How about some kind of mandatory after school program for the problem kids, on the basis of the Boys and Girls Clubs?
When a problem child is identified through misbehavior, instead of standard detention, send them to a program that is designed to teach and encourage good social skills. They could have pseudo-group counseling, situational play for the little kids, things like that. And it would be kept politic and issue free, based along the AINTKILIK rules.
That way, the school day can be used for actual education, and the kids with shit parents can get the extra emotional/social help they need. It’s a win-win.
I say this with no sarcasm: you fund it, I’ll support it. Keep in mind that funding will need to include transportation, since we’re often talking about kids whose parents don’t have cars; and it’ll need to include staffing, since most teachers are already working extra hours just to complete their current duties. But it sounds like a pretty reasonable proposal.
That said, I’m skeptical that it can replace many of the conversations that we currently have during the school day about working together as a classroom community. If it could, praise Jesus I’d be happy: those conversations are absolutely not the reason I went into teaching, and I would love it if I could spend all my time discussing the awesomeness that is mirror symmetry or teaching kids to discuss literature in a meaningful fashion. But I’m just not sure that an after-school program, no matter how good, would be good enough.
Still, it definitely sounds worth a try, if there’s money for it.
While it would be unfair to hold teachers exclusively responsible I don’t have a problem saying that they share the responsibility. Students can spend up to eight hours a day -not counting extracurricular activities- in school which is a hefty chunk of time I think. I would go further to say that we all have a responsibility to ensure that children grow up to be good children. Obviously those of us who don’t come into contact with children won’t bear that responsibility very often though.
When I went to high school in Texas we covered Emerson and noncomformity as well as Thoreau and civil disobedience. I don't recall any problems from parents or administrators. Especially from administrators since these were all part of the district wide curriculum.
As a teacher, I can say it is not possible to teach without instilling values on some level.
This was illustrated to me pretty clearly when I arrived in my classroom in China, and broke my university-level students into groups for a group homework assignment.
They were lost. Any American middle school student would know exactly what to do- exchange phone numbers or email addresses, find a time to meet, figure out some basic roles like a group leader and a presenter, etc. But my Chinese students had no idea where to even begin, and just sat there blankly until I realized that assignment wasn’t going to work.
This is how I learned just how deeply ingrained group work is in America. We are trained for it since kindergaten and it becomes second nature. In China, on the other hand, study is usually a solitary thing.
Of course, this has implications for society. This is why business in China is different than business in America. FWIW, the things that stand out to me about the American education system is that it actually does teach us to question authority. Pointing out a teacher’s mistake would make you considered a good student in America, but a horrible student in many other places. American education teaches a specific way of organizing people and it’s own time management ideals. There are a million tiny things we absorb through our schooling that end up being cultural values.
From a Kindergarten teacher, “The best things about pre-school is that the kids learn basic social skills. People think it’s about giving a kid a leg up because they already know their alphabet or how to write their name, but no. If there is a kid with basic social skills but no academic knowledge, that’s easy to teach. But a kid with academic knowledge and no social skills is a nightmare.”
I think you’re right - just to focus on those things in your curriculum that you need to teach won’t ever be possible. Part of continually engaging students is creating that sense of community, and part of that is teaching aspects of community and responsibility. Its something that should always be reinforced through practically everything that’s happening. The after school program would just be one more reinforcement and potentially reduce the amount of time spent on building the basics, but the need to reinforce and foster community would still need to be happening all the time.
I really think that all school budgets need to be broken open and revised, with an eye toward re-directing money toward good programs, and away from administrative salaries, football programs and giant, $100 dollar new high schools.
Our governor proposed a plan wherein there would be ten elementary school designs, seven junior high school designs and four high school designs. They would have been designed with an eye toward beauty, conservation and educational utility. Then, whenever any district needed a new school, they picked a design.
It would have saved tons and tons of money, as the design costs would be minimal, the materials list would be ready to go, and because of other school’s already having used that school, time and money costs of utilizing the school would be minimized.
Another way to partially “fund” it would be to ask for volunteers. You can find a lot of people in the worst places that may be willing to help, since they are effected by the problems most directly. And lots of guest speakers would be willing to share their experiences and organize activities for these kids.
I agree with your first paragraph, but centrally-planned design has a long and execrable history: it NEVER works in public facility design. I’d be supremely skeptical of such a plan.
As for volunteers, I’m also really skeptical. Have you ever worked for a nonprofit? I have. And you have to have a really broad base of volunteers in order to get a tiny cadre of reliable volunteers. It might partly fund such a program, but I don’t think it’s going to amount for a significant cost savings.
You’re talking about working with children here. You’d need to screen and background check every single volunteer and supervise them thoroughly. As Left Hand said - that’s not going to be free.
And we are not just talking about “making friends and being popular.” Social skills includes stuff like knowing when to speak up and when to be quiet, how to take turns, how to work in a group or independently, how to divide work and resources, etc. This stuff is essential for classroom learning.
The thing is, all of this is falling by the wayside in the name of increasing scores on standardized tests. Everything now is all reading and math. Kids are reading books by the end of kindergarten and learning to divide in 1st grade. These other things are getting pushed aside because it’s not on the instructional calendar, and woe for the teacher who deviates from the instructional calendar - especially when your job relies upon improved test scores. Teachers are being stripped of their ability to teach and address these things while at the same time the need for these principles is becoming greater and greater.
The problem is that schools give kids junk to read if they suggest anything at all. The text books give a very limited view of reality. It is like the schools were designed for social engineering kids into whatever they thought was the proper paradigm at the time but the future is always going to be something different.
Traditionalists want to keep things the same, which they won’t be no matter what.
I think kids should be fed GOOD science fiction to get them thinking about the future. But sci-fi has gone downhill since the 50s and 60s.
So if you are going to talk about citizenship try:
The problem is that schools give kids junk to read if they suggest anything at all.
Huh? I’ve read biographies of Shakespeare, Bunnicula, and Little House in the Big Woods in reading groups with my students, and I’ve read them Roald Dahl, Kate di Camillio (sp?), and Jerry Spinelli aloud, in addition to plenty of Caldecott-winning picture books. I try to stay up-to-date on good children’s lit, but I also refer kids to Encyclopedia Brown, Lloyd Alexander, and Choose Your Own Adventure if I think they’d appreciate them. I don’t discourage junk–there’s real value in reading Fashion Kitty, even if I can’t stand it myself–but I don’t think I suggest it (okay, CYOA qualifies, but that’s quality junk food). And I don’t think I’m alone in this approach.
I’m not really clear on what you’re talking about.
It’s not a matter of a few problem kids. They ALL have to be taught how to stand in line, wait their turn, think before they speak, play nice, etc, and once learned, these things have to be reinforced. As a teacher, I’ve learned that classroom management never ever stops: it’s not about getting the kids perfectly trained and then coasting. They will all revert to their feral state if you aren’t consciously reminding them of the norms you want to keep.