Posts Tagged ‘Parenting’

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The Cost of Sedating Our Boys

February 20, 2011

I recently came across an interesting opinion piece by Elizabeth Farrelly in the Sydney Morning Herald.  Whilst I wouldn’t go as far as to connect the lack of representation of male teachers to the number of boys on Ritalin, some of her points do resonate.  There is no doubt that Ritalin does have a place, but with the numbers of children (boys in particular) taking the drug climbing markedly from year to year, it is more than fair to raise some strong concerns.  Ms. Farrelly certainly does just that:

The Ritalin wars are usually treated as just another tussle between the pharmaceutical companies and the rest, but is there something else going on here as well? Is it part of a more generalised, covert war on boyhood? //

Thirty years ago Australian primary schools employed five male teachers for every four females. By 2006 there was one male teacher for every four females. This overwhelming feminisation of primary education, and of culture generally, has made boy-type behaviour stuff to frown upon. Are we in danger of seeing boyhood itself as a disorder?

When Christopher Lane, author of Shyness: How Normal Behaviour Became a Sickness, quoted a psychoanalyst saying “We used to have a word for sufferers of ADHD; we called them boys”, he probably did not expect it to become the most famous line of his book.

What was once introversion is now “avoidant personality disorder”, nervousness is “social anxiety disorder” (SAD) or dating anxiety disorder (DAD) and so on. It’s not that these disorders don’t exist, says Lane, a Guggenheim fellow studying the ethics of psychopharmacology, but that our definitions are so broad that the entire mysterious subconscious is reduced to chemical balance, and any deviation looks like disease.

Why, he asks, is ADHD so commonly diagnosed in boys? Is it new behaviour? Or just a new attitude to that behaviour?

But why the gender imbalance, and why now? We know that boys tend to be late maturers anyway, but Scott concedes there are also social and perceptual factors at play. Teachers with “less structured” teaching style and “more distracting” classroom environments, he says, yield many more of his clients than their more disciplined (my word) colleagues.

Whereas ADHD girls “sit quietly in a corner”, the boys are more disruptive and more noticed, more referred, more medicated. And although much the same is true of ”normal” boys and girls, the upshot is that ”girl” is a norm to which boys are expected to strive. Scott sees it as “an unintended consequence of how society operates”.

But consequences this important should be either clearly intentional, if girlifying boys is really what we want, or remedied. Personally, I reckon the crazily creative are types we’ll need more of, rather than fewer of, in the future, even if they are male.

The above are just some snippets from this very thought-provoking opinion piece.  It has never sat well with me that such a large proportion of children taking Ritalin are boys.  Whilst I wouldn’t go as far as to blame it on few male teachers, it does make you wonder whether we are getting it right.

It seems like society may be letting boys down very badly.

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Posted in Children and Medication, Male Teachers, Teaching boys | 3 Comments »

Natalie Munroe is No Hero!

February 18, 2011

I can’t believe the amount of support blogger Natalie Munroe is receiving after she was caught complaining about her students on a public blog.

Sure, she may not have named them when she called them “… rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying.”

She didn’t even use her full name.  So what did she do wrong?

When you write a blog that complains about the people you work with or for, be very careful that the secret doesn’t come out.  When a school board is presented with complaints from parents who were angry that their children were insulted online, they have no choice but to issue a suspension.  It’s a really bad look – especially from a teacher.

Ms. Munroe’s defenders say she was just telling the truth.  Firstly, she wasn’t telling the truth.  Truth applies to fact, this is opinion.  The old adage that one’s opinions is best left to one’s self certainly applies here.  The school would look ridiculous if they allowed Ms. Monroe to write what she likes and they certainly couldn’t have defended it on the basis of truth.

But many disagree with me:

However, it is high time for teachers to speak up even at the loss of their jobs. United in this effort, they could turn the tables and help students achieve better educations. And they could have a better, safer, environment.

It might be noted here that she did not direct her statements to any specific student. There has been a Facebook group organized to support her.

Every classroom in America is filled with students like this, and sometimes it must be like working in a zoo. It might be an easier job than trying to reach and teach kids who could care less about school, respecting those in authority, and those who hold back other students who really want to learn.

This is not the forum for teachers to have a go at their own students.  If they disguise their comments in general statements about the nature of kids in modern society that is acceptable, but when they make judgements about the personalities and behaviours of their own students, they must accept the consequences of these revelations should they reach the parents.

My own take on this is that she made a mistake.  She is not a bad person or necessarily a bad teacher.  Whilst it’s not a good look for a teacher to be caught out venting their frustration, it happens all the time, and given the time, place and circumstance it won’t lead to suspension.  But seriously, Natalie Munroe is no hero!

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Posted in Cyber Bullying, Teachers Stress | 5 Comments »

The Drug Companies Are Winning at Our Children’s Expense

February 17, 2011

I have a confession to make.  I hate drug companies.  No, worse, I despise drug companies.

I may not be a doctor, pharmacist or  expert, so you can discount my views as just ramblings from an ignorant blogger if you like, but that isn’t going to change my position.

It is my belief that the drug companies have a vision.  That vision is to see children being given medication as if it were candy.  Last month I wrote about the fact that more than a quarter of kids in the US are on medication, with almost 7% on two or more prescription drugs.  The drug companies probably see that figure as merely a good start, with plenty of room for improvement.

And as much as I wish we could see through what they are doing, I’m afraid, they continue to prevail.

I was really disappointed to hear that a lice drug called Natroba,  has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use on children ages 4 and older.

A lice drug?  So let me get this straight.  You give your child a drug that goes into the bloodstream to fight a problem which is external to the body.  How on earth does that work?

The product — which is applied to dry scalp and hair, then left on for 10 minutes — contains spinosad, a compound that excites the central nervous system of head lice. The bugs, which are most common in children ages 3 to 12, become paralyzed and die.

And what about the “known” side-effects?

Common side effects of Natroba include redness or irritation of the eyes and skin.Because it contains benzyl alcohol, which can be harmful to newborns and low-birth-weight infants, the drug should not be used on children younger than 6 months.

6 months?  Why would you give a prescription drug to a baby suffering from lice?

The sad part of this is that we live in the age of the quick fix.  The solution to every problem must come at the click of a finger.  No matter how many of these drugs get released, there will always be doctors happy to endorse and prescribe them and parents only too happy to avoid the time and energy used to treat their children in the traditional way.

If this keeps up, soon it will be rare to find a child not on medication.  What a tragedy!

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Posted in Children and Medication | 2 Comments »

Why Students Misbehave

February 16, 2011

There are many reasons given for poorly behaved students:

  • The teacher doesn’t enforce discipline
  • The students are spoilt
  • The students are not parented properly
  • Kids are rude nowadays, and haven’t been properly taught manners.

All these reasons are decent explanations for an unruly child or class.  But there is one glaring omission from this list, which doesn’t get nearly the amount of coverage as other reasons – the students are bored!

My experience with unruly behaviour, is that it is more prevalent in a classroom that is taught in a bland style.  I have observed some brilliantly dedicated and hard-working teachers, who spend countless hours planning their lessons using the latest graphic organisers and programs, only to watch their hard work fizzle before their very eyes.  The most thorough preparation can go out the window when it results in a unsipiring lesson.

So much of today’s educational resources concentrates on breaking skills down, organising thoughts and following scientific trends.  What they fail to do is assist teachers in delivering fun, enjoyable lessons.

The latest trend in Australian education is direct instruction.  Direct instruction involves reading from a script.  In Australia this is how many schools teach their maths and spelling.  The class teacher is presented with a manual and asked to read from a script (the script even tells you when to pint at the board and when to pause!).  The students job is to listen, repeat after the teacher, and answer questions in their workbooks.  No hands are answered, no discussion takes place.  It’s just the teacher talking and the students responding.

The strengths of this style of teaching are worth noting.  The program is comprehensive, it fixes gaps in student learning, it helps improve the student’s listening skills, it makes for a quiet classroom and cuts planning time.  But among the weaknesses for such a program is the fact that it is so boring, firstly for the teacher, and also for the student.

Boring classes often leads to disruptive behaviour.

Have you ever watched the behaviour of teachers during a boring PD or staff room meeting?  And that’s adults!  We can control our behaviour far better than our students.  It’s just that when you are bored, it’s not so easy to maintain focus and avoid distraction.

In my own teaching, I find that my most difficult classes come as a result of an inability to properly engage my students.  Because I am not a strict or authoritative teacher, I rely very much on the strength of my lessons to maintain decorum in the classroom.

Among the many questions we teachers must ask ourselves when we reflect on behavior management in our classrooms is, what are my lessons like?  Could they be more relevant to the interests and life experiences of my students?

 

 

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Posted in Classroom Management, Engaging Students | 4 Comments »

How is Hitting Students Still Legal?

February 15, 2011

I don’t know if it was naivety on my part or just the fact that I’m from Australia, but I had no idea that corporal punishment was still legal in 20 US states.  A third-world country maybe – but the US?  In Australia it is absolutely illegal to strike a student, and so it should be.  I just assumed that the America had the same protocols.  Turns out I was wrong.

In response to the dreadful story of the elementary teacher charged with assault for allegedly choking and punching 8 first grade students, the Washington Post recently wrote an expose on the issue of legalised corporal punishment:

In June, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.) introduced the Ending Corporal Punishment in Schools Act, which would ban corporal punishment as a form of punishment or way to modify undesirable behavior at all public and private schools with students that receive federal services.

Congress apparently had other things to do. The bill was sent to a committee but never made it further in the legislative process.

Last year a congressional committee had a hearing on the issue. The panel learned that:

  • School officials, including teachers, administered corporal punishment to 223,190 schoolchildren across the nation during the 2006-07 school year (according to conservative government estimates, the latest year for which national statistics were available).
  • As a result of that punishment, 10,000 to 20,000 students requested medical treatment.
  • Students are typically hit on their buttocks with a wooden paddle, about 15 inches long, two to four inches wide and a half-inch thick, with a six-inch handle at one end.
  • Most students are paddled for minor infractions, such as violating a dress code, being late for school, talking in class or in the hallway, or being “disrespectful.”
  • Almost 40 percent of all the cases of corporal punishment occur in Texas and Mississippi.
  • Current studies indicate that physical punishment is most common in kindergarten through eighth grade, in rural schools, in boys, and in disadvantaged and nonwhite children.
  • African American students are 17 percent of all public school students in the United States but are 36 percent of those who are victims of corporal punishment, more than twice the rate of white students.

Supporters of corporal punishment will defend the method as being effective in dealing with unruly behaviour.  In my opinion, it is a lazy option that should never be allowed.  As much as I wish it weren’t the case, not all teachers care deeply about their students.  Many get disenchanted, flustered and resentful.  While a vast majority of teachers want nothing more than to see their students thrive, others will surely exploit any means possible to shut them up.

Australia and the United States have a close relationship and share many of the same values and ideals.  But corporal punishment isn’t one of them.  How can 20 States continue to allow such an extreme form of punishment in today’s age?  Please don’t wait for more horrible stories about unprofessional and violent teachers before doing something about this.

No matter how badly behaved they may be, kids deserve better than this!

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Posted in Classroom Management, Corporal Punishment | 3 Comments »

Be Careful How Much Power You Give Schools

February 14, 2011

Multiple choice time:

You have a 6-year old boy suffering from separation anxiety because his father, an Army commander, is leaving for Iraq.  The boy is found drawing zombies and writes underneath the drawings that he wants to die.

As a school administrator, do you:

a. Take the child aside and offer help, sympathy and a listening ear.

b. Call his mother to set up a plan for how to join forces and help the child during this tough period of his life.

c. Refer the situation to a counsellor or recommend that the mother take the child to a psychologist to get expert help.

d. Call an ambulance and get that child to a psychiatric ward, so he can be committed to a 72-hour psychiatric hold.

If you answered “d” you are probably from Los Angeles, the home of mystifying school decisions.

A mother has criticised school authorities for committing her six-year-old son to a psychiatric ward against her wishes because of a picture he drew in class.

Jack Dorman was pulled out of his elementary school classroom after he sketched a drawing of zombies and stick figures and wrote that he wanted to die.

But the boy’s furious mother, Syndi, said her son was simply upset that his soldier father was being deployed to Iraq.

She said the way Los Angeles school officials treated her son ’was right up there with my worst nightmare.’

Mrs Dorman added: ‘They said they were concerned about a picture he drew. I said he plays video games and it’s a picture from a video game.’

She claims Jack suffers from separation anxiety and was particularly upset on the day he drew the disturbing picture after learning his father, an Army commander, was leaving for Iraq on Thursday.

‘I explained to them what was happening, that my husband was being deployed to Iraq, that he was upset when he came to school today, that he wanted to be at home,’ she said.

‘I’m saying, “I will deal with it, that we have a therapist and that we’ll make sure he’s seen today”.’

‘They said it was out of my hands. They said they were in control and they could do this and had already called an ambulance.

‘I said, “Can you do this?” and they’re like, “Yeah”, Mrs Dorman said in an interview with NBC. ‘I’m just like, “What? Can I get a lawyer? How is this happening?”.’

Mrs Dorman said the ambulance ride was terrifying for her son, who was already seeing a therapist because he became anxious when he was separated from his family.

‘I was trying to reassure him that it would be okay and he asked if I’d come back for him and I said of course I am going to come back for you,’ added Mrs Dorman.

Jack was released after 48 hours, but his mother fears the ordeal has traumatised her son.

‘My son doesn’t want to go back to school. He’s afraid they are going to take him away again,’ she said.

In a statement, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Ramon Cortines insisted his staff took the appropriate action.

‘We did the right thing here,’ he said. ‘I can unequivocally state that correct procedures and protocols were followed, including contacting the parents and accessing community resources such as the Los Angeles County Psychiatric Mobile Response Team.

‘When any student indicates a desire to take his or her own life, the LAUSD is required to follow strict protocols to ensure the safety of the student. The safety of LAUSD students is paramount,’ he added.

Where is the common sense in this story?  The boy is 6-years old!  A 6-year old boy with a father being sent off to war who threatens his life on the back of a drawing needs care and support from his school.  He needs the school to be sensitive and compassionate.  So what do they do to this poor kid?  They send him off to a psychiatric ward!  The person that was responsible for calling the ambulance is a more suitable candidate for the ward!  What were they thinking?

The unfortunate modern reality of living in a litigious world, in my opinion,  is that school’s care more about being sued than for the rights of the children.  It is for this reason, we need to be mindful that in all kinds of sensitive circumstances, school’s are likely to put their interests ahead of the child’s.  We must be careful how much power we give them.  This includes teacher’s being given authority to greatly influence the decision of a doctor in prescribing powerful medications to a child.

And it isn’t just the school that is to blame.  It’s the regulations which were instituted with one massive, gaping hole in it – the common sense clause. Even with the best of intentions, a law that ignores common sense, is a terrible law!

And notice the lack of apology.  No, they are still defending their decision!  Shame on you!

Time to change the law folks

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Posted in Education Policy, School Rules | 5 Comments »

Why Aren’t Kids Held Back Anymore?

February 11, 2011

“It is our policy not to hold kids back unless there are exceptional circumstances.”

This is the standard line that Principals use nowadays when a teacher raises the topic of kids repeating grades.

Why isn’t it school policy?  What is stopping schools from having the courage to recommend it?

EXCUSE 1: “There is a stigma about kids that are forced to repeat a year.”

Well, that stigma is partly generated by an educational system that refuses to think logically about this issue.  When policy makers decide that some students would greatly benefit from redoing the year, they are assisting in breaking that stigma.  When they decide that they would prefer letting thE child flounder in a year level they aren’t equipped for they are helping to maintain the stigma at the cost of progress.

EXCUSE 2: “A child’s confidence could be tarnished by making them repeat.”

Since when is a school content in letting students fail, looking out for their self-esteem?  How is being miles apart from the rest of the class a confidence boost?  On the contrary, a child can get a new lease on life when they repeat a year.  They are given extra time to fill in the gaps and improve their basic skills.

EXCUSE 3:“But the parents would be devastated if we even raised it.  They may even remove the child from the school. “

A school that makes its decisions based on whether or not the parents will remove their child, is deeply compromised and lacks integrity.  The reason why parents may be devastated is because such an occurrence is rare.  The reason why it is rare to recommend that a child repeat a year is because schools don’t do it enough.  You have to break the cycle before such a measure gains wider acceptance.

Ultimately, a school should do what is right for the child, not what is popular or easy.  That is why I congratulate the Indianapolis school system for its brave new policy:

A new statewide third grade reading test will be a new test developed by the same company that produces the ISTEP statewide exams. About a third of third grade students fail the English and language arts ISTEP test each year, but the new exam will be designed with the expectation that all students who can read will pass the test.

“This is so fundamental to a child’s success, I think we absolutely must draw a line in the sand,” said board member Jim Edwards.

Under provisions adopted by the board Tuesday, students who do not pass the test on the first try could attempt the test again during locally-offered summer school, and could move to fourth grade if they pass on that attempt. All students would have to pass the exam to advance unless they qualified for one of the plans’ three exemptions: one for special education students, one for English language learners and one for students that have been retained twice prior to fourth grade.

I realise that repeating a year has implications, and that sometimes the result of doing so will end up being negative.  I simply feel that schools should be caring and supportive enough to do the right thing by the child and help replace stigmas with good decisions.

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Posted in Child Development | 6 Comments »

Parents, Don’t Do Your Kids’ Homework!

February 7, 2011

The other day I took my daughter to the museum to see an exhibit on Africa.  We sat down to do an African inspired craft activity where I witnessed a loving mother helping her daughter design and decorate her artwork.  I use the word “help” very loosely, because in fact she was basically doing the whole thing for her.  Soon the child’s father joined them.  What ensued was a disagreement between the child’s father and mother over what design strategy to use and what colours worked best.  What was supposed to be an activity for the child, became a chance for the parents to let their child sit aimlessly while her parents took over.

This is a common syndrome when it comes to homework.  Parents often end up doing their child’s homework.  Whilst I understand that they do this out of love as well as to diffuse some of their child’s anxiety over the complexity of the set task, I strongly urge parents to desist from this practice.  Even though in the short-term the child is grateful that the homework can now be submitted without too much heartache, in the long-term they have neither demonstrated capability in successfully mastering the task nor have they managed to calmly work through a challenge.  I accept that parents use homework as a chance to spend some quality time with their kids on a weeknight (where time with the kids is often at a premium), but there are better ways to show your children that you love them and support them.

Whilst there are some strong arguments for abolishing homework (which I will cover at a later date), I’d instead like to focus on what homework should be and how parents can help without feeling a need to take over:

  1. Homework should be revision.  It should not introduce a new concept or skill.  It should simply be a vehicle for students to demonstrate how well they understood what was covered in class that week.  If the child is bringing home work that was not introduced in class, I advise you to see the teacher.
  2. Most teachers give a few days to complete the homework.  I strongly urge my students to use night one to read over the homework and circle any question that they don’t understand.  Then, instead of approaching their parents, come see me the next day.  Of course, I am not restricting the parents from helping their kids, I am merely offering my help as the first option.  In my opinion, parents have already spent most of their youth completing homework, they have paid their debt to education and should now be allowed to enjoy a homework-free life.
  3. When the student approaches the teacher early on about difficulties in the homework, they are showing a great deal of responsibility and assertiveness.  This isn’t lost on the teacher.  So if the students maintains this sort of dialogue with their teacher, extensions are likely to be given should they struggle to meet the deadline.
  4. The best help you can give your children, when assisting them through a homework task is patience and perspective.  Offer your services by all means, but ensure that unlike the girl at the craft table, they end up having ownership of their work.  Kids are not proud of their parents homework, they are proud of their own achievements.  Whilst instilling independence and confidence in children may sometimes feel like an overwhelming proposition, the payoff is huge.  I would rather my students hand in a piece of homework that they took ownership of that was full of mistakes than a brilliant piece ultimately done by mum or dad.

We can easily look at parents who are doing their children’s homework in a judgmental light, whilst calling them enablers and accusing them of spoiling their children.  This is not the right approach.  These parents are often loving parents that don’t know how best to act in a complex situation.

Hopefully the above tips are of some assistance.

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Posted in Homework | 3 Comments »

Facebook: Changing the Face of Education

February 6, 2011

There is something quite brilliant about social media when it is used in the right way.  Australia has been afflicted by floods, cyclones and fire in the past few weeks, and social media was instrumental in relaying messages and accessing information.  But like all technology, there is always negatives that erode some of the positive aspects.

Social media such as Facebook were invented to connect people, to make them closer, to bring people together.  It is so unfortunate to see the very innovation purporting to connect us being used for quite the opposite.  In the past weeks I have covered Facebook misuse stories such as the unfortunate trend of parents using Facebook to publicly campaign against teachers, the case of the student that bullied his teacher on Facebook, and now unfortunately, comes this new story:

A teacher working at a special needs primary school said it was like ‘working at a zoo’ and that she wanted to throw pupils out of the window.

The teacher at the Oakley School, for special needs children aged between five and 11 in Tonbridge, Kent, also said the pupils shared a ‘particular brand of special germ which made her ill’ on her Facebook page.

The teacher was hauled before education chiefs after they had looked through her Facebook account – which also contained a ‘joke’ about throwing pupils out of the window.

She also criticised pupils, saying they ‘smelled her legs’ and that she was ‘working in hell’ in posts made in September last year.

Parents were furious that the teacher at the 50-pupil school was ‘mocking’ their children on the popular site and demanding she get the boot.

School chiefs have not said whether the teacher was sacked or whether she left after being confronted with the evidence – and say the matter remains ‘confidential’.

Teachers often get quite frustrated with a class or student and say things they later regret.  However, these words far and away exceeded what a typical frustrated teacher says.  What makes it so much worse is that the teacher had the foolishness and temerity to post her thoughts on Facebook.  Teaching is a privilege – especially disabled children who rely on their teacher for support and guidance more than most. No teacher should ever speak of their students in that way!

I have heard teachers talk up Facebook as an educational tool, claiming that it’s perfect for the classroom.  As a teacher myself, I remain unconvinced that it is a wise move to introduce Facebook to the classroom.  Even if half the class are on it anyway, teachers should think twice before endorsing the innovation.

After all, we are seeing far too many cases of Facebook abuse.

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Posted in Cyber Bullying | 4 Comments »

Do You Suffer From Classroom Envy?

February 1, 2011


There have been a few realities that have caught me off guard since I signed up to being a teacher. The expectation of a meticulously presented classroom is certainly one of them. I’m not an artistic person. My creativity comes from writing and thinking innovatively, but I am inept at decorating. Design school’s nationwide are not flocking to mimic my inimitable low-key style.

I knew that a classroom should look bright, contain student work and be aesthetically pleasing. What I didn’t know, that I have seen learned, was that teachers are inherently obsessive with the look and feel of their classroom. From the table layout to the perfectly hand-crafted posters and signs. Teachers are constantly shopping for material, furniture and accessories to beautify their classroom.

Often it’s a competition. The other day I complemented a colleague about her majestic looking classroom in the presence of another colleague. Only later was I told that by praising that colleague I had potentially upset the other who was already anxious about her classroom not matching up to others aesthetically.

It reminds me of the Christmas lights battle that takes place in some neighbourhoods. What starts out as an expression of good will and festivity, can sometimes turn in to a competitive slugfest. I am not a competitive person at the best of times. In this context, my classroom isn’t simply inferior, compared to the others it looks like a jungle.

My bosses past and present have continually made insensitive comments about the look of my classroom. It’s not as if I don’t try. Sure, it doesn’t size up to the others, but I still maintain it possesses a quaint charm (well that’s my spin on it anyway).

I once apologised to a parent about the look of my classroom during a meeting. The parent responded by pointing out that she doesn’t care what the classroom looks like, just as long as her child is happy and learning well.

Is that representative of other parents? Is it a case of style vs substance? Or, perhaps I am depriving my students of a classroom they can be more proud of. Perhaps like my students I have to improve at skills that don’t come naturally to me. I have to get better at cutting big, beautiful, cardboard letters for my brightly coloured welcome sign.

Is this just my experience? Are there other teachers who have an insecurity over the look of their classrooms? Are any of you envious of the classroom next door?

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Posted in Classroom Presentation | 5 Comments »

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