What's Wrong With These Crazy Kids? (Part 2)

For part two of this extended post I would like to focus on my profession.  My disclaimer is that this point of view has nothing to do with my job or how I carry it out.  This is simply an observation of a social ill that I happen to have a front row seat for.

Schools are changing.  Well, lets say schools are being forced to change.  There is a movement in this country to demand customer service in our schools.  The school house has always been the place where middle class values and local culture has been transmitted to the students who will become the future of that community.  Those days are gone in most communities.  Lets look at some examples.

Schools have become the bad guy.  I check my news feeds everyday looking for education related news.  When I step outside the news of my professional sources and look at mainstream media, I will always find stories about schools.  The problem is that these stories are about the very small percentage of incidents of when people do lousy things in schools.  Throwing away lunches, school shootings, sexual offenses against students and so on.  This is what is broadcast to the masses and shapes public opinion.  Don't get me wrong, when bad things happen there needs to be an appropriate response to protect our children but school coverage is much like airline crash coverage.  When a jet goes down resulting in casualties, there is a huge uproar and there should be to a degree.  I realize that people lose loved ones and it is very hurtful to the parties involved but these incidents are a very few compared to the number flights that operate smoothly everyday.  Schools are the same way.  For every one student that is genuinely affected by a lousy teacher, a hundred million are either taught or saved from their difficult environment.  The problem is that all teachers pay the price when one teacher screws up.

How does this manifest itself?  Lets take this perception and apply it to behavior management in school.  When I was a kid, we were swatted with a paddle and it was completely agreeable with our communities because corporal punishment was acceptable in the home.  Growing distrust has eroded the symbiotic relationship that the school and home used to have.  Our house rule was that if you got it at school you would get it twice when you got home.  This is not a call to bring back swatting but there is big difference between then and now.  Now, if you got punished at school there has to be a legal team set up, online petitions, and appearances at school board meetings just to prove my baby didn't do what that dumb school says he/she did.  Schools are forced to change.  They have to spend a great deal of time bridging these gaps with the community and developing creative discipline solutions to prevent the drama and distraction that an angry parent has created.  Schools and parents need to be on the same page.  When we are not, the kids see it and use it as a tool.

Here is one of my favorites, sports and coaches.  We have a problem of spending too much time on bad coaches and not seeing how good the good ones actually are.  Yes there are bad coaches but that could be a series of books rather than a series of blogs.  My very first angry parent experience as an administrator was over football and ironically my worst ever school experience was over football.  The dad of a 5'2", 100 pound freshman was very upset that his son was not getting to practice with the varsity squad.  His could can do this, do that, run this fast and so on.  My simple response that maybe the coach did not feel he was ready for that type of environment and that he should focus on the playing opportunities that he was getting for a kid his size.  This was not good enough.  He went on a rant and explained to me that the football coach from a neighboring town has already told him that he would love to have his son and would play him on the varsity team.  He went on to say that if this school would not recognize his talent, then he would move him to that district.  My response: tell them we said hi.  I probably shouldn't have said that but my disdain for customer service in schools would not let me hold my mouth.  The truth is over the last seven years I have had several students leave my schools for what they consider to be greener pastures.  They have come to find out their personal troubles with schools always follow them.

My fear is becoming a business opportunity.  When opportunists see this conflict a chance to make money always follows.  Its the American way.  There is a movement to privatize schools in this country and my friends, this is not good.  The boom in charter schools and increasing calls for choice are making a corporate enterprise out of one of the last pure things in this country.  I recently posted a story to my Twitter page about the FBI conducting raids on a charter school company(?) and my thoughts were of corruption.  Some of these schools were in Illinois and tied to Mike Madigan.  We already put up with this crap in every other aspect of our lives and now we must keep it from over taking our schools.  A very good once over of the pros and cons of school privatization can be found at http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-education-be-privatized but I will tell you that I feel it is not a good path to travel.

Schools are a community building enterprise and if we don't treat it that way, it will become a money making enterprise.  We all have to step up and show responsibility for OUR kids or we wont have that opportunity any more.  Our loss of the old sense of community and trust helps make crazy kids and we all share an obligation to get it back.

http://dianeravitch.net/2014/06/13/fbi-raids-19-gulen-charter-schools-in-midwest/