The challenge posted for OklaEd bloggers was to answer the following question in 600 words or less: If given the opportunity to be "King for a Day," how would I improve #oklaed?
I have worked on this for a few days and have tried to stay away from many of the popular ideas. Everyone wants pay raises for teachers, more money for schools, elimination of high stakes tests, and respect for school personnel. None of these will fix all the problems we are facing.
Working in a high poverty district opens your eyes to many things that won't be fixed with any of the items listed above. Instead, where we need to look is the home. I don't want to say we don't have support from home or imply anything of the sort. Instead, I think we could improve #oklaed in a major way if we could eliminate absent parents.
We have so many of our parents that have placed their kids in the hands of a grandparent or other relatives. The guardian is often taking care of multiple children from different parents and struggles to keep up with the demands of the task. In most cases, this is better for the student, but what about the emotional scarring of the student? How does this impact learning? I am not a child psych expert (but I play one on TV), and could never fully explain what this does to a student mentally & emotionally.
Many other parents are absent because they are feeding their addictions. Whether it is drugs, alcohol or gambling that draws the parent away, the end result is the same. The student is often left to raise himself and take on the role of an adult far sooner than they should. Far too many of our students are being forced to grow up too fast.
Absent parents often lead to or are symptoms of generational poverty. If we can tackle this issue, many of our poverty related issues would begin to diminish. This is a complex issue that obviously couldn't be taken care of in a day. If we could solve this issue we could have a greater impact on education than any mandate or test will ever come close to accomplishing.
This will require us to find new ways to reach out to parents and develop a trusting relationship with them. We will have to solidify the teams that work with students and further develop the skills and drive that will encourage them to break the cycle of generational poverty and absenteeism.
This isn't something that you can legislate or dictate. This will be something that would take a concerted effort from all parties. As a school, we need to find more ways to get parents on campus and involved with their students. We need to stop making excuses for them (students and parents). We need to start finding answers.
If legislators would help us take steps to get this done instead of handing down mandates and tests, imagine how much more we could accomplish. This would put more workers in the workforce, increase the tax base and allow us to provide for the respectable pay that teachers have earned.
Who am I kidding? Whatever I accomplished in that day as king would be eradicated with one swipe of a pen! After all, the only true expert in any situation is the person in power (where is the sarcasm font?).
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