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This is all true. And we must collectively deal with these social issues for the overall health and well-being of everybody.
But, I think it's important we have clearly defined roles for the various public agencies and entities. Schools, as most of us understand, exist primarilty to educate students about specified academic standards. While it is assumed there are many other secondary lessons and benefits for kids as a result of being in school, those secondary benefits are not the primary purpose of schools. It seems as if this is all becoming a blurry mess to many people. While sitting in a classroom of peers and experiencing lessons can be therapeutic for kids, the classroom and teacher are not actual therapists. A kid in need of intensive therapy can not and should not be expected to receive such therapy within a traditional public classroom. While students can learn to cooperate and be compassionate to others as a result of sitting in a classroom of peers and experiencing lessons, said classrooms can not and should not be expected to fix deep-rooted societal problems like those found in gangs and other troubled areas.
Attempts to be too many things to too many people lead us to being nothing of value to everybody. We can't provide adequate academic instruction when we have students who can not function within a classroom due to needs for intensive support in other, non-academic areas. And we can not provide adequate supports for societal issues when we are still primarily being evaluated based off of how well students learn the aforementioned, specific academic standards.
A very good post I just have a few problems.
students may not always be as open to other people as they would their teacher. You normally feel safe around your teacher and you have a built up respect for them. A random therapist, maybe not. I do agree a student should seek therapy but often they need to speak up first and if the parents wont listen, a teacher is the next best thing.
I was in special education for delayed speech and had issues with "fine motor skills" and I got "therapy" for both while at school. Guess what, I benefited greatly from this and only needed special education until Second grade and no more physical therapy. By middle school, I no longer had speech therapy. Is this a bad thing that I had this through school, no because I had specialists. If you have specialists, there is no issue to me in having special educational programs. If you don't have them, it is a problem.
Some non-academic areas do help. Look at sport teams, many people have an opportunity at college and become better students because of their commitment to a sports team in the school. I even know of a few classmates that had jobs based in sports who played sports. Is it needed for academics, not really but it does help for some if not most students.
Quote:
Classic fallacy of a bleeding-heart educator: A teacher colleague of mine recanted being asked who she would save if there were two people hanging off a cliff about to fall off and die. She said she could not pick just one and would try to save both. Logic tells you she could not possibly save both. Attempting to save both would lead to all three of them falling off and dying.
To this I only have one response.
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But, for whatever reason, like this other teacher, many in education can not understand that trying to save every single kid can sometimes lead to all of us dying.
You can't save everyone in every situation. What you can do is try not to allow for those conditions to exist in the future.
As this thread goes forward I would like to remind everyone, but especially the "never been in the classroom except as a student education experts" of one very salient fact : TEACHERS DO NOT MAKE EDUCATION POLICY!
School Boards, State Departments of Education, the US Department of Education, the Gates and Broad Foundations, various bureaucrats and politicians at all levels make education policy. All teachers do is attempt to carry out that policy to the best of their abilities.
students may not always be as open to other people as they would their teacher. You normally feel safe around your teacher and you have a built up respect for them. A random therapist, maybe not. I do agree a student should seek therapy but often they need to speak up first and if the parents wont listen, a teacher is the next best thing.
I was in special education for delayed speech and had issues with "fine motor skills" and I got "therapy" for both while at school. Guess what, I benefited greatly from this and only needed special education until Second grade and no more physical therapy. By middle school, I no longer had speech therapy. Is this a bad thing that I had this through school, no because I had specialists. If you have specialists, there is no issue to me in having special educational programs. If you don't have them, it is a problem.
Some non-academic areas do help. Look at sport teams, many people have an opportunity at college and become better students because of their commitment to a sports team in the school. I even know of a few classmates that had jobs based in sports who played sports. Is it needed for academics, not really but it does help for some if not most students.
To this I only have one response.
You can't save everyone in every situation. What you can do is try not to allow for those conditions to exist in the future.
All of these special and extracurricular programs do have value, for reasons you state. They should be sufficiently elaborate, developed programs run by people whose job is to run such programs. Instead, we have a lack of programs targeted directly at the areas of need (I'm talking especially about serious societal issues in the inner-city). There's just some faint hope that somehow the schools will solve all of the problems while teaching to the mandated academic standards.
I agree with your last comment. How we do that is a complex matter that I'm not sure we have a solid plan for...
As this thread goes forward I would like to remind everyone, but especially the "never been in the classroom except as a student education experts" of one very salient fact : TEACHERS DO NOT MAKE EDUCATION POLICY!
School Boards, State Departments of Education, the US Department of Education, the Gates and Broad Foundations, various bureaucrats and politicians at all levels make education policy. All teachers do is attempt to carry out that policy to the best of their abilities.
Yes. But, the more outspoken teachers are, the more positive influence they can have on policy. Teachers need to publicly stand up and clearly explain why certain ideas and policies are or are not good ideas. They also need to propose their own programs. There needs to be much more public discourse on these matters between teachers and those who make policy. Those who make policy often don't want to bother with such discussions with teachers, so teachers have to force the issue.
Yes. But, the more outspoken teachers are, the more positive influence they can have on policy. Teachers need to publicly stand up and clearly explain why certain ideas and policies are or are not good ideas. They also need to propose their own programs. There needs to be much more public discourse on these matters between teachers and those who make policy. Those who make policy often don't want to bother with such discussions with teachers, so teachers have to force the issue.
Do you honestly believe that policy makers ever listen to the opinions of teachers? Ever?
If they did, Race To The Top would have been stillborn and Framework For Teaching, which Charlotte Danielson insists was never intended to be used as an evaluation model, would not be in the process of implementation nationwide.
Teachers who are outspoken are marked by their administrators as trouble makers and are intensively supervised and observed out of the profession.
Do you honestly believe that policy makers ever listen to the opinions of teachers? Ever?
If they did, Race To The Top would have been stillborn and Framework For Teaching, which Charlotte Danielson insists was never intended to be used as an evaluation model, would not be in the process of implementation nationwide.
Teachers who are outspoken are marked by their administrators as trouble makers and are intensively supervised and observed out of the profession.
I am plenty aware of all that you speak of. IMO, the issue is how teachers go about voicing opinions. I haven't seen real efforts to seek out policy makers and folks like Bill Gates by teachers. Not to a great enough degree, anyway. All we really have right now is folks on message boards complaining, myself included. We need a concerted, well thought out to plan to have dialogue with these people.
Along those lines, teachers obviously are not going to benefit from complaining to the administration or other teachers. Unfortunate, but true. But, doing that isn't really going to change federal and state policy, anyway. Taking on those who set or influence federal and state policy is what will help in that realm. That means talking with lawmakers and wealthy people throwing money at various endeavors.
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