SCHOOLS NOT GIVING STUDENTS TIME TO DEVELOP

SCHOOLS NOT GIVING STUDENTS TIME TO DEVELOP

By Domenick J. Maglio PhD Traditional Realist

Our public schools are being driven by bureaucratic statistical accountability that is devastating many perfectly bright students. They are the left behind casualties of The Race to the Top to improve the school's testing results.  The student’s individual progress is not even on the school district’s radar screen.

Parents have witnessed first hand "teaching to the test" in the comprehensive testing featured in No Child Left Behind. High academic standards were developed by educational bureaucrats to push school districts to make changes that would improve their rankings on these tests.  This approach is the same top-down national one that has done nothing to strengthen the quality of US education. This process of teaching to specific topics is being duplicated implementing the Common Core standards.

The identified problem students who failed sections of a test are often not allowed to go to the next grade. Often these youngsters confidence is crushed after being lectured that this is a life and death exam. The overwhelming majority receives some form of remediation that is supposed to overcome their “inability to pass the test.” These students are self-labeled as failures. The teachers lower their expectation for these students ability to learn. They often treat them as having less potential than others. Most students rarely have the ability to bounce back from the trauma of not advancing with their classmates.

The significant problem with one-size-fits-all instruction is that it does not make allowances for differences in student's academic maturity. The difficult subject matter for the child is not viewed as a temporary obstacle to overcome but is seen as a permanent liability that defines the student’s future in school.

It is rare for a student in beginning elementary school to be excellent in all subjects. Most students do well in language arts or in mathematics but usually not in both.  Student's interest in these academic subjects varies depending on their brain's ability to absorb the fundamental information. This learning process develops deeper pathways in the brain to increase the retrieval of it. The timetable for enhancing these pathways is different for each student and depends on the opportunity to repeat the process until successful. Some students need more time to internalize skills, procedures and information than others.

When a student is made to believe he is defective in a particular subject area he normally shuts down, eliminating the opportunity to practice and improve. The student believes he is permanently disabled in this area. The student develops a built-in excuse for not trying to improve. The motivation of any person is negatively affected. He feels it is purposeless to try because the authorities have certified him as being an incompetent student. This reality should be troubling to educators.

No educational expert, psychologist or teacher can predict when or if a student’s mental operation will finally click in so he gains the understanding of a difficult skill. Most teachers can describe stories of mini miracles where a poor student in a subject finally puts it all together. The academic progress of the student who has learned to compensate soars until his previous liability becomes an asset.

Our government schools need to stop making premature verdicts about a student's capabilities. This false prognosis of a student is a rush to judgment that often leads to deflated, defeated students.

Each student should receive a carefully considered prognosis regardless of how it affects the comprehensive examination profile. There should not be an overreach in analyzing the test. People, especially youngsters, for a variety of physical and emotional reasons can be inattentive and not show their real abilities.

The lives of students should take precedence over marketing the effectiveness of our school districts or national rankings. Our country should treat each student as a "work in progress" with unlimited potential rather than taking a questionable snapshot and then tossing the child into the rejection bin.

 In the past people have made incredible contributions to our nation who have not done well in school. Presently we have too many young people who are not being given an opportunity to bloom. The improvement of all children especially late blooming ones often occurs in higher grades or even college or job training to demonstrate their unique gifts.

Schools are too quick to pull the trigger leaving the student the casualty of the flawed system. Instead society should take into account the uniqueness of students’s developmental curve before abandoning them to be less than they could be snuffing out the potential of too many future productive citizens.

AFFLUENZA: ANOTHER EXCUSE FOR INHUMANE BEHAVIOR

AFFLUENZA: ANOTHER EXCUSE FOR INHUMANE BEHAVIOR

By Domenick J. Maglio PhD., Traditional Realist

We are constantly bombarded by “bleeding hearts” stating that even when a person commits a horrific act he should not receive a significant punishment.  They argue people who are ready to judge and label the committing of a horrendous act should first examine the life of the perpetrator to understand the reason for his inhumanity to others. There are always circumstances that caused his actions that are not of his own volition.

The scenario usually unfolds where the person was brought up in poverty and experienced many difficult circumstances, often abusive ones. His outrageously anti social behavior should be viewed through a lens of pity for the unfortunate socio-economic conditions into which he was born.

There is no acknowledgement by these defenders and protectors of evil acts that most other people brought up in the same or worse situations have become productive and law abiding citizens. This notion that people have no control over their behavior is based on a false premise that their economic status is at fault for their disastrous decisions.

A new wrinkle has been introduced to get people off the hook for their hateful, despicable and even lethal behavior. It is not only poverty, but wealth that now results in twisted souls who do horrible things. 

A 16 year-old Texan from a rich family was given 10 years probation for killing 4 pedestrians with his vehicle. He had stolen two cases of beer and his blood-alcohol level was 3 times the legal limit when he drove 70 miles per hour in a 40 mph zone.  Ethan Couch will serve no time or do no community service for his murdering four people.

The initial problem for his defense is he did not come from a disadvantaged home. He was raised in an affluent life style that granted him every advantage to ease into a wonderful future.

Thus the defense created a novel line of reasoning to dismiss his fatally irresponsible behavior. Since they could not use the poverty angle to exonerate him from his despicable behavior as he was raised with a silver spoon in his mouth, they developed the “affluenza” defense. They absurdly argued that his life had too much wealth and privilege to learn right from wrong and a sense of decency to respect the rights of others.

They claimed that being spoiled was a detriment to being taught the difference between right and wrong. This bizarre reasoning translates into all abusive behavior, no matter how bad, should not receive punishment because all economic circumstances present significant liabilities in learning moral behavior.  A person can be a victim of having a too easy childhood without any consequences for wrong-doing.

In essence all anti social behavior can be rationalized away by describing the shortcomings of how they were raised on either end of the economic spectrum.

The successful “affluenza” defense illustrates that our culture is eliminating the distinctions between right and wrong, good from bad. Parents, schools, churches and even law enforcement are not enforcing punishment for serious negative behavior. We are becoming a non-judgmental society where sociopathic behavior has become legitimized.  This should frighten every individual who wants to live a safe, peaceful existence.

When immoral monsters are granted immunity from punishment every law-abiding citizen’s risk of becoming a victim rises. Random killings, home invasions, kidnapping and other sorts of violent crimes become mundane acts of little consequence to others.  Everyone should be blasé about violence.

In order to remain a predictable and safe nation we have to enforce limits to protect the decent and innocent.  Being non judgmental when a person consciously crosses the line into abusive behavior only increases lawlessness and brutality.

The vast majority of people have to live a moral life to create a moral society. The pendulum is still swinging towards an increasingly decadent society where all behaviors, good and bad are becoming moral equivalents.

Affluenza, poverty or any other socio-economic reason does not prevent a person from living a healthy, good and God-fearing life.

A human inherently understands right from wrong just by observing the people around him. Let’s keep everyone accountable by giving appropriate consequences for good as well as harmful actions. The pendulum will naturally swing in the other directions where evil actions are smothered before they manifest in the individual and the entire society.

Domenick Maglio, PhD. 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.

PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS ARE BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

By Domenick J. Maglio Ph.D. Traditional Realist

The consolidation of schools in the 1950s changed the role of teachers.  Before the process of establishing humongous school districts, schools were under the local community’s control.  Schools were small, neighborhood facilities. In many rural communities there were even simple one-room schoolhouses.

Teachers were an integral part of the community. The pay was low although the job gratification and respect were high.  Teachers knew their dedication made a significant difference in the lives of the community.

Today the pay is higher but it does not compensate for the demeaning lack of administrative support, student and parent support, orderliness and freedom of teachers to do their best in the school. Many idealistic teachers who want to be a positive influence in the lives of their students are similar to the teachers of the past. The difference is the culture has changed, placing unreasonable and time consuming paperwork demands that interfere with the nurturing and creative ability to meet student’s individual needs. Modern teachers are finding it almost impossible to guide students to be better people.

Modern teachers are executors of a rigid curriculum that has been developed by committees in state capitols directly manipulated by Washington, D.C. bureaucrats. The miniscule local teacher input into the developing of the Common Core has eroded the idealism that brought them into the field of education in the first place. Teachers have lost the professional discretion necessary to be an effective teacher. They have been demoralized.

No professional lawyer or doctor can function at a high level when their hands are tied to do what they know they should do for the client. We are witnessing the phenomena in the medical profession under Obamacare. When a decision to treat a patient is dictated by a Washington, DC bureaucrat’s specific rules, diagnostic schema and regulations, the doctor losses his power to perform necessary procedures and tests that he knows is necessary to maintain the health of the patient.

Teachers have been in the same boat for a longer time having the responsibility of being a teacher without the power to make the proper decisions. They cannot spend time to teach the troubled student or challenge the advanced one. They must teach to the test script and complete the daily avalanche of forms or be terminated.  They have been reduced from teachers to disseminators of politically correct information approved at the highest federal level.

Teaching is an art. The teacher practices teaching like a doctor practices medicine. Both learn strategies and techniques that work with different types of individuals. For a teacher to be effective she has to be an applied psychologist, role model and character developer not a person who auditions as a reader of test protocol and is forced to document her every move.

All dedicated teachers want to reach all of their students. They do not want to sacrifice some or most to reach an arbitrary test score that has been set for political reasons.

Too many teachers have to sell their souls in order to continue as teachers. They have been relegated to being high priced clerical workers. Although the teacher knows her student’s assets and deficiencies, she has to ignore them. She has to follow her administrative directives, spread educational babble to the parents and turn her back on numerous students.

The majority of teachers realize most students have the potential to be excellent ones.  They are not allowed to address the academic and social issues under the stringent time guidelines that have to be met or else.

Teachers can be innovators helping children to become better students. These dedicated teachers are paying a high price. They understand admonishment by administrators will occur when not complying with the administrator’s dictates. On the other hand, the downside of appeasing the school’s administrative personnel is the pain of seeing the faces of students she did not help.

Teachers are between a rock and a hard place.

Domenick Maglio, PhD. 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.