school/ child/parent reform
I have often stated that my experiances taching school have been hellish, and that I belive a large part of this is the fualt of the fact that in our educational system rights are not paired with resoponsibilites. teachers bear 100% of accountablity though they have virtually no power over any of the natural consequences of a students preformance aside from a grade which is largly meaningless usnless the student has a larger direct context.
Because we have a priniciple that anyone should be able to pursue any path in adulthood that they choose we no longer have apprenticship style education where young people learn thier futer profession by assiting older members of that profession. In terms of devolpmental psycology that form of education is actually best as it provides real and constant renforcement of the necessity of each skill learned. In middle school many students do not grasp the necessity of general eduaction, and I have even had students complaine about learning so general a task as typing. Further our desire to encourage students leads to many studnets going though these years with wildly imporobable career goals of sports or musical stardom.
A frequent teacher's relply to reluctant learners is to remeber that school is thier job, and they should treat it as one. Students have a tendancy to reply to this wit a few unerstandable responses:
"If this is my job, why aren't I getting paid?" The reply that they are being paid in learing and skills falls on deaf ears
"If this is a job, I want to quit" of course that is not an option they currently have.
I came up with a solution to each of these that Dreamingkat objected to. My solution was that students be allowed to "quit" thier "job" but that a parent's child tax cerdit be tied to the child remaining in school. I seemed to me that this would allow a teacher to tell a student that they Were in fact getting paid, that the govenrment paid their families x amount of money for thier remainign is school. Dreamingkat objected to this saying tht many parents would find it more profitable to whore out or sell thier childern in that instance. I still cannot determine why having the money tied to the child's education makes this more likely than otherwise. If a parent were minded to do such a thing it is easy enough to claim I child has been kidnoped or run away, and it will be more profitable now as well.
However it has caused me to continue thinking about this. My current plan would involve a recourse eventually to state run boarding school. Basically I have a student who has been kicked out of 10 schools in 8 years due to his behavior. the family is of no help in correcting the problem. there should be a limit to the nuber of times a student can be transfered between schools or commit procecuteable offenses without consequence.
I propose that all schools be entitled to press charges for any criminal offense that occures on thier campuses. If a studnet is convicted of more than 3 charges ina juvinale court s/he should be sent to a state run boarding school. there should be limits to what that student is allowed to bring from home. A family whose child is in a boarding shool should lose the child credit for that child for the year and be assesd child support payments payable to the state every month the child is in the school. Further a student who fails a grade due to a failure on thier part to particiapate in class and due the work assinged to them, or due to excessive truancy, should be sent to a state school for the first semseter of the following school year, with the family to lose half thier tax credit and to pay the child support while the student is in the state school.
Inside the school acess to amusements such as TV and video games can be controlled so that students do not have access until thier homework is completed and acsess could be deined by a teacher as a disciplinary measure for in class behavior. With a proper computer network a teacher's lesson plans, including the persance or abcense of homework woulod be avalible based on each student's class assingment. and the school could have a bank of approved alternate assingnments that cold be pulled for a student who failed to participate during school to complete as extra homework.
Life at these schools would likely inclued enough loss of genreal privilages, freedom and diversions to make the students hartily wish to avoid the places, and the finacial obligation that accompany them should be a large enough detrimatne to the parents that parents whould work harder for thier own parts to assure that thier childern worked in school and recived approriate feedback at home regarding the importance of school.
Because we have a priniciple that anyone should be able to pursue any path in adulthood that they choose we no longer have apprenticship style education where young people learn thier futer profession by assiting older members of that profession. In terms of devolpmental psycology that form of education is actually best as it provides real and constant renforcement of the necessity of each skill learned. In middle school many students do not grasp the necessity of general eduaction, and I have even had students complaine about learning so general a task as typing. Further our desire to encourage students leads to many studnets going though these years with wildly imporobable career goals of sports or musical stardom.
A frequent teacher's relply to reluctant learners is to remeber that school is thier job, and they should treat it as one. Students have a tendancy to reply to this wit a few unerstandable responses:
"If this is my job, why aren't I getting paid?" The reply that they are being paid in learing and skills falls on deaf ears
"If this is a job, I want to quit" of course that is not an option they currently have.
I came up with a solution to each of these that Dreamingkat objected to. My solution was that students be allowed to "quit" thier "job" but that a parent's child tax cerdit be tied to the child remaining in school. I seemed to me that this would allow a teacher to tell a student that they Were in fact getting paid, that the govenrment paid their families x amount of money for thier remainign is school. Dreamingkat objected to this saying tht many parents would find it more profitable to whore out or sell thier childern in that instance. I still cannot determine why having the money tied to the child's education makes this more likely than otherwise. If a parent were minded to do such a thing it is easy enough to claim I child has been kidnoped or run away, and it will be more profitable now as well.
However it has caused me to continue thinking about this. My current plan would involve a recourse eventually to state run boarding school. Basically I have a student who has been kicked out of 10 schools in 8 years due to his behavior. the family is of no help in correcting the problem. there should be a limit to the nuber of times a student can be transfered between schools or commit procecuteable offenses without consequence.
I propose that all schools be entitled to press charges for any criminal offense that occures on thier campuses. If a studnet is convicted of more than 3 charges ina juvinale court s/he should be sent to a state run boarding school. there should be limits to what that student is allowed to bring from home. A family whose child is in a boarding shool should lose the child credit for that child for the year and be assesd child support payments payable to the state every month the child is in the school. Further a student who fails a grade due to a failure on thier part to particiapate in class and due the work assinged to them, or due to excessive truancy, should be sent to a state school for the first semseter of the following school year, with the family to lose half thier tax credit and to pay the child support while the student is in the state school.
Inside the school acess to amusements such as TV and video games can be controlled so that students do not have access until thier homework is completed and acsess could be deined by a teacher as a disciplinary measure for in class behavior. With a proper computer network a teacher's lesson plans, including the persance or abcense of homework woulod be avalible based on each student's class assingment. and the school could have a bank of approved alternate assingnments that cold be pulled for a student who failed to participate during school to complete as extra homework.
Life at these schools would likely inclued enough loss of genreal privilages, freedom and diversions to make the students hartily wish to avoid the places, and the finacial obligation that accompany them should be a large enough detrimatne to the parents that parents whould work harder for thier own parts to assure that thier childern worked in school and recived approriate feedback at home regarding the importance of school.