by Christopher Clanton, father of two, special education teacher
CAUTION: “White elephant in the classroom” discussions.
- Overloaded, Outdated, Not Sustainable.
- Celebration vs. Renewal.
- Thriving in Electives.
- Technology Becoming Alarming.
- Standardized Obstacle.
- Cultural Competence – Growing Poverty.
- Fumbling Over Disciplinary Action.
- Upset Voices Not Heard.
- Homeless and At-risk Outreach.
- Violence and Suicide.
10. Overloaded, Outdated, Not Sustainable.
The traditional school model is overloaded, outdated and not sustainable. It’s time to think about public education differently. All classrooms are bound by current special education law. These laws are in place to ensure every student receive an education with equal opportunity to learn. These wonderful but stubborn laws have done a solid job encouraging inclusion, diversity, and all student’s rights to an education. As an executor and promotor of these laws, I can attest that they have been a good effort but they have become logistically not possible to manage properly at the scale student populations have become. The integrity and validity of this old instructional approach has been compromised.
Learning standards can no longer be generalized for all students. Student “equity” is a great thing, but it means that each individual deserves to learn in a way that is best for them. In this special education teacher’s opinion, equity can now be thought of differently. What is best for an individual should be important and influential when determining what is equitable. My experience tells me that striving to serve every student the same simply isn’t working for many. When so many are not having success, as a culture, we must redefine what “appropriate” means and reconsider public education’s responsibility to educate.
A growing percentage of students are letting their teachers know that schools are not reaching them. The traditional school model is no longer sufficient as far too many students are now not having success in an appropriate way. Classrooms and teachers are overloaded and students are “falling through the cracks”. For an administrator, when a teacher openly shines light on this fact, brings into question that teachers ability to remain steadfast in political correctness. There isn’t a safe and effective system in place for a teacher to send this kind of feedback to administrators. The sincere truth is that this type of talk is hushed and kids are going unserved.
When extremely negative behaviors occur quality instructional time is compromised. As demands on teachers increase, quality preparation time is increasingly limited. Teachers regularly complain about how little time they have for planning, how full their classrooms are, and how much instructional time is given to students with disruptive behaviors. Teachers complain about the growing number of special needs students. Administrative support for the classroom environments has disintegrated and has become less reliable over the years. Administrative disciplinary action is not consistent therefore classroom management is increasingly not consistent within a school, which is confusing to a student community.
Today’s student knows well their ability to get expectations from adults to decrease, which is an important part of the teacher/student dynamic. Teachers are forced to protect themselves as professionals on a regular basis. Over time, even the most talented, ambitious and skilled teachers make adjustments. Educators disengage students that refuse to participate and that demonstrate distracted and aggressive behaviors. When teacher/student relationships aren’t good, to “keep the peace”, to “pick their battles”, educators disengage our most at-risk students.
What would build relationship and reignite learning within these students that aren’t adequately being educated? Some students learn best in a classroom full of voices and excitement and energy. I am a teacher that wants an alive quality to a learning environment, but when at-risk populations are so high and classrooms are full, it pays to keep a behavioral expectation of calm and quiet. There is a breaking point, and in this teacher’s estimation, student:teacher ratios have become twice what is realistic. A solution is to expand in school models and methods. Learning and graduation approaches should become as vast as our students are unique.
Classrooms remain strangely competitive and “the same” for everyone. Competitive learning environments make perfect sense for those that aspire to enter competitive fields. College bound students must become proficient learning with large academic workload expectation. The good old grading scale continues for all, yet isn’t meaningful for many. Some feel buried by credits and grades, disconnected, and would receive a higher quality education by directing their learning effort in ways that would benefit their future more. For our high functioning students, traditional grades and credits are encouraging, validating, and easy to relate to. For others, the grade book becomes an obstacle called “high school”.
When a student falls behind earning grades and credits they become frustrated. Very few are able to adapt and recover. Instead, there is a coldness that comes from the message received on their progress reports and too many are accepting their failing situation early on in their secondary education experience. The point is that these failing students become unnecessarily debilitated. As a means of bridging the relationship gap to these students, thinking differently makes sense. End of year assessments of learning could be more in-depth and narrative in style. For an at-risk student, to reduce a subjective progress report and to a mere GPA tells them that the content is not important. For educators, when grades are the focus, smaller valuable learning accomplishments can easily go unnoticed. For educators, when and if grades are accomplished by an at-risk student, the skill deficits and the individual needs of that student can be easily overlooked.
Varying paths through secondary education with inclusion principles is possible. What does a student deserve as appropriate? The word “deserve” means more than “getting a fair share of something”. Deserve has elements that reflect a student’s learning needs, interests, aptitude, and implies a predicted calculated result. The word “appropriate” does not reflect a calculated result. The legal word appropriate feels minimal, it seems based on what is available and on what everyone else is getting. Is the student appropriately getting what all the others are? This is old thinking.
Alternative, specialized, and leveled high schools would be a start in the direction of sustainable. Alternative Middle Schools are clearly needed as well. It would be an easy line for me to take to write about the benefits of diversity and inclusion within our classrooms. There is no arguing these principles. Instead, I write this to share a perspective that educators seems to be marching forward with old broken ideas. For the last decade I have been a drum major, waving the flag and blowing a trumpet to make sure every student receives an equal experience. Because so many are not thriving adequately, I’m willing to now radically reconsider instructional methods, assessment and grading methods, and graduation solutions.
Without a doubt, grand change in public education will cost huge amounts of money. As student populations grow, equity and funds for education should be thought of on a whole other scale.
9. Celebration vs. Renewal.
Celebration must not stand in the way of change. Who doesn’t love a graduation ceremony?! After all the awards, acknowledgments, the plaques, and trophies, the parent nights, the accumulations of amazing demonstrations of learning, we come together and celebrate what is good. My suggestions, is that schools are overly proficient celebrating all the many positives. Everyone involved, students, parents, teachers, coaches, counselors, and administrators, are continuously celebrated.
When a student doesn’t graduate or doesn’t pass classes, verbal shoulder shrugs are regularly made by our most experienced education professionals. Staying positive isn’t helping our student not having success. Reactive statements shut down talks of constructive criticism: “Students get out of school what they put into it.” “This is the world we live in.” “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force them to drink.” One of my least favorite repeated statements is “if teachers made more money things would improve.” Baby Boomers love to say, “it changes every year how they ask us to work with our special needs students. It’s a pendulum swing”. I’m leery of these types of statements and a lack of deep reflecting regarding the deficiencies in our failing students. Serving our at-risk students that are not having success is overwhelming for a large percentage of educators and has become complacent.
We learn about our community psychology by listening to conversation about our schools. Without the tough conversations about all the many negatives, celebration loses authenticity. Pressing forward with old ideas and severely inadequate approaches continues. Our students deserve better and any voice to this obvious fact is hushed by school administrators and politicians. “This is the world we live in.” “Let’s focus on the positives…”
8. Thriving in Electives.
At-risk students regularly have reduced opportunity for elective classes. This does not make sense. Educators continue to hold academic core content classes as most important. When the continual raising of expectation is a characteristic of a teacher and apart of a school’s culture, it is sometimes difficult to think in other ways. Elective teachers have a knack, a gift for accessing the learning within students not having success in the core content classrooms. Core content teachers can be determined.
Elective teachers seem to have the gifts, the time and space, and more opportunities than core content teachers has. Core content teachers regularly defend the importance of their classes, which makes administrators happy. Fact are, most behavioral deficit data within a student’s disciplinary file and a student’s IEP comes from the core content classrooms. Elective teachers are very much aware of this dynamic, and are regularly disappointed in the fact that success in their classroom is largely overlooked and undervalued. Credit recovery requirements of core content classes quickly become a contributing factor to at-risk students receiving less opportunity for elective classes. Special Services also results in less electives.
Because our teachers are so capable, and because their language is so honed, I fear that education and how we serve our at-risk students won’t change very soon. Math, Language Arts, Social Studies, and Science, continue to be the core content classes for all. These subject through high school continue at grade-level. For students with skill deficits this is a compounding problem situation. When a student is identified and qualifies for special education or ELL services, efforts are to increase the learning in the subjects of Reading, Writing, Math and Social/Emotional skills, so a student can better access grade level content. Special services has become a huge part of the problem, because they place legal liability and importance on these basic skills before all else. This becomes the justification for a student to receive less elective opportunity. Instead, more “focused targeted progress monitored data driven academic instruction” is the answer.
Identified students, at-risk learners, have an increase of remedial academic learning they are then responsible for. Not an increase in elective classes. This does not make sense. The essential learning, the critical learning, these students require are within the elective classrooms. These teachers should be commended and recognized for being so much more than their subject area to our at-risk students.
To give readers a scope of what schools are faced with academically is difficult because skills can plateau. Many at-risk students work really hard all the way through high school, to get their academic skills and their study habits to the level comparable to that of a typical 8th grade student. Language on applications for vocational schools is usually at an 8th grade level. Language on most medical and legal documents are slightly above an 8th grade level. If schools were successfully getting skills to an 8th grade level, as an absolute minimum, that would be pretty good. That isn’t happening for many our at-risk. As curriculum increases with grade level, at-risk students are pushed through classes with Reading, Writing, Math, and Social / Emotional expectations that are virtually impossible for them to achieve.
Teachers often misinterpret negative behaviors within core content settings. Often when a student exhibits what appears to be laziness and refusal behaviors they are also confused, and are limited in their understanding of how to be on-task. In an elective classroom at-risk students often thrive and perform much closer to that of a typical age level peers. It is more difficult to walk into an elective class and pick out the at-risk students. They are very visible in a typical core content classroom. Why is that? Answer: These classes teach so many of the skills that at-risk students need to learn. At-risk students respond to the instruction in elective classes.
7. Technology Becoming Alarming.
There a limit to the benefits of Technology? Screen time has snowballed and become a mysterious and shadowy factor. The amount of time our students are looking at screens is alarming, including phones, a school day is shockingly an estimated 70% screen time in some cases. A laptop or an iPad creates another layer of learning and responsibility, which is an obstacle for some students. For some, school-issued devices are being used for social communication, contributing to students staying up all night, contributing to negative distracted behaviors at school.
Student engagement in a classroom setting is more challenging to monitor when a device is present. It’s troubling to watch teenagers become so behaviorally challenged and consumed by what is possible within their device. It’s particularly troubling when the same device that is overwhelming them also seems to sooth them. When electronics “soothe” and “calm” students is it contributing to student’s inability to self-regulate and maturely articulate. The extreme language that arises when students are asked to not be in their technology and to participate in a classroom discussion or activity, is something teachers are learning to work with. Is technology impacting our kids’ ability to be bored? Is technology impacting our ability to guide discussion of important topics. Is technology impacting student ability to reflect, contemplate and verbalize? Upper level thinking and creativity require contemplative “bored” time. Are teachers not complaining about digital curriculum because they like how their classrooms are quieter and appear more under control when devices are present?
For a device to not be working properly, or to remove a device from a student, creates a whole situation of problems including equity and access to the curriculum. We speak openly about such things within special education, where we have years of experience with the awareness of the impacts of electronics, especially on students with severe Autism. We discuss what happens to a student’s attitude, attention, frustration, and engagement when technology is and is not present. It’s becoming more challenging to understand what our youth are experiencing because they are pioneers of the social media age and are using technology way more than most adults can relate to. With “virtual reality” making such strides in education simulators, it is difficult to imagine what the next level of technology could look like in our schools. Currently, teachers and students are encouraged to use technology without caution or any thought of limitations. This seems reckless. Schools seem to be in a race to see how much we can allow technology to assist us. Instead, schools should lead the way bringing some maturity to the use of electronic devices. Conversations with our students regarding healthy use of technology are at the emerging level. Educators recognize that students replace personal and emotional discussion with quick statements that help them accept the situation they face regarding technology in their lives. At this point in time, there isn’t much talk regarding technology concerns.
I’ve grown concerned that assistive technology is also enabling students to not look closely into their academic skills. Writing is one of the best tools a teacher has reaching a student on a personal level, and is one of the biggest challenges a service provider faces because developing writing skills takes engaged quality instructional time. Writing instruction is important because writing skills are thinking skills. Teachers often resolve to focus on reading instruction, usually from a digital curriculum, which collects progress monitoring data, which administrators appreciate because it protects the school. Good writing instruction is personal in nature and teaches students to use mature language as they identify with their community, as they express themselves, and as they individualize. This type of instruction leads to opportunities such as social-emotional and communication instruction. Teachers gain insights into a student’s learning by looking closely at how they articulate their identity. Teachers get a sense for how a student is relating to having an academic skill deficit in school and on a social level. They receive insights into student’s concerns regarding their own personal development. This takes quality instructional time much greater than our traditional school model is providing. Instead, writing is a skill that is becoming very assisted with technology. Technology is being used to “even the playing field”, if you will. When a student turns from developing their writing skills they are turning from thinking skills and their social/emotional learning. Personal development thinking and preparation learning regarding career paths is lost. When students are less able to articulate how they feel about their situation in school, in society, with their academic and vocational learning, electronics are narrowing the depth of interactions needed to develop real world experience.
Word and sentence prediction software and voice to text applications are improving and can be helpful and no doubt develop spelling syntactical writing skills. My suggestion is that the ease of these types of accommodation has another result. Technology is impacting students on a personal level, their ability to rationalize a situation, to make good decisions, and how to express themselves in a socially acceptable way. Communications become short and heavy with shock value. Gaps of time during a school day without such stimulation is filled with some other form of quick input or output solution. A school day can feel like a “Rat Race”. Thinking something through and having a meaningful conversation is a skill that electronics seem to be impacting. With so much information at their fingertips, why wade through understanding something? Why focus on the daunting task of consuming information and remembering principles and become versed in how to apply those principles in varying ways? There is app. Why look closely into specific skills such as Writing and Thinking skills, when so much is handled for you through the use of technology?
Handwriting an assignment has an element of building significant brain connections. This is an advantage over typing. Writing is a specialized fine motor skill that leads to precision and accuracy in many career fields, from Carpentry to Neurosurgery. Substituting a keyboard for a pencil and paper too early is another, possibly fatal blow to the acquisition of writing skills. In some cases, giving a keyboard as an “accommodation” is actually robbing the student of important practice that is rich in deep motor skill development.
Leaders of education seem to be connecting the use of technology to the idea of “learning globally”. This is a growing perspective and is critical for some types of learners. When fitting in socially doesn’t come easy, when grades don’t come easy, thinking globally seems excessive and abstract. Learning locally, for some, is equally vital. What matters to the student? What is equitable when considering public education’s responsibility to educate. What is critical for a student’s life, for their family and their families’ learning perspective?
6. Standardized Obstacle.
State Standardized Testing is best discontinued. All honest teachers and administrators agree that standardized testing has become an unfortunate waste of money, resources, and is a huge taker of instructional time. This burden on teachers and students creates unneeded pressure and stress that looms for the school year and then completely disrupts all routine and instructional momentum every Spring. Teachers receive renewed rigid fear based expectations from their school district each year. Those expectations are then put on the students. This is very confusing for many students. Teachers rarely receive any professional development information from the results of these tests. The data is not close to accurate as the number of students opting out increases. The data is not close to accurate because teacher, student, and parent buy-in aren’t there. The data is not close to accurate because schools are now manipulating who is taking the exam. There is an undeniable costs and resources lost, to hold this exam.
For most of our students, state standardized testing isn’t an effective use of time. Exams that measure all proficiencies have a place in education, they are just not beneficial for all students. There are many well documented negative impacts of standardized testing. Many educators agree that the exam itself is biased. The format is extremely difficult for most students with learning disabilities and the expectations are borderline abusive for students with social/emotional and behavioral disabilities. Proctors are forced to uphold an unrealistic and unusual behavioral expectation, much greater than a typical school day. And the borderline illegal practice of isolating students is widespread on testing days. This stresses the teacher and student community for weeks, and as Spring and Summer vacations approach, it is extremely unlikely at-risk students will be able to return to a daily ambitious learning routine.
SuperIntendents speak about the attendance of our Hispanic students. At the beginning of the school year teachers orientation, I witnessed the honored and respected StVVSD SuperIntendent state that “we can’t reach our Hispanic students if they aren’t coming to school.” This is a cop-out. Schools are using an attendance argument as part of their justification to exclude students from state standardized testing. Students with attendance problems are being excluded from the overall accounting of a school’s success. Schools are encouraging at-risk students that struggle with success to not participate. This is done intentionally to not “throw off” the school’s scores, and the school district’s reputation. This is absolutely happening and is a blatant attempt to cover up the fact that our schools aren’t serving so many.
Measuring our highest functioning students is important. To continue to insist that all students strive to meet the same proficiencies on a bureaucratic timeline in the same ways, no longer make sense. The coldness that is received from not having success with these very challenging exams, is similar to the message failing students receive from their progress reports, from the transcripts. These messages are, at best, confusing and are often debilitating.
5. Cultural Competence – Growing Poverty.
Relationship with our lower socio-economic demographic greatly must improve. Why is there such an obvious gap in relationship between our schools and our lower socio-economic demographic? As a Language Arts teacher, my instinct is to look closer at the impacts of the language being used. Language is relational and cultural. It is important for the process of learning language in our schools to reflect this fact. Language being put out by schools is always legal and professional in nature. The schools use of language is very different than the language coming from our at-risk families of our lower socio economic demographic. The voices from our at-risk Hispanic families are sometimes less confident and less articulate, by the almighty academic standards. Many of the voices from our at-risk African American families are often cautious and frustrated within our schools. Voices from our at-risk families come through in many ways and are usually attempting to ask for help. The very families that school districts claim to want to reach better are letting schools know they aren’t being heard. Instead, they feel a pressure to talk and behave like those from our upper-socioeconomic demographic. This may not seem like a problem. But in my experience, at-risk families are not prepared or supported adequately to have a voice within our schools. These families don’t need a small amount of help advocating for their students, they need a lot of help.
School districts expect everyone to understand all laws and all legal documents. For at-risk families and especially Hispanic families, translating documents into Spanish isn’t enough. Families are held responsible for navigating complicated websites and being aware of all information being put out by a school. In this way, schools and their methods are better supporting the learning of our upper-socioeconomic demographic. A contributing factor is the high-level official language being used in direct conversation. My suggestion is that the very language being used to communicate with families is creating a gap in relationship, in communication, and in the learning result. There isn’t a system in place, there isn’t a follow-up effort made to ensure these parent’s concerns are/were heard, understood and honored. Infrastructures are not in place. An inadequate amount of time and attention is given to the parents from these families.
Please let me be clear. In general, I believe all teachers care. But for me to completely dismiss the idea that systematic racism is at work in our schools would be naive when our best schools are consistently not reaching our at-risk students and families of our lower socio-economic demographic.
How do educators improve relationships? A change in thinking is required. To approach the learning of our at-risk students like there is a problem to fix is not the correct approach. At-risk families from Colorado’s small mountain towns share this experience with at-risk families from our inner cities. To consider all communications from school to student and family, with more care, is the solution. Local schools serve their local community. When relationships aren’t good, I’ve regularly witnessed our schools approach our at-risk families like they are a problem to fix. This is not helping. To recognize the exchange relationship, schools teach families, families teach schools, is the better approach. To be in this together, for what is best for the students, is the approach.
How we define success for our at-risk? How much more effective could public education be? Of course, we can always stop this discussion by pointing to a couple of teachers and a couple of students that are having success. We can talk about a competitive job market, and about the entry-level academic qualification of post-secondary vocational schools. We can draw connections between those who didn’t have success in school and those that are incarcerated at some point in their young lives. We can draw connections between our at-risk youth that are homeless, and didn’t have success in school. “If they only got good grades…” The real question is, did they receive an appropriate and equitable path through their schooling?
Unfortunately, “high profile” parents from our upper socio-economic demographic take or receive a larger and disproportionate amount of time and attention from our schools. This is an absolutely disgusting fact. Schools feel locked by laws and legal documents. These high profile parents are well spoken, meet with Superintendents, and use language that make schools respond. The high-level language they use demands attention. These parents have the capacity to follow up at a district level, at a state level, and have the ability to navigate the school board and district lawyers. They make no bones about opening a lawsuit. District officials have identified these parents and demand that teachers give attention to their advocacies. These parents have been identified to have the time and resources to follow through beyond an initial upset conversation or email. In my experience, administrators and district officials, and most teachers, place a disproportionate amount of importance on the way in which these parents are communicated with. Administration is very clear that high profile parents require responses to be delivered with efficiency, professionalism, and with a “this could end up in court” manner. Teachers complain quietly that administrators require them to drop everything, and have urgent meetings with our high profile parents. How many Hispanic or African American parents do you think are considered high profile? How many parents of at-risk families do you think are considered high profile?
Parent Teacher Associations are not effective resources for our at-risk families. Schools treat their PTA as fund raisers. If a parent turns to the PTA for support, they are immediately recruited to work at a concession stand, or to be a fundraising event. PTA groups are a nice idea, but are often neglected and not as they are intended. How many PTA meetings are well attended? How many PTAs feel they are actively connected to the learning happening in the classrooms?
4. Fumbling over Disciplinary Action.
Do schools care? There is no doubt in my mind that teachers absolutely care with everything have. To answer this important question, we need to look to the top. In my experience, there is an impersonal approach actively insisted upon from our school administrators and district officials. Even our most talented and capable leaders seem to be buying into the idea that we are doing all we can. The ethics are not in place for social-emotional behavioral learning to be a priority. Instead, disciplinary-action in our schools has been reduced to what legally must be responded to. Schools are impersonal and ignoring restorative learning. The methods that guide our student’s social emotional learning are out of step and overly cumbersome. In today’s secondary school, only the most extreme behaviors are being not adequately acted upon by administrators. Only the behaviors that present a possible liability for the school get attention.
The maturation of our behaviorally impacted students can be challenging until we are educated by it. Relationship based education digs into understanding and solving underlying causes, which takes quality genuine support and guided personal instruction. At this point, administrators and teachers only focus on what they legally must responded to, therefore, so much critical learning goes uncared for. When schools aren’t personal they are protective, and relationship building with our at-risk families isn’t easy.
When a behavior event occurs, I recognize a lot of resolving talk about how the student could have done better. There are comments about how the parents are somehow to blame. There isn’t much talk about how full classrooms are, how overloaded teachers are, how the laws that guide educators are increasingly not meaningful. Education leaders seem to have convinced themselves that we are doing all that can be done. This isn’t the case. Limited funds, budgets, and agenda are at work.
Schools are stuck staying focused on success being grades and assessment scores. The traditional school model itself continues “twisting the arms” of students into trying to pass their classes. Decisions being made regarding disciplinary action are often difficult for advocating parents to understand or negotiate. There is a tendency for schools to hold inadequate meetings and to give consequences without consideration for the student’s critical learning. Public schools can learn from the many private school approaches such as deep listening and restorative justice. Students respond to mindfulness and meditation instruction, which is helpful as educators support students process challenging events and conflicts.
For those students with a diagnosed social-emotional disability, that have become identified for special education services, disciplinary action is to be handled individually. Special education or not, all students have a right to interventions and strategies to be developed and tried. If strategies aren’t leading to success, all students again have a right for teachers to continue to meet on their behalf and for intervention strategies to change. My loud suggestion is that a more personal approach to disciplinary action and social-emotional learning is required. As students individualize social-emotional learning is alive. It can be messy when a student’s school experience isn’t making sense, when social learning doesn’t come easy. Each at-risk student has subtle internal patterns they are starting with, and from that frustration and confusion their personal learning unfolds. Impacting patterns and emotional factors are always present, and usually open to some real disease, which becomes part of that student’s rites of passage learning process. The muck becomes the richness, the unseen goodness of the critical learning compost.
Teachers are humans and aren’t immune to making mistakes. Some are mistaken to think that their way is the only way. Quick statements like, “that’s not how we do things here at school_name”, exclude students. This is an example of cold undercurrents that exists within a school culture and how students become excluded and not served.
Punitive action is a substantial part of our culture. In our schools, lines are drawn in the sand and at some point, the school district relieves themselves of their responsibility to educate through suspension and expulsion. My experience mentoring homeless youth has given me a disturbing perspective of the results when we don’t serve our at-risk student. In special education we focus on reward-based strategies and earned responsibility strategies. These strategies are far from adequate. In my experience mentoring homeless youth that are in jail, I recognize that our at-risk youth aren’t prepared for such a firm and an unwavering level of accountability. My observations within our schools regarding disciplinary action methods are telling. Social emotional learning in our schools can feel like a non-approach at times. Disciplinary action doesn’t happen, or is overly firm and impersonal. Minimal attempts to be personal within such a system come across as not sincere. Students and families are letting educators know they are not being reached in this way. When considering the responsibility of our schools to educate, that includes rethinking what appropriate is for these types of learners.
Negative behaviors reflect sincerity and commitment so we encourage everyone to do their best. Negative behaviors also usually point to the unique strength of the individual, for this reason, we must look closely and honor conflict and behavioral events as learning opportunities. With time allowed for the internal and the intuitive, relational strategies take over. Unfortunately, schools don’t have the human resource infrastructures in place or the ethics in place to support this type of critical learning. Good schools have a few special teachers and counselors with the skill and commitment to intervene when confusion and frustration inevitably surfaces. In my opinion, these amazing educators are currently holding schools together.
If a teacher speaks up about the safety of their school, about their school’s inadequacies or shortcomings regarding disciplinary action, they are “tar and feathered”. It is an epidemic that teachers protect themselves by telling administrators what they want to hear. “There’s not a problem in my classroom.” Public Education will evolve and mature by facing difficult conversation about how we have grown out of the current school model. Because we have outgrown it, there is little to no control over it. Hopefully, radical change in our schools will become popular before our schools become dangerous.
3. Upset Voices Not Heard.
Upset voices are growing in numbers, and these voices aren’t being heard. I’m what happens when a teacher’s upset voice isn’t heard. Upset voices are to be expected and should be prepared for. How can schools more meaningfully honor these voices? Teachers and administrators are human, and upset voices aren’t comfortable for anyone. Right or wrong, correct or incorrect, communications from upset parents and teachers are a common occurrence that wares on all educators. At the same time, all educators agree that an upset advocating voice, on another level, is a beautiful and acceptable thing. When frustrated, it is very challenging to maintain calm. Teachers and administrators are often parents and don’t feel any different. We all get emotional when it comes to our kids.
Schools protect themselves to no end. For a parent, this can often feel like schools are “pulling a curtain over their eyes”. Not far from the truth, when there is a behavior event. Staff come together and protect each other with professional statements, turning the attention on the student or the parent and away from the school staff involved. Motivated by a fear put on them over years of “representing” law and the image of their school, teachers and administrators “circle the wagons” and talk over a parent’s concerns, and it isn’t fair. Administrators reward and compliment this type of “show of force”. Upset parent voices are “officially” listened to or “officially” acted upon. The more upset the voice the more officially and formally they are listened to and responded to. The more upset the voice, the more resistance that person will experience from the school, and the more teachers stop teaching the student in question and protect themselves. Not listening to angry voices is an easy line to take because “schools do business sitting around tables talking calmly”. When a voice becomes very upset, a school become less obligated to listen or to work with that individual. I’ve witnessed administrators and teachers state that “most parents aren’t high profile and don’t have the skills and capacity to follow through at a district or at a state level”.
Community parent meetings, that aren’t school hosted, are an informative result. When school officials are not present, upset voices happen safely and openly. Mountain parent communities do not hesitate to meet. 🙂 There are always some underlying themes to these meetings. Upset voices need to vent, need to feel supported, and they aren’t feeling supported by their school and their district officials. And, in some cases, these parents are no longer allowed on campus. 🙂 I recognize that these voices aren’t getting anywhere. They must calm down. This is my contribution and message at such a meeting. When not heard, these voices get louder in an effort to gain support. Facts are, loud upset voices are ignored and pushed aside by teachers, counselors, and school officials. It is obvious that this is done intentionally.
Much of this complex community relationship is dictated by the size of the administration structure inside schools. Size and complexity impedes the influence a parent can have over their child’s education. The legal structures in place make a large education bureaucracy a requirement and adds to our community psychology dysfunction. When administration and a parent body are not personal, there is a cold foundation of distance that is difficult to bridge.
Schools can greatly improve how they are listening and responding to the many complaint and conflict situations that arise. Not listening leads to all sorts of new problems. How can we better consider and hold space for diverse cultural conflict styles and the interpersonal communications of our at-risk families? Instead, dynamic personalities and frustrated voices are often considered unpredictable and threatening somehow. Misunderstandings happen both ways and often seem to have cultural elements. It’s unfortunate that valid human emotions like frustration and anger, while standing up for your kid, isn’t acceptable. When public education officials consider change, are they considering how they may be misunderstanding community psychologies and cultures of the community? As professionally as I can put it, the attitude that Colorado schools are doing all they can is ridiculous. Places like Boulder County have an attitude that they are the best, that they are operating on the forefront of education and cultural awareness. The people of Colorado often defend their leadership image and don’t think they need to improve.
2. Homeless and At-risk Outreach.
Homeless and at-risk youth numbers are rapidly increasing. How do schools meaningfully assess the learning of our at-risk youth? What is going on in the minds and learning of our at-risk youth that drop-out of high school and turn to living outside? There is an increase in at-risk youth ages 18-24. There is an increase in mental health instability across this street culture. Within our schools, there is a sense of apathy and denial around this human vs mind situation. When students “fall through the cracks” of public education, they face the statistical probability that they will end up in jail and will become homeless. I’d like to suggest that if our schools aren’t successfully addressing the homeless youth situation, they are a contributing factor. Left unsupported, homeless youth become homeless adults. The law states that we are obligated to educate our kids, that is the bottom line, not just the ones with an address and the capacity to help themselves. It doesn’t matter how different or determined to be unique they are, public education is obligated to reach them and educate them.
Failure to educate is monitored, and data is collected, yet there is no accountability. Eventually students end their schooling when they become of an age that releases school districts of their obligation. Populations at post secondary vocational schools, run by the school districts, are focused on serving our students with severe cognitive disabilities. These students are participating in an extended learning situation that stems from their special education post-secondary goals on their IEP: Independent Living, Continuing Education, and Vocational. The student’s education is continued and paid for by public education til the age of 24, or until those goals are met. Those goals must be meaningful and attainable and deemed appropriate as graduation requirements. Students at-risk of becoming homeless are rarely involved in these post-secondary programs. Public Education doesn’t appear have the ethics in place to provide a post-secondary program for students that are at-risk, with severe social/emotional disabilities, ages 18-24. The number of these types of learners is huge, and they have nowhere to turn.
Teacher and counseling teams are overwhelmed and turn at-risk students away regularly. Getting to class is a continual push, especially when attendance is a problem. Communicating with a family is more difficult and time consuming when home life is not stable. Sometimes social services is the effective support a school can extend to an at-risk family. Unfortunately, the current system of “mandatory reporting” often seems to lead to an overly-invasive first contact from the social services body. Although unquestionably important, this Child Protective Services reporting requirement is not helping educators reach these families. As a teacher I completely accept this challenge but it is a shame. Teachers are in a tricky position.
In my experience, some youth are not ready to receive support until they are in jail or on the street and hungry. How can schools districts, our social services, and our judicial system work together? Sheesh. Shouldn’t the legal obligation to educate fall on all three? We can’t toss our hands up and disengage when it comes to behavioral and social-emotional learning. Homeless youth do respond positively when there is a feeling of safety and a feeling that their school and their community care. There are common skill deficits among these youth, and schools are in a position to teach these skills: stopping negative or harmful thoughts, and seeking positive attention, are two of the big ones. Schools can better teach coping skills, working with change, conflict, boredom, and frustration. Homeless youth often require time for instruction around apology and accepting an apology, responding to kindness, accepting compliments and criticism. For these learners, advocating for themselves and learning to care for themselves is primary. Caring for their own belongings, managing their anger and frustrations, learning to accept defeat and consequences, to self-correct and show sensitivity, are all examples of critical learning. Our most at-risk need instruction in the areas of organization, being on-time, managing money, and planning ahead. Personal time management instruction is important for those who struggle to spend free time in a healthy productive way. For these learners, there is a sense that they are running from something, and that they are not content with their school and their world.
Connecting with those who are adrift or alone in their learning experience is possible. These niche learners deserve special community leaders, the most optimal teachers, to step in. What is the further meaning of appropriate and equitable? What does adequate mean? We absolutely must reach these youth in a personal way, so they stand a chance of not becoming homeless adults. We have the capabilities to teach the skills they are lacking, there is simply no incentive or accountability to do so. At-risk youth are giving up on having success by the school’s definition, and they are turning to the streets and begin to learn there. These brave kids show us our vulnerability as a species.
These learners don’t require appropriate, they require optimal. The solution is to call on our communities’ best to be included in public education’s effort to educate. To make sure appropriate, equitable, and adequate mean optimal for our at-risk and homeless youth. As a culture, we take care of these kids now or we will bear the expensive burden to take care of later. Statistics tell us that if a youth is able to transition from living on the streets before the age of 24, they stand a good chance of not being homeless as an adult. When a youth is unable to transition from living on the streets by the age of 24, they are statistically faced with battling homeless for their adult life. Taxpayers will pay for the majority of these individuals for their lifetimes, within social services, unpaid emergency hospital visits, and within jails. How does public education measure meeting their obligation to educate? Where is the continued accountability?
- Violence and Suicide.
There is an increase in violent events within our student communities. There is an increase of suicide and attempted suicide. Teachers agree, as social-emotional learning gets lost, student community frustration is increasing. Negative behaviors are left for the teachers and students themselves to manage. Counseling and administrative teams are at best “putting out fires”. Social-emotional learning is left to our overloaded teachers who are encouraged to keep students in their classrooms and are criticized if they are not able to handle disciplinary action themselves. When a teacher’s success is evaluated by the success of the students, and when they lack the support of a strong disciplinary system, teachers survive by allowing more and more negative behaviors to occur. It is my loud suggestion that schools are not being realistic in their non-approach to developing our at-risk students. As students and teachers don’t feel supported, it creates a very messy situation that is contributing to the drop-out rate and our attendance problems. Because critical learning and social-emotional instruction for the underperforming populations is not a priority, tensions are building.
Thinking differently, means looking into the negatives of the traditional school model. To look closer, is to be curious what there is to learn. It’s interesting to me that educators don’t talk about the emotional or the internal aspects of education? Is it so threatening to look into learning as being “one of these things” that is “a bit beyond us”? Public education is forced to “nail down” learning with no room for the transpersonal. That’s taboo talk in a school. But for our at-risk students, it’s sort of difficult to put a finger on how and when learning happens. When learning is for life, for an individual, for family and culture, we focus on developing skills that lead to personal health and sustainability. Individuals and families hold their own cultural importance, their own living and learning standards. Why are teachers and schools so bold to think that they have learning figured out? Why continue to take the stance that there is one equitable school model that serves the learning of all or even most students?
Walking into a school’s main office, trophies plaques and accomplishments are the focus. School administrators are like politicians that give their time to tour visitors around, promoting their school’s image. This is disgusting while so much is left uncared for. There are many school days where no administrators are available because they are at district meetings. Even the most dangerous conflict situations are pushed to the next day or ignored for many days before not adequately being responded to.
School districts and school principals tend to remove students from their home school as a solution to a conflict situation. Parents sometimes initiate a school transfer out of frustration and wanting better for their student. There are competing forces greatly colliding within our schools. These conflict situations are pointing to the changes that need to happen within our schools but those constructive criticisms are rarely talked about. When a disciplinary situation occurs, there is very little effort to develop the critical learning of the student, there is rarely talk of what the school could have done better, there is little to no sincere efforts made to heal or develop the relationship with the family. Schools demonstrate that they’ve tried a few different things but your student is not having success in the school, and as an effort to benefit your student’s learning the decision is made to shuffle your student to a different school. Whether initiated by the school or the parent, transferring a student to another school effectively masks the problem within the home school.
Listening skills and conflict de-escalation skills are of the highest importance for teachers these days. Because schools do not have an adequate human resource infrastructure in place, bullying continues in new ways. Schools are becoming increasingly dangerous.
On some level, to expect all students to behave the same is realistic. Behavioral and learning expectations rarely make cultural considerations, or disability considerations. There isn’t much room for honoring individuality. Continuing the effort of serving all students the same with the traditional school model strategies is contributing to a feeling of instability. Our students with behavioral challenges deserve a different school model that better supports their learning style. What is “appropriate” when reconsidering our education system’s responsibility to educate? The education received should lead to sustainability and personal health, and a calculated result vocationally. The act of graduating is a rite passage moment as learning is earned and owned by the individual.
Students from our lower socio-economic demographic that are at-risk are not adequately being reached by our best schools. A result is an increase in school violence. This is a direct reflection of the fact that public education is not properly serving a huge percentage. Going into the muck, into the relationships, our at-risk are expressing a sense that many factors are stacked against them. The variance of communication skills and social skills between our most successful students and our most at-risk students is increasing. What will be the storyline of public education? How will we respond? It should bother you deeply that there are students and parents that feel like giving up on public education.