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“Pants on the Ground”- OR – Order in the Classroom
I know I said I would write about infant brain development in this post but that will have to be the next post because I had a conversation in the gym with a member of our Power class that stunned my common sense thinking. She is retired from the US Treasury and is taking a class at the local community college. She described her disaffection with it while we were talking, but what caught my attention was her syllabus of rules handed out by the retired military officer, now teaching a class in Business and Entrepreneurship.
It read:
• No hats or hoods worn in class
• No feet on furniture
• No clothing that has gratuitous violence, graphic sexual images, obvious religious or political images or wording worn in class.
• No pajamas, bath robes, swim suits or other clothes normally associated with sleeping, bathing, or swimming worn in class.
Would any of you reading this post have shown up to your school classes in a bathrobe or bathing suit? It got me to thinking, who parented these students who wear “clothing of gratuitous violence, graphic sexual images”? What do they see when their children walk out the door? How did we get here from there?
Which brings me to the subject of school uniforms: This is a simple idea that is more cost effective than spending money on the latest clothing fads, which are apparently disruptive and the cause of teacher rules in order to conduct class. My sons attended a school that had uniforms as their dress code. Everyone looked the same; no one felt richer or poorer; no one was discriminated against for not having the latest fashion or shoes. It worked. There was order in the classes and serious teaching going on all day. Many Catholic schools have uniform codes. These schools are noted for the quality of their rigorous curriculum. It appears that uniforms positively influence teaching and classroom order.
We have a crisis in American education. Is it not reasonable to eliminate the distractions of “clothing” in order to bring order? We are graduating students who cannot read, who cannot write a coherent paragraph, or who cannot do simple mathematical skills. We have a serious dropout rate across the country. Is this not a grave concern? We have childhood obesity that is fatally impacting this next generation and our health care system. Those who do graduate cannot compete with the clamoring Asian and Indian markets. We are falling behind in every aspect of future challenges facing American education.
Why does clothing take precedence over order and learning in our educational system when the simple solution to the problem is to have a national dress code for public schools? It’s cost effective and simple. The Chinese do it.
Oh yes, I forgot, the lawyers would sue for an individual’s right to express themselves through their outer wear. So we sacrifice order in education and quality teaching time in our classrooms. Would someone help me out here? What is going on? Where did the responsible parents go? Why did they leave their children in this superficial, barren landscape where they value “pants on the ground” above education and enlightenment?
Parents Are to Blame
I have been thinking of why so many children “drop out” of school. They are aware, through the deluge of information within their daily digital media, that the evidence points to a life of poverty with no educational credentials. Why do they not comprehend what they are committing their life to at such an early age? Do their parents bridge the gap or widen the gulf for their success? Do they even care what becomes of their children after they are born? Who do the parents believe is responsible for their children, their self esteem, and their education?
Then I began thinking of who we blame for the failure of children to complete their education. In my previous blog, Educational Catastrophe, I list where blame is usually placed. Why have we become a society where few accept responsibility for being responsible? Is it possible that our heroes left us a legacy of lies, cheating, kick backs, finger pointing, corruption, and denial?
Let’s look at just a few heroes and their examples; Senator John Edwards, Governor Mark Sanford, Mark McGuire, Congressman Thomas Jefferson of Louisiana, President Bill Clinton, Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, Marion Jones, Cardinal Law, Richard Fuld and Bernie Madoff to name just a few of the many. What extraordinary examples they set for our culture, for our children, for all of us! As an aside, I remember watching an elderly African American woman in a Detroit line to receive “free money”. She was asked who she thought the check was from and she responded, “Obama”. She was then asked where he got the money and she responded, “…from his stash…” This small example points to an ethic that pervades the entire culture. Is this ethic set into motion by those who are supposed to be our living examples?
Now, when we boil it down to the lowest common denominator, who really is responsible for the success of the children that are birthed in this country?
How about this novel idea, “The Parents”? Imagine that, we are responsible for our children and their path to success; not the teachers, not the politicians, not the clergy, not the neighbors, not the day care centers, not the community, not the country, not the world, and not God. Parents are responsible for the future success of their children.
Why do we have so many drop outs in a country that offers “free education”, not “free money”? They are there, I believe, because they were born to parents, who had parents, who had parents who did not care. They were not raised in an environment of respect, truth, or ambition.
To be candid, they were born and from that time forth fended for themselves. These drop outs have no emotional support, no direction, no goals, no self esteem, no strength, no pride. They live a life of fear; fear of peer rejection, fear of not fitting in, fear of not being acceptable; fear of standing out. They conform to the most undignified life style that is held up as “heroic” by their valueless peers. Their parents don’t notice because they live like those they birthed.
Until we change parenting in our country, no one will ever be able to stop the bleeding. We will continue to spend millions on children who do not value education, but who thirst for the material life that is a result of education. These dropouts will continue to be a wandering herd, all looking the same, doing the same things, in the same way – out of work with no future.
So much for the obvious; my next blog will concentrate on how the brain develops from birth and how parents who do care are able to propel their children into the most fantastic journey of discovery and self worth.
Educational Catastrophe
Nationwide, nearly one in three U.S. high school students fails to graduate with a diploma. In total, approximately 1.2 million students drop out each year – averaging 7,000 every school day or one every 26 seconds. Among minority students, the problem is even more severe with nearly 50 percent of African-American and Hispanic students not completing high school on time. http://www.americaspromise.org
Students blame teachers, teachers blame parents, parents blame politicians, politicians blame the “system”. The system blames programs that are boring, disengaged from reality, and irrelevant to student needs. We see classrooms in chaos, teachers with tenure who do not teach, students with no regard for authority, administrators who do not administrate, and parents who are uninvolved in the process of their children’s educational process, or maybe, completely disinterested in the success of their children.
When it comes down to the absolute level of drop out accountability, it begins with the parents who are not parenting their children from birth to young adulthood. It is the parents who set standards for their children to follow. It is the parents who prove to their children the importance of achieving an education. It is the parents who teach respect for authority and peers. The non-parenting culture has left us with a legacy of a huge wandering crowd of children with no purpose other than the moment, which usually leaves them feeling empty or abandoned.
Cities in Crisis 2009: Closing the Graduation Gap, is a publication by the EPE (Editorial Projects in Education). This study looked at the economic and employment landscape for those with varied educational levels. It revealed that those who drop out of high school are less likely to be steadily employed, and earn less income when they are employed, compared with those who graduate from high school. Approximately one-third (37 percent) of high school dropouts nationwide are steadily employed and are more than twice as likely to live in poverty.
The report revealed that high school dropouts account for 13 percent of the adult population, but earn less than six percent of all dollars earned in the U.S. In the 50 largest cities, the median income for high school dropouts is $14,000, significantly lower than the median income of $24,000 for high school graduates and $48,000 for college graduates. Nationally, high school dropouts were also the only group of workers who saw income levels decline over the last 30 years.
I was reading an article yesterday about school exit tests and how states are easing standards because the tests are proving to be tough for their students to pass. This New York Times article, written by Ian Urbina, states, “The real pattern in states has been that the standards are lowered so much that the exams end up not benefiting students who pass them while still hurting the students who fail them. The exams are just challenging enough to reduce the graduation rate, but not challenging enough to have measurable consequences for how much students learn or for how prepared they are for life after high school”, says John Robert Warren, an expert on exit exams and a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota.
I spoke to a woman in my gym who tutors students in math. She told me, “Why are we teaching algebra or geometry to students who will not be going to college? We should be teaching them math that meets their needs, “functional math”. We need to teach our children, who are not college bound, how to open a checking account, balance a check book, make change, develop budgets, and the many other things that are required for survival.” She is wasting her time tutoring high school students in a math they will never use in their real life.
We are dumbing down our children as China and India are gearing up their educational system and parenting their children to be the best. They will take over what we can no longer do. Our children will be the worker bees for those who will be the bosses. These carefully parented children in these emerging economies are succeeding because they have strong family relationships based in respect and honor.
I have added the links to the NY Times article and an editorial by Bob Herbert.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/opinion/12herbert.html?th&emc=th
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/education/12exit.html?pagewanted=2&th&emc=th
“Children enter school as question marks and leave as periods”
Neil Postman, Educator
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