Posts Tagged ‘Parenting’

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Corporal Punishment Reveals the Worst School Has to Offer

April 24, 2011

Imagine finally taking the important and highly necessary measure of banning corporal punishment only to take on another absurdly simple-minded strategy in its place.  That is what India’s Sindhi Vidyalaya matriculation Higher Secondary School is guilty of:

Candy or cane? City schools seem to have dumped the primitive notion of spare the rod and spoil the child. Instead of wielding the stick, they are now offering chocolates to kids to encourage them in academic excellence and enforce discipline.

“We are strictly against corporal punishment. We hand out chocolates to students if they score good marks and behave well in school. We have realised that it greatly motivates our students,” said Gouri Ramarathinam, Principal, Sindhi Vidyalaya matriculation Higher Secondary School.

Why go from one extreme to another?  Is it so difficult to replace a terrible educational policy for a sensible one?

Meanwhile, in Johannesburg banning corporal punishment didn’t change a thing:

Corporal punishment is still common in South African schools even though it was banned more than a decade ago. Recent research showed that up to 70% of primary school and 50% of high school pupils were still subjected to corporal punishment.

In Louisiana corporal punishment is here to stay.  But don’t be concerned. They have come up with a foolproof measure for its responsible use – a checklist!:

Corporal punishment is here to stay in Rapides Parish public schools, and members of the Disciplinary Policy Review Committee on Wednesday discussed ways parents can inform a principal if they don’t want their children paddled for infractions.

“Corporal punishment is an acceptable discipline procedure by law … We try and use it as little as possible,” said Ruby Smith, the Rapides Parish School District’s director of child welfare and attendance. “When I was a child in school, corporal punishment worked like butter on toast. I receive few calls from parents saying that they don’t want their child to receive corporal punishment.”

Louisiana House Resolution No. 167 was passed last year that requires principals to fill out a “Corporal Punishment Incident Checklist.”

“Principals will send the checklist to the (School Board office), and once a month, it will be sent to the state Department of Education,” Smith said. “Our first reporting was due in Baton Rouge on the 11th of April, and principals will have to turn one in every month, regardless if they have an incident or not. The officials in Baton Rouge will probably do some study on the checklist.”

Corporal punishment never worked like “butter on toast” for students as it may have for teachers, Ms. Smith! I am sorry to tell you but your checklist isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

To conclude my thought for the day on this awful means of disciplining kids, I will quote from an article entitled “Schools Under Pressure to Spare the Rod Forever,” Dan Frosch tells the story of one case, and then puts it into larger context:

When Tyler Anastopoulos got in trouble for skipping detention at his high school recently, he received the same punishment that students in parts of rural Texas have been getting for generations.

Tyler, an 11th grader from Wichita Falls, was sent to the assistant principal and given three swift swats to the backside with a paddle, recalled Angie Herring, his mother. The blows were so severe that they caused deep bruises and the boy wound up in the hospital, Ms. Herring said.

While the image of the high school principal patrolling the halls with paddle in hand is largely of the past, corporal punishment is still alive in 20 states, according to the Center for Effective Discipline, a group that tracks its use in schools around the country and advocates for its end. Most of those states are in the South, where paddling remains ingrained in the social and family fabric of some communities.

Each year, prodded by child safety advocates, state legislatures debate whether corporal punishment amounts to an archaic form of child abuse or an effective means of discipline.

This month, Tyler, who attends City View Junior/Senior High School, told his story to lawmakers in Texas, which is considering a ban on corporal punishment. The same week, legislators in New Mexico voted to end the practice there.

Texas schools, Ms. Herring fumed, appear to have free rein in disciplining a student, “as long as you don’t kill him.”

“If I did that to my son,” she said, “I’d go to jail.”

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Posted in Corporal Punishment | 5 Comments »

The Benefits of Educational Apps

April 22, 2011

Last week I discussed how technology can be a good thing when the balance is right.  Unfortunately, technology addiction is very common among young children.  The trick is to have firm guidelines for how much time can be dedicated to technology use.  I certainly wouldn’t ban it altogether.

Technology has such a legitimate upside which cannot be dismissed:

Pupils at primary schools who use educational apps on smart-phones and tablets are performing better in their lessons, a new report showed has revealed.

The study reveals that forty per cent of parents who download educational apps say their child’s academic performance has improved as a result.

But the research shows that not only are they helping to raise academic attainment, educational apps are also helping children aged between 5 and 11 every day, inside the classroom. 

The study, commissioned by Encyclopaedia Britannica, shows the vast majority of parents who have downloaded an app claim they have helped their child with school work and projects, while more than half of parents with smart devices actively encourage their child to download apps for exam revision, homework and learning about new topics.

The report also reveals that families with access to mobile devices are fully engaged with educational apps as learning aids, with the average smartphone-owning family downloading more than four since purchasing their device.

The findings comes as two thirds of parents with smart devices are calling for more educational apps to be developed, saying they encourage independent learning and that children prefer to use them compared to other learning aids.

Ian Grant, Managing Director of Encyclopaedia Britannica UK, said: ‘It’s great that families are fully embracing new technologies when it comes to their childrens education and that they’re starting to see tangible benefits to academic attainment, both in and out of the classroom.’

Sue Atkins, Author of Raising Happy Children for Dummies and parenting blogger, said: ‘In a busy, hectic, stress-filled world of trying to get children interested in learning and being curious about the world, we need to engage them in new ways, and what better way than to download smartphone apps.

‘As a parent myself, I welcome this brilliant new way to help my daughter with her revision.’

Research was carried out online by PCP among 510 UK parents of children aged 5 – 11 with access to at least one smart device, in March 2011.

Exposing children to technology is good when properly supervised. Like with everything in Education, and therefore in life – balance is integral.

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Posted in Technology in the Classroom | 3 Comments »

The Horrendous Over-Prescribing of ADHD Drugs

April 21, 2011

America is running our of Ritalin!  Parents are frantically running around trying to find pharmacies that still have some in stock.  You might think that what I have just written is the making of good fiction, perhaps a Hollywood satire, but I’m afraid that it’s a true story, with potentially huge ramifications.

Nationwide shortages of popular drugs used to treat ADD and ADHD are sending parents scrambling, with some combing multiple pharmacies for the Adderall and Ritalin that keep their kids calm.

Molly Taylor, 46, of Worcester, Mass., was turned away empty-handed this week when she went to pick up prescriptions of Adderall XR for herself and her 16-year-old son, Luke.

“They don’t have them,” an incredulous Taylor told msnbc.com. “You could be waiting several days, which would have a HUGE impact. If you can’t get it that day, it’s very, very difficult.”

In the past two weeks, federal Food and Drug Administration officials added the drugs methylphenidate hydrochloride and amphetamine mixed salts, the generic names for Ritalin and Adderall, to an expanding list of national drug shortages. Some distributors cite manufacturing delays and increased demand as the reasons; others offer no explanation for the shortages.

But the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, which tracks drug supply issues, has listed the products in short supply for nearly a month, and there have been regional reports of spotty shortages even before that.

5.4 million children have ADHD

In the United States, an estimated 5.4 million children ages 4 to 17 have ever been diagnosed with ADHD, or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and 66 percent of those with current ADHD take medication to control the condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last year, that amounted to 152 million units sold of Adderall and Adderall XR, the extended-release version of the pill, 35 million units of Ritalin and nearly 702 million units of generic ADHD drugs, with sales totaling more than $1.2 billion, according to data from Wolters Kluwer Pharma Solutions.

For millions of children — and adults — the stimulant medications ease the symptoms of ADHD, allowing them to control distracted thoughts and behavior well enough to participate in school, work and social life.

The drugs are taken daily, but when patients miss even one dose, the consequences can be swift, said Ruth Hughes, interim chief executive of the organization CHADD, Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

“The symptoms come back very quickly,” said Hughes, who is the mother of an adult son with ADHD. “If you start that spiral, within 24 hours you begin to get in the loop of negative feedback. It doesn’t take very long until it has a truly negative impact.”

The current shortages affect various doses of the medications supplied by several manufacturers of brand-name and generic drugs. That means patients who find they can’t get their usual prescriptions might be able to find a similar drug in a different strength, made by a different manufacturer.

However, because the drugs are tightly controlled by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, prescriptions are doled out only a month at a time, and patients have to visit their doctors in order to authorize new drugs, which could be more expensive than the old ones.

“Tightly controlled”? You have got to be kidding me!  This is sickening!  How can we sit and watch our kids being prescribed these drugs in the millions and not wonder whether or not these kids really have ADD and ADHD?  How can you get to the point where demand for a drug for children is so readily prescribed that demand exceeds supply?

It seems like pharmaceutical companies are winning, and we are sitting there silently letting them.  It is time for a parliamentary inquiry on this issue.  Doctors and teachers in particular need to be accountable for their role in this situation.

Surely when a drug becomes so rampantly prescribed that drug companies struggle to meet demand, there is something not quite right going on?  Or am I the only one that thinks this is the case?

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Posted in Children and Medication | 2 Comments »

The Phonics Debate

April 18, 2011

It is far too simplistic to be blaming a whole language approach instead of a phonics approach for the poor results in our children’s reading.  If it was only as easy as reinstalling a national phonics program, we would have done it ages ago.  The issue here is not about phonics like some are professing:

 
OLD-school ways of teaching children to read should be re-introduced in Victoria, experts say, urging a return to phonics.

Academics and primary education specialists say Victorian children are paying the price for the Education Department’s failure to heed a federal literacy taskforce’s calls for a return to structured phonics-based teaching.

RMIT childhood psychology expert Kerry Hempenstall said the current approach – where children are taught to recognise whole words instead of learning to sound them out – had failed.

“Whole language has been around for 30 years and since then the Government has spent billions on literacy programs and reducing class sizes and, despite that investment, literacy has not improved,” Dr Hempenstall said.

The Education Department told the Sunday Herald Sun it had no way of knowing whether the reading standard had improved under the whole language “experiment” because it could not compare the two different approaches.

Spokeswoman Megan McNaught said figures showed there were more grade 3 students meeting minimum reading standards today than 10 years ago.

The National Inquiry into Teaching of Literacy recommended in 2005 that educators should provide “systematic, direct and explicit phonics instruction” to help children master “alphabetic code-breaking skills” needed for reading.

But Dr Hempenstall said Victoria had ignored the advice to the detriment of its little learners.

“Teachers today have not been taught to teach phonics in a systematic way,” Dr Hempenstall said.

“They don’t receive that training in their teacher education, so it doesn’t matter whether or not people are saying, ‘We do teach phonics’, they need to have that training for it to have an impact.”

Anyone that thinks that reverting to a phonics program will fix the problem is in fantasy land.  The problem concerning poor reading rests with two major factors.

1.  People are reading less.  We live in a modern world where people are getting their entertainment and news from the digital media.  Children are not being exposed to literature at home like they used to.  Adults are not modelling good reading habits in the same way that they used to.  There is something quite powerful about reading around your kids. 

2.  Both systems of teaching literacy are deeply flawed because they don’t easily convey the joys of reading.  Both systems can be taught well, but often come across in  a turgid and uninspiring way.  Whatever system teachers are instructed to take on must be engaging and relay the joys of reading to our kids.

When something isn’t working, there is always a call top go back in history.  Only trouble is, things change for a reason.  If it was working so well back then, it never would have been overhauled in the first place. 

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Posted in Literacy | 7 Comments »

Schools Must Share the Blame With Parents

April 18, 2011

Teachers are great at blaming poor parenting for the bad habits of their students. Often it is completely justified. However, sometimes parents are not the only one that deserves the criticism. Sometimes when students present poorly at school, it is just as much the failure of the school to engage and enforce standards as it is the parents.

Take this case for example:

Teachers are warning that pupils are failing to pack their schoolbags with basic classroom equipment and instead are bringing mobile phones, iPods, hand-held computer game devices and even the latest iPads to school.

Some schools have even begun to introduce new agreements which require parents to ensure their children are equipped with textbooks and pens at the beginning of each day.

“They often don’t come to school with their books, or without their homework and sometimes they are lacking something so basic as a pencil to write with,” said Chris Keates, the general secretary of the NASUWT union.

“They come with all this electronic equipment, it would be nice if they just brought a pen.

“My message to parents is that you can send a very powerful message to your child about the importance of their schooling by making sure that they are ready to work when they get to class each morning.”

The problem will be discussed at the union’s annual conference later this week, which will also hear from schools which have drawn up “learning contracts” with parents to encourage them to take a keener interest in their child’s day-to-day progress.

Frustrated by pupils forgetting the basics but arriving with hundreds of pounds worth of electronics in their blazer pocket or schoolbag, one Sheffield teacher was instrumental in introducing a learning contract at his school.

The English and drama teacher, who declined to be named, said: “I teach children from some of the wealthiest backgrounds in the city but it was getting to be an absolute pain in terms of the day-to-day basics.

“It’s amazing how many devices kids carry around with them these days. Young people aspire to have these Macbooks and other expensive equipment but it seems to me that the priorities are skewed.

“They automatically reach for their MP3 players and so on, but not for the writing equipment.

“I believe they should be able to pick up a pen and construct a sentence, which is correct in terms of grammar and spelling, without resorting to an electronic spellchecking device which will probably give them an incorrect, American version.”

He added: “Our policy sees any forgotten equipment being marked in children’s daily log books for parents to see and I urge all parents in the country to check their child has the basic equipment for the school day.”

The Education Bill published in January proposed new powers for teachers to confiscate prohibited items, including electronic gadgets, and to also enable staff to examine data such as video clips for evidence of bullying or other bad behaviour.

A survey in 2006 found that 91 per cent of children owned a mobile telephone by the age of 12.

This article is a great example of teachers blaming parents for a problem they have a share in. The following points need to be made:

  1. If you have a child at your school for 5-15 years and they still haven’t grasped the concept of bringing pens and text books to class, you are not running a very good school. Where are your rules? Where are your expectations? Don’t blame parents for not overseeing their kids’ schoolbag – surely you can do more to enforce standards of organisation.
  2. What has mobile phones and i-Pods got to do with not bringing books and pens to school? If you have a problem with electronic gadgets, ban them or at least set some guidelines. Kids will always be drawn to modern gadgets. Don’t blame mobile phones for the lack of student organisation. There is no reason why kids can’t be taught the importance of balancing educational and extra-curricular activities.
  3. If you’ve got something to say to parents don’t do it through the media. Teachers and parents must work together. Articles that have teachers preaching to parents often create a divide which helps no one.
  4. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a likely reason for our students being so disinterested in their studies as to come to class unprepared, is due to the lack of engagement on the part of teacher. One of the most important skills a teacher must have is the ability to stimulate and interest their class. If their class seems bored, it is probably because they have a boring teacher. It’s so easy to blame parents and i-Pods, when the real issue is there are too many teachers who offer little and expect a lot in return.

You might accuse me of being disloyal to my profession. The truth is, I am a parent as well as a teacher, and I empathise and relate to both sides of this debate. Sure there is far too many parents out there that don’t get involved with their child’s educational needs. I hear horror stories all the time. But let’s not forget that teachers choose to enter this profession because they want to make a difference to their students. To do this, they must be prepared to work through all obstacles and challenges.

Apportioning blame is fine – just as long as all parties accept some responsibility.

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Posted in Dealing with Parents | 1 Comment »

Poor Children Coming to School Tired and Hungry

April 15, 2011

This is a universal problem that requires a lot more attention.  Teachers are not given enough credit for their role in supporting kids that come to school with inadequate food or no lunch at all.  It is not widely known that teachers often spend out of their own pocket to ensure that their poorer students have what to eat.  But the problem still exists, and it must be addressed.

A concerted campaign from schools by working with charity groups to ensure that meals are provided for students of poor families should ensure that heartbreaking articles like this one will be a thing of the past:

Teachers are reporting a rise in pupils entering the classroom feeling tired, hungry and dressed in worn-out clothes.

A study by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers found almost eight-in-10 staff had pupils living below the poverty line and a quarter believed numbers had increased since the start of the recession.

One teacher from Nottingham told of a sixth-former who had not eaten for three days as her “mother had no money at all until pay day”.

A teaching assistant from a West Midlands comprehensive told researchers that some pupils had “infected toes due to feet squashed into shoes way too small”, while another member from Halifax reported a boy who was ridiculed in the PE changing room because his family could not afford to buy him any underpants.

Some teachers told how pupils were consistently late for lessons as parents could not cover the bus fare to school. Other children from middle to lower income families have been forced to cut out school tips because money is so tight, it was claimed.

The disclosure follows the publication of figures showing a rise in the number of pupils eligible for free school meals as families struggle to stay above the breadline in the recession.

Almost 1.2 million five- to 16-year-olds claimed free lunches last year – a rise of more than 83,000 in just 12 months.

Mary Bousted, ATL general secretary, claimed that problems would escalate further because of Government funding cuts – putting the Coalition’s social mobility drive in jeopardy.

“It is appalling that in 2011 so many children in the UK are severely disadvantaged by their circumstances and fail to achieve their potential,” she said.

“What message does this government think it is sending young people when it is cutting funding for Sure Start centres, cutting the Education Maintenance Allowance, raising tuition fees and making it harder for local authorities to provide health and social services.

“The Government should forget empty rhetoric about social mobility and concentrate on tackling the causes of deprivation and barriers to attainment that lock so many young people into a cycle of poverty.”

It is time that we made the most crucial issues in education our first priority and main focus.  As important as debate over class size, ICT, male teacher numbers are for improved educational outcomes, such discussion often takes over.  We need to get back to basics.  The basic requirement for a school is to look after the welfare of its students.  That makes health and bullying among the most important priorities in my book.Here’s an opportunity for schools and charity groups to work together to tackle a problem that shouldn’t even exist in the forst place.

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Posted in Child Welfare, Nutrition | 2 Comments »

Banning Home-Made Lunches is a Dreadful Policy

April 15, 2011

Of all the things to ban at school, who was responsible for this terrible idea? How can you ban children from bringing a home-made lunch to school? How can you force parents into spending money for their child’s lunch when they could provide their own for less cost?  This is another case of we don’t trust parents and their children, so we’ll intervene.  Whilst this philosophy is often generated from good intentions, it seldom leads to good results.

The days of brown bagging it are over for students in a Chicago school. In an effort to encourage healthy eating, their principal banned lunches brought from home.

Elsa Carmona, principal of Little Village Academy on Chicago’s West Side, forbade students from bringing food from home (except those students with a medical excuse) after she noticed kids eating “flaming hot” chips and drinking soda at lunchtime. “It’s milk versus Coke,” she said.

While the goal of healthy eating is a positive one, parents are understandably upset about the Carmona dictating what their kids can and cannot eat for lunch. Not to mention the fact that some parents may be able to send their kids to lunch with a meal that costs less (and one that could be even healthier) than the school’s offerings.

The kids are upset, too. When the Tribune reporter visited the school, one seventh grader led students in a chant of “We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch!” Students say the school’s food tastes bad. Bad-tasting food, parents say, often means that kids throw away the school lunch and go hungry.

It’s also worth noting, as reported by the Tribune, that the school district receives money from the federal government for each free or reduced-price lunch it serves, meaning that in banning homemade lunches could potentially put more money in the pockets of both the district and the school district’s food provider.

But Carmona maintains her school’s policy is simply about helping students make healthy choices. “Nutrition-wise,” she told the Tribune, “it’s better for the children to eat at the school. It’s about nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom).”

Is anyone surprised that this scheme looks very much like a money-making venture disguised as a realistic attempt in tackling childhood obesity?  What happens to a child who is caught bringing in a lunch from home that is more healthy and nutritious than what the school offers?  Does that child get punished?  What happens if the students hate the menu?  Why should they be forced to eat what they don’t like?

I am all for reducing the amount of junk that students have in their lunch boxes. But at the end of the day, I urge school’s to stop mirroring prisons.  Yes discipline is important, as is routine.  And yes, at times intervention is required.  But why do those involved in forming school policy show a lack of regard for making their students’ time at school a happy, comfortable or at the very least bearable experience?

How about forcing those involved in making stupid rules like this one to eat from the school cafeteria?  How about making them lead my example and banning them from eating a home-made lunch?

And you wonder why there is such a lack of respect from students nowadays?





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Posted in Childhood Obesity, Nutrition, School Rules | 2 Comments »

Cyber Bullying Takes Bullying to a New Level

April 13, 2011

It would be taking bullying too lightly to say it was important or a priority.  It is much more serious than that.  Bullying is a huge area of concern worldwide and is the issue most in need of consideration and due diligence in our schools.  I am happy to hear that in my home state of Victoria, legislation has been passed making it a crime to bully, with workplace bullies jailed for up to 10 years.

It is reassuring to see that cyber bullying is included in this piece of legislation:

The legislation would also cover cyber bullying. It’s happening in other places too.

With the internet covering every part of our lives, cyber bullying has become more prevalent now than ever before. Access to mobile phones, the Facebook phenomenon and YouTube have made it a real problem. Cyber bullying is now so bad that it’s being looked at by a parliamentary committee. Facebook says its removing 20,000 under age users globally each day, but the problem continues. Cyber bullying is perpetrated not just by young people. Take for example the revelations of a gay hate campaign on Facebook in the Australian Defence Force. //

Cyber bullying can take many forms. It can include being teased or made fun of online, being sent threatening emails,  having rumours spread about you online, having unpleasant comments, pictures or videos about you sent or posted on websites like Facebook or MySpace,  being sent unwanted messages, being deliberately ignored or left out of things on the internet or even having someone use your screen name or password and pretending to be you to hurt someone else.

One of the worst examples recently popped up when Blake Rice, who lost his mother and brother in Queensland’s floods, was bashed by six youths because of all the attention he was getting. After leaving him with a broken collar bone, they set up a Facebook page titled We bashed Blake Rice.

The effect of cyber bullying can not be underestimated.  When a child is bullied in the schoolyard, they may find sanctuary in the comfort and safety of their home and family.  This basic right is not afforded to victims of cyber bullying.  They are bullied from the very place they go to for safety and certainty.  With cyber bullying, there is nowhere to hide.

Another unique aspect of cyber bullying, is that when students are bullied at school there is a clear expectation that the Principal and staff will work together to protect these students.  Who are our children to turn to when they are being bullied online?  Their teachers?  Their parents?

This frustrating aspect is highlighted quite clearly through this heartbreaking letter to the Editor from a mother in the UK.

I WAS so pleased to read the article from a concerned father on Facebook Bullying.

I am the parent of a 13 year old girl attending a West Norfolk High School.

We have experienced the horror of Facebook Bullying, which follows on from a day of hell for my daughter in school.

I have had to complain to the school, visit the school, etc, on many occasions since my daughter started three years ago, only to be told the same thing time and time again – the bullies have been spoken too, the bullies have been dealt with; only to find that same evening it starts again at home in the form of Facebook.

The horrible taunts, the name calling, and then more join in and back up the bully’s comments. My daughter puts a far braver face on it than I ever could, but as a mother I feel her pain – and I am disgusted that the parents of these children are not checking what their delightful children are saying and the manner in which they are saying it.

I log on to my daughter’s Facebook with her permission every day now. On occasions as I have been doing this I have had vile messages sent to me via chat – and they get a nasty shock when they realise they have not actually sent it to my daughter.

I have threatened them with Police, with their parents and for cyber bullying, but most times you just get verbal abuse back.

What is happening to our children and our schools?

I have thought about taking my daughter off Facebook altogether to protect her, but why should she be the one who feels punished; why should she miss out on what the majority of her peers are enjoying responsibly?

Also it helps me as a parent to see just what the poor child is enduring and a least, on an upside, I can be there for her and support her through this the best I can – and I have the names of the bullies.

Perhaps Facebook should have been thought through before its launch – 18 years minimum age for access maybe.

There may just be a chance then that these awful bullying children may have reached maturity, and know right from wrong.

ANOTHER CONCERNED PARENT (MOTHER)

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Posted in Bullying, Cyber Bullying | 1 Comment »

The Perfect Example of Courage and Self-Respect

April 12, 2011

The following is a clip I watched today that literally blew me away.  It is of a Pakistani actress by the name of Veena Malik, who in the face of harsh criticism by cleric, Mufti Abdul Qavi, stands up for herself in a profoundly courageous and inspirational way.  I don’t want to comment on the substance of their heated conversation (I’ll leave that to others).  Instead, I want to focus on the courage, integrity and strength of character displayed by Ms. Malik.

This is not something I can show in the classroom because of cultural sensitivities, but I strongly urge parents to watch this video.  The message that this clip sends to young girls in particular is potentially very powerful.  Here is a woman who refuses to be degraded, dictated to and walked over.  That is exactly the message we should be sending to our youth – be honest, courageous, proud and compassionate, and never let others manipulate, bully or belittle you.

Again I want to stipulate that I am not commenting on the substance of the disagreement between Ms. Malik and the cleric because that is not the purpose of this blog.  This blog is about education, and I can think of no better education for a young impressionable child than to see a model of self-respect, courage and integrity first hand.

Thank you Ms. Malik for standing up not only for yourself but for all people who feel downtrodden and unappreciated!

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Posted in Rolemodels, Teaching Girls | 1 Comment »

Should Teachers Have Students as Facebook Friends?

April 12, 2011

My answer to this question is a categorical no.  Whilst my own teachers were generous with their time, even giving out their phone numbers (when I was in 12th grade) to offer help after hours, this sort of generosity is now just plain unprofessional.  Teachers should not accept invitations to be Facebook friends with their students, nor should they be giving out their phone numbers.

It seems that this issue is a concern around the world.  A study was recently conducted in Ontario, which featured the following recommendations:

A report, to be released Monday, recommends teachers neither accept — nor send out — Facebook friend requests involving students. They should avoid texting, and never communicate by email using a personal account, says the advisory from the Ontario College of Teachers, the body that oversees the profession.

Online communications should be via “established education platforms” such as web pages set up for a school project or class, says the report, obtained by the Toronto Star.

Teachers should also only contact students electronically during the same times they’d feel comfortable calling home.

“When we are communicating with students, face-to-face or in more traditional ways, we are trying to replicate that in other media,” said Michael Salvatori, the college’s registrar.

“The informal language of texting is not the kind of interaction a teacher and student would have … there are lots of ways teachers can be available for students without texting.”

The report comes as school boards try to figure out how to create rules around the use of social media, without hampering efforts by educators to engage students by using it.

And, increasingly, just as in their real life, teachers’ conduct online is also coming under scrutiny. Recently, in the U.S., teachers have been suspended for posting inappropriate comments on their personal Facebook pages, on their own time; one said he hated his job and students, another compared herself to a “warden” supervising “future criminals.”

This is only the third advisory the college has ever issued, and it will follow up with information sessions around the province this month and next.

Few school boards have a social media policy as yet, trusting to general guidelines around teacher and online conduct to cover it for now.

That’s because social media has exploded in the past few years, said Paul Elliott, vice-president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, which put out a pamphlet for teachers on the issue a while ago.

It’s the newly graduated teachers who tend to have a tough time at the start, he added.

They’ve been active on Facebook, and they are moving into a profession where behaviour that wasn’t considered objectionable before is now inappropriate — such as posting a picture enjoying a beer with friends, he said.

As for texting, it can sometimes prove “a useful tool of communication in the classroom, with the curriculum — but that’s the only time it should be in use,” he said.

The college has also warned teachers that anything they post online can be altered, and that “innocent actions” can be “easily misconstrued or manipulated.” The report cites several disciplinary cases, albeit extreme ones, where emails or other online communications were involved.

There is no good reason for a teacher to be communicating with students through Facebook or any other forms of social media.  While I respect and appreciate my teachers for giving me the opportunity to call on them after hours with queries or concerns, I don’t think the current day teacher should be allowed to do the same today.  Teachers must be responsible and careful in their dealing with their students.  There is nothing responsible about being a Facebook friend with your student.

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