Steve, this is the standard "cop out" for the educational establishment. When parents complain their kids are not getting a good education, blame them.
I wouldn't know about that: I have nothing to do with the educational establishment. I do know that no school can succeed if the majority of parents do not provide the necessary disciplinary foundation and educational support.
I'm a parent, and I know very well what my responsibilities are and what those of the schools are. I look at the problems in the US, and I blame the parents.
I've had a lot of contact with teachers at International schools here, most of whom are refugees from American public schools. The consistent complaint is that teaching has been reduced to behaviour management. What they say is that a class where 10% or fewer of the kids have behaviour problems can be managed. Push that figure up beyond 20%, and nobody will learn anything. No form of in-school discipline, from the stick to the feelings couch, will have any success if the parents have not built the necessary social foundation. The schools end up drugging the kids to keep the classes from turning into bedlam. Awful solution, but what are they supposed to do?
My kids used to attend an international school with kids of 20+ nationalities. The American kids - and these are affluent kids - were 20% of the student body and 95% of the discipline problems. A large percentage of the American kids were supposedly suffering from ADD/ADHD. I talked to the parents of the Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean, Singaporean kids (whose contribution to the disciplinary troubles was right around 0%), and none of them had ever even heard of these things. It's not the media: their kids watch the same TV shows.
I spent a good deal of time observing and thinking, and the only difference I can see is the style of parenting. |
