Sorry it’s taken me so long to respond to this comment. I was on vacation with the family for Thanksgiving, and am now back on the ball.

Thanks so much for taking the time to write out all of your thoughts here. You apparently have a ton of experience with and insight into this matter.

I totally agree with all of your statements here, and I understand that to get the changes I’ve written about in the article implemented, it’s going to require a tremendous amount of restructuring, money, and effort on many peoples’ parts.

There’s nothing I admire more than seeing the few people who love their work slave away day after day to make a positive difference in the world. I had only a few teachers like that over the course of my education, but those who were impacted my life greatly. Their passion and commitment to their purpose is inspiring.

It’s a damn shame that the schooling system is the way it currently is, and I agree, it’s a reflection of our society. The best that any one of us can do to remedy this situation is to put forth our best effort in changing the current system for the better.

People fail to realize how important this is, but honestly, the quality of our education system strongly influences the quality of our society. Until something is done about this, our society will still be one based in mediocrity, unrealized potential, and questionable character and ethics.

Thanks again for your comments and your commitment to making school a better place for the kids in our society.

We all hope for blessing to fall on what we hold most dear-our children. But anecdotal band-aid fixes are not going to help. It’s more likely to compound the effects of the problem by prolonging the problem longer. Yes, indeed, qualified teachers are required. Which means that training teachers within universities and professional development within school districts must change before you can even begin to require these more “stringent” standards for teachers.

We can’t expect a child to know and perform something that they have never been taught. The same applies to teachers. And honestly, looking around in my education classes at the university, I can tell who has the talent for teaching and those who don’t, But they’re shuffled from class to class, as in primary and secondary schools, because professors/teachers don’t want the hassle of weeding them out of the teaching program or losing their tuition/funding.

What the pool of teachers look like now, is (some) highly motivated, (some) highly delusional, (some) scared, (some) fresh-faced, (some) seasoned, ambivalent, (some) passionate, talented teachers. An individualized curriculum and school infrastructure would be awesome. And is quite within reach…with MONEY. Schools and teachers are constantly strapped for resources-money. For example, almost every single school has a limit per teacher on how many copies they can print from the copier. Every teacher I know, inevitably run out of copies before the end of the month. Developing curriculum, school infrastructure, trained staff, and environment tailored to foster students’ individuality and strengths will come only once more basic necessities have been met, such as qualified, trained teachers, oversight of administrators, state education departments are held accountable for the well being of children, federal funding for education is increased along with stringent oversight of the how and where the federal funds go, the list goes on and on.

The disciplinary system should TEACH the whole child, not merely discipline the student for the sake of sticking to the rules and flexing our authority over the child. Discipline as shown, in this, means punishment. Certainly, punishment by definition works: punishment immediately following a response, decreases the future rate or probability of the response. But it only works so long as the punisher is present. Prevention before intervention.

It goes back to the school infrastructure once more. What preventative measures are in place, such as Positive Behavior Support, daily class/school schedule cognizant of how teenagers physically and cognitively work best, etc, that sets the event for students to succeed? Why wait and wait until a crisis occurs and intervene, when prevention can teach the child the value of the desired behavior (moral, acceptable, appropriate, etc.) daily, minute by minute, in everything they do?

I understand that the list is far from comprehensive, and by no means am I slamming what you put forth. I wanted to add some additional comments to a very complicated issue. I myself, used to be a teacher, in gen. ed. and special education, and seen from inside out the inner working of schools. The schools are reflections of our current world, our society. Needless to say, it’s in a dismal state. But I know quite a few professionals within the system going back to the schools, day after day, fighting for every one of those children. It’s no doubt a battle. If you only knew…