Last time I said that I was going to ruffle a few feathers. Well, I’m not sure if I have yet, but I’m going to try again to get things stirred up. After all, isn’t healthy debate what it’s all about? And I think that for far too long we have been without healthy debate on what really works in schools.
I entitled this posting “The Problem,” but actually there are many problems. There is no argument that we have a major problem with student failure (yes, I’m using the “f-word” here). People don’t want to use the word “failure” with children – something about it hurting their precious self-esteem. Well guess what, folks – a lot of these kids have no self-esteem to begin with. They’re smart enough to know that we’re just playing word games. They have already figured out that most adults don’t expect anything out of them. Oh, we say we do, but then what happens? We coddle them, we tell them that it’s not their fault they can’t read – that some other bad teacher or system, or whatever, did it to them. They are victims of their environment, of the system, of “the man” – whoever that is. And then what do we do – we pass them on to the next level where they are even farther behind. “You couldn’t handle seventh grade, so we’re going to promote you to eighth grade where you can really bomb.” I ask you, does that sound like a good program to you?
Let’s put things in perspective. If you had a job and you couldn’t cut it, would your boss promote you? Okay, let’s say you’re not in a government job – would the boss promote you? More than likely, the boss is going to tell you to get up to speed or you’re gone. This is the “real world” that we’re supposed to be preparing kids for. And then we wonder why so many young people seem to have an “entitlement” mentality. Hello! Does anyone see a problem developing here? It’s a similar situation to the problem that communist societies faced – if I can get the same thing doing nothing as I can doing something, why should I do something?
That should make some people happy – I’ve just compared our educational system with communism. But I’m just getting going. Wait until you see where I’m going next.
I entitled this posting “The Problem,” but actually there are many problems. There is no argument that we have a major problem with student failure (yes, I’m using the “f-word” here). People don’t want to use the word “failure” with children – something about it hurting their precious self-esteem. Well guess what, folks – a lot of these kids have no self-esteem to begin with. They’re smart enough to know that we’re just playing word games. They have already figured out that most adults don’t expect anything out of them. Oh, we say we do, but then what happens? We coddle them, we tell them that it’s not their fault they can’t read – that some other bad teacher or system, or whatever, did it to them. They are victims of their environment, of the system, of “the man” – whoever that is. And then what do we do – we pass them on to the next level where they are even farther behind. “You couldn’t handle seventh grade, so we’re going to promote you to eighth grade where you can really bomb.” I ask you, does that sound like a good program to you?
Let’s put things in perspective. If you had a job and you couldn’t cut it, would your boss promote you? Okay, let’s say you’re not in a government job – would the boss promote you? More than likely, the boss is going to tell you to get up to speed or you’re gone. This is the “real world” that we’re supposed to be preparing kids for. And then we wonder why so many young people seem to have an “entitlement” mentality. Hello! Does anyone see a problem developing here? It’s a similar situation to the problem that communist societies faced – if I can get the same thing doing nothing as I can doing something, why should I do something?
That should make some people happy – I’ve just compared our educational system with communism. But I’m just getting going. Wait until you see where I’m going next.
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