not my job

I should be working on my dueling post to be presented in concert with the eminent Suburban Island, however other events transpired today which gave me something else to write about.

Today, one of the people I work with said, “that’s why I send my grandchildren to private school – these kids are animals.” The person he was talking to replied, “Yeah, I’m glad my daughter is home schooling her kids. These kids are terrible!”

I about threw up on my shoes.

I realize a lot of people are bigoted against public schools and there are even people who still think that home schooling isn’t child abuse. I also realize there are very many good, honest, real and deserved criticism of the public schools and in many areas the staffs of those schools are really not the parties responsible. Public school staffs do their best with what they are given and sometimes we have students sent to us beyond our talents.

However, in signing up to teach and work in the schools you are taking on the responsibility of not only the instruction of the children here but also their management. If they are terribly behaved animals then an amazing fact is that it is your damn fault. What made me even angrier with this was the people having this conversation were administrative level members of the staff (while not being the principal, assistant principal or guidance councilors)! They are the people most responsible for the management of the children in our care.

My frustration is that the schools cannot improve without people believing that the children we teach are worth the effort to improve. There are many things that need to be done to improve the schools and the first is to rid the schools of staff members who hold negative attitudes about the students and the schools. I realize there is a difference between being critical and being cruel; critical analysis shows believe in improvement while the cruel analysis provided by people higher on the food chain displays a despondency that precludes improvement because of attitudinal barriers.

Comments

[Margaret]

AMEN, brother. I could tell you stories about our local Christian private school, and the powerful parents whose kids can get away with anything and everything. I could also tell you how far behind in math some of these kids are when they transfer to the public schools. Public ed is a cornerstone of this nation and should be treated as such. Yes, we get some tough kids--but it's our job as a society to do the best we can for all children. Otherwise, there is no hope for this nation because there are more public school kids than not.