tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997519179796849230.post303078463963199360..comments2024-02-14T06:30:27.643-05:00Comments on A Teacher on Teaching: Vouchers, Charter Schools and Terrible ParentsJohn J. Viallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05355223708051895485noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997519179796849230.post-69170698649329136782012-02-12T12:45:44.605-05:002012-02-12T12:45:44.605-05:00Alas, one of us is kicking a dead mule and the mul...Alas, one of us is kicking a dead mule and the mule is not going to rise. There is nothing in my post that indicates parents are pervasively bad. There is nothing to indicate in my post (nor do I believe from my experience) that more than a minority of parents are truly bad. My point, which any good teacher could make, is that the really bad parents send us children in schools with really severe problems. <br /><br />I don't know how a person with any feelings for children could not find this an "emotional" issue. I stand absolutely behind the last sentence of my original posting, which is my main point.<br /><br />Indeed, if it helps, I will clarify: in my 33 years of experience in a classroom, dealing with 5,000 teens and their parents, I found (I would estimate) at least 90% of those parents to be a pleasure to deal with; and I couldn't name 10 kids in all those years I didn't like. But go behind the curtain and take a good long look, and almost every child with severe problems in the school started off with severe problems in the home.<br /><br />My most recent post continues the same theme.John J. Viallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05355223708051895485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997519179796849230.post-46522058153163368652012-02-11T17:35:22.568-05:002012-02-11T17:35:22.568-05:00Let me try this one more time, because maybe you r...Let me try this one more time, because maybe you really did not follow my point. It can happen.<br /><br />The premise of this article is that parents are the reason that public schools fail, and that parents are so bad that they should not have the ability or the right to make decisions about their children’s education. The author then relates a number of highly emotional, anecdotal stories to support that notion, and it is further put forward that the number of abusive parents is very high, so this, apparently, means that even the (very few) good parents are not to be trusted and must also abdicate their rights to make school choices.<br /><br />But you can’t have it both ways. If we are to concede that parents really are that pervasively bad, that it has come to the point that they really can’t even raise their own children or make basic decisions for their children, that they are mostly dangerous to children, then we must also admit that the school system has to have some culpability in allowing things to get that bad. Schools do help raise children, and they have had their hand on the cradle for decades.<br /><br />Our society does, in fact, ask itself if the penal system is responsible for making criminals, and we know that it is responsible at times. Do "police" make murders? We do ask that, and we are very wise to ask that. So it is also reasonable to ask what role the school system has in producing poor parents.<br /><br />Now, I would also make the point that the premise of this article is disingenuous anyway. It really doesn’t want to make that argument because it really doesn’t want to take that heat. We don’t have a society that is too dumb to parent. We have a society that is a bit lazy about it, to be honest (and why not when it can be done for them), but it probably isn’t predominately abusive or dangerous to its children, and parents are able to make intelligent choices if they are any choices.<br /><br />The real point of the article is to emotionalize and confuse the argument so that parent choice is denied. That is the goal of the article, plain and simple.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997519179796849230.post-27054737233098203132012-02-11T15:55:26.473-05:002012-02-11T15:55:26.473-05:00Lol. You can't answer the question! That is ...Lol. You can't answer the question! That is where your post needs to start if it is to respond to the other one and have a real dialog. Again, how is it that a century of compulsory education has produced a culture that is not smart or benevolent enough to raise their own children, to at least pick the school that their child should attend? For heaven sake, let parents choose schools for their own children. That isn't asking too much! That is the real issue. Stop trying to divert with nonsense and insults.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997519179796849230.post-18971995977254365052012-02-11T13:45:14.761-05:002012-02-11T13:45:14.761-05:00Wow, where to start in response to the above? Now...Wow, where to start in response to the above? Now schools are responsible for abusive parents! For real? I guess cops are responsible for murderers. Or wait a minute, maybe we should go back to Adam and Eve. Public schools invented by tyrants??? Yep, nothing worse than trying to insure that every child can get an education.<br /><br />I admit: If the above respondent is a product of the public schools, we surely failed along the way.John J. Viallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05355223708051895485noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997519179796849230.post-87045416972650809092012-02-11T11:27:03.604-05:002012-02-11T11:27:03.604-05:00Didn't all those TERRIBLE, abusive parents rec...Didn't all those TERRIBLE, abusive parents receive their education in the same machine? This essay makes the argument, if we take it seriously, that our population, on the whole, is not able to make even the most basic decisions about caring for their own children. SO ANSWER THIS: Why can't compulsory education, after a century of experimentation, produce a population that is smart enough and benevolent enough to rear its own young?<br /><br />There is no answer to that question. It is past time to kick that establishment to the curb. It is a complete failure. Give parents back the responsibility that nature intended it to have, that she gave them an instinct to fulfill. Let nature take its course. It worked before public school was invented by tyrants. It can work again. That is, if you are not afraid of the diversity it will produce.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997519179796849230.post-53828538642883703092011-11-29T17:45:09.664-05:002011-11-29T17:45:09.664-05:00The author stands by his position. Space limits t...The author stands by his position. Space limits the number of examples you can use in any blog post. It might interest Anonymous, above, to know that Hamilton County, Ohio, had 8500 cases of child abuse and neglect in one year. Do I "blame" parents? Some, yes, of course, I do. If the average kid in Chicago schools is absent 26 days, as was true in 2009, maybe parents are at fault. The post is simple enough: some parents are TERRIBLE. There is no reform plan for schools currently being floated to address that. JJVAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997519179796849230.post-20095684767876547172011-11-29T16:50:37.183-05:002011-11-29T16:50:37.183-05:00It's funny how teaching is something you can d...It's funny how teaching is something you can delude yourself into thinking you're good at for three decades, all the while obviously failing and blaming parents because of the most salient, cherry-picked anecdotes. Some of us ACTUAL good teachers have seen our kids achieve in the face of all sorts of challenges, know that the majority of parents in any community deeply care about and want to help their kids succeed, and don't blame their failures as teachers on everyone but themselves. The failing salesman is great - his customers are the problem. The surgeon facing multiple malpractice suits is FANTASTIC - it's the damned patients that keep dying on him! <br /><br />Name one other profession we're you can get by year after year by shirking off responsibility. Even the well-intentioned can just plain suck, after all.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997519179796849230.post-16302370342490270172011-11-28T00:53:18.866-05:002011-11-28T00:53:18.866-05:001) What constitutes a "good" parent?
2)...1) What constitutes a "good" parent?<br /><br />2) Under such definition, what do we make of the numerous cases we could find where kids of these "good" parents did poorly in school?<br /><br />3) Most any documentary is going to be simple and biased. It's how it draws an audience. "Waiting for Superman" certainly was no exception. Nor was "The Lottery". That being said, if Michelle Rhee is a fair target for her "charter school good, teacher union bad" stance, do we let Randi Weingarten off the hook for vaguely and overly simplistically directing the blame to "poverty"?Joelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997519179796849230.post-90207694020115224232011-11-23T18:31:18.766-05:002011-11-23T18:31:18.766-05:00This is the Truth. Plain and simple. I can't...This is the Truth. Plain and simple. I can't help every kid, but I sure can try to be a safe place for few minutes in their day. Thank you for writing this little piece of Reality.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997519179796849230.post-10765599216951462422011-11-23T11:56:08.534-05:002011-11-23T11:56:08.534-05:00This made me cry. Really cry. And I do not cry. Th...This made me cry. Really cry. And I do not cry. There seems to be more outcry for abuses of animals than there are advocates for kids. I just want to take all these kids and I wish I could. Reading stories like this makes me think a person should be approved by some entity to have kids. But that's not the answer either.<br />I remember learning the basics for living in middle school, I believe it was Maslow's hierarchy of needs and it has stuck with me. These kids might have food and shelter but every other need is simply wiped out so much that they would be better off with a homeless parent who loved them than the garbage they are living with.<br />LCBAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1997519179796849230.post-16432523289808561812011-11-22T15:28:43.562-05:002011-11-22T15:28:43.562-05:00Thank you John, for this exquisite piece grunded o...Thank you John, for this exquisite piece grunded on your experience. You and I know we're fighting with logic against a robotic opposition which is immune to logic. But it must be done as you have the creds in every respect and you were born to do this in your current writing career.bruce abelnoreply@blogger.com