Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Out Of The Mouth Of Babes


The kids were all abuzz about some of the borough's schools being closed. They were worried that these kids will now be coming to Packemin. They didn't understand why these schools were being eliminated. I told them about the school's poor academic records and their failure rates. The kids immediately piped up with "Bad kids are bad kids. So now they will all come here and bring our school down too. I bet we will be the next school closed."

When it comes to education, an average high school student is much brighter than a billionaire mayor.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder how long it will take the rest of the world to "get it".
Probably never.

windhover

Schoolgal said...

When I first started teaching, and had the time to teach w/o test restraints, I used to set up a student government. The class would help with setting up the rules, and would also make a list of consequences. The members of the group would then come up with the appropriate form of discipline, but I had the right to overrule if I thought it too harsh or too lenient. Usually they got it right the first time. My class was well-behaved because they didn't want to go in front of the group. Now I doubt it would be PC to have such a group.

Kids know how one bad apple can spoil a group and make it impossible to teach a class. Parents don't come in complaining about the teacher, but about the students who disrupt education. Now these kids are calling the shots. If they refuse to study, do homework, and cut class, the school is blamed. There used to be a time when families could not go to the welfare office until they had a "face to face" with the teachers. We had to sign off on the visit and questions were asked about attendance, lateness, etc. until it became illegal to do so. We also had the right to take away a privileged like going on a class trip or keeping them in during gym to make up their homework, but that became illegal too. I never minded giving up my prep time for these kids. And it paid off in the end because kids started behaving and doing all their homework.
Then all the cards I used to play to insure a safe, learning classroom environment no longer existed. We are second-guessed at every turn.

MATHMAN42 said...

Like a kangaroo court; but they have to care about their own results and have some balls. Would like to hear more details on HS level.