Ruling school: How times have changed
Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009 Share on Facebook
Our story yesterday on the restoration of an old one-room schoolhouse in Hooksett brought to mind the recent troubles at Southside Middle School in Manchester.
Evelyn Woodbury, 95, of Hooksett, spoke at the school's open house on Saturday. She recalled teaching at a little schoolhouse in the early 20th century. Woodbury marveled at the modern conveniences, such as laptop computers, today's students have and said that when she was a teacher she had to have boys build fires during the winter so the classroom would stay warm. The building has no heat or electricity.
What struck us most was her statement, "I was only three or four years older than many of my students. They always obeyed me, but I know it would never be like that nowadays."
No, it wouldn't. At Southside, kids have put teachers in the hospital. The kind of behavior we put up with today would never have been tolerated by Evelyn Woodbury's generation. What a change she has lived to see.
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Once again, Mr. Sorrentino has made a great point. "We must require students to have the behavior that permits us to effectively teach them in groups."
The kid learns to behave or gets thrown out of school. After the kid is thrown out of school make the parent legally responsible for getting an education.
As a kid in gradeschool who had a spate of discipline problems, I learned rather quickly to wise up when my father was willing to go to school with me and stand behind my desk in school with a large leather strap. Just knowing that my father was planning and willing to do this, straightened me right out. The only thing he said, "Oh, you will learn"
- Rick Olson, Manchester
"One might argue" that Paul from Manchester is exactly the problem. When adults respond to misbehavior with hand-wringing about how we could better serve them (resulting in longer Personalized Educational Plans, more tax-paid hacks, and a larger "education funding crisis"), children know there are no hard limits on their conduct. As a modest experiment, fire half Southside's non-classroom professionals with advanced degrees and see if the discipline problem improves. (If there were parental choice in education, one of the competitors would try this.)
- Spike, Brentwood NH
The one-room model makes much more sense than the modern mega-school model. Having smalltown schools that aren't age-segregated would cut down on misbehavior. You get that type of acting out when you put lots of kids of the same age together.
- CDR, Lebanon
As a society have we discharged our obligation if we have provided all children with the means to obtain an education? For example, in the SSMS case, would an online model fairly address these problem students educational needs? Certainly there would be emotional / psychological impact on the child due to the lost socialization opportunities etc. However, one might argue that a less structured environment provides a better learning opportunity for these children. How much of a student's emotional / psychological well being is the responsibility of the public school system?
- Paul, Manchester
This editorial brings up one of the two reasons education costs are exceeding the pace of inflation and not keeping up with productivity gains in most sectors of our economy. The reason mentioned is discipline. Poor discipline is in large part why more teachers are needed today than in the past. The second reason education is not keeping pace, from a productivity perspective, is lack of innovation and use of modern technology. The model is still a bunch of students in front of a teacher. Can students learn using computers or other modern means? I suspect so, but we need to figure out how to make that happen.
We can continue to talk about the high cost of teachers and try to reduce wages, but few savings will be had until we reform how we teach. We must integrate new innovations, and we must require students to have the behavior that permits us to effectively teach them in groups. The latter requires holding families responsible for their children’s behavior.
- Peter Sorrentino, Manchester, NH