Like any other red-blooded American, when I feel personally
challenged I take it to Facebook.
Actually I don’t but I was particularly challenged this week by one of
my parents and I did ask the philosophical question that was burning in my
mind. Should schools be teaching
students to have a sense of social justice and fairness or should be just let
them handle problems how they handle it?
This is not really a huge dilemma.
This question is always being asked when it comes to content. Should we teach skills or should we provide
opportunities for student to learn through experience? With behavior this is a little touchier as
the result can lead to consequences and broken hearts.
I appreciated the comments my Facebook friends left in
regards to the question. One could not
take a side on the issue, “whose idea of social justice are we talking about?”
he asked. That’s a fair question
considering that parenting values and cultural norms can be different from
place to place. A couple favored the old
days of paddling. While I love telling
my old paddling stories to my students, it is to no avail. We can reminisce all we want but in Illinois,
corporal punishment is against the school code.
The other distinction to be made is that my small sample of commenters
are your typical middle class, well adjusted, good parenting adults. There is no representation from the other
family structures that I work with and they are the majority believe it or
not. There are more blended families and
single parent families than ever before.
That’s not a bad thing but the ideology will generally be different than
my commenters.
I guess the question evolves into who is the catalyst for
change in how we teach children to behave?
Is it the institution of school or home?
I mentioned paddling but that is going by the wayside. There are only 19 states that still allow paddling
and Mississippi leads the way with the number of students “hit”. Did eliminating paddling cause the poor
behavior that we complain about? The
current debate is whether or not it is actual discipline or child abuse. With more than half the states not allowing
child abuse, I mean corporal punishment, it seem as if the people of that persuasion
are winning that battle with their legislators.
What about out of school suspensions? There is an attack on those too. Research is showing that using out of school
suspensions 1) target minority students, 2) increase poor student behaviors, 3)
lead to low academic achievement and 4) make them feel unwelcome at
school. No link to follow below. Google it and you will find the evidence. You might find information on the new Illinois law
that requires schools to track the minority students suspended to ensure they
are not disproportionately suspending minority students. So it seems that there is a disconnect between
what families and schools believe is effective behavior modification for kids.
I have decided to put my money on teaching the behaviors we
need to see out of our kids. Not my
favorite ones but those that will translate into successful adult lives. While society is disagreeing, there are still
kids to teach and a huge responsibility for schools to make them successful.
Haven’t you seen the nation’s test scores compared to other nations? We suck at doing school(Insert sarcasm). A sound approach to school and peers will
make them good students and people.
Schools now have to balance social skills and content while everyone
else dukes it out over what is right and wrong with schools. So the next time I’m told that I’m creating a
school of tattle tails and sissies, I will say yes I am. I believe in conflict resolution before
fighting and not the other way around.
If you punch out your boss every time you are mad, you will be
unemployed. If you can’t read, write or
do any math you might still be unemployed.
They are related skills and must be taught in schools.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934191.html
