D.J.Mathews
Let's Run our Schools Together
The debate on how to best educate our students has been a prominent element of public school systems for the last thirty or forty years. During that time curriculums, or the content material taught to students, have changed, and some teaching methods of teachers have changed as well. What hasn't changed, for the most, depending on the school district you're in, is the structure of education and the different people involved in teaching children, from parent to community leader to superintendent. Their 'roles' in this equation have changed little in recent decades, a fact that is quite frustrating for many of us.
Why is this frustrating? That's because there are many, working within and outside of the school system, who see the present traditional structure as most unhelp-ful. So many schools are run in a fashion that keeps people from working together and sharing ideas that those of us who want to help the school many times wind up leaving the school instead.
Here in Virginia this is especially true, with the news-papers reporting more and more parents turning to home schooling to meet their children's educational needs. Many of these parents feel left out of the educational de-cision-making process. And so they take their business el-sewhere.
Teachers can also be frustrated by present school str-ucture, depending on the administration they work for. If, for example, you work under a principal or supervisor who constantly and unfairly criticizes you or your stud-ents or hinders you in your teaching efforts, this can be very frustrating. Education systems are structured to give principals and other administrators a lot of power. But do they really need it? Does it really help their school?
What is needed now is a new way of looking at the structure and function of public education, and the way we handle our schools. Why do we send children to sch-ool anyway? Is it merely to teach them a few academicskills needed to qualify for a job or entrance to college? Or is it to prepare them for life in the community?
In order to help prepare them for this life we need to see that education should be a collaborative effort betw-een many different people. These people make up: the education equation. THE EDUCATION EQUATION
What exactly is the equation?
If you really look at it, children are influenced by many different people during their first eighteen years oflife: the minister at their church, their story-telling grand-mother, their parents, their neighbors, their peers and classmates, and even the media and school personnel.
Putting all these influences together EQUALS the ed-ucation children receive and assimilate through their 18thbirthday. Even strangers in a store, how they talk to young people and treat them, have an influence on how young people will view life and contribute to what "equals" their educational future.
If you think about it, all these different pieces put to-gether, are like the completion of a life size puzzle, thathelps build the future.
THE EQUATION CONSISTS OF A VERY BASIC FORMULA:
Teachers + Students + Parents + Administrators + theCommunity (Working Well Together) = An Education That Prepares Them And Us For A Better Future
We are ALL a part of this process.Why? Because we are all a part of the future (unless you plan on having a heart attack or getting hit by a car soon). We not only help prepare students for the future, we will BE THERE when they reach their educational destination: graduation and then a job or further schooling.
Does the current structuring of public education allow for the full and positive participation of ALL PARTS OF THE EDUCATION EQUATION? The answer to that is no, no, NO! If you're a parent, especially, or even a retired person, a taxpayer who still finances schools but has no children in the schools or never did, depending on the school system you help finance, you are very much "left out" of the educational process. Even teachers have little say in how a school system is set up. Most systems are very closed, and many people don't have the time to get involved and are satisfied with that. If you WANT MORE, if you want to be an integral part of the running of your community school, then you have to be a plus (+) in the education equation. You can become a plus by how you interact with and teach children, for example, and by becoming more involved in the traditional power structure of the school system.
This power is something we should have a piece of, but in most school systems ( again, depending on how progressive the administration is you're dealing with), we citizens are very much left out of the power loop. From discipline to textbooks to school safety, most citizens have little say in how these are addressed. Again, even professionals in the system may have little say in these affairs.
But if you want to be more a part of the process, or help teachers and schools be run in a logical, supportive fashion, what can you do? What can students and teachers do to better their situation? Why should administrators have all the power and does their having this power ade-quately prepare students for the future?
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