Theres the key!!!
How can we make kids in high school and grade school appreciate and realize that they should want to be there for their own benefit in the long run?
It can be done better than we are doing. We don't explain the benefits to them enough IMO. We just tell them simple things like its for your own good. Blah Blah Blah but they don't really understand. If we can get to them this point then we can change a lot of attitudes in them.
It becomes quite obvious to the student as soon as college admission is attempted.
Bad grades? - You cant go to the college school you wanted to go to
Really bad grades? - You cant go to college at all.
Really good grades ? - Colleges will be fighting themselves for you
And this is all without parents even being part of the discussion. So when kids are really young I think we need to do better at explaining the long term repercussions to where they want to be there.
Its too simplistic with the "you cant do this or you cant do that". I don't think kids really understand why they are being told these rules.
This is one area where we could improve and have the kids helping themselves and behaving better because they want to. Not because they are being forced to.
I know its much simpler said than done and I do think certain parents or lack thereof is partly to blame in a lot of cases.
BBM. Good post, Hatfield-- and I really understand your frustration.
For myself, I don't really think it's possible for schools to "fill in" that gap for some of our most socially vulnerable kids. WE can't make "them" want it.There is so much to do in the school day just to teach the K-5 kids to read and do basic math-- there isn't much time left for positive affirmations except as a "drive by" technique, or stickers on their papers-- and it seems like it's too late by middle school or high school. The teachers do the best they can, but they have a pretty big task on their plate, and a big class.
Honestly, for most of these kids, my hope and dream is just THAT they can somehow graduate from high school, so that they have the best chance of becoming at least sporadically employed, a taxpayer, and off the welfare rolls. I think that is a big enough mountain to climb for many of them-- just get them to graduate high school.
I spend a fair amount of time reading, interpreting, and analyzing school test scores, and looking at graduation rates, etc, for some of the committees I'm on, and participating in "what" should be done differently to improve these numbers and trends in our area. I absolutely hate that I've gotten to the point that I don't see college or post secondary preparation as a realistic, viable option for a fairly large swath of "at risk" youth-- despite increasing mandates from the state to prepare all kids for college and post secondary. It's just not even in their dreams-- they can't even comprehend an adult in their environment with a steady job, or one who doesn't have a criminal record. Kids who most of the adults they know regularly take drugs. We're talking kids in foster care, kids punted back and forth in divorce situations, kids with a parent who is mentally ill and untreated, kids who are homeless, unwanted by any adults in their environment, kids who sleep where ever they can find a sofa and someone willing to feed them, etc. Little kids who have never had a balanced meal or a bedtime in their entire lives, and never once had an adult read to them. Kids who don't know any adults in their family environment who speak English fluently, or are even literate in their native language. Unwanted, unloved, unparented, angry, defiant, despondent kids who are just trying to get thru one day at a time, and looking for the easiest way to get something material.
Mostly, there are a huge number of kids whose parents are just
absent in their lives-- their relationship with a parent AT BEST is like their relationship with a bus driver or sales clerk-- it's not a nurturing, parent/ child bond. And I just don't think the school system can "fix"
any of that in 6 hours a day. They have to go back to their crappy environments, with their absent parent/s, and the social messages they absorb there are SCREAMED at them non-stop. A lot of these kids have problems (attitude, self worth, lack of ambition, resentment, angry, entitlement, etc) that are just far worse than any school or any caring teacher can ever hope to "fix".
So, the best we can hope to do, IMO, for the kids with the worst behavior issues and social situations, is just to set limits and expectations, rules, for being in the school environment, and do our best to enforce them without encouraging violence among the students, or staff. Contain them for 6 hours a day. Offer the opportunity for an education, knowing most may not care. Encourage them as we can, and maybe hope to reach one or two. But realize none of it probably matters in the big scheme of things-- we aren't making them better people or better citizens. We can't change their environment outside of the 6 hours of school. We're just marking time-- babysitting many of these kids. You can't instill a work ethic, or delayed gratification, or appreciation, in kids with this kind of background. IMO.
It's depressing, and admittedly I've done a 180 from being an ivory tower optimist, to mostly pessimistic, over the last 20 years. I hate that we can't rescue these kids out of their crappy environments with their absent parents, when they are still young enough to make a difference.
(Sorry for the rant. )
