and voicing some rather unpopular opinions...
Story in yesterday's Enterprise about diversity education in the schools.
Here's my take. It's rather simple.
We teach our children to RESPECT the rights of everyone. We treat everyone with respect and dignity.
We do not have to itemize the various groups that we need to respect
We do not have to understand their life style
We don't need to educate our children to not pass judgement on moral values. That is the prerogative of the parent.
THEREFORE - I go back to my original statement on what I believe the school systems policy should be.
YOU RESPECT YOUR TEACHERS AND FELLOW STUDENTS.
YOU TREAT THEM WITH THE RESPECT AND DIGNITY YOU WISH TO BE TREATED WITH.
It use to be called the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Thank you and good day.
Exactly!!!
We do teach that at my school -- from the custodians & cafeteria personnel, to the special areas teachers, the secretaries, the classroom teachers, the teacher aides, the Assistant Principal, and the Principal. We teach it in the classrooms, in the cafeteria, in the hallways, and every other place in our school. But, my school just happens to be an exceptional place to be. One of my schools last year was not.
Both schools use the PBIS program (Positive Behavior Intervention System) espoused by the Maryland State Department of Education. The basic idea is that all student behaviors can be represented by a triangle graph. The bottom 3/4 is green (the students who almost never have problems & are successful with their schoolwork), the next maybe 15% is yellow (have more problems but can be handled & re-directed in the classroom), and then the top 10% red (always have issues that impact not only themselves but the entire class group). You know the reds, they're the ones who always get sent to the office. Basically, we reward good behavior and then meet to discuss what we can do with the others to get them back on the right track. Children do not act out without reasons. Our job is to figure out what the reason/issue is and try to get it addressed so the child no longer needs to act out.
My one school (permanent assignment) accomplishes this with our students. This gets done because we have a fantastic Principal and staff members who really care about the kids. We have a core group of folks who've been there for years and know the kids and the families. Yeah, we get some new folks every now & then. If they're not the caring sort, they're gone the next year. And, there is high involvement from parents & community members.
That other school also has caring people on staff. But, there is little to no parent & community support and the Principal was a rigid authoritarian in her management skills. Those kids were absolutely bonkers and had no regard for anyone. Same PBIS system, same caring teachers.
You know that saying, "it takes a village to raise a child"? It is true!
BUT, the village has to be delivering the same message to the child. When you have some folks saying "don't do that, it isn't right" and others saying "it's okay this time because (fill in the blank)" and still others that don't bother to say anything at all,
what message does the child get???
And there you have it. As BernieP says, the golden rule -- it works for everyone. The only problem is, everyone has to recognize that for it to work in the first place.
