The state of education, page 2

Sorry about the differnet screen name I hope it isn't a problem but it was the only way I could respond at work to the laster poster. I don't know if you were reffering to my comments but lets examine them in reality.

First of all when I speak of discipline I'm talking about young children mainly. This is the age where they have no higher order thinking skills and need rules and boundaries for their safety and their development. If you tell a young child not to do something because it is wrong you'll likely be asked well what will happen if I do? Children want and need boundaries. They want to know physically what will happen to them as a consequence, what penalty they will suffer so they can put it in context. Then, as they get older and can function at higher levels then you have punishments that affect their social time, are aimed at getting them to think about what they did wrong, etc. However if you don't put this in place at a young age then they don't progress correctly and yes, sometimes even at an older age they don't progress as fast as others and corporal punishment is a valid and effective means of discipline. It all just depends on the kid. Thats where the problem is, we have made all these strides into differentiating education to the student and yet we try to discipline them all the same. To a kid that hasn't mastered higher order thinking these punishments are more like rewards because there is no real sting to them, such as in school suspension or out of school suspension. Now if I were suspended from school or even got detention I would have faced severe consequences at home which would have paled the school ones in comparison. So thats why I said its a home problem too. A school can raise a child even though we try, only the home can.

Second you mentioned theatrical lessons and talking about relationships. This would be great if I didn't have a specific curriculum I had to follow as mandated by the state with a standardized test at the end where I am held responsible for the scores. Because of the beuracracy and testing all but the most creative teachers are prevented from doing much beyond the truely mediocre. There are many that rise to the challenge, but there's only so much we can surpass when our jobs are on the line. So, yes I'd love to do things like that and I strive to when I can, but I have a tremendous amount of information to convey, 90 days to do it, and my job is on the line on the basis of a test that does not gauge their understanding of a subject but how well they memorize information.

Third you talk about going out into nature and this gets to the point that we are in a nation crazy over litigation. I'd love to take them outside but my neck is on the line. If Johnny is stung by a bee and ends up in the hospital I and the school get sued for millions of dollars. I live on a state border near many many historical landmarks that would be awesome for field trips. But because of insurance based on litigation I have to go through so much red tape to take them across state lines that it is almost impossible and is usually financially prohibative.

Now some other issues that get to the base of the problem that you didn't mention. First of all the work ethic that started in this country has been dilluted to the point that it is almost unrecognizable in many of today's youth. I say many because there are plenty that work hard, but the average standard has dropped. I see this as being due to two factors. First of all we live in a society of immediate gratification in which people work very little to obtain things. I admit I'm part of it in some respects, but credit cards, microwaves, and instant meals take away having to wait and work for gratification. The other problem is social promotion. We promote kids to the next grade even though they do not have the knowledge they need to be there. We are so worried about hurting people's feelings that we give them unreasonable views of themselves. I will always tell a student that they can get just as far as they want to with a lot of hard work, but I'm not going to tell them they've already achieved what they haven't. What I'm seeing now is a large number of students that have gotten promoted that not only do not have a basic knowledge needed for high school, but actually beleive themselves to be honor students when they're not, and I'm talking to the point that out of 400 students in a class 170 are classified as honors. This lowers the expectation of what an honors class is considerably and hurts the students that really are honors. It also devestates the ones that aren't when they get a real teacher and their A's and B's dissapear and becomes C's, D's, or even F's. We are brining up a group that believes that they can do almost no work and still progress, sometimes even at the top of their class. Just like when they reach a teacher that expects them to work, when they get into the real world they are going to be devestated. If you don't work in a college class you fail. If you act up in a college class you get expelled. If you don't work at a job you get fired. If you act up at a job you get fired. If you act up enough at a job you get arrested. I'm not trying to be fake to my students, I'm trying to prepare them for a real world that isn't going to cater to their every whim and "make it better" when they screw up. I care about them, I want them to succeed, thats why I became an educator. I think you are getting so caught up in what things could be that you forget that we still have to exist in the real world, at least until we can change it. If I don't prepare my students to live by the societal standards of the current world, not only will they fail, they won't be able to change it for the better.