STUDENTS AND ALL OF US THRIVE WITH HONEST FEEDBACK

STUDENTS AND ALL OF US THRIVE WITH HONEST FEEDBACK

By Domenick Maglio PhD. Traditional Realist

In our cultural drive to reach equality in our society, we have delegitimized hard work and honest feedback. This has taken place foremost in our public schools on both ends of the academic spectrum. Lazy students are not pushed to work hard and competitive students are rarely awarded for exceptional academic excellence. Educators are being taught not to establish high expectations and standards or frankly report a student’s progress since the child’s self concept might suffer.

A student that does well with little effort should not strive to be even better as it would result in too much anxiety and widen the academic gap between students. High achieving students would create an atmosphere of tension and generate jealousy among his classmates. According to this convoluted thinking, to develop a cooperative classroom and school climate educators should blur the difference between students not accentuate it.

Students with little enthusiasm for school should be allowed to work as little as they desire. Grades are de-emphasized by giving high grades to everyone so a winner-loser mentality is not created. Dumbing down standards in this strategy makes everyone equally contented although it lowers the performance.

Compared to other countries student performance in our schools does not bode well for our future. Yet, educational “experts” are persistent in focusing on children’s feelings rather than performance. They believe the lack of significant learning and inflating grades can easily hide performance. The parents are hoodwinked into believing their child is doing well. This easy adjustment of the grades does make all students temporarily feel good. This is supposed to strengthen their self-esteem even when the student’s effort is mediocre.

We are witnessing in youth sports the same modern cultural thinking that everyone has to be treated equally on the team regardless of their dedication or athletic ability. Everyone plays regardless of effort or talent. In many of the games there is no score kept so as not to hurt anyone's feelings if they did not win.

 America's greatness has not been derived from being equally complacent but from individuals who have the freedom and opportunity to work hard to earn their dreams. Noting failure is essential to learn to be strong enough to bounce back from defeat and become a winner. These lessons prepare a person to deal with real life situations. 

In our recent past, when a student did well, he earned privileges but when he failed to do his best, he lost them in school. His parents would give him another dose of even more bitter medicine once he arrived home. Everyone was on the same page of the importance of trying to do one’s best.

Appropriate consequences administered by a dedicated teacher motivates students to work toward their optimal academic level. Before this foolhardy high self-esteem phenomenon, there was no fear on the part of the teacher to honestly evaluate students.  Not only because it was a true reflection of the student's competence in the subject areas but parents wanted to know the truth about their children to assist them. This has changed.

Today student’s high grades on the report card allows for bragging rights to friends and family. Parents want to stick “My Child is on the Honor Role” on the back of their car to display to everyone what good parents they are. They do not want to understand that high grades do not insure or even mean their child is learning as much as he could. Without valid assessments, high standards and expectations no one can determine where they rank amongst their peers. 

Teachers are instrumental in assisting students in learning specific ways they can improve or point out when the student did improve. This honest input from the teacher, parent and peers built momentum for the student's progress to the top. Student's positive actions may be annoying to peers who do not make good choices to improve discipline although it may inspire them to try harder to achieve. Once students see the real benefits to being a winner/a better student, the classroom dynamics change inspiring everyone to try and do his best.

As in any organization the elimination of appropriate consequences in school creates mediocrity. American taxpayers deserve better results than year after year excuses for our educational stagnation. We are stalled in the back of the educational rankings of developed nations. We should stop imposing elaborate and impractical policies from the bureaucratic top and allow teachers to develop and implement procedures from the bottom up. The more these classroom policies are created by the local administration and teachers the more likely they would be enthusiastically implemented.

Teachers should be empowered to be honest with students, parents and administration. We need to decentralize power in our schools and return it to the hands of the teachers. Our schools need to reestablish legitimate and meaningful consequences in the classrooms to energize our educational system and motivate students to be the best they can be.

Dr. Maglio is a columnist carried by various newspapers, an author of several books and owner/director of Wider Horizons School, a college prep program. You can visit Dr. Maglio at www.drmaglio.blogspot.com.

WEAKENING AND WARPING THE MINDS OF CHILDREN

WEAKENING AND WARPING THE MINDS OF CHILDREN

By Domenick J. Maglio, PhD. Traditional Realist

Our modern culture is producing weak, confused and overly sexualized children. They are not learning morals, the work ethic, respect for others and the skills to become more self-reliant.  When they are chronologically ready to leave the nest they balk using every excuse under the sun. Currently 6 million Americans between the ages of 16-24 are neither in school or working. They are not doing anything to establish future opportunities. Many of our modern youngsters are unwilling or unable to become adults.

When young adults are offered an opportunity often they complain they are entitled to better ones or are unwilling to deal with the hassles of establishing themselves in a new position. Jonathan Martin, a lineman with the Miami Dolphins is claiming harassment and bullying by a teammate. Hazing freshman players and physical violence are part of his profession that pays millions of dollars to play a game.  The majority of the Dolphin players do not agree with his allegations. These men have first hand knowledge that no one should be coddled in the gladiator world of football.

We are raising weak adults because we are shielding them as children from the hard knocks of reality. Instead children are bombarded with non reality posing as reality.  They are confused about expectations that authority figures have for them. Adults pretending to be perennial adolescents, video games, “reality tv”, sexualized or violent commercials and social media where people self-promote by falsifying their lives have replaced the truth.

Our children are turning away from personal friendships, family, God and towards celebrity worship and cyberspace’s superficial fantasy relationships. They are not learning social and emotional skills needed to deal with normal human interaction. The script of maturing is not being passed down from parent to child. The impact on our children is devastating.

We feel sorry for our children instead of making them strong and accountable for their actions. Parents are the most powerful offenders in not relating and enforcing societal standards and expectations for their children.  They are not there to teach social and emotional techniques to deal with everyday incidents.

There often is no one teaching the child to use words to protect himself from verbal harassment .  Rarely in unsupervised social situations do children have an opportunity to learn from other children how to protect themselves from put-downs.  The old “sticks and stones will break my bones” and “I’m rubber and you’re glue” phrases of childhood gave a child weapons to repel obnoxious kid-talk now called “bullying.” 

The zero tolerance for bullying in our public schools makes it easier for the administration by eliminating the need for a timely and extensive investigation. It does not teach anyone a moral lesson. It does not determine what actually happened. By treating the perpetrator and the victim the same the likelihood of future abuse by the bully increases.  When the abused individual courageously stands up to defend himself he is not encouraged but is victimized again by receiving the same consequences as the instigator. This is a short-sighted policy that does not do anything to build better character it undermines the process. 

Now children supposedly have to be protected from facing defeat making them weaker. The “No One Loses Policy” in sports activities, inflated grades in school, or lack of punishment for making harmful decisions to self and others are preventing our children from learning to overcome adversity. Children are not to face psychological or physical pain. They are supposed to be protected by parents and society from being confronted with the normal difficulties of growing up.

Simultaneously our culture is exposing our children to overwhelming temptations at an earlier and earlier age in the mass and social media. Natural situations where children can teach other children the importance of being strong are eliminated.  Being chauffeured from one adult supervised extra curricular activity to another disadvantages our youngsters.  They are not allowed to fend for themselves to become strong independent people.

Parents are in a bind. They should protect their children from the cultural invasion of trash into the minds of their offspring. On the other hand they have to have faith in their children’s strength and ability to fight their own battles. The media culture is becoming more deviant and more difficult to supervise. There are no guidelines, developmental milestones and elders to assist them in doing their current duties correctly.

Modern parents have to teach themselves to be good parents by observing and being consistent and strong in living their moral beliefs. They must live what they say to have any credibility when they say “no” to their children. Curtailing the use of video games, social media and mass media means the parents should expect their children to be upset. Moreover parents have to comply with the same directives they give to their children.

Parents have to be strong, and involved parents to shape wholesome children. It is not an easy task to raise children at this time. Strong parental involvement in training their children will prevent them from becoming collateral damage in our phony and warped culture.  

Dr. Maglio is a columnist carried by various newspapers, an author of several books and owner/director of Wider Horizons School, a college prep program. You can visit Dr. Maglio at www.drmaglio.blogspot.com.