Don't send your kid to school in Texas!
Don't even consider enrolling your child in any Texas school unless and until you verify that the school system is not using the court system to effect school discipline.
In a story on PBS Newshour tonight, evidence of criminal records being imposed on adolescents for causing a disturbance in class, or for missing school, or for what we used to call "saucing" a teacher was exposed.
One story documented a straight A student who, because she also holds down two part-time jobs, in order to provide extra income so her siblings can attend college, missed a second day of school, after a warning from the court system, and then was ordered to spend overnight in a county jail cell, for her truancy.
Another story illustrated the sentence of $350 fine plus 20 hours of community service for a fourteen-year-old male, because, after he was punched by another student, punched him back. He also now has a criminal record which will follow him at least until he applies to enter college, when it will likely restrict, if not preclude his admission.
Of course, there is no evidence either that such punishments lead to improved behaviour or that such punishments help to keep kids in school. In fact, the reverse is true: such punishments drive kids towards the decision to drop out.
Not only has Texas the highest number of executions from the death penalty of all the U.S. states, we now learn that it has neither imagination nor compassion, nor insight into how to run the school system.
Dubya used to call his "swagger" a "walk" as it was known in Texas, and yet this policy of criminalizing adolescents for minor offences in school is more than a swagger; it is tantamout to torture, in the guise of school discipline.
Rather than disciplining the students, the whole system needs to be disciplined, through the most obvious and effective of measures: throwing the adults who administer the schools through the courts out on their ears, permanently, and bring in some enlightened administrators whose capacity and willingness to confront the students about their responsibilities and obligations, within the schools themselves. There are literally libraries of outstanding literature on the enlightened administration of schools.
Throw out the legislators who permit such a travesty, and are proud of their "absolutist" solutions.
We used to have a professor at the University of Ottawa, Dr. Ramunas, who frequently referred to the Russian method of solving problems, "Eliminate them!" he would shout and then guffaw in derision.
Where is he now, when the State of Texas needs his satiric insight?
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Monday, June 18, 2012
My Vitamins
Received this piece a few moments ago from a male friend, read it quickly, then re-read it more slowly in amazement, thinking, "I have never heard such a message of support from a male in 70 years!"
We really are moving, seismically, tectonically, and ireversibly...as men, to acknowledge our inter-dependence on one another, the joys and meaning of our real friends, and at the same time, shedding centuries old repression of authentic feelings.
To Peter, who sent it, I say a warm, heartfelt THANKS!
To others who have been thinking of sending a thought/sentiment/thanks to someone, please feel free, and do not hesitate! There are friends waiting for this long-overdue note of thanks!
My Vitamins
Why do I have a variety of friends who are
all so different in character?
How can I get along with them all?
I think that each one helps to bring out a
"different" part of me.
With one of them I am polite. I joke with another friend.
I sit down and talk about serious matters with one.
With another I laugh a lot. I may have a coke with one.
I listen to one friend's problems.
Then I listen to another one's advice for me.
My friends are all like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
When completed, they form a treasure box.
A treasure of friends! They are my friends who
understand me better than myself, who support
me through good days and bad days.
Real Age doctors tell us that friends are good for our health.
Dr. Oz calls them Vitamins F (for Friends) and counts the benefits of friends as essential to our well being.
Research shows that people in strong social circles have less risk of depression and terminal strokes.
If you enjoy Vitamins F constantly you can be up to 30 years younger than your real age.
The warmth of friendship stops stress and even in your most intense moments it decreases the chance of a cardiac arrest or stroke by 50%.
I'm so happy that I have a stock of Vitamins F!
In summary, we should value our friends and keep in touch with them.
We should try to see the funny side of things and laugh together, and pray for each other in the tough moments.
Thank you for being one of my Vitamins
We really are moving, seismically, tectonically, and ireversibly...as men, to acknowledge our inter-dependence on one another, the joys and meaning of our real friends, and at the same time, shedding centuries old repression of authentic feelings.
To Peter, who sent it, I say a warm, heartfelt THANKS!
To others who have been thinking of sending a thought/sentiment/thanks to someone, please feel free, and do not hesitate! There are friends waiting for this long-overdue note of thanks!
My Vitamins
Why do I have a variety of friends who are
all so different in character?
How can I get along with them all?
I think that each one helps to bring out a
"different" part of me.
With one of them I am polite. I joke with another friend.
I sit down and talk about serious matters with one.
With another I laugh a lot. I may have a coke with one.
I listen to one friend's problems.
Then I listen to another one's advice for me.
My friends are all like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
When completed, they form a treasure box.
A treasure of friends! They are my friends who
understand me better than myself, who support
me through good days and bad days.
Real Age doctors tell us that friends are good for our health.
Dr. Oz calls them Vitamins F (for Friends) and counts the benefits of friends as essential to our well being.
Research shows that people in strong social circles have less risk of depression and terminal strokes.
If you enjoy Vitamins F constantly you can be up to 30 years younger than your real age.
The warmth of friendship stops stress and even in your most intense moments it decreases the chance of a cardiac arrest or stroke by 50%.
I'm so happy that I have a stock of Vitamins F!
In summary, we should value our friends and keep in touch with them.
We should try to see the funny side of things and laugh together, and pray for each other in the tough moments.
Thank you for being one of my Vitamins
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Reaching out to "touch" drop-outs brings 75% back
By Kate Hammer, Globe and Mail, May 31, 2012
Hundreds of students who nearly didn’t complete high school are being fitted for graduation caps and gowns thanks to a simple solution: reaching out and talking to them.
Each school year, thousands of Canadian students quit school between September and June. They miss a few assignments, stop coming to class and don’t register for classes for the next fall. Last school year at the Toronto District School Board, there were 1,667 Grade 11 and 12 students who met this description.
Boosting graduation rates is a priority across Canada. The Canadian Council on Learning estimates that high-school dropouts cost taxpayers $1.3-billion in social assistance and criminal justice expenses each year.
Canada’s largest school board has come up with a new approach to bringing students back to the fold. Starting in mid-August last year, a team of four retired teachers and guidance counsellors worked the phones for two weeks, dialled every phone number they could find and refused to settle for answering machines or voice-mail.
They reached all but 15 students and convinced 864 to come back. Nearly 300 will graduate by the end of June, and hundreds more are back on track towards achieving their high-school diplomas.
“We were reaching out and saying basically, ‘We miss you, come back,’” said Christopher Usih, the TDSB’s superintendent of student success, who led the project. “We’re quite pleased with the result.”
Across Canada, slightly more than 70 per cent of all 19-year-olds had completed high school in 2008, according to Statistics Canada. Graduation rates have generally climbed since then, and Ontario’s sits at 82 per cent thanks in part to student re-engagement grants from the province, like the one that paid for the TDSB telephone campaign. (The TDSB sits slightly below the provincial average, with a 79-per-cent graduation rate that has climbed from 69 per cent in 2000.)
Educators often devote time in September to reaching out to students who registered but didn't show up for class. These initiatives are usually launched at the school level and often involve e-mails or robo-calls.
That’s what happens at the Winnipeg School Division, according to Doug Edmond, director of research, planning and systems management. Mr. Edmond said the smallest schools are most likely to reach out in person, but it’s ultimately up to principals.
The TDSB sought out every student district-wide, including those who hadn't registered for classes, but it's the personal touch to their approach that made all the difference, according to Bruce Ferguson, a professor at the University of Toronto and expert on why students drop out.
“It makes the kids believe they’re worthwhile, that’s why it works,” he said.
Ashley Saunders, 18, was among the first students the TDSB reached. She has a learning disability and a hearing impairment that made high school a struggle. She became frustrated with the school system when she failed her Grade 12 anthropology course, leaving her one credit shy of her diploma.
Ms. Saunders was shocked last August when she found a personal message from a retired teacher – a real human being – on her home answering machine asking her to come back to school.
“I’d been out of school for almost two months, so it made me feel taken aback,” she said. “I was like, ‘Someone cares.’”
Hats off to the TDSB and its leaders and thinkers!
It is not rocket science to learn about how fragile some students really are, nor about how little it takes to "touch them" with a simple invitation, an indication that someone cares.
It is also a scathing criticism of how detached and disinterested most people are about others, when this kind of phone campaign can have such a dramatic impact, with this group of drop-outs-turned-graduates.
Would such an approach work in all boards across the country? It's worth a try!
And, next let's make sure those kids already in the classroom are also being "touched" by caring, passionate and creative teachers who are getting to know and getting to recommend even the most subtle, and perhaps insignificant change in a student's attitude, beliefs and actions, that might make the difference between a graduate and another drop-out.
Let's also hope that those same teachers are inspiring other teachers, and not being labelled "too close to the students" or "too soft" or "too liberal"...by their colleagues.
There is a culture in the staff room of most schools that often seems to disdain the teacher who gets to know the students, as if such personal knowledge and contact are outside the professional limits of the teachers' purview.
I recall one grade twelve student asking to speak to me after class one Spring day. When we met, I listened to a true tale of tragedy, including facts about her father literally throwing her down the basement stairs in their home, and her question, "What can I do?"
We looked at some options, including sources of support already within her circle. A few tears were shed, and she departed peacefully after only fifteen minutes or so.
I, on the other hand, sat dumbfounded at the depth of her physical and emotional pain and also at my own innocence that such stories were part of the culture of the classroom in that town at that time. How could I either forget or ignore her story, a story that shaped much of my thinking and perception for the remaining decade-plus of my teaching career?
I couldn't. And didn't. And wont still, decades later.
We can all be grateful, as well as impressed that real people are having a positive influence on the lives of students even after they have "apparently" dropped out of the system. And who knows which of those returnees might someday be operating in a local Operating Room, or an Emergency Room, or a Courtroom in a small town, having graduated from both undergraduate studies and a professional program of their choice?
Hundreds of students who nearly didn’t complete high school are being fitted for graduation caps and gowns thanks to a simple solution: reaching out and talking to them.
Each school year, thousands of Canadian students quit school between September and June. They miss a few assignments, stop coming to class and don’t register for classes for the next fall. Last school year at the Toronto District School Board, there were 1,667 Grade 11 and 12 students who met this description.
Boosting graduation rates is a priority across Canada. The Canadian Council on Learning estimates that high-school dropouts cost taxpayers $1.3-billion in social assistance and criminal justice expenses each year.
Canada’s largest school board has come up with a new approach to bringing students back to the fold. Starting in mid-August last year, a team of four retired teachers and guidance counsellors worked the phones for two weeks, dialled every phone number they could find and refused to settle for answering machines or voice-mail.
They reached all but 15 students and convinced 864 to come back. Nearly 300 will graduate by the end of June, and hundreds more are back on track towards achieving their high-school diplomas.
“We were reaching out and saying basically, ‘We miss you, come back,’” said Christopher Usih, the TDSB’s superintendent of student success, who led the project. “We’re quite pleased with the result.”
Across Canada, slightly more than 70 per cent of all 19-year-olds had completed high school in 2008, according to Statistics Canada. Graduation rates have generally climbed since then, and Ontario’s sits at 82 per cent thanks in part to student re-engagement grants from the province, like the one that paid for the TDSB telephone campaign. (The TDSB sits slightly below the provincial average, with a 79-per-cent graduation rate that has climbed from 69 per cent in 2000.)
Educators often devote time in September to reaching out to students who registered but didn't show up for class. These initiatives are usually launched at the school level and often involve e-mails or robo-calls.
That’s what happens at the Winnipeg School Division, according to Doug Edmond, director of research, planning and systems management. Mr. Edmond said the smallest schools are most likely to reach out in person, but it’s ultimately up to principals.
The TDSB sought out every student district-wide, including those who hadn't registered for classes, but it's the personal touch to their approach that made all the difference, according to Bruce Ferguson, a professor at the University of Toronto and expert on why students drop out.
“It makes the kids believe they’re worthwhile, that’s why it works,” he said.
Ashley Saunders, 18, was among the first students the TDSB reached. She has a learning disability and a hearing impairment that made high school a struggle. She became frustrated with the school system when she failed her Grade 12 anthropology course, leaving her one credit shy of her diploma.
Ms. Saunders was shocked last August when she found a personal message from a retired teacher – a real human being – on her home answering machine asking her to come back to school.
“I’d been out of school for almost two months, so it made me feel taken aback,” she said. “I was like, ‘Someone cares.’”
Hats off to the TDSB and its leaders and thinkers!
It is not rocket science to learn about how fragile some students really are, nor about how little it takes to "touch them" with a simple invitation, an indication that someone cares.
It is also a scathing criticism of how detached and disinterested most people are about others, when this kind of phone campaign can have such a dramatic impact, with this group of drop-outs-turned-graduates.
Would such an approach work in all boards across the country? It's worth a try!
And, next let's make sure those kids already in the classroom are also being "touched" by caring, passionate and creative teachers who are getting to know and getting to recommend even the most subtle, and perhaps insignificant change in a student's attitude, beliefs and actions, that might make the difference between a graduate and another drop-out.
Let's also hope that those same teachers are inspiring other teachers, and not being labelled "too close to the students" or "too soft" or "too liberal"...by their colleagues.
There is a culture in the staff room of most schools that often seems to disdain the teacher who gets to know the students, as if such personal knowledge and contact are outside the professional limits of the teachers' purview.
I recall one grade twelve student asking to speak to me after class one Spring day. When we met, I listened to a true tale of tragedy, including facts about her father literally throwing her down the basement stairs in their home, and her question, "What can I do?"
We looked at some options, including sources of support already within her circle. A few tears were shed, and she departed peacefully after only fifteen minutes or so.
I, on the other hand, sat dumbfounded at the depth of her physical and emotional pain and also at my own innocence that such stories were part of the culture of the classroom in that town at that time. How could I either forget or ignore her story, a story that shaped much of my thinking and perception for the remaining decade-plus of my teaching career?
I couldn't. And didn't. And wont still, decades later.
We can all be grateful, as well as impressed that real people are having a positive influence on the lives of students even after they have "apparently" dropped out of the system. And who knows which of those returnees might someday be operating in a local Operating Room, or an Emergency Room, or a Courtroom in a small town, having graduated from both undergraduate studies and a professional program of their choice?
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