read: he’s likely subsidizing his teaching salary with that online work so he can afford to keep standing in that classroom. He’s not cooking here. He’s cooking up something else.
Their argument is that this is what twelve years of passing kids along produces.
These are seventeen and eighteen year olds, weeks from graduating. Some will go to college. Some will go straight into the workforce, underemployed, unable to buy a house, barely affording groceries — and eventually, John argues, looking for someone to blame for a situation that was set in motion in the third grade.
Ford’s point about the tears: they’re a cry on behalf of every teacher who doesn’t want to hand one more person into society who can’t put a thought together. Nobody stopped five minutes to make sure they could read. Twelve years later, here it is.
So who’s to blame?
Ford says the policies, from the teachers’ union on down, that pass children along and never hold anyone accountable. John agrees — and then says the expectations on parents have to go up too. Sight words, colors, shapes. That happens in preschool or before it. Kids arrive at kindergarten without any of it.
He describes what he sees now: kids riding to school in headphones, walking into class in headphones, hood up, asleep in the back row. In his era, if his mother had found out he was sleeping in class, that would have ended immediately.
And then Ford tells the story that makes the whole segment.
His oldest son is dyslexic. He just passed his certification exam to be a licensed psychologist and therapist in Texas — a master’s degree, one extra year, and a lot of work.
His youngest got angry with him a couple years back. Why are you putting all this pressure on me? Why do you expect me to do all this?
Ford told him: son, you have an enemy, and your enemy’s name is average. You’re better than the reading level you’re at. You’re better than the math scores you’re testing at. I stay on you because I love you and because it’s already inside you.
A year or two later the boy had read through the summer, worked with a math tutor, and tested at twice his grade level in reading and a full grade higher in math. Ford asked him what turned it around.
Daddy, you told me I had an enemy called average.
Ford’s conclusion: we get out of our children what we expect out of them. The alternative is the soft bigotry of low expectations — that’s just how they are. No. That’s not just how they are.
John closes on the three-legged stool he says a life rests on: the Christian home, the Christian church, the Christian school. Remove any one leg and the whole thing starts to teeter.
#Education #Parenting #DisturbingThePeace #Teachers #Literacy #PublicSchools
#WillFord #SchoolToPrisonPipeline #Accountability #Fatherhood #RaisingKids
#Homeschool #ChristianEducation #JohnAmanchukwu #ChristianPodcast
⏱️Chapters:
0:00 “Your Enemy Is Named Average”
0:20 Pastor Will Ford Joins
0:42 Clip: A Teacher Breaks Down
1:05 “These Kids Are Leaving High School”
1:14 Two Paragraphs. One Sentence.
1:34 “Four Words. They Couldn’t Fill In Four Words.”
1:58 He Gave Them The Answers First
2:12 “Seniors Who Cannot Read”
3:03 What Ford Saw In That Video
3:51 “He’s Cooking Up Something Else”
4:11 The Soft Bigotry Of Low Expectations
4:32 Why He Teaches Anyway
5:17 It’s The Second Day Of Class
5:32 What The Tears Are Actually Saying
6:22 The School To Prison Pipeline
6:40 Who Should We Blame?
7:01 The Policies And The Unions
7:22 What Happens After Graduation
7:43 Underemployed, And Looking For Someone To Blame
8:05 Headphones, Hoodies, And The Back Row
8:36 What Should Happen Before Kindergarten
9:02 His Son Who Passed His Licensing Exam
9:47 “Why Are You Putting This Pressure On Me?”
9:51 “Your Enemy Is Named Average”
10:37 Two Years Later
10:56 “Daddy, You Told Me I Had An Enemy”
11:06 We Get What We Expect
11:33 Train Up A Child
11:57 The Three-Legged Stool
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