As I was driving home from dropping Kiki at school I was musing on the United States educational system. Many people feel that it is failing. I don’t and I just realized why. Most people percieve that it is the duty of public schools to give kids an education. Re-read that sentence, then focus on the word “give”. Education can never be given. Education is always earned. The opportunity to educate CAN be given and IS given every day at every level of our public school system. I’m in my kids’ public school twice a week. Every time I am there I see marvelous people working as hard as they can to provide for the needs of the kids in that school. I see all kinds of extra help being offered to kids whose parents don’t seem to care. I’ve seen kids who are convinced that their poor grades are punishments handed out by a teacher who doesn’t like them rather than just rewards for lack of effort.
All over the world there are millions of parents who would literally die to get their kids into our public school system. We need to be taking advantage of our opportunities and counting our blessings not complaining because we don’t think we have been given enough.
Amen, Sister
As someone who used to work in that system (seventh grade, self-contained classroom), thank you from the bottom of my heart. You have no idea how relieving it is when someone (a parent) actaully “gets” it.
My mom and my sister are both 4th grade teachers. Both of them love to teach, but I know how frustrated they get with parents who expect them to be the parents and take no responsibility for their own children. I know that both of them would be really glad to hear what you had to say. I know that when Xander starts school next year, that I am going to do everything possible to make it successful.
While I agree with you that there are WAY too many parents out there expecting the public school system to raise and educate their children, I feel obliged to point out that it’s not like our public school system doesn’t have flaws. Schools where they don’t have enough books for the kids? Schools where they don’t have enough classrooms, and kids have to sit in the halls? In closets? There are incredible people teaching in the system (my mother, for example) but they’re doing it out of love, and they sure aren’t monetarily compensated the way I think they should be. Sports figures get 6 figures, and in some places teachers hardly make above the poverty line? Talk about messed up priorities! And the current drive to test test test to make sure that our kids are learning – it means that way too much of a student’s time in school is spent learning what they need to know to pass the test, NOT LEARNING HOW TO THINK AND EXAMINE THINGS, which I think is a whole lot more important. How much of what was on any standardized test that you’ve taken do you remember, or use?
So yes, there are people the world over who envy our school system, our government, our freedoms, our economy… but let’s not be complacent; just because it’s good doesn’t mean that striving to make it better is wrong. (Now, people who moan and complain without offering ideas to improve it bug me too, don’t get me wrong.)
Hehehe.
Well, the only problem I had with my school is that they tended to hold everybody back to the same level. It was difficult to get them to let me learn PAST the curriculum. I managed it a few times though. In 6th grade they let me learn about air navigation instead of social studies as long as I turned in all homework with A’s and finished all tests similarly for the social studies class. In the Algebra 2 class they had switched to outcome based education and I managed to burn a few more chapters up in the book by the end of it. Oppourtunities like that were few and far between though, and there was far more busy work to keep us occupied without actually learning anything extra.
This was just my school system however. YMMV.
I had similar experiences. In first through third grade, I actually went over to a classroom in the next higher grade for math class. In fourth grade, though, my teacher refused to let me do this, and her suggestion when I told her I was bored was to do more of the busywork worksheets. This prompted me switching to a private school for middle school…
My fourth grade teacher was particularly lazy, but in general it’s hard to be able to respond to the individual needs of kids above the curve when you’re also responsible for bringing kids below the curve up to speed… and the lack of options in pretty much everything up until high school is a big part of the problem – not to mention the fact that elementary school teachers are basically responsible for babysitting thirty kids for six hours a day, in addition to trying to impart knowledge to them.
After sitting in on one of the high school German classes our uncle teaches, I must agree with you. If education were being handed out on platters, half those kids would be tossing them in the mud.
Pondering this topic always makes me wonder whether something can be done at the elementary level to awaken and nurture children’s long-term desire for learning, whether or not they have encouraging parents. Unfortunately, I’ve never come up with a good way of doing this.
okay, you touched on another problem I have with our school system – just because children are equal in biological age, does not mean that mentally they are ready for the same subjects. A private school I went to in first grade evaluated me and put me in 2nd grade for most subjects, and 4th grade reading. Had I been able to continue in a system like that, I think I would have been much less bored and frustrated – a complaint you hear from both ends of the spectrum. Gifted kids float thru the system without having to learn how to study, and slower kids struggle to keep afloat and develop a dislike for school/learning and a self-esteem problem.
With all the tests we have at our disposal, why on EARTH aren’t we testing a child’s emotional levels, conception levels, education levels, etc., and then putting them in appropriate classes?! ARGH!
Involved parents and kids really do make the machine run much better.
It seems like all the testing is a tool to force people (both teachers and students) who lack interest to get the minimums covered anyway. Unfortunately, a straightjacket like that doesn’t exactly encourage spontaneous learning.
Almost every school in upstate New York tests to find kids that belong in gifted programs. From what I’ve seen, they’re often a fun way of allowing smart kids and teachers to escape from routine classes occasionally and goof off with creative projects together. Decent sized schools do seem to start a middle school fast track for kids who’d been identified as “gifted” though.
Most of the good schools I’ve been in didn’t have a lot of set resources to help kids in trouble, it was all whatever the teacher/ parent/ counselor set up when they noticed a problem. I’m pleasantly surprised to hear that your school is so supportive.
I happen to like private schools, because they’re generally communities of very involved people, which means they can move a little faster academically, and fast track kids in subjects that they’re good at without having to bother with IQ testing or special programs. (parents who aren’t involved, or with uninvolved kids won’t pay, and teachers who aren’t doing it for the love of their school get more elsewhere) The community can also be much more nurturing to kids who have trouble fitting in because they’re a bit ahead, and excellent for kids who can slip through the cracks in larger schools, like kids with ADD. (Communities like this could also have the potential to be very unwelcoming I suppose, but I’ve never seen it personally.)
When measured against the standards of schools where everyone’s working as a team, or they leave for the public schools, who are willing to take everyone, public schools are at an unfair disadvantage.
Now this doesn’t mean that there aren’t places where public schools have failed. Last year, there were some famous legal fights over whether New York state owes NY City students more than an 8th grade education.. our state government really does not want to have the burden of bringing inner city schools up to a halfway decent level. Getting a majority of children to graduate from some of those schools would require little less than an act of god.
Parents
As a teacher (part-time, I admit), I have found that parents are extremely important. In my special education classroom, white students were often a minority. I began to wonder if fewer white children had learning disabilities. I decided I didn’t believe that. I believe the difference was parental support and expectations. However, I also realized that many of these kids had not only different cultural backgrounds but also different economic backgrounds. It is hard to be supportive of kids’ schooling when both Mom and Dad are working two jobs to make ends meet or you are homeless or one or both parents have limited English skills and depend on kids to translate for them.
I have a harder time understanding why parents choose to attack the teacher or the school system without putting any responsibility on the child. And sometimes the problem is an administrative one. But there are some very supportive parents out there.
For example, let me tell you a story that happened to another teacher. She caught a student cheating on the test and sent her to the vice principal (who was a new vice principal). The Vice principal talked to the student, got a promise not to cheat again and instructed the teacher to give her the grade commensurate with what she would have gotten if she hadn’t cheated. Mom was not called. The teacher was livid but now her hands were tied. Or at least they were until Mom got involved. It seems the girl was at an evening Church class and the topic was honesty and the girl ended up in tears. She finally confessed to her Mom. Mom came to school to talk to the teacher. Mom said the teacher was to give her an F because she had earned it. Mom also insisted that she apologize to the teacher and I think she also got grounded. The lesson learned was more important than the grade on the test.
I agree that most teachers are very dedicated. They often need more support than they get from parents and administrators. Somewhere in their education years, most children are fortunate enough to have one or two excellent teachers who make a positive effect on their lives–not just because that teacher is exceptionally good but also because a connection is made between teacher and student.
Parental support can help make a good teacher better.