interesting

[soccervark]

I go this from my mom. Personal experience at UCLA and also knowing people who have siblings still in high school or people who are teaching in high school etc leads me to believe this is a huge problem. I'm not saying the "traditional" factors for poor classwork aren't also present, but I'd definately agree that they aren't the only things.

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Comments

[drucat]

I get that discipline is the answer, but then the question is why that. More working parents is a reasonable answer, but it's not like they can not work, and it's not precisely the kids fault in that cause (until they're old enough to be more responsible for their actions).
I do agree that there are tons of people in college not showing up for class or doing any work at all, but then there are also plenty of people who are - I mean, look at everyone at Pomona - I didn't know a lot of people there who were just phoning it in. But yes. The "tell me what I need to know" people do drive me nuts.
My point is, it's complicated, and that article and other similar explanations to me oversimplify into "blame the lazy kids" or "blame the absent parents," when really the whole thing is vastly more complicated and involves families where both parents have to work and schools where the teachers are underpaid or have too many students and probably television and the internet and tons of other things. I just think the author of that article was saying "blame a lack of work ethic", which is fine, yeah, it certainly explains everything, but when you refuse to go any further than that, it becomes a useless explanation.
For example, in some families both parents work and the kids still have good discipline and work hard and do well. In some families they don't and they kids don't. Not all parental guilt over being absent leads to permissive parenting. Not all permissive parenting leads to kids who don't try in school. Not all people who have no self discipline don't care or have a bad attitude or think they don't need to do work to do well. etc.
Blarg. All I am saying is writers like that have a point, but the reason other causes are focused on is because finding someone to blame is kind of useless and also really oversimplification... but I do understand your frustration as a TA, as I'm sure you understand my frustration as a student (I don't want to spend class time being told what the reading said).

[soccervark]

i agree that it is not the only answer to the problem. the article mentioned the other theories (eg, class size and lack of money) and didn't touch on them because the have been analyzed for years. and that's the point of the article, is that there is obviously something else we need to think about because what we've thought of before hasn't helped. i also agree that both parents working shouldn't necesarily mean that kids have no discipline. i'm kinda wondering (and this is all wondering, no evidence) if there is a cycle, like our parents were super disciplined and so in turn they try to not discipline as much, and then we will discipline more because we wish we had it or something like that. a sort of generational thing. this is obviously a very complex problem with lots of different parts, and the parts aren't the same for each kid, which is part of it all being complicated. i guess one reason i agree with the article comes from my mom's programs. she's worked for over 25 years, starting with gang kids in la and moving on to the more affluent schools where "they don't have kids who do poorly (yeah becuase they kick them out, but that's a differnt topic), that tend to be the ones who don't do well. why don't they do well? lots of reason, sure. but the ones that are able to turn around and do well do so because they aren't given a choice. things aren't made easier for them, they are told that this is what they have to do (and often in the case of the kids in her programs, the choice is do well or go to juvi or something like that). and there are plenty who still don't do well, but the ones who do don't say "thanks for being nice to me", they say "thanks for believing in me and thanks for kicking butt". not making it easier, but making them do better.