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The Football Player Who Could Not Read
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• I work at a university. My job is to teach
  students enough algebra so that they can pass the
  ELM and Mathematics Competency requirements for a
  baccalaureate degree.  What this means is that
  they are presumed to be intelligent enough to be
  enrolled at the university level, but lack the
  skills necessary to pass the Entry Level Math
  (ELM) requirement.

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• The student population I work with is very
  diverse with just one common link they are all
  what is not called educationally disadvantaged.

4

• I once had a woman who was so embarrassed to be
  in my class that she almost refused to attend.
  She had a Ph.D. from Wisconsin University but had
  never been required to take math. She was
  interested in taking graduate work, but found the
  ELM too difficult and so enrolled in my class.

5

• Many of my students are desperate. They have to
  pass the ELM or Mathematics Competency (Comp) in
  order to enroll normally. Since they cannot
  enroll, they must crash all their courses. This
  is getting to be very difficult. In addition,
  they must pass the Comp in order to graduate.
  Many of my students are ready to graduate except
  for passing the Comp.

6

• A few years ago, I had a tall, striking,
  handsome black male in my class, who I later
  discovered was a star on the varsity football
  team. He was the leader of a clique that hung
  around him. His vocabulary was good and he seemed
  very interested during the first few classes. As
  with all of my students, he had scored less than
  30 on the math diagnostic test and was required
  to attend my class to remain eligible for his
  scholarship.

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• After the first week of the semester, he started
  missing classes. When he did attend he seemed
  disinterested. When the midterm came, he failed.
  I have a very personal approach to teaching and
  tried to find out what his problem was. The
  normal lines of communication were not available
  I was not able to approach him directly.

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• To put this in perspective, I need to give a
  little personal history. I did my student
  teaching at a high school in a predominately
  black community. I taught honors math and
  physics. I had a student with outstanding
  potential who ran my physics class. Everyone in
  the class took their cues from him. I tried a lot
  of tactics I had been taught in school, but they
  didnt work. In fact, I got a reprimand from the
  school principal who told me, I dont care what
  you do in the class. Just keep those . In your
  class from bell to bell so they dont tear up the
  school.

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• One day this student seemed very interested in
  class. Eventually he approached me and said he
  wanted to learn from me. I was overwhelmed. He
  asked me to show him the intricacies of chess. As
  the class was watching, I showed the moves and
  how the game was played. While I was amazing at
  their interest, they stole everything out of the
  physics lab.

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• This was a real learning experience for me. I
  have black friends and understand some of the
  difficulties they have in dealing with a white
  authority figure. When my friends have invited me
  to their homes, they have often had to justify my
  presence to some of their black friends. Even
  with an explanation, some of their friends refuse
  to accept my presence and leave shaking their
  heads. It is a difficult cultural problem.

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• Because of my experience, I could tell there was
  some additional pressure on the black football
  player in my academic skills class. I recognized
  the non-verbal warning signs that he gave off
  when I tried to discuss the situation in front of
  others. For that reason, I arranged to have all
  students who had failed a test meet me during my
  office hours.

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• Unfortunately, he didnt show. I waited until a
  day when the class was working on individual
  assignments and asked him in a low voice why he
  had failed to show. He was non-responsive. I felt
  he was ready to get up and leave. I then told him
  I would be in my office the next two hours and to
  try to come by.

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• He did come to my office. I closed the door and
  showed him his test, asking if he had any
  questions I could help he with. He said no. I
  then proceeded to ask a few needs assessment
  questions. What was his math background? What
  kind of problems seemed to cause him the most
  trouble? None of this worked. I then asked him
  why he was in my class. He told me it was
  required for his football eligibility.

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• If that is the case, I said, why not work on
  the assignments and attend? He said he didnt
  have the book but was evasive about his
  non-attendance. At the same time I felt he really
  wanted to be able to talk to me. There was a
  barrier that had to be crossed and I was looking
  for a way to cross it. Finally, I asked him if
  the clique that had attended with him the first
  few days were also football players. He said that
  most were. The fact that he was still
  sporadically attending meant to me that he wanted
  to learn. With this knowledge, I talked about how
  many skills it took to be a good football player.
  I said you are capable of learning enough algebra
  to pass the ELM and Comp, so why not give it a
  try?

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• We had broken the ice. Now came the problems. As
  a leader in his group (most of whom had dropped
  out of my class), he had difficulty coming to
  class. Worse, he couldnt buy the book and do the
  homework assignments based on it. I told him he
  could utilize the study hall copy of the book. I
  taught five sections that semester and told him
  he could come to any of them that was convenient
  (and be unseen by his friends). Now we were
  actually talking to each other

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• I broke out the book and started personal
  tutoring. As long as the problems were numbers
  and operators, he seemed to do well. But it
  slowly dawned on me that he was waiting for me to
  tell him what the question was on the homework
  assignments. Finally, I turned to some straight
  word problems and asked him to work them. He
  became very agitated and I thought we had blown
  the small agreement we had come to. I asked him
  to read aloud a simple sentence requesting a
  percentage of a dollar amount. As I did this, I
  watch and realized he couldnt read

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• I said, Not to worry, Im here to help. Here is
  how we are going to get around your lack of
  reading skills. He didnt deny my observation
  but instead asked, How? I have a sheet of key
  English words that translate directly into math
  symbols. He could learn algebra and I immediately
  reinforced that by showing him a few problems
  that he could do. Then I showed him how to circle
  the key words and put their math equivalent
  operators into an equation.

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• After that he came to different sections but at
  least twice a week. I game him special worksheets
  tailored to develop the math equations from word
  problems to work on. He came to my office hours a
  few more time, but at the end of the semester, he
  passed the ELM and Comp.

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• When I see him on campus he usually recognizes
  me, but never as the math professor. Instead he
  will say something about me being a good guy for
  a prof. We even high-fived once or twice.

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Why do you think he couldn't read?
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Why couldnt he come to class?
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Why not buy a text book (he had a scholarship
afterall...)?