Joseph C. Phillips talks about the failure of public schools and the need to ask hard questions. He points to last years scores on student performance.
These are not students failing because they do not have access to the internet or don’t have Olympic sized swimming pools. The sad fact is that the report demonstrates that middle-class black boys are scoring about as well as poor white boys. These are students who are not proficient in the basics of math and English.
With education experts always calling for more money, is it evident at last that the experts either don’t know how to educate children or more likely have conflicting goals which practically hinder education?
Although I’m a writer, teaching is my day job, so I’m going to defend teachers here and say that you good parents out there have no idea how many students have parents who never talk to them, never read to them, never ask, “Have you finished your homework?” and don’t teach their kids that studying needs to be done even when it’s not fun.
So they don’t study.
That’s incredible. Oh, I see that I didn’t link to the article I was referring to. I’m sorry. I can’t hold myself together sometimes.
I think Phillips was leaning toward parental involvement with his article. He asked if it’s possible black culture itself is the big problem in poorly educated kids.
Maybe teachers should focus more on teaching the students, and doing their job while the child is in their classroom, rather than constantly complaining about what they consider “bad parenting”. Stop nagging about what the parents DO NOT do, and start focusing on the education here. Parents send their children to school to be educated and taught how to apply these disciplines to their lives. It is utterly ridiculous to blame a parent for the public school system’s inability to teach a child anything. Perhaps the children who don’t have parents to talk to them or read to them need their TEACHER to do that for them. The way I see it, teachers are spending too much time trying to change the parents, when they should really be trying to teach the student.
Could it be that the Janteloven has taken over our government schools? In a culture of mediocrity, striving for excellence will result in getting ostracized by your peers. When that becomes commonplace, the social costs of achieving excellence is perceived to be greater than the benefits of academic achievement.
Greybeard, I believe some of that does occur, but I don’t know what percentage it would be across the nation. I reviewed a book on racial tensions in some schools last May. That book argued that in schools where students had natural pressure to identify with their group, usually the other students who looked like that, this idea of achievement as a betrayal of the group comes into play.
Michelle, I think Shelley has a good point, and teachers can only do so much to overcome the limitations an unsupportive family has on their school-age kids. If the kids want to learn, you can teach them. If they don’t, you can try to teach them, but on your own as a teacher, there’s only so much you can do. Do any public schools discipline anymore? They wouldn’t have to worry about it as much if all parents supported the education needs of their kids.
I know a man who left the Philadelphia school system because the system would not allow him to educate the students. He made an effort, but if a student didn’t want to do any work, he still wouldn’t fail. The system supported child-care, not education, and even in that terrible setting, he could teach some of the kids who wanted to learn, whose parents wanted them to learn, but most of the class were simply burning their youth like rubbish.
Phil, I agree that there is only so much the educational system will allow, and it puts a lot of added work on the teachers. In my opinion, it is mostly bureaucratic red tape that is causing the failure of the system. However, if there are fingers to be pointed, they should go directly into the direction of the administration of the school system. My daughter is home schooled for these very reasons. She is very smart, and it is my fear that the public school system will completely dumb her down, so to speak. It is ridiculous.
It’s a rare student who spontaneously wants to work hard without any pressure or even encouragement or example from his family. A teacher can’t help that. What a teacher can do is inspire a child to learn even if no one is doing any inspiring. Even then, a school can undermine both the inspiring teacher and the inspired student if the kids who don’t want to learn can’t be flunked out or expelled. We’ve arrived at a system that undermines the kids’ education at every stage: home, classroom, and administration. A lot of schools have become daycare that slides gradually into either welfare or prison. A shortage of money didn’t do that to us.
Ok… on this subject I know of what I speak. I’m an ex-teacher from the mid-west. The school was way upper class. My $5.00 lab fees were paid with 50 and 100 dollar bills! I taught in a high-school of 2400 students, (9-12). I taught photography…a pretty innocent elective, I would have thought. Most were in the class by their own choosing. (It should be noted here that some “guidance counselors” put kids in these classes even if they couldn’t use a ruler or spell their own names. I taught chemistry of photography for gosh sakes! But, again, someone thought little Johny or Jane could use their hands in my classes.
The government said it was a good idea..)
Why did kids fail to learn? Everyone is to blame, Michelle.
Most of the teachers really cared about giving the kids a great education. Too many of the kids were spoiled and didn’t really want to be in ANY class, let alone your basics, like; math, English, the sciences.
Rather the kids would rather be blowing doors off restrooms with black powder bombs. They would rather be off somewhere smoking cigarettes, junk, using drugs or having sex in one of their expensive cars in the parking lots. (Most kids in the school had nicer cars than the teachers!)
One boy came to my class drunk. I had to wrestle him out of my room to prevent him from hurting other students when he became violent. I got him out in the hall, had another teacher call the main office for help and tried to contain the situation.
In the process, I got a damaged nerve in my elbow.
The main office never did send any help.
The kids who were wandering the halls formed a wall around me and the drunk kid and yelled for the kid to kill me!
As a teacher, I was not allowed to lay a hand on the kid,even to protect my life!!! (This is a government rule….) I finally got him to the main office. I had a secretary phone his parents. For some reason, they were at home.
They couldn’t talk to us because they were worse drunk than my student, their child!!
I wanted to press criminal charges against the kid. The principal told me I would be fired if I did so.
Some parents would threaten to sue the school if we enforced attendance policies.
Some parents would threaten to sue the school if we, as teachers under attack, tried to defend ourselves as conservatively as possible.
Some parents in this rich school let their kids drink booze at home, have sex at home and experiment with drugs at home. The parents would tell us they felt it was better to let the kids do it at home rather than out on the streets with strangers!!!!
Some parents on the school board phoned me at my home at night and told me I should not scold their kids in class if they acted up or would not stop talking or if they used foul language in class.
I could go on and on with parent stories!!!
Kids were never given much info on the real value of a good education…by anyone.
Kids were seldom held accountable. Teachers weren’t allowed to talk about values….
(If a kid was caught smoking outside he was suspended for 3 days; if his/her parents didn’t care.
One time a black powder bomb was used to blow up a bathroom, the kids involved all had lawyers at the school board meeting. None of the kids were charged with any crimes.
One school board member said of the incident: “Now, let us not make such a big deal over this. We shouldn’t ruin any of these kid’s lives just because of one little mistake. Boys will be boys, you know.”
The police had mentioned that anyone inside the bathroom or even outside the door, which had blown off its solid brass hinges, would have been killed! No one else remembered to bring that up at the board meeting!
No, instead, for the few days these boys were out of their classes while all was investigated, we teachers had to use our free time to tutored them on the time they missed.
Darn! If those boys had just been smoking when they were bombing the bathroom we could have at least kicked them out for three days without tutoring!!}
Another boy was found with $40,000 on him so he could go out and buy drugs in Denver. We had to let him go as we didn’t use proper methods when searching him. He did go out to Denver, later and instead of using the money given him by other students to buy drugs, he used it for hookers and booze! (When he returned to school without the drugs, he was nearly beaten to death…except some teachers got to him before it was too late.)
A very few teachers liked to teach for the perceived power it gave them… {I’m not sure what power they thought they had as we were really just baby-sitting most of the time.}
Some taught so they could be hot shot union leaders and stir-up school/teacher problems. Teacher’s unions are much more “respectable” than other types…. no blue-collar here!
Some taught so they could run away and hide in a classroom so life couldn’t catch up with them.
Some taught because they really couldn’t make a living in the real world of skills and talents.
But, out of the hundreds of teachers in my school, 98.9 % were excellent but frustrated teachers, dedicated to providing higher learning for a next generation…caring about the kids!
My sister, who was suffering from long-term cancer, home schooled her two kids from 1st. through 12th. grades.
Both boys are strong Christian men now. Both are well respected in their respective professions. One will be getting his PHd. at Yale soon. (He went through Navy Seal training as well.) The other is an officer in the Air Force. Both have worked in Russia on their own as workers rebuilding homes, schools and churches after communism was turned out.
What’s the difference? These boys were held responsible and accountable for all their actions. They were not raised in-front of the TV. They were expected to show respect for authority. They were impressed with the value of an education, Christian values,working hard and respecting others.
{I use Christian values here because that is what their parents believed in. I’m sure there are other religions whose values are just as positive as those of these parent’s.}
I’ve written a lot here…sorry… but at last I can get vented….
Education = Good parenting!
and Kids given and living good values and having responsibilities. Yes, kids need to be held accountable!
and Teachers who give a darn!
And I believe good religious values and some common sense.
My last words on this; if kids are jerks in school and refuse to learn or respect teachers, where did they get these ideas?
And now-days, the government has decided to step in and “teach” crap; political correctness, nothing about responsibility or accountability, how not to win, how to expect to be given everything in your life… etc, etc… I could puke! …except it just gets worse as each day passes.
Teachers can only do what they are allowed to do by the government rules, school’s philosophy, and parent’s tolerances. (and let’s not forget, teachers have to be raised and taught equally as well. Universities and high schools have ruined a lot of potentially fine teachers along the way.
Michelle, I agree with John. Sure, the kids are in school about 35 hours a week. But they’re at home the other 133, and as parents we’re able to effectively discipline them. We also have their natural respect, in a way teachers don’t.
To count on the school to handle the education is either stupid or criminally negligent. I love the school my kids attend, and I think they mostly have great parents. But the way I see it, those teachers are doing our job for us (my wife and me). But while they do some of the work, they aren’t the ones responsible for it to be done.