How Low Will They Go?

How Low Will They Go?

By Jill Jenkins

            Schools are made up of many support people: bus drivers, secretaries, custodians, cafeteria managers, cafeteria helpers, teacher aids and many others.  Most of these positions in the past were modest paying jobs that included benefits like health insurance.  To save money, many districts have made these positions part time relieving themselves of both health insurance expenses and retirement expenses.  The problem some districts are facing is how do districts find enough qualified employees who are willing to work under these conditions?

            Take for example cafeteria workers.  One of my friends manages a high school cafeteria and is responsible for hiring two-hour cafeteria workers.  Not only do these workers earn minimum wage, but need to pay $60.00 to be fingerprinted for a background check and purchase their own uniform.  In exchange, they can work two hours a day, five days a week for nine months out of the year.  At that rate, they will work for free for several weeks to pay for their background check and their uniform.  As a result, it is getting difficult to find employees to fill these openings. 

           

            Bus drivers also are only paid part time, but since they too must pay for a uniform and a background check and keep a Commercial Drivers License current, they have added expenses.  Furthermore, many of them decide to take a more lucrative position with trucking companies or local bus companies.  Some school districts have decided to contract with private bus companies to circumvent  the entire problem, but those drivers are rarely fingerprinted which means they are not meeting state guidelines.  As a result of the shortage of qualified drivers, students are often late to school because the districts have insufficient drivers.

            Custodians are equally as difficult to keep.  Last year, at the school in which I was teaching, the night custodian quit.  Because the district couldn’t find a replacement, for several months, students-sweepers cleaned our room bereft of an adult supervisor.  I bet you can imagine how sparkling clean they were.  Finding good help is difficult when the help is not appropriately compensated for their time.  Still, the program saves the district money.

            Substitute teachers used to be the job for retired teachers trying to augment their retirement, or teachers looking for an opening.  Most districts did not pay substitutes benefits, but a substitute often earned $80.00 to $100.00 a day. If they substituted daily, a substitute could earn from $400 to $500 a week minus taxes.  However, with the new guidelines, if they substitute every day they would be entitled to health insurance and the district doesn’t want to pay health insurance on them, so they can only work two to three days a week.  Retired teachers are not allowed to substitute for the first year of retirement without losing their retirement benefits.  As a result, there is a shortage of substitutes.  This means that teachers who have a consultation periods are used to substitute for the substitute the district could not find and earn an extra $10 or $20.  That should make everyone happy, right?

            Secretaries were the greatest support staff.  Currently there is only one secretary in the school who works full-time.  As a result, some of the paperwork that used to be delegated to the secretarial staff is either being piled on the principal’s secretary or distributed to the teaching staff. Some full time jobs are simply handled by asking the employee to complete the same amount of work in half the time. These employees are stressed and are often deprived of even bathroom breaks to complete the tasks assigned. Other work is reassigned to teachers to complete.  Ever wonder why the teachers’ cars are in the parking lot long before school, long after school and sometimes on weekends?  Somebody’s got to do it.

             Maybe the school districts need to take a lesson from Henry Ford.   According to the Ford Motor Company, “In 1914, Henry Ford started an industrial revolution by more than doubling wages to $5 a day—a move that helped build the U.S. middle class and the modern economy. ”  At that time, these were unheard of salaries, but Henry Ford wanted to create a loyal labor team that he could depend on to meet the demand for the Model T.  He did it.  Perhaps districts could also create a stable work staff if they were willing to offer them full-time pay and benefits.  How low will they go? If the district is so worried about finances, how long you think it will be before they make teachers work part time and lose their benefits?  Better yet, all of students could stay home and take school on their Smart Phones.  I am sure there is an app for that.

Poison Teachers: Do Teachers Bully Students?

Poison Teachers: Do Teachers Bully Students?

By Jill Jenkins 

            Roger Water’s from Pink Floyd’s album, Another Brick In the Wall, “We Don’t Need No Education,”  states:

           
“We don`t need no education,

we don`t need no thought control,

no dark sarcasms in the classrooms.
Refrain:
Teacher, leave them kids alone.
Hey, teacher! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it`s just another brick in the wall.

We don´t need no education,
we don`t need no school control,
no dark sarcasms in the classrooms.”

            Poison teachers who use “dark sarcasms in the classroom” and seem to want to humiliate students to feel more powerful create huge problems for students.  These are the teachers who watch for students to cheat so they can pounce on them.  These are the teachers who stand at doorways waiting for the child whose dress is too short so they can sneer at them and haul them down to principal’s office like they have captured the biggest fish in the lake.  These are the teachers who brag in the faculty room about the number of students who have failed their classes.  These are the teachers who make education an uncomfortable and humiliating event in a child’s life and destroy any possibility that this child might even consider to further his education after high school.

            Learning should be a joyful and fulfilling experience to a child.  As teachers, we shouldn’t be trying to control a student’s mind, but enrich it with many opportunities to learn.  I remember once a former student popping his head into my class and saying, “I knew this was your room when I heard the class cheering and clapping.  I don’t think they cheer for assignments in any other room in this school.”  This is the kind of enthusiasm we need to be fostering in our students.  Students need to believe that teachers want them to succeed and will do whatever they need to do to help that child be successful.  If a student believes that every assignment and activity is designed for them to fail so the teacher could taunt them and make them feel incompetent, they are going to stop trying.  Amazingly these poison teachers are still in our schools.  How do we reform them or get them to find another profession?

           

            Take for example a recent homecoming dance.  The school has a dress code for the young ladies that up until this year was never enforced, so students rented prom dresses from a local company that have been acceptable at past dances, but this year, the administration firmly applied the rule and turned away students who did not meet the code.  The girls who were in violation were forced to sit in chairs outside the dance waiting for parents to bring them different attire while all of the other students paraded by to enter the dance.  This was a humiliating event for most of the students.  Certainly schools should be allowed to create dress codes, but if a change is made in how a rule is enforced, perhaps more communication is in order.  The students had already paid for admission and their money was not refunded, nor were they allowed to attend.  What is the purpose of dances, but to create a happy, cooperative environment in the school, but instead they have created a humiliating and negative environment.  In one inner-city school where I taught, a parent asked a teacher at parent-teacher conferences, how they could help their struggling son.  The math teacher replied, "Nothing could help your son except retroactive birth control." The father punched the teacher in the face.   In another school where I taught, another math teacher only allowed his students to ask three questions per class period.  If a student asked to use the restroom or for a pencil, two of the classes three question limit were gone.  I don’t think this teacher was communicating that he wanted his students to succeed. In another school, a boy’s hair was placed in pigtails because the teacher felt his hair was too long.  The parent sued.   Correcting a student in a hallway or privately is less damaging to a student’s self-esteem than making the child a target of others ridicule.  In my daughter’s middle school, girls were not allowed to paint their fingernails.  I allowed my eighth grade daughter to paint her nails on weekends, but she remove the polish before going to school on Monday. On one busy Monday morning, we forgot to remove the nail polish.  My daughter was sent to the principal’s office and carpet cleaner was applied to her nails.  The cleaner was so harsh it inflamed all of her cuticles and took weeks to heal.  She was not only humiliated, but physically in pain.  I was appalled. I know there was a better way to deal with it.  Yes, she violated a rule, but how important was that rule.    This is an extreme case, but when teachers behave like bullies they do extreme psychological damage to students.  Teachers should be behaving like models, not bullies. 

                Maybe we need to hold in-services on what is the purpose of education.  Teaching is a form of coaching.  A coach wants his team to win.  He not only trains them, but builds up their confidence with inspiring speeches.  Teachers should want their students to win.  They need to inspire them as well and instruct them.  I am not saying that school rules should not be enforced, but when a student violates the rule, it is important to explain to the student what he did wrong instead of humiliating him.  It is all in the delivery.  The punishment should match the crime.  We should never do physical of psychological damage to a child.

             Sometimes methods of education that were used by past generations seem innocent, but actually do real damage.  In fifth grade, our teacher put a large tree on the wall.  Each student’s name was placed on a leaf.  When we took a test, she placed our leaf bearing our name on the tree.  Those who earned 100% were at the top of the tree and I remember I was on the ground under the tree with the student in the class who threw his test in the garbage.  It didn’t encourage me to try harder; it made me reluctant to go to school.  Lucky for me, my best friend offered to tutor me and I moved up the tree, but the damage was done.  I hated math after that.  When I taught in a high school, there was a math teacher who arranged her seating chart based on the students’ performance on tests.  The best scores sat in front and the worst scores in the back.  I wonder how many would-be Einstein’s were lost.  

            Students are like fragile egg shells.  The words and attitude of the teacher has a strong influence on students.  Be cautious and courteous.  As teachers we need to be cognizant of how our words and actions affect a students’ attitude toward learning, self-esteem and psychological well-being.  Teachers are more powerful than we believe.  Let’s use that power to build our students, not tear them down.

Why Should Students Read Literature?

Why Should Students Read Literature?

By Jill Jenkins

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. “ Albert Einstein

            In education today, focus is teaching students to acquire a list of skills so they can successfully complete an end of the year test.  Is that really all it takes be an educated person?  In today’s Language Arts classes instead of reading entire pieces of literature, the students read excerpts from novels, excerpts from speeches, excerpts from articles and answer specific questions that require the child to review the piece and select specific information.  It is called closed reading.  I call it closing minds.  The truth is you can teach that list of reading and writing skills and still use entire pieces of literature.  Not only will student have a sense of accomplishment, but teachers will be giving your students the skills they need and so much more.

            Remember back to your youth, the lessons that you learned from great pieces of literature were more encompassing and life important than an end of the year test.  I still remember reading James Hurst’s, “The Scarlet Ibis,” a beautiful short story about a brother’s guilt over his younger brother’s, Doodle’s, death.  Although the story is packed with vivid descriptions and imagery, its message is one that a child can carry with him for life. First, the story helps the reader develop empathy for the struggles of the disabled brother.  Second, the major theme is whether pride is a positive force or a negative force:

”I did not know then that pride is a wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that bears two vines, life and death. “

This lends itself to discussions about whether pride is a good quality to have or a bad one.  The teacher can have the student select specific examples of how the narrator’s pride in Doodle helped Doodle and how it eventually led to his death.  This is a subject that they can relate to since many parents push their children out of pride.  The students should be able to personalize the story and develop a greater understanding of their own life.  Third, the conclusion of the story of the narrator collapsing across Doodle to protect his “fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy of the rain,” always makes the class cry.  I remember crying when I read it as a junior high student and every year I have taught it (almost 40 years) I have the same emotional response.  Literature allows us to feel.  Feeling and showing that emotion helps student become more emotionally mature.  There is research that people who are emotionally mature are more likely to succeed in life. Literature emotionally engages students like no “closed reading” assignment can.  With a little effort there are so many of the reading, writing and speaking skills that can be taught with this story.

            Reading entire pieces of literature can help students deal with problems in their personal life. A quality education should prepare people for more than a career.  To be perfectly honest, most of the careers that exist today didn’t exist when I was in middle school.  This means we are preparing students in our class today for a world that we cannot even imagine.  We do know that they students will live in a world with other people and we know that there are some fundamental lessons on how to deal with betrayal that they might learn from reading The Once and Future King by T. H. White.  The book explores what it means to act civilized even when one is betrayed by the people loved most. I know this book was my anchor during my divorce. I drew strength from the words of Langston Hughes, “I, Too, Sing America.”  Literature can help us overcome our darkest days.

            Students learn ethics from literature. For example, To Kill A Mocking Bird  by Harper Lee teaches students that one must always do the right thing even if it costs your family dearly.  Atticus Finch, a southern lawyer, who represents a poor black man accused of raping a poor white woman suffers ridicule and harassment, but with dignity he carries on honorably.  He is not only a great role model for his children, Jem and Scout, but for the reader as well.  The Help by Kathryn Stockett is a more contemporary novel that discusses discrimination in our society and the main character overcome the problems with honor and dignity.  Teaching students how our society has changed because of the noble, honorable actions of its citizens is an important lesson. I love to share with my students that Charles Dickens changed the laws on child labor with his book, Oliver Twist.  Writing is powerful tool and so is literature.

            Giving students a sense of history is another important role of teaching literature.  Books like Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier can teach students how the Civil War affected real people.  History classes can seem like a dusty text-book full of unfamiliar places and dates to a middle school student.  Novels can help students understand that the events were real and they had both positive and negative effects on the people who lived through them.  All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is another book to teach about World War I or The Red Badge of Courage by Stephan Crane is another depiction of the Civil War.  Poems like Wilfred Owen’s poem, “Dulce et Decorum Est” creates a vivid image of a soldier’s death from mustard gas during World War I.  Students might be horrified, but war is never pretty and it can help them understand the sacrifice soldiers have made throughout our history. 

            Literature can give students insight into other cultures and other human suffering.  For example if you want students to understand some of the current struggles in Afganistan, Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner  can help students understand its political, culture and historical and social problems.  The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver can help student understand how the geography, politics and culture affects lives in the Congo.  Literature can open new worlds and people to students that textbook excerpts cannot.

            Teaching literature can give students not only a connection to that past, but show students that we are not all that different.  Which teenager students has not fallen desperately in love, which teenage student has not disregarded their parents’ wants and advice to behave dangerously, which teenager doesn’t’ have a friend who is always joking and one who is always fighting?  They all need to read William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  How can we call students culturally literate without a little Shakespeare in their lives? Since the new Common Core requires that ninth and tenth grade students understand the literary device “allusion”, teaching a broad-base of different literary genres and examples seems important. Without a being culturally literate that literary device is rather useless.  Students would have no base of literary knowledge.

            Literature weaves a rich tapestry in our lives. It sparks our imagination by showing us people and places both familiar to us and unfamiliar. It teaches us that all of human kind is connected in our hopes, our joys, our sorrows, our needs and our troubles. It teaches us where we have been and where we might be going.  It teaches us what it means to be human and values that we should uphold.  Literature allows us to feel, and to have empathy for others and maybe even for ourselves. Literature gives us the lessons to hold us together during difficult trials in our lives and tools to handle those problems.  An education should be more than a list of reading skills; an education should teach us how to behave as human being in a complex society.