<p>And of course, missing in the discussion is the acknowledgement that students have some responsibility in the education process and forgetting on an old saying…“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him/her drink”. </p>
<p>One issue I’ve been having with discussions about US K-12 is the tendency of most participants in the mass media and even here on cc to effectively absolve students and/or their parents of any responsibility for their part in the mess. IMHO, that’s unreasonable and wrong.</p>
<p>I have not seen that. Other than here on CC, I have only heard claims that it is all the parents’ fault.</p>
<p>The $64K question is: Do you think that students can be successfully educated without any assistance whatsoever from their parents? </p>
<p>I think they can (and I think xiggi thinks they can). Aside from actual subject matter knowledge, I have observed my child learn behavior modifications from teachers and his school. At school he was taught to shake hands with adults and ask “how do you do?” I think this is proper behavior, but it was not something I took the time to teach him myself, so I was pleasantly surprised. He was taught not to speak without raising his hand and being acknowledged, and taught not to “sigh” and roll his eyes and look bored when the teacher was speaking. Those are just a few examples.</p>
<p>It is the teacher’s job to teach his/her students how to behave at school. If this is not happening, then teachers should be blaming the teachers in the grade levels below them.</p>
<p>I think it can happen but that it’s very rare. I think most kids need engaged parents who care about something besides sports and who will invite their kid to prom. Most middle class college educated parents I’ve known really just care about how their kids do in sports and who they will go to prom with.</p>
<p>^Ok, but what I am asking is, given that apparently most parents do not care enough about their childrens’ educations, then is any effort at all to teach these children a lost cause? Or should we be looking for a different model of education that does not rely on parental participation because it <em>is</em> possible for kids to learn without their parents, but not under the current system that relies so much on parental participation?</p>
<p>Not really. It is primarily the parent’s/guardian’s job to properly socialize them to the point that they learned how to behave by the time they start first grade. The teacher’s job is to reinforce those teachings in the course of the school day. </p>
<p>A student with parents holding the quoted assumptions who misbehaved on the first day of kindergarten or first grade wouldn’t have been tolerated at the Catholic schools I’ve attended. </p>
<p>Sometimes, the level of strictness in first grade was taken to extremes as even fidgeting was considered sufficient grounds to be brought to the principal’s office and parents being called in and warned for the student to not repeat the behavior at the risk of being expelled. While there was no rapping of the knuckles with the ruler as was the case with older generations of students, they still had what most here would consider extremely strict behavior standards for elementary kids…even those in kindergarten or first grade. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the classroom environment was much better for learning than the comparatively greater chaotic classrooms which I heard prevailed at my local public elementary school and saw firsthand even at a supposedly academically above-average public middle school. </p>
<p>This was another factor in why I took the exam to get into my public magnet rather than risk being assigned to my local zoned high school which was not only rated one of the worst at the time for academic performance…but also for violent crime like knifing by violent students. </p>
<p>Do people seriously expect teachers to be able to teach when their students are not only violently disruptive to the point no lessons could happen, but also to the point the students/teachers are mainly thinking about how they’re going to survive another day without being violently beaten, stabbed, or possibly even shot?</p>
<p>Bay, I feel it’s not so much parental participation as it is in providing the environment like love, food, shelter, safety, and values like the importance of the 3Rs. For the latter I mean, if the only thing our schools taught was rap music, but it was mandatory, the message my kids would have received from us (and their peers in our social circle) would have been to do as little as possible, and spend their time in what we considered was worthwhile.</p>
<p>Wow. If schools are allowing this type of environment to exist, then they should be sued and closed and their administrators should be jailed for endangering the lives of teachers and students.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that’s the reality at many public schools. If TPTB actually followed that suggestion, then most of the poorest inner-city and some rural/suburban schools…including some well-off ones would be closed own and outcries would be made about lack of available neighborhood/town public schools in the area. </p>
<p>Incidentally, one upper-middle class suburban public school system in the Midwest is still trying to legally appeal to allow a violent convict who violently attacked a client’s granddaughter back into their system despite two judges ruling successively that he’s too violent to be allowed back into the general school population. </p>
<p>Thank goodness she’s graduated this past summer. However, it makes me wonder about the idiocy of that suburban town’s local school board/admins, that felon’s parents, and the possible “good ole’ boy/girl network” that’s probably in play here.</p>
<p>Man can’t live on anecdotes alone.
What riles me is that folks want to finger one simple blame point. Usually, seems they blame the parents (usually minority or lower SES, which does strike me as a little dicey and full of assumptions) or it’s the kids in the neighborhood. Often, it’s teachers. Or unions. (Or liberals.)</p>
<p>I don’t think we (as a country) are clear on what the right goals are and how best to serve a huge population of kids with huge sub-cultural differences in a geographically huge country.</p>
<p>I posted those anecdotes to counter a seemingly common narrative that it’s mostly/all the teachers’ fault. I’m trying to illustrate that it’s stretching it to hold them accountable for factors out of their control such as violent neighborhoods/students, neglectful parents, willfully lazy/disengaged students, litigation-adverse school admins/schoolboards, a societal culture which disdains anyone who’s an academic achiever or “smart”, effects of poverty, etc. </p>
<p>Moreover, I mentioned parents and students because in most discussion of US K-12 problems in the mass media and sometimes even here on cc, it seems everyone piles on the teachers while little/no mention is made about the responsibility of the parents and the students…especially the students who seen to get what IMHO is an undeserved free pass.</p>
<p>Pseudo-liberals equate critical thinking with liberal thinking. </p>
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<p>I am not so sure. I am a true liberal, even in the Canadian sense of the word. Sewhappy strikes me as a true conservative. We actually have a lot (of values) in common. </p>
<p>BTW, I still can not understand why the US k-12 system is so poor. We happen to have one of the best in the world. At least on the surface we are not that different to each other. What gives?</p>
<p>We are quite different. The population of your entire country is smaller than that of just one of our states (California), with different demographics and immigration rates/origins/policies.</p>
<p>I do think that our media and cell phones, texting, video games, mtv, trashy/stupid music and movies and shows, the great huge garbage pile of what we just think of as “media” plays a big role in dumbing down our whole population, and especially kids. </p>
<p>But that said, I’d never want to regulate media in any sense. </p>
<p>We have bad parents and bad teachers, I think, largely as a result of the relentless idiotic media feed.</p>
<p>So I guess I view this in Darwinian terms. Some will limit their exposure to the junk and limit their kids’ exposure to the junk, read a diversity of material, avoid the herd mentality when it comes to formulating views. They will have a good shot of prospering in the society and they will rise. And then they will pay a lot of taxes. The Great Circle of Life.</p>
<p>It was a bad choice of words if taken literally. At the risk of shutting down discussion, let me put it this way: Some majors are content heavy and sequential. These are mostly STEM subjects but not only STEM subjects. If these courses are not closely affiliated with the human condition, I can see how students in these programs can become too busy to develop critical thinking if left to their own device.</p>
<p>This is my interpretation of CLA anyway. Any other opinion is appreciated.</p>
<p>Bay-I can see how your explanation can make sense with students in the lower half of the curve, but starbright was talking about the top 5%.</p>
<p>Sewhappy- Our students are also influenced by what you described. I am also certain it has an impact on student performance…but why should it affect your students more?</p>