In some ways this is my third part to my high school rant. Of the comments that I got on my two previous posts, Lara's was the most sympathetic to the study and the numbers that they showed. "Interesting," I thought. Then I thought about it some more. I can see why she would be harder on the schools than other people. In her job she has to try and convince teachers to try new things. Sometimes that goes really well and the teacher is enthusiastic and takes the suggestions and runs with them. Sometimes it doesn't go so well. They want to do what they've always done and are completely convinced that the entire fault of the not learning lies with the kid. Having seen the results of listening or not listening to the practices that Lara tries to teach teachers to use, I'd say she's got some ground to stand on in blaming the schools for negligence.
On the other side, I've sat an MANY parent teacher conferences and said, "Listen, you need to make sure your kid does her reading homework every night. She is way behind and even though I'm doin' all I can for her at school, she needs to practice on her own." After I make this speech one of three things happens. Sometimes the parent totally gets it and cracks the whip and homework magic happens. More likely I get one of these two responses. "Yep, yep. We'll get right on it," and absolutely nothing changes, or "We don't have time for homework because we have sports, church, family things, whatever." That’s the kind of thing that makes me want to tear my hair out!
I know; there are two sides to every story. All I'm sayin' is let's share the blame. I don’t expect one person or group to just up and shoulder the burden alone. No one group of people caused the problem. Parents send kids to school with a lot of baggage and expect the school to do all the work. Schools get overwhelmed, some would say lazy, and don't even bother to do what they can do.
I guess we're not even on the same side, the side of the kid. It's like I said at the end of my last rant, we could get messed up in blaming and never move on to solving. But other than what I do with my fifth graders and my own kids at home, I really don't know how to help. I really want to, but what can I do?
Which leads me to rant 4, super teacher movies, but that's for another day.
4 comments:
Love ya, T!
O.K., I do come down harsh on schools and some teachers who are not leading, teaching, growing by example like you, Pat and a number of others I have big love for. I think I am harder on the whole NLCB thing and how so many teachers and administrators have blindly adopted the scripts and aren't reflecting on what is working/not working...and of course the utter lack of critical thinking that is needed to make our kids successful.
You do have a point about parents. The blame must be shared. Sadly, so many parents are, as you imply immersed in their own issues that their kid is left behind/left to figure it out for him/herself and has a not so great example at home.
Someone once gave me a handout from a workshop that was entitled, "The Million Dollar Racehorse". Its creators asked parents, "What would you do if you had a MDRH? What kind of food would you feed it? Exercise? Practice? etc.,." They then challenged parents to think of their kids as MDRHs...it was an interesting idea...
I do think teachers can help kids succeed despite of a parent's lack of parenting, but I think it also takes that extra intervention where the child has another adult (i.e., a teacher who can really keep tabs on that one kid: calling home, taking kid to sporting events, stepping in where parent doesn't).
I sometimes wish our wonderful Kids Hope tutors would "adopt" a family and be that needed support for them at times or direct them to agencies or people who can help.
I also wonder why some parents aren't helping their kids more, or setting up a structure...is it their lack of self-esteem/experience, lack of literacy, trying to survive day by day, not having the resources or BK to know what to do and how to stick with it or do they think it is the school's job.
When I get things together, I hope to do parent groups (day and evening) to discuss: structure, how to read with your child, discipline, and the like.
xo :)L
All right, I'l leave this response in the comments section. It's not big shock that I agree with Lara so much. You are right on with the NCLB comments. No one (an exageration?) wants to actually do some critical thinking.
I also think that "adopting" whole families is brilliant. And I really like the MDRH idea. I wonder how much impact it had.
I also agree that teachers can step in for parents, but the cost is huge. In my case it might cost me my own family. Is that a fair price to pay? I would like to "adopt" a teenager who is becoming a parent and really wants to do this thing right. I wonder if there are groups that organize that.
that's the problem with wonder-teacher movies - if the teacher in the movie happens to be married and then they do all the thing wonder-teachers do, like stepping in for the student where the kid's parent doesn't, they end up doing so to the detriment of spending enough time with their own family and it just pushes the problem to a different group. The only time those situations seem to work is if the teacher in question is single, not looking to be involved with anyone one but his/her students, and completely dedicated to the job to the point where if that teacher were an executive, people would call him/her a workaholic.
Exactly. It takes a community to raise a child. Not just one magical person that they see and hour or two a day (although teachers are often rock stars to little kids).
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