Sep 07 2007
The bottom line: schools cannot do it all
Jamie Vollmer – Burden on Public Schools
I found my way to Jamie Vollmer’s website by way of Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog. Our schools truly are expected to do it all for kids. Some of my students don’t have parents who care enough to send them to school clean and fed each day. It’s depressing to see how kids come to school. Some are dropped off here when their parents go to work—if it’s 7am, they’re dropped off before that and then they get to sit outside the building and wait until the cafeteria opens for breakfast or until the first bell rings at 8:10.
Some of my students have wonderful parents who can (and do!) give their children everything. In fact, the class size for some of our “enriched” students was so large that parents complained: to the principal, the department chair, the assistant superintendent, and finally the superintendent. Guess what? The district hired a retiree to come in and teach an additional section so the class size could be smaller. Isn’t that great? But, what about those kids whose parents DON’T advocate for smaller classes for their child? The ones who could really benefit from more attention are not going to get it. The ones who’ll be successful no matter who teaches or how many kids are in the class are going to get it because their parents pushed for it.
It’s sad. Read through Vollmer’s discussion of the changes in public education since 1900. It’s amazing the number of roles that schools and teachers have assumed in the transformation of a student from young child to (hopefully!) responsible adult. I wish that there was more that I could do personally to help my students whose parents aren’t as involved or concerned with their child’s education. But you know what? Teachers can’t do it all—we need the help of parents and a community who sees the value in public education and is willing to fund smaller class sizes, newly adopted textbooks, well stocked libraries, and to invest in these kids future. They’re priceless. We need to raise them to become responsible, productive members of society, but it takes more than teachers to do it—parents and the community at large need to value education.
Vollmer’s also created a word “nostesia” to describe the condition that is summed up by folks comments like “In my day….” He says nostesia is “a mind altering mixture of 50% nostalgia and 50% amnesia.” Many of the people who complain about education are suffering from this disease—at our open house the other night, I heard many parents “remembering” how things were when they were in school and what they did and didn’t do or learn or act like. I think I’ll be keeping my eye on Jamie’s site and sharing it with my colleagues.
