Wardrobe Shaming your Own Child

            *Have you ever read a blog or article about education or parenting and the writer makes it sound like they have all the answers and you, the parent of a student, don’t have any?  We try to be understanding because we read articles for their authority on the topic, but the writer has a pretentiousness that we can’t just chalk up to salesmanship.  Don’t you hate those blogs/articles?  They don’t seem to realize that the only people reading blogs/articles are people who are likely to have already thought about the suggestions, adopted them, reconsidered them, refined them and either rejected them or still have them in place.  The writer doesn’t seem to know nor have even the slightest understanding that good parents read blogs and good parents already know how to be good parents.  This is one of those blogs, but I admit that you know.

            “That isn’t a battle we’re fighting.”  When I sent a picture of a kid with a shirt with a bikini girl on it to an administrator in the last two weeks of school this was the response I got.  When I told a student to go to the nurse because she was out of dress code, she did; and changed back after my class.  I’ve had arguments with girls and boys that you can’t have such and such on a shirt or that such and such a shirt is inappropriate and the administration decides this isn’t a battle they’re fighting.  Girls wear shorts too short, and shirts that plunge too low.  Boys wear shirts with girls on them that aren’t dressed enough for the pool.  They wear clothes with smokers smoking, shooters shooting, cuss words, violence, and hate.  

             If there is a code in the dress code it will be bent and if the code isn’t enforced then that code will be bent more until it breaks.  The dress code breaks.  The dress code is not like a damn.  The damn lets some of the water through to relieve pressure.  A dress code when it lets a little through, you can prepare for the breaking of the dam.  Get ready for the flood.

            But it isn’t the administrators who are the problem.  And I’m not just saying that because some of my administrators might read this.  (Wink)  No.  The truth is that a parent MUST not allow a student of theirs to go to school out of dress code.  If you do you are neglecting your responsibility.  I don’t want to tell you what we’re all going to do to you if you continue to neglect your responsibilities (it will include torture).  I just want you to start being the parent you thought you always should have been.  100 years ago 90% of parents either straight up made their kids clothes or purchased them for them in the, 'Butt Ugly Store,'(not a real place).  We didn’t want nice clothes.  We wanted our kids to look terrible because it taught them character.  You know what gives kids character these days?  It’s when they roll up to their middle school in shoes that cost more than an electric bill.  They learn to persevere because they're forced to wear clothes that they purchase at the mall rather than a boutique.  I don’t even know if that’s even a marker of wealth and privilege.  I do know that they AREN’T really learning character or values or perseverance from what they wear because they wear really expensive clothes.  Did I mention that my school is majority ‘at-risk?’  How then can their wardrobes cost much more than mine by factors.  I know it isn’t a competition, but hey spend too much money on clothes.

              My concern, the societies concern, isn’t how much they spend.  I’m not a curmudgeon.  The issue is that you don’t know.  Why aren’t you the parent buying their clothes with them?  Parents give their money to kids and the kids go and buy clothes that the parent doesn’t want to argue about.  STOP IT!  From now on when your kid needs clothes go with him/her.  They want to go alone; don’t let them?  They buy something that has holes in it and you say to yourself, ‘it’s the fashion.’ Don’t buy them the fashion.  Buy them the boring and sturdy.  Our children, yours and mine, need less pre-cut holes in their clothes.  ‘But my kid has a part time job and buys their own clothes.’  You’re allowed to tell them what they can and can’t buy, Parent.  

*Or tell them they can buy it if they want, but make sure they aren't wearing it before they go out, to school or anywhere else.  They must dress for the occasion and school isn't a meth-head occasion. 

            ‘My kid says he needs the new Jordans and I want them to look fresh.’  ‘My daughter won’t shut up about all the other girls at her school with these holy jeans or these rompers.’   (Notice next I’m going to write a sentence without a single quote mark to delineate something I’m going to say sarcastically in response to these last sentences.)  My kid just has to have heroin to get through difficult situations.  My daughter just wants to go and drink beers with five members of the football team without any other girls and I don’t want to listen to her complain if I say no.  Am I saying that you letting your daughter out of the house in a romper is the same as enabling heroin use?  No.  But you not acting like a parent because you are afraid of your kid whining like a kid is the same thing, but with a different degree.  Am I saying that it is bad parenting to let a student go to school in clothes that are not in line with the schools dress code?  Yes.  What if the clothes aren’t outside my value system?  Yes, still.  Your job if no one told you, is to facilitate the education of your student through their school career.  That means every day.  That means ensuring that they are dressed in line with the dictates, good or bad, decided by your school board and school administrators in order to be conducive to education, not having them look fresh so they won't get punked.  

            If they can’t follow dress code there are multiple problems.  1.  You aren’t doing your job.  This sucks for you.  You know you’ll never be a great adult until you’re a parent.  Even good adults can improve with parenting.  And bad adults can totally stay horrible if they do not choose to parent.  It is time that we had a consistent ethic of parenting our children.  Yes.  You’ll screw up, but don’t give up.  A consistent ethic of ensuring dress code compliance is the goal.   2.  It sucks for the kid.  How many jobs have dress codes?  Does yours?  Isn’t it life-training to start following a program of laws and social mores?  Finally, it sucks for the kid because if you’re too scared to enforce rules that aren’t even your rules, then the kid isn’t learning much discipline.  Your kid, your little tyke, your little princess, that girl or boy that you got choked up the first time they hugged you.  Their life will be less good if you do not enforce discipline.  So enforce it. 

            ‘But my kid changes after leaving the house.’  Confiscate the rags they change into.  ‘My kid is too old for me to change on them.’  Sure, give up.  After all if you’re telling me that you cannot enforce a dress code on your baby, a stunning admission, then I can’t really argue with you.  I believe you’re wrong, but I can’t convince of the opposite.  ‘What about uniforms? We could have uniforms and then I wouldn’t have to do anything.’  I’m pro uniform, but a kid can push the boundaries of uniforms too.  Plus, I think parents need more opportunities to parent not more opportunities to avoid parenting. 

            As per usual, I think that people who read my blogs/articles are self-selective of people who might already do what they should in the sphere of children’s fashions.  So if you think this is a valuable message please consider sharing this on your feed?  That way you can give it to people you think need it but not actually say they need it.  Or if you’re brave ask people you know, all of them, how do they purchase clothes for their kids?  How do they enforce dress code?  Do they know their school’s dress code?  Do they shop with their kids?  Do they shop for their kids?  I know it sounds nosy.  It was one of the worst things our collective conscience remembers about the fifties and small towns.  People didn’t know how to mind their own business.  Yeah, but maybe that’s swung all the way to the far end of the pendulum and social media is a way for us to practice the complete antithesis of intimacy with our fellow people.  Maybe that’s bad. 

            Also, if you want to practice self-delusion leave a comment and tell me how I’m wrong.  No language please.   

Earning the Cell

You know those blogs that tell you how to be a good parent.  They always sound a little pretentious.  They sound like they have all the answers.  They make it sound like you don’t have any of the answers.  The sad thing is, anybody reading the blog about effective parenting is usually a self-selective group of people who have a lot of good ideas about parenting.  This isn’t a parenting blog but one about education.  It will suggest some ways to fix public schools that are habitually failing. 

            Kids don’t like school.  I mean, most kids don’t like school.  It’s almost all of them right.  My wife has a son that is legally mine and he likes school.  He is such a people person that he’d gladly go to school year round.  He is like Zach Morris from, Saved By the Bell, who said, “I love school, I just don’t like the classes.”  I know I shouldn’t have quotation marks for a paraphrase, but that’s a paraphrase.  I think a lot of kids fall into this category.  They like other kids, but they don’t like classes, reading, homework, grades, or tests.  They don’t like the rules, dress codes, and discipline. 

            And when did we think that schools should be fun?  When did we decide as a society that teachers are supposed to be guides on intellectual adventures?  At what point in time was Magic School Bus’s teacher, Miss Frizzle made the teacher du jour?  I think we spend too much time worrying about whether or not kids are getting engaged and not enough time making sure that students are incentivized to achieve.  Yes, I think engagement is important, but I also believe engagement to be impossible for some kids because they have too much other stuff reaching them.  Their phones can pipe in everything in the world to them instantaneously and thus, how can teachers interest them?

            Yes, there are ways.  I think there are a lot of micro options for engagement.  You have to create a template for engagement based on your personality and demeanor.  We can’t all be Jamie Escalante, but all teachers can get better at reaching the unreachable children of the 21^st century.  But how can parent help?  Is there some incentive that almost every student will work to achieve?  Is there something, the loss of which will incite action and effort for 90% of all students?

At my school, Elgin Middle School, there are more than 50% of the students who are ‘at risk.’  This means that the majority of the students on my campus have at least some issues with money and parents that make enough of it.  Now guess in this campus how many students have cell phones.  It’s not all and I’m sure it’s much different between sixth and eighth grades but the students I had in the eighth grade had about 90 percent cell phones.  Then there was about 20% A-B honor roll. 

            If every parent told their kid that they couldn’t have a cell phone unless they got A-B Honor Roll, what percent do you think would pass?  It wouldn’t be all.  Some students might try to succeed and still fall a little bit short.  Some kids would be defiant and might make their parents enforce the rule.  But really, how many do you think would get A-B Honor Roll in order to keep their phone?  My guess is 80 percent.  I guess there would be 5% that don’t want their kids to have a phone because they aren’t mature enough.  I think 5% couldn’t afford it.  I think 5% would try and still not be able to succeed.  I think 5% would be defiant and lose access to their phones every six weeks. 

            That is my eerily accurate unscientific estimation.  We’d go from a school who has 20% A-B to one that has 80% A-B.  This might change other things.  Like, I take late work even if it’s five weeks late.  I don’t think teachers would give as many chances and might start expecting more accountability if the kids were earning incentives at home.  I think students wouldn’t come to me or other teachers and just ask, ‘what do I have to do?’  With this system they might actually try to self-govern their own responsibilities. They might self-advocate ways to boost grades.  They might do the extra credit I have posted.  If there was group work all the student would rely on each other to produce good work so they can all either achieve cell phone status or avoid cell phone confiscation.

            This idea isn’t one that I thought of on my own.  I’m sure there are tons of parents who do this.  I had two students in my class this year.  Their parents had a rule that the girls would lose their phones if they didn’t get all A’s, not all A’s and B’s.  Once, one of the girls had an 88 the last week of the semester came to me and got a lot of extra credit and I offer a lot of extra credit.  She ended the grading period with a 91.  I didn’t bump her grade because she showed me a lot of effort.  She earned it.  The other girl got a bad grade on a test and did all the extra credit I offered in the grading period and ended with a 96.  These two girls, best buddies, had parents with the simple rule that all parent ought to have.  No A’s and B’s, no phone.

            But…you say your kid needs to get in touch with you.  No, they don’t.  Your schools have rules against the use of your student using their phone and every time they call you within school hours you undermine your school's authority.  'My kid’s teachers are okay with them texting and calling when they aren’t working in class.'  Well your teacher ought to explain to you why they have so much free time.  They could do that after they explain to the administration why they aren’t enforcing the no phone policy.  My school literally told me to not confiscate phones, but to just write students up if I saw them with a phone.  Thanks, parents.  I sure that call home to ask you to bring them lunch was seriously needed.  How many times did we call home before every kid had a cell phone?  None.    

            ‘My kid has some sort of disease or there might be an accident.’  Give them the phone.  Lock the phone from anything but calls to the police.  Am I saying that there is no reason to have a student have a phone?  No.  I’m saying earning all privileges should be a consistent ethic your children should learn. 

            ‘But my kid is too old, you don’t understand.  They’d get violent if I took away their phone.’  Okay give up.  My suggestion is about encouraging parents to have a more active role in the educational lives of their children.  If your response is that is, 'its too hard,' then I can’t actually argue that point.  But leave a comment about how I don’t know anything and that I cannot make blanket statements and how I don’t know everyone’s situation and how I shouldn’t try to tell you how to raise your kids. 

            And I understand there are people who don’t think their kids should have cell phones at all and some that don’t think they should earn them with good grades.  Use some other carrot so the school doesn’t have to use the stick so much.  Please leave a comment about how I’m bad for even suggesting students should sometimes have cell phones or what you use as the carrot to get achievement out of your kids other than a cell.  One of my parents had a kid who level of lack of effort was uncanny.  He improved a little second semester and I asked what she’d said or offered.  She said Jehovah deserved all the credit.  That would be awesome, I thought.  He returned to his old ways and failed the semester with less than a 40 the last six weeks. 

            Like I said, I think reading a blog self-selects the kind of parents who might already be doing these things or things like them.  So, if you agree with this blog/article, please try asking your friends if their kids have a phone and if they have achievement expectations to receive it.  Ask them if they have any achievement rewards.  The idea of creating measurable expectations for our kids’ success and some sort of payment for success in the classroom needs to be part of our societal vernacular.

Is it part of yours?

Bed time

Hey you know those people who write blogs and how they’re always super pretentious?  They tell you what’s wrong with the world and sort of imply that it’s everybody’s fault, but their own.  They know what is wrong and who is to blame, and they may get a little bit of increased readership if they blame you and your write hate mail back.  The blog makes a lot of sense and basically falls under the umbrella of ‘common sense.’  The writer might get away with it too because ‘common sense’ isn’t common, but they have this irritating way of making it seem like you are the problem.  You and everyone else, but them. 

So I’m a teacher, as you may have already known and I’ve taught at a lot of schools because I used to be a sub and substitutes get a bird’s eye view.  They see it all, but just little glimpses and they can’t get to know the kids too well.  And I got that; I taught a whole bunch of kids for a day or a couple of days or a couple of weeks.  Then this year I taught one set of about a hundred kids every day.  I learned their names I got to know their quirks and talents.  So now I’ve got a bird’s eye and I’m right up in the stuff; I can use a sniper rifle and a knife.  And I’ve got one huge overarching diagnosis for why kids, schools, and test scores are going to the crapper.  Maybe I’ll get around to some of the other reasons and we as a society of individuals can start working on those.  Stay tuned.  For right now I’ve got one big one that is going to make things a lot better. 

Bedtime.

That’s right you, yes you, need to give your kids an earlier bedtime.  A kid who is in elementary is age 6-12ish, needs to go to bed and be in bed for 10 hours.  ‘What if they don’t need that much sleep?’ They do.  Stop letting them stay up for another episode.  Stop reading one more story to them.  If they wake up early, send them back to bed.  ‘What if they wake up early ten days in a row?’ take a walk with them every night before bed.  ‘A walk isn’t enough.’ How about a jog?  How about a run?  How about some basketball?  Stop letting them eat sugar after 6:00.  Stop letting them drink energy drinks after 4:00.  ‘But I want my kid to be independent.’

Your kid cannot be independent if they are sleepy.  Your child is making up their minds based on a burnt out system.  They cannot pay attention in class, even if they aren’t going to sleep because they might be able to stay up and NOT be able to act calm and cool without eyes drooping.  They cannot give attention to their teacher, their sleep imbalance is begging them to act up.   

A student who is in middle school is tricky because they’re older and more independent.  They’ve got more extracurricular activities and homework so they need…10 hours.  They need sleep.  Your teachers are spending time dealing with their attitudes and behavior when they could, believe it or not, teach them.  You cannot let them stay up on Instachat or Snapgrams (patent pending).  I know these apps are called Instagram and Snapchat, I think it’s funny to say them wrong and it also allows me to minimize their value to others in speech. You cannot let them have a TV in their room for them to watch Netflix until 1 a.m.  You cannot let them play video games until their borderline psychotic because Call of Duty 27 just came out or they’ve been saving their money for Grand Theft Auto Guatemala for like three weeks.  Even if it’s something valuable like reading a book, doing a project, or practicing their violin.  School is more important than that.  School needs a consistent ethic of mental and emotional wellness that can be greatly improved by solid sleep.  Let them have Saturday to do those other things, if you must.  Although.  If you like this meandering article/blog then you might stick around and find out how I feel about some of those other pastimes.  

‘Is it possible that a kid needs nine hours instead of 10? After all, my 8^th grader is 14 and has a mustache.’  Yes.  ‘Well what about 8?’  I guess that’s possible.  Take a second and guestimate how many kids at your local middle school get even 8?  Now divide that by 2.  That’s probably more like the right number.  My insanely accurate unscientific guess is that fewer than 40% get seven hours or more.  How many kids do you think need 8, 9, or 10 hours?  Most people would sensibly say that more kids need 10 than 9 and more kids need 9 than 8.  Once again, and I’m correct, 10% need about 8 hours. 20% need about 8.5 hours of sleep.  30% of children under the age of fifteen need 9 hours. 20% need 9.5 and 20% need 10 hours of sleep every night.  Where does your kid fit?  Why does your student need less than others?  You see the question isn’t how much they need when it comes to sleep.  It’s how much they can take.

And when your kid is in high school they need…8-10 hours of sleep.  Think of the way schools would be if every student went to sleep at ten and woke up at six.  Think of how are schools would be if every parent could enforce that on each high school student.

This blog/article wasn’t written by a parent with all the answers.  It was written by the spouse of a parent with all the answers.  When I married my wife I felt her bed time was early.  I still do.  I think my bedtime when I was her kid’s age was an hour later.  But he performs better in school.  He is nicer and more polite than I was.  He still gets to be a little snotty if he doesn’t get his normal amount of sleep.  His friends in school; honors, band, orchestra; a lot have early bedtimes.  The kids that I know at my school who have bed times, they are all high achievers.  Admittedly some students do not have bed times and achieve well.  My argument to that, is that they may achieve better if they were well rested.  I’m not a parent with all the answers.  I’m a teacher searching for all the right answers.  If you think this is or isn’t one of them would you leave a response and say why or why not? 

Sadly, the clientele that read blogs/online articles give their children bedtimes.  It is the parents who have the children who need bedtimes the most who are least likely to read this.  Please don’t take that statement as racial, ethnocentric, or socioeconomic.  I am saying that the group of people in society that is seeking out suggestions on how to better raise children are self-selective of the type of people who already give their children bed times.  So if you could do me a favor; ask someone who you know who has kids when their kids’ bedtimes is/are.  We need this question to be part of the vernacular.  The more we ask the more people think there is a right answer.  The friends you ask you can ask why.  The friends you ask, if they don’t know or don’t really have a set time, or want their children to be independent; send them the link to this article. 

Open Letter to Parents Considering Homechool

Open letter to the imaginary parents I know considering home school,

            You know I teach at a public school right?  How could you even consider taking important funds away from society’s schools and taking your child out of an environment that makes presidents and patriots?   Hahahahahaha.

            The truth is that now that I’ve seen the system on the inside I can say without reservation the following:  All parents should strongly consider doing some home schooling.  All parents who have faith in God or conservative values aren’t being served in public education.  There are very few good Godly examples of how to live life in schools.  There aren’t many other students who children can look up to or will look up to even if they are some.  There are very few teachers that I think are so laudable that I would request their morals and honor as my students teacher.  The vapid nature of student talk and student behavior in secondary schools is worse than any foul mouthed movie you’ve ever seen.  Sailors talk much nicer than 7^th graders. 

I once remarked that I heard the ‘N-word’ more in one week at Connally High School than I had in my entire life previously.  I was including all the gangster movies I had ever seen.  Mind, this wasn’t said by students to inflame each other.  The word, from each race to all others, was without power.  The only people it humiliated and disgusted were the adults.   The language is ubiquitous.  There are no sensitivities in your child’s ears.  It isn’t clever or martial; it is word vomit.  It is mania. 

The disrespect and behavior are terrible as well.  All students lie and cheat.  I caught two dozen cheaters this year.  I may have caught more but some don’t have anyone to copy off of because my assessments are so easy; dumbed down, weak tea.  I may have caught more, but some do not care enough to cheat.  There is fighting.  There is gossip.  There is a level of depravity that I assure you is worse than anything I saw while I was in my school and it is NOT seeing with rose-colored glasses.  

And the values you share, they do not.  It is just nigh-impossible to out-number all their negative influences by being good parents and taking them to church.  And their teachers very rarely, share your values either.  I was surprised.  I mean this is a state so Red with republicanism that we voted against the Barbie doll for Governor and voted for Trump for President.  I thought teachers would have some conservatism here.  Wouldn’t teachers be a good cross-section of our state’s make up?  No.  75% claim Christianity in the state, is it that high in the school?  No.  They do not share your faith or your values.  Some might.  More do not.    

So do I, a teacher who makes my living teaching in public schools, think anyone close to me ought to seriously consider other options like co-ops or private schools or home school with curriculum online?  Yes.  Do I think you have to do it a while for it to make sense?  Yes.  Does it have to be K-8, or 6-8, or K-5?  No.

But…

Reasons you might not want to do this:  If your child is being bullied.  Look, I know it hurts to see your baby get bullied, but if you take your kid out of school it is telling them that if they aren’t enjoying something then they can change it.  That isn’t always true.  That can be one of the worst lessons to teach subconsciously to our children.  If they don’t like a teacher or a class or a club or a sport it might be the best opportunity to teach that, ‘those who endure get a crown’ rather than, ‘if we don’t like it we can always quit.’

Maybe you shouldn’t quit because a public school can offer you something you can’t otherwise achieve like sports, fine arts, or clubs.  I know some homeschools have sports and band and orchestra and whatever else but clubs in a school are a special thing that aren’t well reproduced all the time.  I’ve been a part of a homeschool co-op drama and it didn’t make the transition well.  I’ve also been a part of playoff football team and a nationally recognized men’s choir.

Maybe your kid is wild about God and needs to be challenged to see the school as his/her mission field.  Look, I didn’t.  There is a level of maturity that I don’t think God demands from 15 and 16 year olds.  But now, I pray every day to let me be a good man and let students get a little God out of me.  I need to do better at it, but there’s always next year.  If you can take a student who is special in a way, I admit, I was not and make them focus their zeal for Christ Jesus into their public education then God be praised.  If this can be their Catechesis, then the Gates of Hell shall not prevail.

But…

If you decide to take the plunge:  Don’t go halfway.  Don’t say this is a measure that only needs to last a year until a growth spurt comes in or until his peers grow out of bullying.  Don’t pay it lip service.  Look up project-based-learning.  Have the student design the curriculum.  Always be expecting more than the school did, and more than you did last week.  Homeschool should be an opportunity to trounce the public education system.  Homeschool should look the public school in the face and laugh at its edifices.  Education costs a library card; they’ve got computers, and books on tape, Audible.com, Youtube.com, projectGuttenberg.com, Think through Math, IXL, Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, the DBQ project, Project Based Learning, blogs, heck Netlfix and Amazon Prime (documentaries, brain games, How Things are Made, Dirty Jobs, and Mythbusters) encyclopedias, Wikipedia (watch Jeopardy, get the clue, pause it, look it up online and answer it before unpausing, then afterwards watch it at full speed and see how many they remember), History.com, the Biography Channel, History.gov the list could go on for days.  A person who is incentivized to become an autodidact hasn’t even needed a teacher for the last 20 years.  Scratch that, probably didn’t need one before the internet when we had libraries.

If you decide to take the plunge:  Get weird.  Do a ton of field trips to actual educational places.  Have them write in different styles and Genres.  Have them read and write book reports in different styles and genres.  Have them take some instrument lessons in several different instruments and then have them practice like an hour a day if you ears can stand it.  Have them learn to whistle, to juggle, to skateboard, to dance, fence, sing, speak some vocab in like ten languages.  Have them learn the Korean alphabet.  Have them learn to identify art but only up to the Impressionists.  Have them listen to symphonies and operas and arias and Hank Williams and Elvis and Bach and Brahms and New Kids on the Block and Fats Domino and Motown and Italian Rap and Russian Folk.  Have them sow and macramé and wash dishes and write poetry and learn first aid.

If you decide to take the plunge:  Do not let them do it without you.  There is a cheap way to do it and that is to give them a book and ask them to read it and write a report.  Total time for you 10 minutes.  Total time for them 15 hours.  No.  Have them read something to you.  Discuss it afterwards.  You know Cliff’s Notes?  Those actually have challenge questions at the end of each chapter summary to help spur discussion.  Look up a lecturer on Youtube who can talk about the themes.  After they write the report don’t just mark it for spelling and grammar.  You should really teach them about introducing an essay.  If I get another essay starting, “Let me tell you about…”  Really challenge them that 5-7 paragraphs, 5-7 sentences is only barely good enough.  Beg friends to read it and offer notes.  Have the student represent the book in multimedia:  A picture, a poster, a board game, a 3-D element, outfits for a play, etc.  Have the student blog about it.  Have the student read their essay and share it with former students.  Engage with everything they do.  You must invest in this yourself.  It is no small task to be a good teacher.  (Side Note:  I’m not saying that a parent can’t leave their kid home alone and work Tuesday and Thursday if the parent needs to work part time.  Though the state might have a problem with this.  Kids just need guidance all the time even when they don’t, in my opinion need supervision.

So long story short:  Do it, or not if you can’t or don’t want to, all the way in or all the way out, make it worth it, be weird, go with your student, and bring God with you.  It isn’t a question with a right answer just a right for you answer.   

Do you need to be smarter than a fifth grader?

Schools in America are broken.  Ask anybody.  When the study countries we're like the top 25% but we spend like double what the top ten pay to educate their kids.

Didn't we invent the idea of universal education?  Kids in England were working in factories 30 years after the US wrote the Northwest Ordinance.

In America 25% of students don't graduate.  In urban settings it's normal for less than 60% of freshmen to graduate.  How many graduate without the ability to read?

I've subbed at some rough and tough schools and the expectations aren't high.  I've seen really good teachers create a fun and engaging atmosphere.  The students fought engagement.  The students couldn't be bothered to learn.  The students had reviews.  The students were coaxed and cajoled and pleaded with.  The students failed the very easy tests.

I've seen students disrespect their peers and their guides.  I've heard the "N" word more in one day than years outside.  Their leaders and school professionals do not get their attention or their interest.  They muddle through.  They are defined by apathy.  Apathy is their superpower and they are great at utilizing 

Teachers don't always use the best pedagogy.  Teachers are fighting this apathy and guess what, sometimes it's easier to fight apathy with a stick than it is to fight with the carrot.  The carrot takes a long time to prepare.  The stick doesn't.  They both take a lot of emotional energy.

Teachers don't always teach to all the modalities of learning and all of the seven different types of intelligence because they have to cover a large amount of content in their best modality and intelligence.  Guess what the students don't respond to any of them anyway.

Students sometimes couldn't be bothered to copy what the teacher writes on the board.  Look I did this.  And I analyzed their refusal based on certain premises.  First, maybe they thought that they wouldn't be graded on it.  Wrong.  I told them they would be.  Maybe they thought that that which was given freely was of little value.  Maybe, but 30% copied incorrectly.  Maybe they thought that succeeding in math was unnecessary because of social promotion that they had been experiencing several years of their school careers.

Students don't read their textbooks.  School textbooks are big business.  14 Billion dollars a year on school textbooks that aren't even read.  The teachers don't assign the students to read them.  Maybe they'll assign sections of the social studies and/or English Composition books.  A lot of schools have paid $10,000+ for class sets that are never assigned, books that aren't read cover to cover, and students who don't use technology to supplement their education.

Students have access to all the classes almost any college can offer.  They can read Wikipedia and other online materials all day everyday.  Students now have the ability to create, learn, experience, engage with, more sources of information, more teachers of skills, more experienced mentors than ever.

Students could go to school and learn four languages and three instruments and more information in one year than we used to learn in a decade before the internet, but they just don't.  They could watch teachers teach every section of knowledge imaginable from several different teachers and they can do all that without leaving bed.

Schools in America are terrible.  I know English, Aussies, South Africans, Korean, Russians, Ukrainians, Czechs, Pakistanis, and Thai.  Maybe a couple of other countries and they're not really much better than ours when you strip our incongruous disabled population.  But even if this is just about us.  American schools are bad.  Ask anyone.

But how good do they have to be?  What if the main thing we need to concentrate on is primary school?  Okay, lets say the the goal should be to learn and I mean MASTER a content test for all the information you should learn when you're in the 5th grade.  Now, spread the content of 5 years + Kinder out to say 8 years of schooling.

So if we concentrate on reading, writing, and arithmetic then you never let anyone graduate without getting that content.  Anyone doesn't want to pay attention and get that content.  They can go home.  Self-induced expulsion I call it.

What about High school?  I am well aware that there is a need for some students of every ethnicity, socioeconomic level, and gender to have the opportunity to try computer science, higher level math, chemistry, biology etc.  We must offer to find those who would make their careers in those fields, not to mention, those who would truly revolutionize those fields.  But need we offer it to everyone or just anyone?  Huge difference.  I posit that universal education is follows the proverb, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.  Education is on offer if you will but take it.  Teachers in a school with these expectations don't need to be as engaging, but still interesting and entertaining.  These educators are the people who are taking our best and brightest students and finding out if they are so.  The work should be challenging enough to see if they are passionate about the content and capable enough to succeed in the pursuit of a higher education.  Send all kids to school.  Kids get 5th grade educations by 8th grade.  Kids graduate or drop out.  Kids who graduate can attend these high schools.  High school is like college in this reality, demanding and difficult.  Maybe high school becomes collegiate, but you dabble in everything.  College becomes a place where you take 101 classes.  You take introductions.  You survey.

Students who do not graduate the 8th grade go to remedial high school.  This is a second chance to learn the content of the first 8 years.  This place has teachers that specialize in being engaging.  These teachers always follow best practices.  These teachers have small class sizes and may work with an aid for instructional.  These students are special needs(lower capabilities not severe disabilities), but aren't behavior issues.  Behavior issues don't go to school.

People who don't want preparatory college high school and didn't need remedial can begin to learn trades.  They can start working as bus boys, dishwashers, lawn mowers.  Start teaching them about compound interest in middle school and find them a job at 15 they can save $100/month doing.

Students who don't want to work or go to either kind of high school do not get welfare.  Now, here in lies a crux.  I think the welfare culture and the failing schools are connected.  I could be wrong.  I believe there are some in both industries fudging the numbers to change the perception, but this is my belief.  If the flow of benefits runs dry then I believe people, not all but most (95% is a guess), will go back to school or the work force.  Social security and SSI disability were supposed to be about 5% but now it's way higher.  I know Romney got destroyed for saying it was 47% on some sort of assistance; that seems legitimate if not precise.

Two reasons we NEED kids to graduate.  75% of crime in the US is committed by high school dropouts.  And a high school dropout will make $200,000 less over a working career than a graduate.  And a dropout is three times more likely to fall below the poverty line and be subsidized by the government.  It's in our economic interest to make them graduate.  And it's in out penal interest to make sure they earn it.

So there is my plan for a revolutionary education overhaul.  Be amazed.  It really was a lot of verbal mental diarrhea I've been thinking about since I really thought about what students needed to learn in high school.  And what they do, but don't.

I have decided to do this more often...again.  For some time now I've been caught up in trying to get a a job and not working on the kind of job I want to have. 

This year I've been a substitute teacher.  I've had more students this year than most teachers will have in a fifty year career.  I admit that I don't know these students as intimately as their teachers do.  However, not knowing them as intimately as their teachers also should afford me greater authority on the whole of education.  Shouldn't it?  I mean if we say I can't say things about any teachers kids that they can refute because they 'know them better.'  Shouldn't I be able to say things about the entire education system because I, 'know it better?' 

So this year I substitute taught at over 25 schools.  I spent more than one day at about 10.  I spent over two weeks at three.  One of the three long term jobs was kindergarten generalist.  One was Essential Academics (read severe disabilities), and one was as Educational Assistant (read teacher's aide for classrooms with a lot of special ed students at a high school.  All of my jobs span two districts and one private school.  I would have gone to Austin ISD, but at the time I told myself I should specialize so that fewer administrators got to know me better.

So hopefully I'm going to write several things I've learned about school.  Several meaning if I'm not lazy or forgetful than several others will follow.  I've learned them to be true from my experience.  Some other people could refute my experience with metadata.  And the first thing I've learned is...

1. Social promotion doesn't work.

I was with a teacher in her class.  It was a class for students who failed Algebra I and Algebra II.  We received to standardized tests from the district over the period of three weeks.  They were to diagnose low performance.  In one class of twenty.  Three worked on the test.  In one class of 25 three worked on the test seven or eight copied it with a level of stealth that I would describe as elephant ninja.  It didn't matter. 

The teacher took me through there scores from years past.  What she was doing was probably less than legal.  She showed me that they had all been failing math since the fifth and sixth grade.  They had kept failing and kept on moving on to the next section. 

Now they were taking this coarse to help them buff up their math skills to help them pass the STAAR exam to get their diploma.  The teacher felt like that was impossible.  How was she supposed to teach them Algebra I and II in a year when they couldn't learn it in two?  How could she get them to work when they hadn't worked, but had still been promoted?  How could she get them the skills they needed when they didn't know their times tables?  There was a hole of knowledge she couldn't get back to and around and catch up before their time was up and if she had the will the students didn't.

One day the teacher wasn't their.  I became normal substitute instead of just aide.  Homework was assigned.  The teacher told me to give it out and pick it up at the end of class.  With her permission I did ALL the problems on the board.  I wrote out all the problems and how to do them on the board.  I told them to copy.  The assignment wasn't worth a lot to their final, but it did affect it so why not copy.  In a class of 20, ten students handed in the assignment.  Only two got a hundred on the assignment.  In another class of 25 almost 20 turned the assignment in.  Ten got hundreds on the assignment.  I'm not sure which is scarier.  That so few could copy, or that some didn't even copy.  I didn't do this on the board because I wanted to know if they could copy.  I figured they'd retain some of the process if I did a lot of step checking and understanding checks.  It didn't.

A lot of these students will graduate.  I taught three sections of this class with the same teacher.  There were 65+ students.  The school graduates over 75% of the students who go all four years.  That means that some of the students who couldn't even be bothered to copy will walk the stage.  The school is graduating a lot of students so that it won't appear to 'leave children behind.'  But they're being left behind anyway.  Now they're left behind adults. 

Social promotion doesn't work.  It doesn't incentivize kids to achieve.  It doesn't incentivize them to work hard.  They just go to school and collect attendance (Which the school still cares deeply about because that's how they get paid).  The talk with their friends.  The don't learn.  If possible, a sport might pressure them to succeed, but how difficult is achievement in classes where all you have to do is copy the stuff off the board?

Now, there is also a lot of evidence that failing students doesn't work.  Did you know that?  There are white papers about it.  There are randomly selected test subjects in pools of thousands.  There are data sets and control groups and PhD's.  Wow! I'm convinced.  I read this for the first time in an Education Week article.  I did a double take.  Most of the teachers that I know don't think so.  I did a triple take.  I started doing some online research.  It's true.  There is evidence that this doesn't make students work harder.  Except for me.  And you.  And like every other kid of a particular generation before social promotion.  It isn't true.  Studies like this may have been done without polling.  But I studied harder to make sure I didn't fail.  I heard other students, friends and acquaintances say this.  These studies may be saying that it didn't work because some students still failed, but how many didn't because they feared failing.

And now the numbers are skewed.  There is no way in my mind that I can believe high schools are graduating only students who have achieved a satisfactory understanding of Texas essential knowledge and skills.  Colleges are agreeing with me since most have increased or invented for the first time remedial programs on campuses of higher learning.  Can you get the results that social promotion is working?  Yes, if you graduate students who haven't achieved.  My question for those schools is that diploma.  It is a certificate of achievement.  And how can we in good conscience certify that students have achieved all the requisite knowledge and skills if they haven't?

So.

Stop passing those who fail.  Maybe not all at once.  Maybe schools should for a very short period of time one to two years only fail the students who make below 50 rather than 60.  Later, when children will skip on party a month or one Netflix binge a week in order to not fail then you can reorder the amount of failings.  Give teachers a free pass to give to one student who they can certify tried but didn't succeed.  Let Principals give some out for extenuating circumstances.  Let kids go to summer school.  My way out is that you tailor the way out to each individual student.  I hate a solutions that are supposed to fit every student in every school in every city in every state.  I'm willing to admit failing doesn't always work as a disincentive.  If we can all admit that not leaving any child behind pushes some adults way too far ahead.

There's a very old quote, "If I advance, follow me.  If I retreat, cut me down.  If I fall, avenge me." Source unknown, but I've heard it was Napoleon.  This seems to me to be the single solution voice when the problems are legion.  There is no one size fits all.  There is not cookie cutter solutions.  We need all the tools.
 

Am I too nostalgic?

I'm trying to get a job as a teacher.  I also have a stepson who has teachers.  I also work at schools as a substitute and those schools...you guessed it, have teachers.  It may be that I'm hypersensitive to problems because of the job I want to have, or it could be that my problem is thinking about the past with rose-colored glasses.

Obviously that statement has a ton of different directions I could be taking this.  I'm talking about the two emails I sent to my kid's teachers last week.  Now school has been going on over nine weeks and this is the first time we've talked to them.  And we initiated the communication.  However, we initiated the conversation because of some small issues.  In truth, we still haven't contacted his other teachers because we only call if he has a 'B.'

Obviously, my aggravation should be seen in light of my failure to get a job.  But, I told myself in grad school that when I was a teacher I would contact.  One reason is because the only calls my parents ever got from the school is when I had misbehaved.  I hated that.  I hate it now.  My parents could have gotten a short call every time I got honor roll.  School could have called to tell them that I was voted to be Key Club president and I wasn't even Catholic.  But no.  Do you think my wife got a call to tell her parents that she was top ten in her school?  No.

I wanted to be different because if you need to have your student's parents increase their investment in their child's education then you would have to invest in your relationship.  And in a lot of schools I know this is a changing principle in America.  I know a lot of elementary school teachers contact parents every six weeks.  I think that's great.  I know that when I was in Korea I called all of my students twice every quarter and gave them a little over the phone quiz and then their Korean teacher would discuss these and other results with their parents.  That was a lot, but it was private school.  We were expected to be in closer contact.  Public schools seem to be expecting more communication.  One of those things that teachers are expected to do above and beyond teaching like discipline, life skills, nutrition, manners, phonics, and teamwork.

So how much communication is good enough?  I think a short call to the parents once a six weeks and a form letter/news letter home every week to the family isn't asking a ton.  Specific e-mails about strengths their students have would also be great.  I've always dreamed about having a picnic at a park on a Saturday and inviting all my student's families.  I like the idea of making the class/teacher relationship more communal and less professional.  I feel like that's something we've lost.

Now, there is this meme/cartoon of the difference between education in the seventies and today.  In one box the parents are standing with the teacher and yelling at the student, 'What are you going to do about these grades?'  In the other box the same words are being shouted at the teacher by the parents.  Have you seen that cartoon?  Does that match your perception?  Isn't this losing a professional respect for what the teacher does?  Is this what's wrong with our educational system?



But wait didn't I say we've lost the communal to the more professional?  Yes.  I do think we've lost a certain amount of respect for the work of societies professional teachers.  But I think we gained that appreciation after we lost the teachers' communal investment in the society and life of children.  This may sound a little pie-in-the-sky-ish, but a long time before teachers were professionals weren't they a part of our society?  Before there were unions they were paid by the parents and the parents had input.  Teachers used to be allowed to participate in corporal punishment because they were so closely tuned with the disciplinary system of the the parents. Later on their professionalism didn't allow that closeness.

Now, I'm not saying professionalism was bad.  These days we're expecting more holistic education.  These days we demand more inclusion.  These days everyone has their own "special" education.  We're making modifications and specifications and teaching to standardized tests.  We're putting square pegs into round holes.  We've cut out professionalism and replaced it with post-modernism.  We cut out cold hard facts and shoved in amorphous feeling-based modules.  We're creating a peacock of education.  This is a mosaic approach to education that we used to think was possible when we had parents communicating with teachers.

However, I may not have my historical principles correct.  I may be too nostalgic about the past.  I may see a lot of genuine community when there really was underpaid, badly-treated teachers misused and disrespected by their local communities.  Maybe I'm miss-remembering rural communities graduating high school students who couldn't read.  Maybe I'm miss-remembering state hospital lobotomizing an Asperger's Syndrome that we'd give daily inclusion to.

So if you read this and you have an idea about community and professionalism please comment.  If you have an opinion about how much communication is good then leave a comment about how often you'd like a teacher to communicate with you about your kids.  Maybe you would like to delineate between fair and unfair expectations between primary and secondary education.  Do it?  Would you go have a hot dog picnic with your kids if your kid's teacher invited you one Saturday a semester?