Posted on 02/27/2005 12:16:06 PM PST by flixxx
Jailhouse Middle School Rebecca Hagelin
It felt more like a juvenile detention center during lockdown than lunchtime in my neighborhood public middle school. Teachers were strategically stationed throughout the cafeteria about 20 feet apart. One of the vice principals had taken her customary place at the microphone. Every few seconds the noisy room was punctuated with her constant commands: “You, in the green shirt, sit down.” “Students standing at the back table, find a seat quickly.” “Young man at the soda machine, move to a table.”
Parents who had attended this upper-class suburban institution 20 years ago touted it as “a wonderful school.” Other parents had told me how terrible it was. At the time my son was nearing graduation from fifth grade, so I decided to find out for myself what our middle school was really like.
But I didn’t want to get the typical parental tour, given by smiling staff who would tell me just how progressive or fantastic everyone and everything is. I wanted the real deal. So, I signed up with the county to be a substitute teacher.
Within a couple of days of being finger-printed and filling out the paperwork, the electronic phone voice that beckons substitutes informed me of an opportunity at that school. I grabbed it.
The lunch experience was depressing, stifling and insulting to both teachers and students alike. How did things get so bad that what used to be a welcome break in the middle of the day for both faculty and kids is now a necessary evil?
I talked with other teachers when I got the chance. Stepping out into the hallway with one teacher to monitor the changing of classes (yes, Virginia, the police state is real -- it’s the easiest solution to disorder), the 20-year veteran of the school bemoaned the disrespect for authority, the lazy attitudes, the violent outbreaks, and the general unpleasantness. “The kids used to be so good.” She once enjoyed teaching, but not any more.
On this particular day I subbed for English class, following the normal lesson plans for the day, which called for the students to take took turns reading aloud. As kids droned on, stumbling over even the most basic words, I glanced around the room. There were kids sleeping in the back, and others just staring into space. Disinterest abounded. Taped to the walls were book reports, each with its own hand-made cover. As I leafed through the pages between classes it was obvious the students’ time was spent more on their “creative covers” than on the actual exercise of analyzing or writing about books. And this was 8th grade.
A couple of days later I was again beckoned to the school by the impersonal, electronic voice. This time the offer was for PE.
The depressing atmosphere I had experienced the first day resumed the minute I arrived in the locker room. The PE coach warned me, “Make sure you keep an eye on the stalls while the girls are changing. We have to keep close watch. No one is to take a shower. There are two girls who need to take a make-up test. Be sure and seat them to the side while the other kids are playing volleyball -- keep an eye out because the girls will try to cheat.” She was right. Three times I had to move the girls away from each other and their friends.
The class was co-ed, as are most PE classes these days. While younger boys still waiting to develop failed miserably in their struggle to show their great athletic ability in front of the physically mature girls, it was obvious the girls knew how to use their well-developed female bodies to intimidate and belittle. I was shocked at how aggressive they were. Taller than most of the boys, several of them shoved their breasts into the necks of the boys as they teased and laughed at their mistakes. Many of the girls had their gym shorts rolled up so far, their buttocks showed. “Unroll your waistband,” I said. A flat voice responded, “But everyone wears them this way all the time.”
It seems my sad experience is pretty typical of most schools these days.
In a February 28, 2005 article entitled, “LEFT BEHIND, Kids have too little to respect” for The American Conservative, substitute teacher Marian Kester Coombs shares her own observations and gives insightful reasons for the dismal scene in so many of our schools:
The balance of power and the dominant institutional culture within the public schools have changed profoundly. No more subordinated hierarchy of youths competing to be patted on the head by adult authority figures. Poweris now in the hands of the inmates, and their preoccupation is with RESPECT -- and of course its opposite, “dissing.” An obsession imported from the mean streets, this demand, backed up by physical force and psychological intimidation, stands in stark contrast to the almost complete lack of deference shown to authorities.”
The inversion of respect -- its redefinition as idle malice and heartlessness instead of achievement and sublimation -- is not simply a matter of individual parents misbehaving. The entire society, now led by Baby Boomers, is viewed with derision. The young feel a sense not just of personal desertion but of general, universal desertion. Their elders have somehow lost them the whole world and what would have been their place in it. That is why they are so angry. That is why they do not respect us -- not just because some of us lie, cheat, fornicate, and cannot be relied on. They are rebelling against having nothing to rebel against.
Could it be that our kids are searching for meaning? Could it be that they are so numbed by the anything-goes society that they are pushing the envelope just to feel alive? Take cutting. It’s a phenomenon now prevalent in even the best schools, and it’s exactly what you’re hoping it isn’t: self-mutilation. Kids casually cut themselves with knives, safety pins and razor blades -- just because. In Michelle Malkin’s column of February 23, she refers to a school counselor telling the parent of a middle school student, “70% of the kids here cut or know someone who does. It’s cool, a trend, and acceptable.”
Malkin goes on to say, “While many public schools deny the problem exists, public health advocacy groups are warning medical professionals of the cutting craze -- and have even declared March 1st “Self Injury Awareness Day.”
Coombs observes, “Those who give speeches about higher standards and more teachers typically lunch in places like the Senate dining room. They would do well to spend a noon hour in the cafeteria of a public school. Kids in super-tight or droopy jeans and t-shirts reading “Yes -- but not with you” or “You forgot to ask if I care” shuffle through food lines that feature tater tots, fries, chips, pizza, Pepsi, and Little Debbie dessert squares. Ritalin offsets the sugar high.”
As Coombs says, “But bad fashion and worse nutrition are not these children’s only common denominators. Their more defining trait is the forlorn look they share.”
Sounds like it’s time for more parents -- and even legislators -- to do a little substitute teaching.
Rebecca Hagelin is a vice president of The Heritage Foundation, a Townhall.com member group.
You mean like back in the day when you penned an X for your signature?
We have not had weather permitting weather around here of late, but that happens here also.
I used to smoke behind the gym, too. And I passed notes. My girlfriends and I learned ASL so we could talk in class, too!
{{{hugs}}} Fellow trouble-maker.
Neither have we. Rainy, chilly, windy. But in April they get to eat outside.
Privatizing all schools works for me, as long as that portion of taxes are eliminated from tax bills. Not refunded but eliminated.
As of right now I have no problem with the public school my daughter is in when it comes to values, as what she is learing in school is not going against the values she is being taught at home. If I see a difference, I will be the first one saying and doing something about it.
I never smoked. But I whispered answers to the kids around me!
And now off to church ... it's COLD here!
Say a prayer for your smoking FRiend. Stay warm!
I was long over the "stuck-up" high-scoring phase half way through my freshman year.......I was still that in my neighborhood, but I was only middle of the road in my HS. It was a tough school.
Had I gone to the local HS, I would have been that way, but I chose to go to one half way across the city that gave me challenges. and I'm talking about Catholic schools, not public schools.
Ben Carson, as a child was required by his mother to go
the library every week, check out a book, and give her a
written book report. He and his brother did this for years.
It was only after he had graduated from college that he
found out his mother was illiterate, incapable of even
reading the reports.
Oh, did I say that Dr. Ben Carson went on to graduate from
medical school and become an internationally famous neonatal surgeon?
Opps! Did I fail to mention that Dr. Ben Carson came from an
urban black family?
Values trump education everytime, but a values enriched
education is best!
You smoked BEHIND the gym??????? Heck, I smoked IN the gym.
{{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}} to both of you fellow trouble makers.
Bump for later
LOL
You have mail.
I'm guessing from your anecdote that Dr. Carson went to *gasp* Public School?
...What is the fate to be of the children whose parents are incapable of home-schooling their children, due to their own illiteracy? As well as those who cannot afford to pay for Private schooling?
Do we need yet another generation of illiterates? Why don't we fix the public schools, instead?...
Your sentiments are well meaning, but can you tell me how "we" are going to fix the public school system?
While some good public schools still exist, there is little doubt in my mind that the trend towards "bad" public schools is the prevailing direction. I sent my kids to the same school I went to, but it is the same school in name only. I had to take them both out for all our sakes before they reached the 6th grade. I won't go into further details, you've probably heard it all many times before anyway.
This is not a problem that is going to get fixed until a very large number of parents (I'd say maybe 40 or 50 percent) have pulled their kids out of "Stalinsville" elementary or whatever and quit sending a check for school taxes to their county. If it's not big and it's not organized, it won't work. "We" will just go to jail.
"We" would have a better chance of lifting a derailed locomotive back onto the track then of fixing our public schools. That is my opinion.
To make it even worse, the schools are not solely responsible for the problems. Bad parents have a hand in this as well as well as bad legislature.
My daughter (in a great public elementary school) got to eat lunch...as did everyone else at their respective lunchtimes...outside last week because the 6th grade science fair was set up in the cafeteria.
:)
Isn't that wonderful! Good for her and her friends. My boys have gone to eat lunch at McDonald's several times over the years for being good students.
They were walking on air when they get home. "Mom! Mrs X took me and (insert name of other student here) to McDonald's today!" The school district has a budget for the teachers to take the students to eat out. It was so sweet for them to take 2 children out of 20 and let them know that they are special. No PC going on here.
Rewards are a good thing.
My middle boy has 2 blue ribbons and one red from the state science fair.
; )
Hillary will if she wins in '08.
How about in stead of pulling kids out of schools, that many parents just start speaking up?
Why does the solution of fixing the problems in public schools always seem to have some element of "leaving" instead of fighting the problem from theinside?
I will not deny I left a bad district for a good one, but I left it before my child was ever old enough to be in it, and not after many years of having fought the system, even before having a child.
Not everyone can do what I did, and I'm not saying anyone should, but for many people pulling their children out of a particular school is not an option. So instead of the constant mantra "get rid of the schools or get your kids out of them" how about some encouragement and ideas for how parents can fight back?????
Has anyone thought of that idea?
I don't know if Ben Carson went to public school.
He is over 50 years old today, meaning that if he did, he went
before before public schools became government schools.
Agree. Conservative women look hot. A lot of liberal women look like skanks.
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