by Tracy K. Cronin
May 26, 2000 (REPRINT)
The Mighty Oak may not move when pushed. But if every day you chip away at it, something will happen one day. It’s time to chip away and clear the field for new growth.
There are times when I feel as if I am mad, with my inability to fully articulate all that I am sure I comprehend. My comprehension is not fully converted to grammatical expression either on paper or in my thoughts. It is an unshakable, pervasive feeling, of overwhelming unhealthiness, emanating from its source.
The source is the concept of institutionalized learning, dominated by a monstrous dinosaur of a system. It is rife with the structural enforcements of a monopolistic, and communistic system. Its likelihood of disassembly is hard to imagine, while standing in its shadow. But impossible to not contemplate with hope.
The debates on childhood learning improvement, rage on with politicians, educational theorists and parents. The high ideals of change and improvement are often espoused by new candidates for school superintendents and principals early in their careers. School board members often espouse these ideals themselves at the beginning of their terms.
What actually goes wrong is less the problem, because things go wrong with all large undertakings. What is normally corrected, for poor performance in private business, by loss of business, escapes the unnatural education system. Nothing gets weeded out.
“What might have been” has launched a thousand debates. What might have happened in Columbine, if the children who felt they had no alternatives, felt they actually did have alternatives? Perhaps lifting the feeling of being trapped, within an unmoving environment. What might have been if parents of students, who feel revulsion to their forced environment, actually had the ability to make a simple choice for change? What might have been if school staff persons were told enrollments had decreased, and jobs would be cut due to reduced enrollment? What might be the ideas the staff might contemplate? Would they include ideas of cheerfulness, considerateness and shared goal setting with the students exhibiting tendencies to leave the school? Or would they continue with the punitive conduct, where failure of imagination is acceptable practice? Probably not.
Our kids are the last people to get customer service. They are last!
There seem to be two types of parents, when it comes to taking care of children. One example is a time I spent approximately 45-minutes deciding which mattress would be best for my son’s bedding in Macy’s. The saleswoman said to me that she thought it was nice that I showed such consideration for my child, while ordering something average for myself. She told me how there were times when parents would buy themselves exceptional quality bedding, and then order the lowest cost foam mattress for their kids. Hard to believe, but you know it happens.
As a nation, sadly I must tell you, that is what we have done for our kids. We have broken up AT&T so that we could finally enjoy decent service and rates as a result of natural competition. Microsoft is in check to ensure competition can exist. The Berlin wall is down. The most primitive nations have joined the UN. But right here in the US, our kids go to school everyday, entrusted to staff people, who have in most cases never experienced the private sector. The experience that teaches us if we don’t produce results, we don’t get paid for long. The experience that makes a boss or supervisor take the side of a customer in a dispute or conflict, to be sure the customer is not lost. The guidance that teaches the staff, that customers are more than an inconvenience, they need to be pleased if we expect them to return. They are not dispensable, for more than just ideological reasons. Ideas get lost amid exhaustion of day-to-day work. They are instead not dispensable, for practical reasons as well. They affect your bottom line.
In this case the customers we are talking about, are the nations most precious commodity. Our littlest people. The people who will be passed the relay for the future of our kind. We are standing here, letting them go unspoken for. Not negotiated for. Perhaps the majority of lawmakers have exceptional responsiveness from public schools, due to their public positions. Perhaps others are far above the median national income and don’t mind paying for their children’s education twice via private schools. Perhaps most kids are not being represented fully. Perhaps we don’t see that they are.
So, sadly we are taking care of OURSELVES first and our kids are standing on the sidelines. They are graduating with indifference toward their schools. Some are dropping out. That is said too lightly. “SOME ARE DROPPING OUT.” Why would they drop out? What would be their reason? Those are the voices I would most love to hear. It is there that we will find the untold stories of day-to-day occurrences that made our assistance to them usable. That is where our taxpayer dollars meant little. It is there that WE have actually failed them. It is there that we have squandered brilliant opportunities, for the children of our future. No child is dispensable. Not one. Yet at school board meetings I have heard parents ask why children have left school, only to have board members say… “I’ll find out.” Novel idea. It escapes me how that is not the most crucial focus of any managing board. Let’s ask them to fill out a detailed questionnaire about their opinion of the services rendered. What may have changed their mind? And what might bring them back? Because everyone counts.
When a child goes into an administrative office to leave a message for a teacher or administrator who is not in… they are most likely told, “they are not in.” If it were a customer, they would be asked if they would like to have a message taken. Quite simply the normal niceties that you and I enjoy in business, when a company is in touch with reality, do not often happen for our kids. They may occur on the chance, that someone is particularly friendly, or truly inspired. The majority of people simply do not maintain the idyllic thoughts and conduct, like they do when they first undertake a task. Competition keeps people and their ideas from becoming complacent and stagnant.
New ideas and inspiration are not today’s buzzwords in the majority of schools. We are not lauding our kid’s interest like Anthony Robbins would his audience. We are like the Old Russian world of people guaranteed jobs at low pay, who say, “They pretend to pay us… we pretend to work.” Everybody feels cheated. That best expresses the resentment of people who are forced to work with each other. It is a natural occurrence, based on too much control of third parties working relationship. No one truly commits to a choice they have not made, except the minority that are benefiting most. Instead they feel more angst from having so few options. The stage is set for a climate of frustration.
How can we continue to extract school taxes from parents, only to tell them they may or may not get results? They will have to pay twice if they want their children to go to another school. How can we tell our kids that they may not like a school, but life is meant to be that way? That if you put up with things that you don’t enjoy a lot, you’ll be great at doing it when you get older. That’s old. That’s crazy. That’s what so many of our kids aren’t buying.
I recently heard my son tell me that “most of the kids in school were cheating on their tests.” I wonder if most of their parents or teachers really care. Cheating on a test is a concept that should be discussed during the course of a child’s education. They will witness it, but hopefully never see themselves as doing this injustice to themselves. The intrinsic value of the lessons are clearly not the mainstream feeling. How long will we go through the motions and simply not care? When will we put our kids in line for real opportunity? When will we create a structure that rewards ambition and good psychology in teaching? When we do, teaching staff will feel better about themselves and their results. Now we just have lots of kids failing through the cracks. Lots of kids hanging in there, that could do better. Others that are doing well, without their peers all sharing those values. Ultimately, how many scientists might we lose in this century? How many of the sensitive considerate kids, will never consider teaching and the gift that they could bring to children like themselves one day? How many faces turn away in despondency due to what is generally an unhealthy concept? While we stand by and work on other things for ourselves as a nation, they innocently take what they get.
How would a smart CEO of a telemarketing company describe the breakup of AT&T, and the opening to competition? How would they say that has benefited him/her? Glad it’s going better for them.
How would the Nations benefiting from NAFTA, tell you opening up to the global economy has helped them? Glad they can benefit from new options, increased competition, and the solicitousness that just feels right. Good for them.
How does Netscape feel about the power of the Justice Department and the commitment we have to fair trade? It’s nice to see justice at work.
We are sadly taking care of ourselves, our business communities, and our political neighbors, while our kids pass through a system, underachieving and uninspired. We are like the bad parents at Macy’s. We are content to enjoy our own changes for the better, while our kids don’t even know they are getting the least of our efforts. Each day it’s a take it or leave it. Each day there are TV shows on, showing schools erupting with violence and frustration. It is an option-less world for many adolescents.
When we do make the change into something reflective of the new millennium we are in, I would imagine principals and superintendents might be the ones suggesting teacher testing take place. I would imagine high national testing scores might be a goal teachers not only work on, but students achieve. Teachers are people too. They need goals, and they need challenges. They need to be part of the pulse of the real universe. They need to see what being achievement oriented means. Unions should not be their God. Personal results through the progress of their students would be something that yields true benefits, and possibly bonuses. Their minds should not be filled with the idea that their job is simply necessary, in order to continue getting paid. It’s healthy and it makes sense. Teachers, who leave no child behind in passing tests, should be honored most.
That’s what America should stand for. Its children!
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