Oh Joy, another committee that is going to save education met recently. This time it was the Jacksonville Community Council Inc. and if you are scoring at home this makes about the one millionth group to have met this year thus far. I know I sound a little sarcastic but these groups are like the third year ninth grader in my science class who daily promises he is going to turn his work in... the next day. They are all talk, coming up with the same old suggestions. I am sure early reading initiatives, mentors, putting our best teachers in our worse schools (they are already there by the way and many are so by choice not because they were bribed) and getting more parents involved will be part of their no action platform. And the chief reason they recycle these same tired old ideas is they have no clue as to what they are doing.
They met Wednesday, I heard about it Thursday, hmm I wonder how many other teachers heard about it and participated. I bet not many. These groups tend to value teacher input, you know the people in the classrooms who might, just might have the best idea of what works and what doesn’t work as much as people at the park value the ants trying to make off with the potato salad.
They look at our “fab five” schools and say to themselves, well if we can do it there why can’t we do it everywhere? Well the first reason is three of those schools, the dedicated magnets, Stanton, Paxon and D.A. have cannibalized the neighborhood schools of many of their best and brightest students and most involved families and the second reason is numbers. Where we have great students and parents at all our schools, there are just a lot more at Mandarin and Fletcher but this doesn’t mean we can’t be successful at the other schools too.
My first suggestion for any committee this or panel that is to head down to Wallgreens and plop down 1.99 for a bottle of common sense because that’s what the education leaders here in town have been lacking and lacking for quite some time.
Hey, powers-that-be, yeah you, the ones always having meeting so you can at least seem like you care about education and the cities children, the first thing you have to do is realize we don’t have the children or the parental involvement we wish we had and let me tell you I have done some wishing, we have the children and level of parental involvement we do have and that means we need to plan accordingly.
It would be great if every kid could go to college. It would be great if every parent showed up for parent teacher conferences and open house, but then we would be living in the land of gum drops and unicorns because it’s not happening round here and is unlikely to happen anytime soon. We live in a city where half our kids aren’t interested in school and half our parents aren’t interested in their kids. This is the reality we find ourselves faced with and this is the reality we must work around.
We have to be willing to meet the kids where they are, not where we wish they were and we have to be willing to step up and provide for the kids if their parents have abdicated their responsibilities. All the early child hood reading programs in the world aren’t going to make a difference unless we are willing to step up, and if you are not willing fair enough go ahead and stop reading now just don’t complain when your taxes are raised to pay for social services and prisons or when your car or house is broken into.
After getting a healthy dose of common sense, which in education sadly is not that common, the next thing I believe we have to do is bring back strict discipline to the classrooms. Contrary to 1701 Prudential drives assertions, discipline isn’t getting better, us ignoring and enduring bad behavior is what has changed. This won’t be easy either, as many of our children have turned their schools hallways into an urban “Lord of the Flies” setting.
Why is this so important? Well answer this question. If kids don’t get discipline at home and then schools ignore bad behavior and reuse to discipline too, then where are kids going to learn it? If you answered unsupervised in the streets, then you are sadly misinformed. We don’t have to be cruel but we do have to be strict and if we lose some that’s terrible but we’re losing more by doing things the way we are now. Not only do we do children no favors when we don’t give them consequences for bad behavior and remember for a consequence to be meaningful it must have meaning, but we teach them they can act however they want (notice an uptick in Juvenile and young adult crime anyone)and others whose behavior might be on the fence that it’s okay to misbehave.
Next we have to provide wrap around services for our children most at risk and counseling services so we can get to the root of their problems. So often when a kid acts up at school or don’t try at school it has nothing to do with school. We have to provide more of these kids wrap around services because schools only have kids for about ten percent of their lives and it’s hard to compete with the other ninety percent, that is constantly telling them school sucks and isn’t important. Schools are running a race against the neighborhoods with their feet tied together and social workers and counselors can help us narrow the gap.
Then let’s have some realistic programs. Kids must have a wide variety of electives in their schedules. If they have nothing to look forward to and think school is drudgery then it’s not a stretch that they won’t do well.
Also kids who aren’t interested in attending a magnet program that will require them to go to college for four more years to see some tangible benefits might be interested in some programs that will see them making 15-20 dollars an hour upon graduation.
Much of the Ritalin popping, junk food eating, video game playing, sleep deprived generation we have walking through our schools halls have no concept of what they are doing tomorrow, let alone what they will be doing years from now. We have to develop programs where they can see something and see it now, or barring that not too far down the road. Let’s teach them a trade or a skill and make the arts as important as science and math. Doing so I believe will allow us to engage the kids on their level, helping them do and achieve what they want to do or achieve, not what the education powers-that-be, most of whom are far removed from the classroom, that’s if they were ever there, think they should be doing. Think about it, do you better at the things you are at best marginally interested in or don’t like (what school is too many of our kids), or do you better at the things that you enjoy and you pick? If you answered duh, what I pick, then why would you think kids would be any different?
Imagine instead of having a generation working minimum wage jobs or living on government assistance we had a generation of plumbers, mechanics, artists, carpenters and musicians. Sure everybody going to college sounds correct, politically correct but it’s also very unrealistic.
Along the way with the powerful carrot called, allowing them to do what they want to do, we can make sure these kids have the proper foundation in case they decide down the line they want to go to college. You want to be in the cosmetology program? Sure but you must maintain a 2.0 grade point average. You want to be in the art program? Sure but you must get your behavior and attendance under control.
Right now so many kids have so little to look forward to at school and little support from their families and neighborhoods. If we give them something to look forward to, a little bit of discipline and show them that we care 24 hours a day seven days a week instead of just six hours a day 180 days a year, I believe we can sit back and watch performance improve.
Mentors, putting our best teachers in our worse schools and early reading initiatives, you know the typical answers to the problems in education that these committees come up with are nice and have their place but they are also things we have been trying without success for a decade. A common definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome, well friends, Jacsonvillians and country men, the way we do things now is bat shit insane.
Whatever this committee or the next or one of the thirty thousand other scheduled to meet before the year ends decides to do, I urge them to do two things first. Invite or talk to some teachers, I know many people are frustrated with teachers. I get that it’s because they are the front line of what seems to be a losing battle. I just want to remind you, it’s the generals, the policy makers that put them where they are, over worked, underpaid, disrespected and without the tools they need to be successful, believe you me, we (teachers) aren’t happy with things either. That and please remember we don’t have the kids and parents we wish we had, we have the kids and parents that we do and if we start making plans with that in mind we’ll be better able to meet their needs.
Note: I spoke with some represenatives of the JCCI and they seemed like stand up guys who I wish luck as they look for solutions to some of Jacksonvilles problems.
No comments:
Post a Comment