Trouble with kids today? Parents
BY ANA VECIANA-SUAREZ
aveciana@herald.com
Among the many lessons I learned in my years in Catholic schools, two have proven more invaluable than anyone would have predicted. One, I'm an excellent speller. Second, I pay attention when the voice of authority speaks.
Back in the Stone Age, you didn't mess with teachers, especially if they were nuns. Most had perfected The Look. One stern glance sent your way was enough to make you sit up and shut up. There were, of course, other ways of keeping order: the ruler, the paddle, hours on your knees in the corner and an assorted variety of punishments that I never experienced because I usually had my nose in a book.
If you happened to get in trouble at school, you didn't run home to complain to your parents. No, siree. That would have just doubled the damage. And when your parents did discover your academic transgression, you could bet a week's worth of homework that they weren't rushing in to school, attorney in tow, threatening to sue.
That, as my school-age children like to remind me, was a lifetime ago. Since then, in a frighteningly steady swerve of the pendulum, classroom discipline has headed the way of the slide ruler. (And, I might add, saddle shoes.)
Talk to any teacher at the beginning of this school year, and you'll likely hear as much about the No Child Left Behind standards as about unruly students who are preventing them from teaching and other students from learning. Yet the difficulty of maintaining order in the classroom doesn't receive half the attention in the media -- or with the public policy bigwigs. It's the little academic secret everyone keeps.
I know of one educator who was threatened with a lawsuit when he dared to discipline a girl who was clearly breaking the high school's rules on the use of technological devices on campus. Sadly enough, the administration backed down to the belligerent father. I wonder if clueless Dad has ever thought about how he teaches his daughter about responsibility.
Unusual? Not by a long shot. Unfortunately, the lack of discipline has become a barrier to learning. Though these problems are caused by a few bad apples, it is the majority who suffer the consequences of lost instruction time.
In Teaching Interrupted: Do Discipline Policies in Today's Public Schools Foster the Common Good? researchers for the nonprofit, nonpartisan Public Agenda concluded that routine bad behavior was poisoning the atmosphere in many public schools. We're not talking serious criminal offenses here, but garden-variety rowdiness, disrespect and talking out of turn.
Four in 10 teachers say they spend more time trying to keep order than actually teaching. Nearly eight in 10 say there are persistent troublemakers who should have been removed from regular classrooms, and more than half say that districts backing down to parents cause discipline problems.
We don't have to look too hard to find the culprits. Topping the list was parents' failure to teach their children discipline. Not far behind is the overwhelming culture of disrespect, where those who defy authority and the law are glorified in the media.
The report offers several solutions, from alternative schools to limits on litigation. But let's face it, the most effective way is still a tried-and-true method, one that has been proven through the ages. Ultimately, children must be taught at home -- by their parents, first and foremost -- that actions create consequences, and that mothers and fathers don't wear capes to perpetually fly to their rescue.
Parents, too, must consider teachers as their surrogates. Support from home is as essential as pencil and notebook.
After all, what use are educational standards when teachers are too busy playing classroom cop to instruct?
BY ANA VECIANA-SUAREZ
aveciana@herald.com
Among the many lessons I learned in my years in Catholic schools, two have proven more invaluable than anyone would have predicted. One, I'm an excellent speller. Second, I pay attention when the voice of authority speaks.
Back in the Stone Age, you didn't mess with teachers, especially if they were nuns. Most had perfected The Look. One stern glance sent your way was enough to make you sit up and shut up. There were, of course, other ways of keeping order: the ruler, the paddle, hours on your knees in the corner and an assorted variety of punishments that I never experienced because I usually had my nose in a book.
If you happened to get in trouble at school, you didn't run home to complain to your parents. No, siree. That would have just doubled the damage. And when your parents did discover your academic transgression, you could bet a week's worth of homework that they weren't rushing in to school, attorney in tow, threatening to sue.
That, as my school-age children like to remind me, was a lifetime ago. Since then, in a frighteningly steady swerve of the pendulum, classroom discipline has headed the way of the slide ruler. (And, I might add, saddle shoes.)
Talk to any teacher at the beginning of this school year, and you'll likely hear as much about the No Child Left Behind standards as about unruly students who are preventing them from teaching and other students from learning. Yet the difficulty of maintaining order in the classroom doesn't receive half the attention in the media -- or with the public policy bigwigs. It's the little academic secret everyone keeps.
I know of one educator who was threatened with a lawsuit when he dared to discipline a girl who was clearly breaking the high school's rules on the use of technological devices on campus. Sadly enough, the administration backed down to the belligerent father. I wonder if clueless Dad has ever thought about how he teaches his daughter about responsibility.
Unusual? Not by a long shot. Unfortunately, the lack of discipline has become a barrier to learning. Though these problems are caused by a few bad apples, it is the majority who suffer the consequences of lost instruction time.
In Teaching Interrupted: Do Discipline Policies in Today's Public Schools Foster the Common Good? researchers for the nonprofit, nonpartisan Public Agenda concluded that routine bad behavior was poisoning the atmosphere in many public schools. We're not talking serious criminal offenses here, but garden-variety rowdiness, disrespect and talking out of turn.
Four in 10 teachers say they spend more time trying to keep order than actually teaching. Nearly eight in 10 say there are persistent troublemakers who should have been removed from regular classrooms, and more than half say that districts backing down to parents cause discipline problems.
We don't have to look too hard to find the culprits. Topping the list was parents' failure to teach their children discipline. Not far behind is the overwhelming culture of disrespect, where those who defy authority and the law are glorified in the media.
The report offers several solutions, from alternative schools to limits on litigation. But let's face it, the most effective way is still a tried-and-true method, one that has been proven through the ages. Ultimately, children must be taught at home -- by their parents, first and foremost -- that actions create consequences, and that mothers and fathers don't wear capes to perpetually fly to their rescue.
Parents, too, must consider teachers as their surrogates. Support from home is as essential as pencil and notebook.
After all, what use are educational standards when teachers are too busy playing classroom cop to instruct?
