Should there be manditory psycological testing of children in school.
I’m sure this is going to bring up many brainwashing theories but is there a better time or place to help kids who have problems solve them in a rational way?
How well do school officials know those kids. It seems that todays teachers don’t have the caring attitude of those in my day.
I will probably get stoned for that last comment but just look at history.
::sniff sniff::
Smells like a Great Debate to me.
If your question was spurred by the tragedy in Mich. then I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. Just about any six year old with a gun is likely to kill someone. It’s not a matter of bad values or sociopathic behavior. It’s a matter of someone too young to have developed any real sense of judgement or consequences having access to deadly weapons.
I’ve got to ask, justwannano: Exactly how much time have you spent in a classroom since you left school that allows you to make such sweeping generalizations about teachers and education.
I have two teachers in my family, a couple more friends who teach, and I’m planning on becoming a teacher myself. I can assure you that between myself and the ones I know, there is hardly a lack of caring for the students.
Instead of making kneejerk assumptions fueled by media hysteria over tragic events, why not actually ask the people involved in similar circumstances?
I’ve got to ask, justwannano: Exactly how much time have you spent in a classroom since you left school that allows you to make such sweeping generalizations about teachers and education.
I have two teachers in my family, a couple more friends who teach, and I’m planning on becoming a teacher myself. I can assure you that between myself and the ones I know, there is hardly a lack of caring for the students.
Instead of making kneejerk assumptions fueled by media hysteria over tragic events, why not actually ask the people involved in similar circumstances?
Last time I ignored a post, manny, I walked right into it.
justwannano - What phouka said.
OK lets say you care now. What is to say that you ,or the others you refer to will care in two years,four years ,eight years etc. The problems don’t go away. there are just more of them.
Overwelming Problems. Can you stand up to them.
As Far as the handgun is concerned. Bull S—
The kid knows not to hold a knife by the wrong end I’ll bet.
We do not give these kids enough credit for knowing what they do. Don’t get me wrong. I feel that his reasoning was flawed probably because of his age but to be that angry with no ability to control it is not right. What do we do to help.
Sniff Sniff is not enough!!!
Justwannano, Mrs. Kunilou has been a teacher for more than 25 years, so I’m going to ignore your uninformed and unnecessary shots at teachers.
Regarding your original question about psychological testing, school districts now have counselors, which they may not have in your day, and school teachers are taught more closely on what warning signs to look for. Certainly the system doesn’t always identify every potential problem child, but neither would psychological testing.
I understand all the words, they just don’t make sense together like that.
Two things.
First, my “Ignore this post” post was actually directed at the post itself, not the OP. It was an attempt to “clear” the thread after the board outage this afternoon. What I have done in the past is make an “Ignore this post” post to make the previously invisible posts re-appear, then delete the post. (Confused yet? Me too.) Since this one was remarked upon before I got a chance to delete it and because I don’t have the psychic energy to remove two posts in this thread today, I’m going to leave it be. But I just wanted to be clear that I was not slamming the OP.
Second, this subject will be better covered in Great Debates, so I’m going to move it there.
Change Your Password, Please and don’t use HTML, as it has been disabled
Sorry, manny. I was just making a lame joke.
justwannano-
How many six year olds do you know? I’m guessing, none. Children don’t know squat about controlling their emotions. What’s the first thing you say to an adult who is unable to control their emotions: “You’re acting like a child!”.
Let’s assume you’re right about our children going to Hell in a handbasket. Why is that the fault or the resposibility of the schools and teachers. We have enough trouble trying to teach them to read and write without also having to psychoanalyze them.
You sound like the boss in a Kids in the Hall sketch storming through a building demanding to know, “Who’s to blame?!!!”
S’aright, Ursa. You couldn’t have known why I put it there. I just wanted to make it clear that it wasn’t a comment on the OP and explain why I left it.
Change Your Password, Please and don’t use HTML, as it has been disabled
Ursa Thank you
Let’s assume you’re right about our children going to Hell in a handbasket. Why is that
the fault or the resposibility of the schools and teachers. We have enough trouble
trying to teach them to read and write without also having to psychoanalyze them.
That is the attitude I was refering to.
Who better to notice something wrong.
You may not want to be responsible but you are -It is just part of the job. IT probably hasn’t soaked in yet so may I remind you YOU spend more time with the kids than their parents do.
oops Forgot the quotes
And how much are you willing to pay for these superteachers?
Let’s see. This teacher would need to go to school for 4 years to get a BA or BS, 2 more years for postgrad work, student teaching and other requirements for a teacher’s credential. 2 more years of post graduate work in child psychology. Malpractice insurance in case he/she fails to notice signs of umbalance in a child that becomes violent. The attention demanded will not allow this teacher to teach more than about six kids at a time, so you’re going to need about five times as many teachers, each of whom have undergone as much training as most PhDs.
Are you willing to shell out about $100,000 a year for someone to teach six children? If so, sign me up.
I have 2 kids. One is 19 The other is 11. Amazingly enough both were 6 years old once.
Neither took a gun to school. Although they know where they are kept. Both have been taught to control their tempers. I felt that was important.
.
I’m sure it was YOU who taught them that, not a teacher that is responsible for the education of 15 times as many kids in 10 times as many disciplines. There are some things that are too important to trust to other people (read teachers). Determining the psychological health of your own children is one of them.
BTW-Please tell me your kids do not have access to the guns in your house (you’ve already admitted they know where they are). If they do, you are not only foolish, you are criminally negligent. Any parent who blindly trusts their child to follow every rule when unsupervised, is in my opinion doing their child a grave disservice.
I am, of course, talking about minors, not adult children.
Ursa major
Being too young to have a sense of judgement? You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m practically a child myself–16. I know what a gun is and I know what the consequences of using one are. I knew this when I was like 5! When you tell me that theres no way she understood what she was doing then i’d just have to say BS!
I don’t know how long it’s been for Justwannano, but for me it’s been about 3 and a half hours. I’m enrolled into the honors program so on average I much, MUCH better teachers then the regular classes. The problem is that i’m in the minority. Most do not have teachers that are as well trained and as caring as mine are.
I used to have several “regular” classes, and I have one thing to say. The teachers don’t give a rats ass.
Oh, and about your next comment which basically entails the great caring that you and your relatives have as teachers, aren’t you basing a generalization based on the 3 of you?
Well, then again, I do attend a LAUSD school. We’re practically dead last in the nation.
Konilou. Most kids aren’t willing to share their problems with people outside their nuclear family, and in most cases aren’t willing even to them. Since this is the case how do you expect counselors to help but the painstakingly few?
Ummm, Ursa, are you a child? Didn’t think so.
justwannano,
good point about teachers spending more time with children then their parents. Still, but problem is that kids will often show their emotions much much more clearly to parents.
anyway… onto my argument now.
Psychological testing would be a good idea I suppose, but who’s going to pay for it? Most public schools are underfunded as it is.
On another point, parents and teachers do have responsibility. Parents at home for teaching morals and values–very rarely will children simply learn them on their own. I was probably one of the rare exceptions…
Teachers have the job of detecting more subtle signs. But still, on average before anything truly bad happens there are usually prequels to it. It is a teacher’s job, if not duty to then intervene.
Ignoring all the issues regarding the quality of people parenting or teaching today, I have a more basic question:
What psychological test does one propose to administer to a 5-year-old that will correctly identify sociopathic tendencies? The psychs have been messing around with the MMPI and a dozen similar tests for adults for 60 years or more and I am unaware of any such test that has been proven to be an accurate predictor of behavior (or even mindset). As far as I know, the best that can be said for the best of those tests is that they can provide general guidelines to identify personality types. None of them can be tabulated and used to identify actual problems. Once a person has been identified with a specific problem, the results of those tests can be used to provide one piece of the matrix of information that a psychologist or psychiatrist needs to treat a patient.
Unless someone has better information about the quality of newer “generally administered” psych tests, the problem with the OP’s suggestion is not one of assigning blame, it is that the tool required for the OP to work does not exist.
Tom~