Should Teachers Have Guns in School?

The education committee of the Florida State legislature in Tallahassee approved a measure that5 would permit certain designated school officials to carry concealed weapons on school grounds. The committee vote was 10-1 and included bipartisan approval. The measure, which has been indorsed by the Florida Sheriff’s Association, would have the school superintendent designate someone to carry a gun. The bill, if enacted would require the designated person be a former military member or law enforcement official and have a state concealed weapons permit. The one lone dissenting committee member stated that he felt that a better course of action would be to increase the number of school resource officers in schools, especially in elementary schools.

It is certainly not illogical to think along these lines especially when one considers the events at Columbine High School in Colorado or the tragedy in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. But the greater issue is school security at what cost? Does having an armed teacher or other employee in school put students at risk? What message does it send to students who for many years believed that school was the one safe and nurturing place in a hostile and violent world?

This is not the first time that the Florida legislature has attempted to enact such legislation. It has been tried, unsuccessfully on two other occasions in past years.

Your comments on this issue are welcome.  For those of you residing or teaching in other states, please let us know if similar measures are on the docket in your state legislatures.

c.2015 J.P. Margolis

Technology and Children- What Age is the Right Age?

At what age should a child receive his or her first electronic device?

Did you buy an iPad for your five year old for Christmas and if so what is he (she doing with it. Since there has been a major paradigm shift in the use of technology both in school and at home, the questions are legitimate. The current generation of children has not known life without electronic devices. The paced of innovation and implementation of new inventions is progressing at warp speed.

A recent article in the Rand Review Magazine (January 2015) took a serious look at giving iPads to toddlers. In this rapidly changing technological generation, children need to be introduced to technology especially as they reach school age or they run the risk of falling behind their peers. Researchers   found that youngsters between the ages of 3 and 5 spend about four hours a day with technology. The researcher wrote” technology literacy plays an important role in a child’s ability to succeed in school and later life.”

The Rand Corporation in conjunction with a PNC "Grow Up Great" grant of $350 million came up with five timely questions that all parents should ask regarding their children’s exposure to technology.

1)   Can the device help improve academic skills in math, reading and science?

2)   Is the technology use balances with a child’s other activities?

3)   Does the child interact with others while using devices?

4)   Are the activities free of violent or adult themes and are they interactive?

5)   Are the children sedentary while using these devices?

Additionally, educators and government officials need to look at the cost factors, which can remove from the equation those students whose parents cannot afford to buy the latest technological gadgets.

It is time for parents and teachers to take a look at the goals of technology and it use academically and not as a   baby sitter.  

For more information about this topic please access www.rand.org/t/RR673z2

C.2015 J. Margolis

The Politicization of The Measles

When I was a middle school guidance counselor, one of my responsibilities was to register  incoming transfer students. In addition to a transcript from a previous school and a birth certificate, all students had to provide health documents showing an immunization record. No record, no admission. If a student needed shots and could not afford them, we sent the family to the county health clinic where they could receive free inoculations.

How did vaccinations become politicized?  Was it because vaccinations did not work? No because polio has been eradicated in the US and for the most part so have mumps,chicken pox,and measles. The Boston Public school system was the first in the country to require all of its students to receive certain injections. Perhaps it was because there was a direct correlation between measles vaccinations and autism. That is also not true, as it has not been clinically proven.  Then it may be because parents want to be in control of their children’s’ health rather than the government. Herein lies a problem. When do personal issues supersede the good of the community at large?

A good question.

Where will the issues of childhood vaccinations end?  Who knows? Several US Senators and would -be presidential candidates have weighed in on the issue, delicately trying to placate their constituencies.

Homeschooled children have an advantage- until they go into a public place like a museum or a theatre. At that point, the uninoculated are targets for disease.

All classroom teachers need to be mindful of these issues, but more importantly- get immunized! The best defense is a good offense. I have been told on numerous occasions that a first year kindergarten teacher is often beset by many illnesses until immunity is built up. Do all that you can to be safe and healthy.

c.2015 J. Margolis

Revisiting Teach for America

A recent article in the New York Times observed that there has been a decline in applications in the Teach for America program. What started out as Wendy Kopp’s senior thesis while at Princeton University blossomed into a major service minded effort to get college graduates who were not trained to be teachers nor not initially interested in the teaching profession, to sign on for a two year commitment to teach in some of America’s poorest schools.  The responses to the Times article were as diverse as the recruits who answered Kopp’s call.

A former principal observed that he only recruited Teach for America recruits as a last resort. Two years is not nearly enough time to train a teacher. It seems that if a school wants to invest in a successful classroom teacher, the teacher must make a commitment to get on board for the long term.

Another respondent noted that Teach for America matches new teachers with children who really need the most skilled and experienced ones. This could be a recipe for disaster. She believed that such a program is endemic of the fact that teachers are not respected in the United States. In any other profession, who would insert a person into a complex situation with no skills in that occupation? Anybody cannot be a teacher!

One letter did note that Teacher for America has been a successful program and that many recruits did decide to make teaching a career.

Finally, one letter writer observed that Teach for America has become too large, impersonal and more “corporate.”

The jury is still out. What remains is the fact that this country needs both qualified as well as dedicated teachers to face the challenges of teaching children in this century.

c.2015 . J. Margolis

The War Against Education

Generals and students of military history will tell you that it is difficult, often impossible to fight a war on multiple fronts. However when you begin to scrutinize the seismic shifts that rare taking place in American public education today that is precisely what educators are facing.

Front One- Federal government intrusion in to public education. The framers of the Constitution deliberately left out anything pertaining to public education of America’s children. That left the education institutions up to the individual states  (See Article 10 of US Constitution). Starting with the National Defense Education Act (1957) and continuing through ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act 1965), No Child Left Behind, (2001) Race to the Top (2012) and now with Common Core (2014) the federal government has gotten progressively more involved in what is taught, teacher success rate. These intrusions seems ironic considering that Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence wrote a treatise emphasizing the importance of education in a democracy and that his document was largely ignored.

Front Two- Union Bashing. Republican governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, both Republicans and both potential presidential candidates, have hitched their careers on trying to crush labor relations and union membership by eliminating, or radically changing teacher tenure laws and welching on negotiated pensions and benefits for teachers and other public employees (Police and firefighters).

Front Three- Textbook Selection. Actions in several states, particularly Florida and Texas (where the same books must be used in every school in the state), regarding what content should be in a student’s textbooks have all of the trappings of censorship and book banning. Should Creationism be taught in schools? What should students know about slavery or the Holocaust? How should religion be introduced in schools –if at all?

Trying to deal with any one of these issues is a daunting task- but all three borders on the superhuman. It is crucial that educators, parents and community members closely monitor what is going on in their local schools as well as in Congress.

c.2015 J. Margolis