Helicopter Parents or Drones?

As teachers, counselors, and school administrators we have seen the extremes in parental responsibility. On one end are parents that are never seen. They do not come to school activities. They neglect to attend parent-teacher conferences. They have little to do with their children’s’ schooling. On the other end are those parents who challenge every grade below an A, question every decision made by a coach and at every turn run interference for their children’s’ school lives. While they believe that that are helping ensure their sons and daughters success in school, they are, in fact hampering their children’s ability to make decisions or to deal with adversity.

In a recent Washington Post article, the dean of freshmen at Stanford University observed that “overhelping” has provided students with a disability that could hamper their success in life. Reports are surfacing that show an increase in depression, suicides, and mental disorders from children of helicopter parents. At some point, parents need to let children learn to think and succeed on their own. (Although some parents have gone as far as going with their children to their first job interview).

Those of us in the education profession need to learn how to deal with helicopter parents, trying to convince them that while it important to be engaged in the success of their children, hovering too much or too often can have negative effects.

C.2015 J. Margolis

Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK)

Content matter and pedagogy are not mutually exclusive notions that need to be addressed separately by teaching professional. So states Professor Les Shulman of the Sanford University Graduate School of Education.  Shulman has created a hybrid theory of sorts, which he has dubbed Pedagogical Content Knowledge or PCK. The theory suggests that the two entities should be combined and that educators need to know curriculum knowledge as well as knowledge of educational contexts.

Those who have examined PCK   believe that the strategy deals with concept formulation, teaching techniques, as well as the knowledge as to what makes a curriculum concept either easy or difficult for school students to learn.

Classroom teachers need to know not only the material to be taught but also the techniques and strategies that will enable students to grasp and acquire the content.  Over the years there has been a great deal of discussion of whether coursework taught in our nation’s colleges of education were critical in the preparation of teachers. State alternate route certification programs as well as organizations like Teach for America believed that the desire to teach children as well as content expertise were all that was required to be successful in the classroom. Shulman, as well as others, would argue otherwise. Even if you single out grade levels, the HOW to teach, has at least as much relevance in the process of being a successful teacher as does the content knowledge.

In today’s classroom PCK must also be integrated with technology as both an access point to obtain a vast amount of information as well as a teaching strategy. Todays classroom teaches must be both mindful of PCK and be able to adapt strategies for use in a diverse classroom.

c. 2015 J. Margolis

Stop the Insanity !

In the Sunday New York Times last week, there was an article about the Texas state legislature passing a law to allow guns on state college campuses. On the same day in an interview on CNN, a member of the gun lobby suggested that if students at Umpqua Community College were permitted to have guns on campus, someone would have been able to stop Christopher Harper-Mercer. According to reports, there have been thirteen mass shootings in the United States since the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, and to my knowledge, no one had a gun to be able to stop the perpetrator.

There has been this disconnect between those who hold the Second Amendment sacred and those who want to protect our children. Schools (and colleges for that matter) are supposed to be safe places. They provide a nurturing environment. They offer free lunch to students who cannot afford it. They offer health care and psychological services to those who need them. Students often turn to schools when things are not so safe at home. It’s no wonder that an increasing number of parents want to home school their children. But even with that extra cautionary step, it did not stop Jared Loughner in Arizona (2011) from killing a child and severely injuring former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Nor did it stop James Eagan Holmes in a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado in 2012.

A graphic posted on a national news program last week indicated that during the last ten years about 300 Americans were killed from acts of terrorism and over 300,00 were killed by gun violence. As long as we continue to do nothing and as long as we continue to cave in to the likes of the NRA, these tragedies unfortunately will continue. I encourage all readers to contact their state and federal legislators and help stop the insanity.

Let Girls Learn!

For the past four years this blog has been a forum for current issues in American public education. We have looked a federal education laws, curriculum development, changes in technology, teacher professional development and social issue in education. There is one issue, of a more global nature, that we have not discussed, until now. Recent statistics indicate that are over 62 million girls, worldwide who are presently being denied the right to an education merely because they are female. “ When girls aren’t given the chance to realize their potential, the whole world loses out.”  In 2012, the World Bank reckoned that Kenya’s illiterate girls, if educated, could boost that country’s economy by $27 billion in the course of a lifetime. (From a Washington Post article I March 2013)

 Now in an effort supported by First Lady Michelle Obama and the Peace Corp, a new initiative called Let Girls Learn is being promoted in places like Columbia, Rwanda, and elsewhere, to give young women the opportunity to receive an education and achieve their aspirations.

Let Girls Learn strives to expand access to education for adolescent girls around the world. The program is based on three pillars:

1 Empowering Leaders

   Working Hand in Hand with Communities

   Increase impact of the Peace Corps volunteers

Public attention was drawn to this issue with the 2013 publication of the book “ I am Malala,” written by a then 15 year old Milala Yousafzai who was shot by the Taliban for standing up for her rights to receive an education. Now with the endorsement of both President Obama and the First Lady, this issue is receiving more attention here in the United States.

For more information about this project or find our how you can participate check out these web sites. www.letgirlslearn.peacecorps.gov or www.62milliongirls.com.

C.2015 J. Margolis

How Do Our Children Acquire Knowledge?

While the general model of public education in this country was developed during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the way in which school children acquire knowledge has changed dramatically. When was the last time that you used an encyclopedia? What about a card catalogue in the library?  When was the last time that students took a standardized math test without a computer or calculator? The list goes on. Classrooms have gone from having one computer in each class to laptops or Ipads for everyone. When you think about this revolution, there is a disconnect. Here in the twenty-first century, schools are still organized much as they were in last century, paralleling the assembly line factories that fueled the Industrial Revolution. There are twelve grades, the school year lasts about 180 days, student must have a certain number of credits to graduate from high school, and so on.( And-as I previously wrote about- the nature and design of homework.)

Paralleling the acquisition of knowledge is the curriculum- the “what” that is being taught. According to the proponents of E.D Hirsch’s Cultural Literacy, there is a specific body of knowledge that every American school student should know. Hirsch developed a dictionary of some 5000 items that encompass a broad range of topics from mathematics and civics, to art, music and literature. One of the problems with this theory is that it assumes that students have been exposed to a variety of cultural experiences that enhance their vocabulary and general fund of knowledge. This places many minority students at a distinct disadvantage. Other educators will note that they are teaching whatever needs to be taught for “THE TEST.”

At some point the logistics of school curriculum and structure must come up to speed with the technology, so our students can be successful in both the classroom and in life.

c.2015 J. Margolis