I'm just not so sure that we really want to tack this on to the lengthing list of school responsibilities. At Linda Flanagan's Mind Shift blog, an argument is made for providing mental health treatment within the schools--practitioners on staff. There is little doubt that many students from lower income and urban environments are subject to potentially traumatizing events possibly having a negative effect on the desire and ability to learn. Even a family relocation and new school are emotionally disruptive and require some readjustment. Counseling and therapy may well be in order.
However, schools have already assumed many responsibilities previously reserved to parents: feeding, guiding, disciplining, and providing physical health care, pre-school education, and child care. There is no doubt well-fed, physically and mentally healthy children with parents who actively participate in the learning process will tend to succeed in school. I'm sorry, but I just don't believe mom and dad can be effectively replaced by government, no matter how well-intended. And I just can't stop equating where we are headed with the old Soviet Union's cradle-to-grave state-controlled system. It didn't work there and it frightens me. As what point do parents simply become breeding tools of the state?
4 comments:
Its hard to separate our professionalism with our responsibility. I think teachers across the world have such string oral purpose and we are determined to remove barriers for our children. Groups of schools can undertake the projects to remove barriers. The schools I work with have pooled budgets to buy in addition Educational Psychologists to address children's mental health. But as we progress we have realized that its a family approach as often many of the adult require support.
Its hard to separate our professionalism with our responsibility. I think teachers across the world have such string oral purpose and we are determined to remove barriers for our children. Groups of schools can undertake the projects to remove barriers. The schools I work with have pooled budgets to buy in addition Educational Psychologists to address children's mental health. But as we progress we have realized that its a family approach as often many of the adult require support.
We've reached a bottleneck in advancing the station of the American citizenry. Pythagorus(?) said that by educating the child we, we remove the need to discipline the adult. If we as a society cannot parent or teach our children, then all hope is lost. Parents are not failing in their jobs because they do not care about their children. They are failing because they don't know another way. If they can't do it, then who will?
We've reached a bottleneck in advancing the station of the American citizenry. Pythagorus(?) said that by educating the child we, we remove the need to discipline the adult. If we as a society cannot parent or teach our children, then all hope is lost. Parents are not failing in their jobs because they do not care about their children. They are failing because they don't know another way. If they can't do it, then who will?
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