This post by Justin McBrayer got me thinking about the moral status of children. The author criticizes the common practice of teaching students that opinions are unprovable “beliefs” while facts are provably “true”—thus, in effect, teaching them that there can be no moral truths. As a result, the author contends, students think a statement such as “It is wrong to cheat on a test” is merely an opinion, and cannot be “true.”
I agree with McBrayer at least to this extent: Whether there are “moral facts” is a philosophical question, open to debate, which means the school should not be teaching any view of it as a settled fact. Under the school’s own definition, the assertion that “value claims cannot be true” is itself an unprovable opinion, a “mere” belief. From the piece, though, it sounds like the author believes that the opposite “fact” should be taught as true. Either one looks like indoctrination to me.
The more interesting question, for me, is why we think it’s wrong for a kid to cheat on a test in school. I’m not saying it isn’t wrong, but I do think it matters how we get to that conclusion. It can’t be simply because the school prohibits it, right? Certainly the school can’t be the final arbiter of what is morally right and wrong. If it were, then the worst practices would become morally right just because a school requires them. (Was it morally wrong for a black child to try to attend a whites-only school?) So how should a child reach the conclusion that cheating is wrong?
Showing posts with label Discipline. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Discipline. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Monday, January 19, 2015
Because surveillance and authoritarianism model kindness and respect
Just in time for Martin Luther King Day, the Governor has proposed to make our anti-bullying statute even more sweepingly authoritarian. As usual, the bill exhibits zero concern for whether schools might use it in ways that would violate students’ civil liberties.
If there had been a statute prohibiting people from creating a “hostile environment” by discussing someone’s “political belief,” can anyone doubt that King would have been prosecuted under it?
More in the comments here.
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If there had been a statute prohibiting people from creating a “hostile environment” by discussing someone’s “political belief,” can anyone doubt that King would have been prosecuted under it?
More in the comments here.
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Monday, January 20, 2014
MLK and the ICCSD
The school district here made a well-intentioned but poorly vetted decision to hold school on Martin Luther King Day this year, on the theory that the holiday would be more meaningful for kids if it were accompanied by a day of school programming on King. The many people who protested the decision at last month’s school board meetings made more good arguments than I can repeat here. It seems a particularly bad idea to single out MLK Day, of all holidays, for different treatment, especially in a way that makes it seem like, well, not a holiday. Nobody asks whether Labor Day or Memorial Day might be more educational if the kids went to school.
Many parents explained that they would prefer their children to spend the day in the company of family or at community- or church-sponsored activities. I don’t blame people for wondering whether the school district’s celebration of the day might be less than ideal. Of all holidays, Martin Luther King Day seems like a particularly bad fit for school.
One problem for the school district is that King stood for something: that there was political, philosophical, and religious content to his message. Fifty years later, there is still great disagreement in America about what racial justice means and entails. The school district can’t (and shouldn’t) tell kids what opinions to hold on politically charged issues. As a result, the district is likely to confine its celebration of King to his role in history fifty years ago, rather than to his relevance today, or to limit itself to high-level generalities (civil rights are important; all people are equal under the law) or to some vague notion of “service.” A public school is also poorly situated to discuss the role of Christianity in King’s life, which would be central to any understanding of him. In other words, any school celebration of King is likely to be impaired by institutional constraints.
It doesn’t help that schools are particularly authoritarian institutions, while King’s mission required him to confront authority at every turn. It would be easier for the district to teach about King if it had a history (on the other 179 school days) of emphasizing the importance of individual conscience rather than reflexive obedience to authority, and of welcoming dissent and criticism rather than trying to quash it. It also doesn’t help that the district has been accused of disciplining minority kids, and referring them to special education, at disproportionate rates. At the same meeting at which the board discussed MLK Day, it discussed its plan to require IDs and background checks of parents who want to enter their kids’ schools. (After a lot of people objected, the board decided to revisit the plan at a future meeting, but the central administration is apparently still pushing for it.) It’s hard not to conclude: School district, teach thyself.
So many people want to see our schools as agents for transforming society that it’s easy to forget that the school system is a creature of society and likely to embody as many of its faults as its virtues. An enormous, bureaucratic, political institution is much more apt to reproduce the status quo than to transform it. Trying to urge humane values on school officials is a worthwhile effort, and I certainly don’t think it’s futile. But the state will probably never be the ideal candidate for teaching kids about political protest, civil disobedience, or the rights of the individual against the state; the conflict of interest is too great, and the likelihood of mixed messages high. That’s another good reason not to make kids spend Martin Luther King Day in school.
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Many parents explained that they would prefer their children to spend the day in the company of family or at community- or church-sponsored activities. I don’t blame people for wondering whether the school district’s celebration of the day might be less than ideal. Of all holidays, Martin Luther King Day seems like a particularly bad fit for school.
One problem for the school district is that King stood for something: that there was political, philosophical, and religious content to his message. Fifty years later, there is still great disagreement in America about what racial justice means and entails. The school district can’t (and shouldn’t) tell kids what opinions to hold on politically charged issues. As a result, the district is likely to confine its celebration of King to his role in history fifty years ago, rather than to his relevance today, or to limit itself to high-level generalities (civil rights are important; all people are equal under the law) or to some vague notion of “service.” A public school is also poorly situated to discuss the role of Christianity in King’s life, which would be central to any understanding of him. In other words, any school celebration of King is likely to be impaired by institutional constraints.
It doesn’t help that schools are particularly authoritarian institutions, while King’s mission required him to confront authority at every turn. It would be easier for the district to teach about King if it had a history (on the other 179 school days) of emphasizing the importance of individual conscience rather than reflexive obedience to authority, and of welcoming dissent and criticism rather than trying to quash it. It also doesn’t help that the district has been accused of disciplining minority kids, and referring them to special education, at disproportionate rates. At the same meeting at which the board discussed MLK Day, it discussed its plan to require IDs and background checks of parents who want to enter their kids’ schools. (After a lot of people objected, the board decided to revisit the plan at a future meeting, but the central administration is apparently still pushing for it.) It’s hard not to conclude: School district, teach thyself.
So many people want to see our schools as agents for transforming society that it’s easy to forget that the school system is a creature of society and likely to embody as many of its faults as its virtues. An enormous, bureaucratic, political institution is much more apt to reproduce the status quo than to transform it. Trying to urge humane values on school officials is a worthwhile effort, and I certainly don’t think it’s futile. But the state will probably never be the ideal candidate for teaching kids about political protest, civil disobedience, or the rights of the individual against the state; the conflict of interest is too great, and the likelihood of mixed messages high. That’s another good reason not to make kids spend Martin Luther King Day in school.
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Thursday, August 29, 2013
Recess is not just a carrot
Just a reminder as the school years starts back up: It is against district policy to withhold recess as a form of punishment except in “in extreme circumstances where all other methods have been exhausted or for continued unacceptable behavior exhibited during recess.” Recess isn’t a frill or a tool for behavioral manipulation; it has important educational value – you might as well punish kids by withholding math – and it is just basic decency to give kids some downtime during the day. This policy, enacted by our elected school board, seems to have made no impression at all on our schools. More commentary here..
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
School board votes against armed police in schools
Score one for our school board, which voted not to approve the police department’s efforts to get a grant that would station armed police officers in the secondary schools. The vote was 7-0. Coverage here.
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Saturday, May 18, 2013
Ten reasons not to put armed police in Iowa City schools
. . . as our City Council and Police Department want us to. The school board votes on the issue this coming Tuesday. My reasons to vote against it are over at the Patch.
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Friday, March 8, 2013
What are we teaching about liberty and justice? (continued)
As regular readers of this blog know, I’m concerned about authoritarian approaches to K-12 education because I’m concerned about the increasing acceptance of authoritarian values in America generally. The choices that our schools are making often seem like miniature, entry-level versions of the choices that confront our country in areas such as foreign policy, state security, and criminal justice.
Earlier this week, in a post about the now-common practice of requiring kids to get their parents’ signatures on their homework, I argued that it violates basic principles of justice and due process for a school to punish a student for the conduct of his or her parents. Also this week, the issue of the limits of the President’s authority to target and kill American citizens finally received widespread attention in the media. In a short-lived filibuster against the nominee for CIA director, one senator alluded to the drone-inflicted death of a sixteen-year-old American citizen whose father was an alleged terrorist and asked, “If you happen to be the son of a bad person, is that enough to kill you?” The next day, the Senate confirmed the CIA nominee.
In less than fifteen years, we’ve gone from a country in which torture was uniformly reviled to one in which it is commonly defended. In less than five years, we’ve gone from a country in which one party was largely united against the use of torture and indefinite warrantless detention, even during wartime, to one in which there is wide bipartisan acceptance of the idea that the President can kill American citizens without any judicial process or oversight, potentially even on American soil.
I don’t know which is the egg and which is the chicken, but if we were trying to create schools that would make students inured to the erosion of civil liberties and the expansion of unchecked state authority, it’s hard to know what we would do differently.
Related posts here, here, here, here, here, here, and throughout the site.
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Earlier this week, in a post about the now-common practice of requiring kids to get their parents’ signatures on their homework, I argued that it violates basic principles of justice and due process for a school to punish a student for the conduct of his or her parents. Also this week, the issue of the limits of the President’s authority to target and kill American citizens finally received widespread attention in the media. In a short-lived filibuster against the nominee for CIA director, one senator alluded to the drone-inflicted death of a sixteen-year-old American citizen whose father was an alleged terrorist and asked, “If you happen to be the son of a bad person, is that enough to kill you?” The next day, the Senate confirmed the CIA nominee.
In less than fifteen years, we’ve gone from a country in which torture was uniformly reviled to one in which it is commonly defended. In less than five years, we’ve gone from a country in which one party was largely united against the use of torture and indefinite warrantless detention, even during wartime, to one in which there is wide bipartisan acceptance of the idea that the President can kill American citizens without any judicial process or oversight, potentially even on American soil.
I don’t know which is the egg and which is the chicken, but if we were trying to create schools that would make students inured to the erosion of civil liberties and the expansion of unchecked state authority, it’s hard to know what we would do differently.
Related posts here, here, here, here, here, here, and throughout the site.
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Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Don’t sign the homework (part 2)
There is an awful lot of talk lately about “helicopter parents,” who, we’re told, hover over their children and micromanage their childhoods. Teachers, understandably, find such parents particularly bothersome. Yet I’m struck by how closely schools now hover over kids and micromanage them—and even want me to help with the hovering, way more than I want to.
For example, all three of my daughters now have teachers who require them to obtain a parent’s signature on their homework, planners, tests, and/or reading logs. My wife sits at the kitchen table in the morning as the kids bring their papers for her to sign, like secretaries presenting paperwork to the boss.
My wife is willing to sign them, but I’m not. Here are my objections:
First, the parent signature requirement robs the students of autonomy over their own school work. I want my kids’ school work to be their business. I want them to get experience with being independent and taking care of their own affairs. I think that kind of autonomy is a key ingredient in building a sense of agency and competence. I wrote more fully about that reason in part 1 of this post.
Second, it’s demeaning to make kids prove to you every day that they’ve done their homework. It sends the message that you don’t trust them to be independent, and don’t think they’re capable of handling their school work on their own. It presumes them to be slackers until they prove themselves otherwise, over and over again. It encourages them to see themselves as doing the work to satisfy others, rather than to make it their own. The many kids who would do the homework on time without this intervention are robbed of the opportunity to prove that and to take pride in it. As I wrote in part 1, I think I would have become a juvenile delinquent if my parents had insisted on policing my school work the way parents are expected to today.
Third, it elevates rule-compliance over substance. Do the homework correctly, turn it in on time—and you’ll still lose points if you haven’t gotten your parent to sign it. There are kids at our junior high who routinely get Fs on that aspect of their homework, and it affects their course grades—never mind how well they know the material. Is the grade supposed to measure what they know and can do, or how obedient they are?
Fourth, it’s presumptuous. It would be one thing if a teacher asked parents if they were interested in signing their kids’ homework all the time. I would still decline the invitation, but at least my kids wouldn’t get a misimpression of how to ask politely for someone’s assistance. Instead, the typical approach is simply to tell the kids they must get the signatures, or to tell the parents they must provide them. (For example, “You will sign the log sheet to show the reading has been completed.”) Isn’t it rude to assume that someone will not only agree with your intervention, but actively participate in it, and that you don’t even need to ask nicely?
Fifth, the practice sends bad—and factually inaccurate—messages about authority. It’s hard to think of a more basic principle of justice than the principle that the government cannot punish you for someone else’s acts. If anyone wants to explain to me how it would be constitutional for a public school to penalize a child for a parent’s refusal to sign homework, I’d like to hear it. Yet, when my wife has been away and I’ve told my kids that I won’t sign the homework, they have always been anxious about getting punished. One thing the school has taught them well: No one should ever disobey the authority figure.
I’ve written notes to each teacher explaining that I won’t sign the homework when my wife is away; fortunately, they’ve been understanding about it. But, needless to say, not every parent who doesn’t get around to signing the homework writes a note explaining why. Lots of kids are getting the impression that the teacher has authority not only over them but over their parents as well, and can punish them for their parents’ conduct if they choose. I sometimes remind my kids that the schools are there to serve the public, not the other way around. I’m afraid they don’t learn that very well in school.
Why has the practice of requiring parent signatures become so common? What does it say about what schools now value? Stay tuned for part 3.
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For example, all three of my daughters now have teachers who require them to obtain a parent’s signature on their homework, planners, tests, and/or reading logs. My wife sits at the kitchen table in the morning as the kids bring their papers for her to sign, like secretaries presenting paperwork to the boss.
My wife is willing to sign them, but I’m not. Here are my objections:
First, the parent signature requirement robs the students of autonomy over their own school work. I want my kids’ school work to be their business. I want them to get experience with being independent and taking care of their own affairs. I think that kind of autonomy is a key ingredient in building a sense of agency and competence. I wrote more fully about that reason in part 1 of this post.
Second, it’s demeaning to make kids prove to you every day that they’ve done their homework. It sends the message that you don’t trust them to be independent, and don’t think they’re capable of handling their school work on their own. It presumes them to be slackers until they prove themselves otherwise, over and over again. It encourages them to see themselves as doing the work to satisfy others, rather than to make it their own. The many kids who would do the homework on time without this intervention are robbed of the opportunity to prove that and to take pride in it. As I wrote in part 1, I think I would have become a juvenile delinquent if my parents had insisted on policing my school work the way parents are expected to today.
Third, it elevates rule-compliance over substance. Do the homework correctly, turn it in on time—and you’ll still lose points if you haven’t gotten your parent to sign it. There are kids at our junior high who routinely get Fs on that aspect of their homework, and it affects their course grades—never mind how well they know the material. Is the grade supposed to measure what they know and can do, or how obedient they are?
Fourth, it’s presumptuous. It would be one thing if a teacher asked parents if they were interested in signing their kids’ homework all the time. I would still decline the invitation, but at least my kids wouldn’t get a misimpression of how to ask politely for someone’s assistance. Instead, the typical approach is simply to tell the kids they must get the signatures, or to tell the parents they must provide them. (For example, “You will sign the log sheet to show the reading has been completed.”) Isn’t it rude to assume that someone will not only agree with your intervention, but actively participate in it, and that you don’t even need to ask nicely?
Fifth, the practice sends bad—and factually inaccurate—messages about authority. It’s hard to think of a more basic principle of justice than the principle that the government cannot punish you for someone else’s acts. If anyone wants to explain to me how it would be constitutional for a public school to penalize a child for a parent’s refusal to sign homework, I’d like to hear it. Yet, when my wife has been away and I’ve told my kids that I won’t sign the homework, they have always been anxious about getting punished. One thing the school has taught them well: No one should ever disobey the authority figure.
I’ve written notes to each teacher explaining that I won’t sign the homework when my wife is away; fortunately, they’ve been understanding about it. But, needless to say, not every parent who doesn’t get around to signing the homework writes a note explaining why. Lots of kids are getting the impression that the teacher has authority not only over them but over their parents as well, and can punish them for their parents’ conduct if they choose. I sometimes remind my kids that the schools are there to serve the public, not the other way around. I’m afraid they don’t learn that very well in school.
Why has the practice of requiring parent signatures become so common? What does it say about what schools now value? Stay tuned for part 3.
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Saturday, March 2, 2013
Freedom of association for me but not for you
Our governor has endorsed a bill that would increase the power of schools to intervene in bullying, even if it occurs off school grounds or on social media. According to the governor’s office, the bill would define bullying to include instances, for example, in which “a group of girls shun another girl”—even, apparently, if it occurs outside of school.
Last year I wrote about how our elementary school surveyed the kids about whether they had seen or experienced bullying. Its list of what would count as bullying included the item, “left out on purpose.” The list made no attempt to distinguish between a kid who maliciously talks his or her friends into shunning another person and a kid who just wants to be able to choose whom to play with in what little free time the school day offers. Instead, the survey left the kids with the impression that they’re “bullies”—and thus can be disciplined—whenever they choose not to play with someone “on purpose.”
Don’t these examples go too far? As adults, there are many acts that we see as morally commendable—caring for elderly parents, giving to charity, reporting crimes and emergencies—but which we nonetheless choose not to legally require, and instead leave to each person’s conscience. When it comes to “leaving people out on purpose” from social interactions, we not only don’t penalize that conduct, but we have an amendment to our constitution (the First) protecting it. Just as there are certain people I enjoy associating with, there are others I prefer to avoid. I suspect everyone on the staff of our elementary school is guilty of this particular form of “bullying.” If you hold a party at your house, is there anything wrong with purposely not inviting certain people? Even outright intentional shunning, at least in the religious context, has been held to be protected by the First Amendment.
I don’t mean to minimize the very real pain of kids (or adults) who have trouble finding friends or are socially ostracized, or to say that the school should do nothing to help them. But coercion by the authorities is not the solution to every problem. As I’ve written before, I’d like to see a guidance program that got the kids imagining themselves in other people’s shoes and thinking for themselves about right and wrong, rather than one that just dictates what is or isn’t good behavior and then enforces it with rules. It’s possible to encourage kids to be kind and inclusive and still preserve some realm of personal freedom from adult scrutiny and state intervention. How can we hold our kids to standards from which we exempt ourselves?
Related post here.
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Last year I wrote about how our elementary school surveyed the kids about whether they had seen or experienced bullying. Its list of what would count as bullying included the item, “left out on purpose.” The list made no attempt to distinguish between a kid who maliciously talks his or her friends into shunning another person and a kid who just wants to be able to choose whom to play with in what little free time the school day offers. Instead, the survey left the kids with the impression that they’re “bullies”—and thus can be disciplined—whenever they choose not to play with someone “on purpose.”
Don’t these examples go too far? As adults, there are many acts that we see as morally commendable—caring for elderly parents, giving to charity, reporting crimes and emergencies—but which we nonetheless choose not to legally require, and instead leave to each person’s conscience. When it comes to “leaving people out on purpose” from social interactions, we not only don’t penalize that conduct, but we have an amendment to our constitution (the First) protecting it. Just as there are certain people I enjoy associating with, there are others I prefer to avoid. I suspect everyone on the staff of our elementary school is guilty of this particular form of “bullying.” If you hold a party at your house, is there anything wrong with purposely not inviting certain people? Even outright intentional shunning, at least in the religious context, has been held to be protected by the First Amendment.
I don’t mean to minimize the very real pain of kids (or adults) who have trouble finding friends or are socially ostracized, or to say that the school should do nothing to help them. But coercion by the authorities is not the solution to every problem. As I’ve written before, I’d like to see a guidance program that got the kids imagining themselves in other people’s shoes and thinking for themselves about right and wrong, rather than one that just dictates what is or isn’t good behavior and then enforces it with rules. It’s possible to encourage kids to be kind and inclusive and still preserve some realm of personal freedom from adult scrutiny and state intervention. How can we hold our kids to standards from which we exempt ourselves?
Related post here.
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Thursday, January 31, 2013
News from the cutting edge, Volume 1
Well, having decided to try my hand at something different to mark the end of the blogathon, I now have newfound respect for Matt Groening and the old Life is Hell cartoons. I do love the two talking heads down in the corner, though—my collaborator’s contribution.
Click the image to enlarge.
(Image © 2013 C. Liebig & I. Samuelson for ablogaboutschool.blogspot.com. Public domain baby photo from Wikimedia Commons.)
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Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Why not orange jumpsuits?
EduShyster is on a roll trying to find any data, anywhere, on college graduation rates of students who attend “no excuses” “college-prep” charter schools. Meanwhile, she came across this article about one such school in New York:
Read the whole article.
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The Excellence Boys Charter School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn was defending itself Tuesday against parent complaints that its new, “Scoreboard Behavioral System” was discriminatory and treating disciplined students like prisoners.The principal defended the program on the grounds that “We have a college prep school and everything we do here is about getting students ready for college. . . . What we’re doing here is about getting our kids to college.” And when they get there, what will they make of that completely alien environment?
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A father of two sons who attend the Middle Academy, grades 5 through 8, contacted PIX 11 about a memo sent out by the school in early January. The memo explained the Middle Academy would allow students to earn—or lose—achievement points, based on their behavior. Starting each school week with 50 points, any student left with 0 or less points by week’s end would be subject to five days of detention–and designated “Out of the Brotherhood”. This means they would be placed in a separate room for breakfast and lunch—and ordered to wear a light green Polo shirt, instead of the blue Oxford shirt boys in the Middle Academy typically wear as part of their uniform. Other scholars, as the school refers to students, would not be able to interact with the disciplined boys.
“It’s offensive,” said ‘Jason Vincent’ (not his real name), who e-mailed PIX 11 about the practice, “because, first of all, they’re all young, black men, and I don’t feel that I should have to be concerned with a school seeming like a prison. That’s not what I send my children to school for.”
Read the whole article.
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Sunday, January 27, 2013
Stanley Kubrick on interest vs. fear
Not much time to post today, but I’ve been meaning to post this excerpt from John Baxter’s biography of Stanley Kubrick:
Kubrick’s three years at [Taft High School in the Bronx], from 1943 to 1945, were the unhappiest of his life. IQ tests rated him above average, but formal learning bored him. Alex Singer recalls, “Stanley and I had boundless curiosity, but not about the things they were teaching.” Kubrick agrees. “I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker. I never learned anything at school and I never read a book for pleasure until I was nineteen years old.”I suppose this is anecdotal evidence of the worst kind. Maybe Kubrick was just an oppositional prima donna, or a unique “genius” from whose experience we shouldn’t generalize. But it’s not as if the world is made up of a lot of people who are basically the same and a few who are different. Isn’t everyone different from everyone else? Who are these standardized students who learn equally well whatever is dished up, regardless of whether they are interested? I’d like to meet them!
His school days were dominated less by a search for learning than by fear: “Fear of getting failing grades,” he wrote later, “fear of not staying with your class.” He got Fs by betraying his lack of interest in set books like George Eliot’s Silas Marner and failed English totally one year, forcing him to make up the lost grade during the summer. When he graduated, it was with a mediocre 70.1 average, his only high marks those in Physics.
Grades, however, don’t tell the whole story. Kubrick could and would work if his interest was engaged: this was the man who, despite his disdain for George Eliot, created in Barry Lyndon the cinema’s best adaptation of Thackeray. Once he left school and was no longer required to do so, he read voraciously.
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Saturday, January 5, 2013
“Contracts” with kids aren’t contracts
The latest thing to go viral is an eighteen-point “contract” that a mother insisted her 13-year-old son sign before she would let him have a cell phone. I don’t really have a problem with a parent who insists on certain rules before getting her kid a phone, since she’s under no obligation to get him a phone at all (though I do agree with most of what this parent has to say). But, as someone who taught Contracts to first-year law students for years, I’m awfully tired of people dressing up adult authority over children in the language of “contract,” especially because, in many instances—for example, with the bogus behavioral “contracts” foisted upon kids in many schools—the child is given no meaningful choice in the matter. (See this post.)
These parents and teachers might be less quick to boast about their contracts if they knew more about the actual law of contracts. The general rule in America is that contracts with minors are voidable at the option of the minor. That means the child can enforce the adult’s contractual obligations, but the adult cannot enforce the contract against the child. If an adult, for example, sells a car to a minor, and fails to turn over the car, the minor can sue to enforce the contract. But if the adult performs her side, the minor can still change his mind and back out. If the minor, for example, fails to make the payments on the car, the adult cannot hold him to the contract, so long as the minor returns the car—or what’s left of it. “A minor who has smashed an automobile or a house trailer need only return the wreck” to be excused from his own obligations under the contract, according to one authoritative treatise. “Even if a minor has squandered or destroyed what has been received, the loss is regarded as ‘the result of the very improvidence and indiscretion of infancy which the law has always in mind.’” There are a few exceptions to the rule, and individual states vary, but the general rule is still true in the wide majority of states.
In other words, one of the dumber things you can do, legally, is make a contract with a child. If this particular parent really thinks of her arrangement as a legal contract, she will be disappointed to learn that it is all downside, no upside for her. But of course everyone knows it’s not really a contract. If anything, it’s the opposite: if the kid reneges, the mother will take away the phone, but if the mother reneges, the kid has no recourse. It’s just the same old exercise of one-sided parental authority, no more or less legitimate than it ever was, aggrandizing label notwithstanding.
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These parents and teachers might be less quick to boast about their contracts if they knew more about the actual law of contracts. The general rule in America is that contracts with minors are voidable at the option of the minor. That means the child can enforce the adult’s contractual obligations, but the adult cannot enforce the contract against the child. If an adult, for example, sells a car to a minor, and fails to turn over the car, the minor can sue to enforce the contract. But if the adult performs her side, the minor can still change his mind and back out. If the minor, for example, fails to make the payments on the car, the adult cannot hold him to the contract, so long as the minor returns the car—or what’s left of it. “A minor who has smashed an automobile or a house trailer need only return the wreck” to be excused from his own obligations under the contract, according to one authoritative treatise. “Even if a minor has squandered or destroyed what has been received, the loss is regarded as ‘the result of the very improvidence and indiscretion of infancy which the law has always in mind.’” There are a few exceptions to the rule, and individual states vary, but the general rule is still true in the wide majority of states.
In other words, one of the dumber things you can do, legally, is make a contract with a child. If this particular parent really thinks of her arrangement as a legal contract, she will be disappointed to learn that it is all downside, no upside for her. But of course everyone knows it’s not really a contract. If anything, it’s the opposite: if the kid reneges, the mother will take away the phone, but if the mother reneges, the kid has no recourse. It’s just the same old exercise of one-sided parental authority, no more or less legitimate than it ever was, aggrandizing label notwithstanding.
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Thursday, January 3, 2013
Facts on the ground
One of my daughters had a teacher who would put one student’s name in an envelope each day. That student was the “Mystery Person.” At the end of the day, the teacher would open the envelope, and if the Mystery Person had been well behaved, he or she would get some special reward—a sticker or certificate or something. If not, the Mystery Person would get nothing, and the teacher would put the name back without revealing who it was. Sometimes, during the day, if the class was becoming unruly, she would say, ominously, “The Mystery Person is being watched.”
I happened to like a lot of things about that teacher, and I know she was not the only one to employ the Mystery Person technique. But I found the Mystery Person thing more than a little creepy, especially in light of all the other ways in which the school seems to be acclimating kids to life in an authoritarian culture. (I happened to think of it again after reading the news a few days ago.)
I don’t mean this blog to be of only local interest. I’m sure I would have much more comfortable relationships with our local school personnel if I just stuck to blogging about education issues in a more general way. But so many discussions of education—the policy proposals, the statistical analyses, the economic arguments, all the talk about “school reform” and “accountability” and “increasing achievement”—strike me as hopelessly removed from what actually happens between actual human beings in actual schools. It’s as if we’ve all tacitly agreed to avert our eyes from what’s right in front of us. If I didn’t occasionally describe the lunchroom whistles and the Dairy Queen attendance prizes and the silent single-file hallway lines and the Orwellian “Mystery People,” there would be little point in writing the blog.
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I happened to like a lot of things about that teacher, and I know she was not the only one to employ the Mystery Person technique. But I found the Mystery Person thing more than a little creepy, especially in light of all the other ways in which the school seems to be acclimating kids to life in an authoritarian culture. (I happened to think of it again after reading the news a few days ago.)
I don’t mean this blog to be of only local interest. I’m sure I would have much more comfortable relationships with our local school personnel if I just stuck to blogging about education issues in a more general way. But so many discussions of education—the policy proposals, the statistical analyses, the economic arguments, all the talk about “school reform” and “accountability” and “increasing achievement”—strike me as hopelessly removed from what actually happens between actual human beings in actual schools. It’s as if we’ve all tacitly agreed to avert our eyes from what’s right in front of us. If I didn’t occasionally describe the lunchroom whistles and the Dairy Queen attendance prizes and the silent single-file hallway lines and the Orwellian “Mystery People,” there would be little point in writing the blog.
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Thursday, December 6, 2012
What does “teach” mean?
I’m always struck by how people use the word “teach” to mean such very different things. Sometimes, as Karen W. points out, people act as if “teach” just means “tell.” As a teacher (of law students), I know there have been lots of times when what I “taught” did not coincide with what my students learned.
But even if you focus on the desired end, “teach” seems to have at least two very different meanings:
1. To help someone learn something that he or she wants to learn.
2. To make someone learn something regardless of whether he or she wants to learn it.
There are better and worse ways of doing the former, but it’s not rocket science. Certain qualities help – being good at whatever it is your student wants to learn to do, being able to put yourself in your student’s shoes, being a good listener, patience – but if someone really wants to learn something, you’re already most of the way there.
The second definition describes a much more difficult enterprise. Yet we’ve come to see education almost exclusively in this sense, at the expense of the much simpler activity described by the first definition. More and more, education is now about deciding what kids must learn and then making them learn it, with no regard for what they might be interested in learning, or whether they retain any interest in learning at all.
So many of the features of our educational system – the endless curricular fads, the packaged programs, the reward charts and stickers and behavior management systems, the obsession with high-stakes standardized testing, the movement toward uniform mandatory curricular standards, the authoritarian discipline, the infantilizing micromanagement, the ed school empirical studies, the teacher training programs, the layer upon layer of administrators, you name it – exist almost entirely to serve this second function. Billions of dollars and immeasurable amounts of time and energy are spent on it. Yet, as far as I can see, trying to make people learn against their will – whether it be through outright coercion or through tricks or bribes or elaborate performances, etc. – remains a low-percentage enterprise, not to mention one with many unwelcome side-effects. This seems particularly true when the measure is not how students do on the test at the end of the unit, but whether they retain knowledge and understanding and skills into adulthood.
I don’t find a world in which we simply offered people an education, rather than forcing it on them, as unimaginable as most people do. But regardless, do we have to go quite so far in the opposite direction as we’ve gone?
Part two here.
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But even if you focus on the desired end, “teach” seems to have at least two very different meanings:
1. To help someone learn something that he or she wants to learn.
2. To make someone learn something regardless of whether he or she wants to learn it.
There are better and worse ways of doing the former, but it’s not rocket science. Certain qualities help – being good at whatever it is your student wants to learn to do, being able to put yourself in your student’s shoes, being a good listener, patience – but if someone really wants to learn something, you’re already most of the way there.
The second definition describes a much more difficult enterprise. Yet we’ve come to see education almost exclusively in this sense, at the expense of the much simpler activity described by the first definition. More and more, education is now about deciding what kids must learn and then making them learn it, with no regard for what they might be interested in learning, or whether they retain any interest in learning at all.
So many of the features of our educational system – the endless curricular fads, the packaged programs, the reward charts and stickers and behavior management systems, the obsession with high-stakes standardized testing, the movement toward uniform mandatory curricular standards, the authoritarian discipline, the infantilizing micromanagement, the ed school empirical studies, the teacher training programs, the layer upon layer of administrators, you name it – exist almost entirely to serve this second function. Billions of dollars and immeasurable amounts of time and energy are spent on it. Yet, as far as I can see, trying to make people learn against their will – whether it be through outright coercion or through tricks or bribes or elaborate performances, etc. – remains a low-percentage enterprise, not to mention one with many unwelcome side-effects. This seems particularly true when the measure is not how students do on the test at the end of the unit, but whether they retain knowledge and understanding and skills into adulthood.
I don’t find a world in which we simply offered people an education, rather than forcing it on them, as unimaginable as most people do. But regardless, do we have to go quite so far in the opposite direction as we’ve gone?
Part two here.
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Monday, October 1, 2012
Don’t punish kids by depriving them of recess
In the comments here, commenter “icl” just raised an issue that I’ve been meaning to post about for a while: punishing kids by depriving them of recess.
Our district’s Wellness Policy, enacted by our elected Board of Education, provides:
From what I hear, recess is frequently – even routinely – withheld for misbehavior at our elementary school, at least in some classrooms. Apparently, the most common reason is to make the kids do uncompleted homework or in-class work. The teachers might not call it “punishment,” but it’s hard to see how failing to finish one’s work could qualify as the kind of “extreme circumstance” required by the Wellness Policy before recess can be withheld. Recess is also withheld for other forms of misbehavior in class.
It makes no sense to punish kids who can’t sit still by depriving them of their chance to run around. If our district wants to decrease the number of behavior problems, it should give the kids more recess, not less. (See this article, for example. And compare Finland’s practice – fifteen minutes of recess for every forty-five minutes of class – here.)
Readers, what has your experience been? Is our district’s Wellness Policy nothing but lip service?
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Our district’s Wellness Policy, enacted by our elected Board of Education, provides:
Staff will not use physical activity (e.g., running laps, pushups) or withhold opportunities for physical activity (e.g., recess, physical education) as punishment. Withholding recess will not be considered unless in extreme circumstances where all other methods have been exhausted or for continued unacceptable behavior exhibited during recess.(Emphasis mine.)
From what I hear, recess is frequently – even routinely – withheld for misbehavior at our elementary school, at least in some classrooms. Apparently, the most common reason is to make the kids do uncompleted homework or in-class work. The teachers might not call it “punishment,” but it’s hard to see how failing to finish one’s work could qualify as the kind of “extreme circumstance” required by the Wellness Policy before recess can be withheld. Recess is also withheld for other forms of misbehavior in class.
It makes no sense to punish kids who can’t sit still by depriving them of their chance to run around. If our district wants to decrease the number of behavior problems, it should give the kids more recess, not less. (See this article, for example. And compare Finland’s practice – fifteen minutes of recess for every forty-five minutes of class – here.)
Readers, what has your experience been? Is our district’s Wellness Policy nothing but lip service?
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Sunday, August 26, 2012
Defining bullying up
As I’ve written before, I’m ambivalent about the recent trend toward “bullying prevention education.” I’m all in favor of getting kids to put themselves in other kids’ shoes and to think about right and wrong ways of treating other people. I also think it’s great to make sure that kids know what they can do if they are being mistreated or if they see someone else being mistreated. But I can’t help but sense a kind of mission creep. The term “bullying” is increasingly applied to a larger and larger sphere of conduct, and is used to justify a particularly authoritarian and punitive approach to behavior management. Instead of talking about how to help kids develop their own consciences, we end up talking about whether certain acts count as “bullying,” and if so, what we should do to the bullies.
Our elementary school recently surveyed the kids about bullying as part of its “Steps to Respect” program. The survey asked the kids to “Check the kinds of bullying you’ve seen or had happen to you at school,” and then offered the following choices:
What is gained by simplifying the issue in this way? If the kids take the survey literally, they will come away with a distorted and trivialized sense of what “bullying” means. (If you’re anything less than an angel, you’re a bully.) If the kids understand that only some things in those categories really qualify as bullying (as I suspect they do), then they are already more sophisticated than these teaching materials give them credit for. The survey seems designed to inflate the rate of reported bullying, and thus to justify yet more behavioral interventions and harsher discipline.
More thoughts on bullying here, here, and here.
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Our elementary school recently surveyed the kids about bullying as part of its “Steps to Respect” program. The survey asked the kids to “Check the kinds of bullying you’ve seen or had happen to you at school,” and then offered the following choices:
TeasedI can imagine bullying occurring through any of those means, but won’t that list catch many things that none of us would consider bullying? Friends can tease each other, and may even sometimes call each other names. When does talking about one’s classmates become “spreading rumors”? Where is the line between “leaving someone out on purpose” and simply wanting to choose which kids to play with during what little free time the school offers? I wouldn’t want to have my belongings taken, but is all theft a form of bullying? Pushing and even hitting aren’t that uncommon in certain types of play – our most popular sports are “contact sports” – but not every foul is an act of bullying.
Called names
Threatened
Rumors spread
Left out on purpose
Hit, pushed, or kicked
Belongings damaged or taken
What is gained by simplifying the issue in this way? If the kids take the survey literally, they will come away with a distorted and trivialized sense of what “bullying” means. (If you’re anything less than an angel, you’re a bully.) If the kids understand that only some things in those categories really qualify as bullying (as I suspect they do), then they are already more sophisticated than these teaching materials give them credit for. The survey seems designed to inflate the rate of reported bullying, and thus to justify yet more behavioral interventions and harsher discipline.
More thoughts on bullying here, here, and here.
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Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Coercion is always the cure, never the problem
When I asked our superintendent what problem was being solved by our district’s intensified focus on behavior and discipline, he said:
The superintendent thus takes his place in the centuries-long line of people complaining about how kids today are so much more ill-behaved than the generation before them. If we were to believe every generation that made that complaint, we would conclude that by now all children must be serial killers.
What has changed recently: the nature of children, or the nature of our educational policies? If the kids aren’t meeting the school’s expectations, is it possible there’s something wrong with the expectations, and not with the kids? Is it possible that No Child Left Behind’s emphasis on raising standardized test scores is forcing our schools to make unrealistic demands on children? Is it possible that kids are acting out because of the way the schools are treating them?
Don’t expect school officials to consider those possibilities. Yeah, sure, under No Child Left Behind, school is increasingly about preparing for and taking standardized tests, and school personnel are more and more stressed out and fearful for their jobs, and the kids’ behavior is scrutinized and managed like never before, and recess has been cut to a minimum (when it’s not withheld entirely as a punishment), and lunch is down to fifteen minutes or less. But if the kids are acting out, it must be because children are different now, or because their “stability and mobility” has changed, or because their families aren’t teaching them the proper respect.
I’d be acting out, too, if I had to sit through school today.
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Steve Murley: Well, I’ll pull back, I’ll do kind of a 50,000-foot view, which is, and having spent seventeen years in Wisconsin before I came here, it’s not an anomaly in Iowa City. This is something that you’re seeing across the country. PBIS [our district’s behavioral rewards program] was an initiative with the State Department of Public Instruction in Wisconsin and it’s an initiative with the Department of Education here in Iowa so, it – I don’t think it’s a – it’s not a Hoover issue, it’s not an Iowa City issue, I think it’s an issue you see that’s systemic across the country, and I think that the reason you see it out there, from my exposure in Wisconsin and down here in Iowa, is it is in response to issues that have been brought forward at the state level by concerns about whether behavior is an impediment to learning. That is, are incidents in the classroom arising to a level that is making it difficult for teachers to teach and students to learn?Full context here.
CL: Meaning that the behavior is worse than in previous years?
SM: Mm-hmm.
CL: Is there some limit, though, to what you can do as far as behavior goes?
SM: Oh sure, when you look at, between the time that a child is born and the time that a child turns eighteen, they spend probably twelve per cent of their time in public schools; they spend eight-eight per cent of their time somewhere else. And so, when you look at it from that standpoint, and I again, I’ll go from – I have more experience with the implementation piece in Wisconsin than I do here, because they went through the process of selecting it here when I wasn’t here, so it’s difficult for me to speak to that – but I know in Wisconsin, when they looked at PBIS, one of the things that they looked at are issues that do affect us here in Iowa City, and that I think you see in many urbanized centers, which is a significant change in stability and mobility – that is, there are more kids moving in and out of your district and more kids moving from school to school in the district, and part of the underlying theoretical background of PBIS is to provide more uniformity from classroom to classroom in a school, and from school to school within a district, and from district to district within a state, so that there is more commonality than differentiation as kids move from building to building. Right or wrong, that’s the underlying theoretical basis of that.
The superintendent thus takes his place in the centuries-long line of people complaining about how kids today are so much more ill-behaved than the generation before them. If we were to believe every generation that made that complaint, we would conclude that by now all children must be serial killers.
What has changed recently: the nature of children, or the nature of our educational policies? If the kids aren’t meeting the school’s expectations, is it possible there’s something wrong with the expectations, and not with the kids? Is it possible that No Child Left Behind’s emphasis on raising standardized test scores is forcing our schools to make unrealistic demands on children? Is it possible that kids are acting out because of the way the schools are treating them?
Don’t expect school officials to consider those possibilities. Yeah, sure, under No Child Left Behind, school is increasingly about preparing for and taking standardized tests, and school personnel are more and more stressed out and fearful for their jobs, and the kids’ behavior is scrutinized and managed like never before, and recess has been cut to a minimum (when it’s not withheld entirely as a punishment), and lunch is down to fifteen minutes or less. But if the kids are acting out, it must be because children are different now, or because their “stability and mobility” has changed, or because their families aren’t teaching them the proper respect.
I’d be acting out, too, if I had to sit through school today.
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Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Nobody cares how behavior and discipline policies are affecting your child
Over the past three or four years, we have seen big changes in our district’s approach to behavior and discipline in the schools. At our elementary school last year, the incidence of disciplinary measures skyrocketed, even though the principal conceded that the kids were no worse behaved than in previous years. Although the kids get a measly fifteen-minute lunch break, the school has decided to use that time to police and manage the kids’ behavior and “voice levels” much more than in years past – at times even requiring the kids to spend a big chunk of their brief lunch period in total silence. (See posts here, here, here, and here.) The district has also implemented a pervasive behavioral conditioning program (PBIS), under which kids are rewarded, primarily for being quiet and obedient, with tokens, candy, small toys, or tickets into a weekly raffle.
As readers of this blog know, I’m concerned about what these discipline and behavior policies are teaching the kids, and about how they’re affecting the kids’ experience of school. Are the kids learning unquestioning compliance with authority? Are they learning mindless conformity to the “expectations” of those around them? Are they learning not to think for themselves about right and wrong? Are they learning that the reason to be well-behaved is to get material rewards? Are they learning that good behavior is about acquisitiveness and competition with their classmates? Are they internalizing increasingly authoritarian values? Are they learning that “being good” in school is primarily about being quiet and obedient? Are they experiencing school as the place where their behavior is constantly scrutinized, judged, and micromanaged? Are they learning to scrutinize, judge, and micromanage the behavior of their classmates? Are they learning that there is no sphere of life that the authorities cannot rightfully monitor and manage? Are they learning that it’s okay to punish everyone whenever it’s too hard to sort out the innocent from the guilty? Are they learning that it’s their job to monitor and report on the misbehavior of their friends and classmates? Are they learning that education is a chore that no one would engage in without constant coercion and manipulation? Are they learning that school is a big drag?
Nowadays, school policies are often defended as being “evidence-based,” so I wanted to know whether the district is assessing all of the effects of these policies, or just their effects on test scores and the rate of office referrals. In my view, adopting a policy based entirely on the assessment of one or two effects is like prescribing a drug without having any idea what the side effects are. So in my Q&A with the district administrators, I asked about how these policies would be assessed:
As readers of this blog know, I’m concerned about what these discipline and behavior policies are teaching the kids, and about how they’re affecting the kids’ experience of school. Are the kids learning unquestioning compliance with authority? Are they learning mindless conformity to the “expectations” of those around them? Are they learning not to think for themselves about right and wrong? Are they learning that the reason to be well-behaved is to get material rewards? Are they learning that good behavior is about acquisitiveness and competition with their classmates? Are they internalizing increasingly authoritarian values? Are they learning that “being good” in school is primarily about being quiet and obedient? Are they experiencing school as the place where their behavior is constantly scrutinized, judged, and micromanaged? Are they learning to scrutinize, judge, and micromanage the behavior of their classmates? Are they learning that there is no sphere of life that the authorities cannot rightfully monitor and manage? Are they learning that it’s okay to punish everyone whenever it’s too hard to sort out the innocent from the guilty? Are they learning that it’s their job to monitor and report on the misbehavior of their friends and classmates? Are they learning that education is a chore that no one would engage in without constant coercion and manipulation? Are they learning that school is a big drag?
Nowadays, school policies are often defended as being “evidence-based,” so I wanted to know whether the district is assessing all of the effects of these policies, or just their effects on test scores and the rate of office referrals. In my view, adopting a policy based entirely on the assessment of one or two effects is like prescribing a drug without having any idea what the side effects are. So in my Q&A with the district administrators, I asked about how these policies would be assessed:
Q&A with the Superintendents
Back in April, I had an email exchange with our school superintendent to ask why our elementary school had decided to spend the students’ very short lunch period haranguing them to be quiet – for a while insisting that they remain completely silent for the last five minutes of lunch, at times threatening them with assigned seats if they weren’t quieter, at times blowing a loud whistle to quiet them down – and generally policing their behavior to a degree that far exceeded previous years and seemed entirely unmerited by the what the kids were actually doing. (See posts here, here, here, and here.)
The superintendent would not answer the question via email, and insisted that we meet in person instead. (See posts here and here.) I argued that it was important that the administration answer questions publicly, not just in one-on-one meetings. Finally, we agreed to meet in person but to tape-record the meeting. So on May 14, I met with Superintendent Steve Murley, as well as Assistant Superintendents Becky Furlong and Ann Feldmann, for a kind of Q&A session on issues about discipline, behavior management, and lunch.
I will post separately about some of superintendents’ specific responses to my questions. But I want to post the entire transcript first, so the full context will available to anyone reading the later posts. The only editing I have done is to redact a brief section of the discussion in which the superintendents discussed particular district employees in a way that I am not comfortable posting online.
Of course as I now read over the transcript there are questions, and entire lines of questioning, that I wish I had thought (or remembered) to pursue, but time was short and my brain, as usual, somewhat scattered. Maybe there will someday be a sequel. Although I was unhappy with many of the answers I received, I do want to give the superintendents credit for agreeing to answer questions on the record.
My specific commentary on the exchange begins here. To read the entire transcript, click on the “Continue Reading” link below.
The superintendent would not answer the question via email, and insisted that we meet in person instead. (See posts here and here.) I argued that it was important that the administration answer questions publicly, not just in one-on-one meetings. Finally, we agreed to meet in person but to tape-record the meeting. So on May 14, I met with Superintendent Steve Murley, as well as Assistant Superintendents Becky Furlong and Ann Feldmann, for a kind of Q&A session on issues about discipline, behavior management, and lunch.
I will post separately about some of superintendents’ specific responses to my questions. But I want to post the entire transcript first, so the full context will available to anyone reading the later posts. The only editing I have done is to redact a brief section of the discussion in which the superintendents discussed particular district employees in a way that I am not comfortable posting online.
Of course as I now read over the transcript there are questions, and entire lines of questioning, that I wish I had thought (or remembered) to pursue, but time was short and my brain, as usual, somewhat scattered. Maybe there will someday be a sequel. Although I was unhappy with many of the answers I received, I do want to give the superintendents credit for agreeing to answer questions on the record.
My specific commentary on the exchange begins here. To read the entire transcript, click on the “Continue Reading” link below.
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