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How My School and District Failed its Students

anurbanteacherseducation.com

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Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#71

Post by awt »

timwiseman wrote: post #63
maxharris wrote: post #2

My solution? Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws. Disruptive students don't want to be there, and forcing them to go doesn't teach them anything. Human beings can't be forced to think. This runs absolutely counter to all kinds of notions and traditions, but it's how nature is. Wishing, legislating and expecting that facts be otherwise won't work any better here than it would in the physical sciences…

I must respectfully disagree, for a few somewhat related reasons. First, for a democracy to function, the voters need to be at least sufficiently educated to understand the issues. Second, for an advanced capitalistic society with heavy automation to function, the work force needs to be at least sufficiently educated to handle nontrivial jobs. And third, minors, lacking in experience, often make decisions that their…

Your first point is key, and is what ultimately took me off the fence as to whether or not compulsory education is necessary. I feel like kids also don't need to be in school for 12+ years to only be qualified to work at Walmart. Let's shorten the tube and let people feel valuable to society at an earlier age.

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#72

Post by aik »

maxharris wrote: post #2

My solution? Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws. Disruptive students don't want to be there, and forcing them to go doesn't teach them anything. Human beings can't be forced to think. This runs absolutely counter to all kinds of notions and traditions, but it's how nature is. Wishing, legislating and expecting that facts be otherwise won't work any better here than it would in the physical sciences…

I don't believe making it voluntary would be the solution, though it would for sure unmask the root problem better.

The unfortunate thing about this situation is that I don't believe there is an easy and quick answer. I believe the bad behavior is largely caused by 2 things:

1. Bad influences from the community - parents, siblings, friends, and possibly surrounding media/entertainment.

2. The school system. More than for anyone else, the way the school is structured is (clearly) ineffective for these struggling students.

Even if there were real disciplinary actions taken, the methods of disciplining (that I have observed anyway) are often out-of-date. Our understanding of behavior change has increased greatly in the past several years and needs to be more widely understood.

Solutions I see:

a. Quit making a large part of school so incredibly boring and seemingly pointless. Spend A LOT more time focusing on topics closer to what students care about (and should care about).

b. Behavior issues will happen and are normal. Work on changing bad behaviors by understanding how the environment shapes behaviors. Understand that behavior change is more likely to happen when new behaviors are supported/introduced/allowed to thrive, rather than continuously trying to suppress current behaviors -- there's a reason for those bad behaviors existing in the first place, you can't ignore them. Understand how incredibly ineffective abstract commands are ("don't be bad" as an extreme example), and fear tactics.

c. Bad behaviors are often caused by bad influences in the community (issue #1 from above). Changing the community behaviors changes the student behaviors (perhaps over long periods of time). I realize this is difficult, however very essential.

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#73

Post by mkramlich »

The elephant in the room was race. I'd bet 90% of the problems were caused by kids of a particular race. Unfortunately many public discussions involving it devolve into demonization of the messenger or blame gaming.

My second point was that I suspect the easiest fix would be to adopt a zero tolerance policy or three-strikes-then-expelled. The harder solution, though it is better in the long term, is to do something that ensures that the parents take more responsibility and make better life choices and set a better example both for their own kids and their neighborhoods. Ultimately, solving this is not rocket science. Folks are just choosing, explicitly or implicitly, to not implement them. They then reap what they sow.

My third point is that it may be that some percentage of kids can never be made to behave properly (short of brain surgery or cognitive drug therapy, for example) and so we may have to adjust our system to accomodate. Arguably, we already have. If a child misbehaves enough they tend to end up dead or in prison.

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#74

Post by warrenwilkinson »

frossie wrote: post #6
maxharris wrote: post #2

My solution? Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws. Disruptive students don't want to be there, and forcing them to go doesn't teach them anything. Human beings can't be forced to think. This runs absolutely counter to all kinds of notions and traditions, but it's how nature is. Wishing, legislating and expecting that facts be otherwise won't work any better here than it would in the physical sciences…

Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws I didn't downvote you, but I strongly disagree. I personally don't want to live in a society full of kids (did you see his percentages - up to 25%!!) that are considered unmanageable at age 12. If they are unmanageable at age 12, what do you think they are going to be at age 25? Angry, illiterate, jobless oh and yeah, still unmanageable. Or, in jail and unmanageabl…

Children will attend regardless of truancy laws. See Mary Ruwart easy answers (http://server.theadvocates.org/ruwart/questions_maint.php?Ca...).

"... In the early 1800s, a survey in Boston found that 90% of the school-age children were enrolled, even though attendance was not compulsory and public schooling was not widespread. (3) At that time, the U.S. was considered the most literate nation in the world! We learned more when we weren't forced to do so!"

Before you post a rebuttal, please read the link I've given. It has answers to six related questions in this area, so your questions may already have been answered.

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#75

Post by mannicken »

michaelchisari wrote: post #23
maxharris wrote: post #2

My solution? Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws. Disruptive students don't want to be there, and forcing them to go doesn't teach them anything. Human beings can't be forced to think. This runs absolutely counter to all kinds of notions and traditions, but it's how nature is. Wishing, legislating and expecting that facts be otherwise won't work any better here than it would in the physical sciences…

From my knowledge of radical education approaches like Summerhill or Ferrer's Modern School, I would agree with that, with one caveat: Students don't have to attend class. They just have to go to school. They can choose, on a daily basis, what class they want to be in. If they disrupt, they're kicked out of class for the day, since attendance at that class is a voluntary association. To get credit and a grade for a c…

So how is this different from jail? You're forced to be somewhere you hate, unable to go outside, for a part of your life just because you were born?

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#76

Post by [deleted] »

michael_dorfman wrote: post #20
grannyg00se wrote: post #16

I don't agree with the notion that classroom discipline is the teacher's responsibility. If a child needs discipline, the child should be sent away to receive it. A teacher should be responsible for teaching, period. Also, if a child commits a crime in school (vandalism, verbal assault, physical assault, disturbing the peace) and is found to be a threat to the learning environment then they should be suspended. It's…

I agree about the first part; a teacher should be responsible for teaching, and other administrative staff for disciplinary issues. However, this requires (naturally) that there be funding in place for the necessary staff positions. As long as school funding is tied to local property taxes, there are going to be huge variations in the amount of spending per pupil, and staffing follows suit. As for your second point,…

[deleted]

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#77

Post by michaelchisari »

mannicken wrote: post #75
michaelchisari wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my knowledge of radical education approaches like Summerhill or Ferrer's Modern School, I would agree with that, with one caveat: Students don't have to attend class. They just have to go to school. They can choose, on a daily basis, what class they want to be in. If they disrupt, they're kicked out of class for the day, since attendance at that class is a voluntary association. To get credit and a grade for a c…

So how is this different from jail? You're forced to be somewhere you hate, unable to go outside, for a part of your life just because you were born?

You can't drop out of jail.

You can't be home-jailed.

At the end of it, you get a degree.

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#78

Post by robryan »

maxharris wrote: post #2

My solution? Make attendance voluntary by abolishing truancy laws. Disruptive students don't want to be there, and forcing them to go doesn't teach them anything. Human beings can't be forced to think. This runs absolutely counter to all kinds of notions and traditions, but it's how nature is. Wishing, legislating and expecting that facts be otherwise won't work any better here than it would in the physical sciences…

I'd keep attendance compulsory but allow a teacher to remove someone from class for mucking up. I don't think removing them from the system completely is the answer but I equally don't think most of teachers time should be taken up dealing with the trouble makers. I'd say if a teacher felt it necessary remove as many in the class as they had to to make a goo learning environment, these could be just for the lesson but could be longer breaks if the kid continued to play up.

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#79

Post by eli »

jrwoodruff wrote: post #50
michaelchisari wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my knowledge of radical education approaches like Summerhill or Ferrer's Modern School, I would agree with that, with one caveat: Students don't have to attend class. They just have to go to school. They can choose, on a daily basis, what class they want to be in. If they disrupt, they're kicked out of class for the day, since attendance at that class is a voluntary association. To get credit and a grade for a c…

I would love to see this concept implemented in an urban setting, under the context of a general education school (rather than a magnate, etc.). While I think it would work for some, I suspect many of these disruptive children probably have major family issues that make it difficult or impossible for them to focus on learning. See: Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It would certainly be a good starting point though. Somet…

The Brooklyn Free School is relatively diverse, no? (Well, as far as anarchist schooling goes, anyway)

Re: How My School and District Failed its Students

#80

Post by radioactive21 »

PARENTING.

The root cause in all of these issues is parenting. If the parents don't bother to care about their kid's education, it's already lost. The education and school system is part of the problem, but you can trace the child's inability to learn back to the parents.

1) Parents dont care about the child's learning

2) The child realizes the parents dont care and so they mess around in class

3) Teacher and school has no authority to really enforce learning. Meaning, you can assign homework, you can punish them for not doing them, but beyond that, you can't force them to sit down to read and learn.

4) Student fails.

5) Parent is up set at the school system so they complain to the principle, and the school district

6) School district pressures principle, principle pressures teacher to water down the curriculum

7) FAILURE of the entire system

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