Red Robin said:
TSR said:
Schools can't solve society's problems. You get society's problems (drugs,divorce, etc) solved/improved and you'll see a drastic improvement, in the meantime put the blame elsewhere.
Schools have kids 1/3 of the time, they sleep 1/3 of the time and parents have them 1/3 of the time. Schools deserve some of the blame as well as the parents.
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! (On the 1/3 of the time part. Not necessarily the blame part)
Schools have kids from 8 am to 3 pm. That is seven hours of instructional time per day. They have kids 178 days/year. That means they are under a school districts care 14.22% of the year. EVEN if you included the bus time of another hour per day, that increases to only 16.25% of the year.
What is wrong with our children's ability to learn? How about both parents HAVING to work in today's society? How about allowing our children to drink alcohol in our homes. The excuse being "at least we know where they are." Children's brains continue to develop until they are 20-21 years old and alcohol use kills some brain cells in their brain that NEVER regrow. Thus, that part of their reasoning skills are lost. That is why the national drinking age is set at 21 years.
If children do NOT learn good behavior by the time they are two years old, they will have a hard time EVER learning good behavior. Thus, their habits are set BEFORE they reach a teacher.
Our school district implemented a "mandatory" home work policy. If you do not turn in your homework when it is due, you get a zero. Parents call and complain about this and my response (as a board member) is "why are you telling your child they do NOT have to do homework. If they do their homework, their grades and test scores will improve. Besides, it is their job to do their homework." I usually get either no response or they get disgusted and hang up.
I saw one response above that stated they had 11 suicides in their area. In our area, we have had 11 deaths in two weeks within 60 miles of home. Five were related to speeding, 5 were driving and drinking, and one was a kid who was at an alcohol party and thought the cops were raiding the house, so he ran away. He had no coat or shoes and they found him froze to death the next morning.
Do NOT blame the teachers for all our ills. Yes, it would be nice to get rid of some teachers who are simply putting in their time, but those teachers are few and far between. 98% of our staff are a very dedicated and able staff.
You want to fix our education system. Well, let's fix our social security and health care ills at the same time. FIRST, congress pays into social security and their pensions are eliminated. SECOND, congress pays their own health care. THIRD, ALL children of federal and state elected officials MUST send their kids to public schools.
Do this and beleive me, you will see a DRASTIC change in in those three above areas. Why should congress care about those three things IF THEY DO NOT AFFECT THEM?
Thanks for letting me vent. I see the problem too, RR, but there are MANY more factors affecting today's children than just the teachers.