In article <LrOdnXIlEszICBrVnZ2dnUVZ_uCdnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
"Stephanie" <haaa@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> I am often flummoxed by how much time and energy is put into forcing
kids
> into school. I am also flummoxed with the number of children who come to
> school not ready to learn. And I don't mean *anything* about
intellectually
> ready. I mean things like having had an adequate breakfast with a
lunchbox
> of snack and lunch provided. I mean having gotten an adequate night's
sleep
> at least mostof the time. I mean coming to school free of stress from
> monstorously disfunctional families.
You wonder how the families got that way, certainly, though sometimes it's
obviously related to mental illness, particularly depression and drug
abuse.
A friend ofmine who worked in a disadvantaged school said that the kids
who
came to school with nothing (no lunch, pencils, bus pass) had parents who
could barely manage their own lives; managing their high school age sons'
lives was outside their capacity.
But how much time and energy IS spent in forcing kids to come to school?
> I wonder if the burded to provide an education only included its being
> offered would change the dynamic? How far do we want to go to protect
> children from their crappy parents? How about if the education was
offered
> but not mandated? If a child is a discipline problem or a disruptive
> influence, instead of going through this weird discipline system that
has no
> teeth (if a student does not want to be there, then sticking them in
> detention is no great deterrent), kick 'em OUT, particularly in the
later
> grades. If the child comes to school unfed, stinky and dirty,
exhausted...
> send them home until they are in a state to learn.
I see this has been answered by many other people, but do you people have
Blind Freddy over there? As in, "Blind Freddy could see that failing to
try
to educate the children of crappy parents just produces more criminals in
the
long run"?
> It reminds me an awful lot of the welfare reform that occured a few
years
> back. I never thought it would happen since people would be in an uproad
> about hte kids of these parents who were being dumped from the system. I
was
> wrong.
Sorry, you'll have to explain this to the foreigners. Didn't know that
you
HAD welfare ;-)
> I know this is an incindiary post. I don't mean it literally. I am
trying to
> kick up some sort of different conversation around education in this
> country. I *do* however feel that the schools have had to take on more
and
> more and more of what used to be the place of the parent. And I am not
sure
> that is a good thing.
Well, it's not good for the teachers or the schools in terms of the
resources
needed to address these problems, but the best solution I can think of is:
A specialist agency to look after at-risk families, which will coordinate
information from health & welfare professionals, police, schools so that
it
can be shared usefully. Home visits by health professionals, where
possible.
Home care for those that need it. After-school care for the kids. Job
training, counselling and life skills courses for the parents.
In Australia there is a reasonable amount of welfare available -- most of
the
services I've listed above already exist, and many of them are either free
or
low-cost/means-tested. There are two main difficulties: (i) it is assumed
that the adult is competent to manage their own affairs and has the
energy,
time and skills to look after their own interests and (ii) while the
at-risk
families are often known to a wide number of agencies, the information is
not
shared adequately or in a timely way between agencies, let alone states.
The agency I'm thinking of would be able to coordinate services for people
who
aren't able to arrange them for themselves -- I honestly think that's our
biggest need here. Part of the difficulty I see is that it is very
difficult
to schedule (involuntarily admit for treatment) a mentally ill person in
NSW
unless they are an obvious physical danger to themselves or others. There
are
a whole group of floridly ill people who are no physical danger to anyone,
but
are quite unable to perceive or manage their own interests, to their own
long-term disadvantage.
--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)
http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/
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