Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Cycle 3: Should the Curriculum Address Controversial Issues?


In going through this week’s readings I was not only torn in different directions as an educator and as a mother but also frustrated with my profession and our modern American culture.  While I agree that there needs to be anti-bullying education in schools and that tolerance needs to be integrated into the curriculum, I also can see how the topic of homosexuality is an extremely political and controversial topic to cover in classroom curriculum. 

Almost all adults remember a time in middle school when they were picked on for something by their peers.  I teach in a middle school, it’s a rough time in kids’ growth and development and a tough age.  Everything is all about how you appear to your peers and how you are perceived by them.  As much as we all know this is part of growing up, bullying is an increasing problem in our schools and is increasingly dangerous as teen suicides rates are staggering.  Some of those numbers can be seen here: http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/bullying-and-suicide.html.
Students who are either gay or are perceived as their peers as gay make up a large number of those suicides but are not the only reason adolescents consider killing themselves.  I believe that we have to be careful about picking out specific causes of bullying and teaching them as we could not possibly have the time to fit everything into the curriculum along with the state mandates.  Instead, I think it is probably better to teach tolerance of diversity period, regardless of whether it is body type, sexuality, or something different.

In the Joel Burns video that we saw this week, he states that “bullying and harassment in our schools must stop and our schools must be safe places to learn and to grow”.  I couldn't agree more.  As a nation, most educators agree that we have a problem that requires a solution.
The resolution that the Helena, Montana school district came up with in their quest to address bullying seems fair.  They changed the language of their bullying curriculum to be vaguer and more open ended about acceptance of others, rather than addressing homosexuality explicitly. I think this was a good move.  With so many cultural differences in today’s society, it makes sense to address the issue of bullying and acceptance while causing minimal conflict with the community and parents of your students.  Covering the topic in entirety rather than being specific also ensures that you don’t open the portal to teach about every single thing that kids are bullied over; which could not possibly all be covered individually within the existing academic curriculum.

The most frustrating part to me in this week’s topic is the thought that as an educator I am teaching academics (math, science, social studies, and language arts), as well as life skills and values (common courtesy, caring for others, anti-bullying, accepting diversity, etc.)  If we are teaching them everything in school, what are they learning at home?  I feel that as educators we are constantly being told to do more; to be parents as well as teachers.  Many of the things we are being asked to teach, such as kindness to others, I would consider common sense and ideas that should be ingrained in a child from birth in your home structure.  These lessons taught from home are then reinforced at school and in life.  The problem is that kids are not getting these lessons at home because the United States culture has seen a complete breakdown in the family structure.  The majority of families are no longer teaching life lessons, skills, and values, we are asking our schools to do that instead.  Schools have to teach these things all while also covering an increasing list of state mandated standards and when we can’t do it all, we are failures; frustrating to say the least!

An article on the breakdown of the American family structure can be seen here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/the-breakdown-of-the-trad_b_675444.html, and an interesting article on teachers as parents can be seen here:  http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/08/living/ron-clark-reactions.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Kristi,

    Thank you for your work here!

    I share your concern over the breakdown of family structures. We have to be really careful, as I think more people are, to differentiate between the breakdown of "traditional" family structures (which is certainly happening now) and the breakdown of family more broadly. Families come in all shapes and sizes these days. While I agree it's probably usually better to have two parents in the home (or more, if we count extended families), I want to be careful not to blame single parents. The question is how we support all families and parents to be their child's first teacher!

    As I'm writing this, however, I'm reminded of a book I read a while ago, Centuries of Childhood, by Phillipe Aries. Aries studies families and childhood from the Middle Ages until today. He actually includes that families become overloaded at the time of the Industrial Revolution. Prior to that, he argues, there was more a community approach to raising kids (church, schools, work-related guilds, etc.).

    As a parent of kids, I know I can never prepare my kids for the world, all on my own. I need the schools and caring teachers (and other adults) to help them. School is the first place where kids are going to confront all kinds of things. My kids are growing up with a gay couple as neighbors, and we talk about that. But they actually aren't growing up by any kids with single parents. And probably lots of other things. I need my child's teacher to help out on that.

    To me, it comes down to trust. I have to trust that the teacher WILL deal with it, and deal with it in a way that preserves the dignity and moral worth of everyone involved. I get so frustrated with parents when they only think about it from their own child's perspective. How does that prepare them to live in a world where decisions are made based upon shared or conflicting interests and points of view?

    Your statistics on suicide are shocking and should be a wake-up call to all adults. Again, one of the most important things schools might teach is that our behaviors have consequences--both intended and unintended--and part of being a good citizen is waking up to those consequences, and adjusting our behavior in light of what we learn.

    I think we are too apt to talk about our rights, and not enough to talk about our responsibilities to others and their growth and learning. Certainly, you are right. Teachers are in a very difficult spot these days. We have to find ways to re-build trust with all types of parents.

    Thanks for your work!

    Kyle

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