The Importance of Teaching Values in School Part II of V

The Importance of Teaching Values in School Part II of V

By Jill Jenkins

     Selecting appropriate pieces of literature depends greatly on the age, reading comprehension level and maturity of the students.  Since most of my forty years of experience has been teaching ninth and tenth grade English, the examples that I am going to use are appropriate for that age group.  If your students are younger or have not acquired the comprehension level to successfully complete these selections, you may want to use different pieces of literature.  This and the upcoming entries will discuss  three classical novels and one play that can be used to teach about human relationships; however, some parents may complain that the selections show both positive and negative relationships.  For students to fully understand the complexity of human behavior, comparing and contrasting their behavior can help student have a more complete understanding.

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

           Adolescents often have a difficult time deciphering between healthy, positive people and poison people. Developing relationships with healthy, positive people can enhance the student's self-esteem, and their self-confidence. Developing relationships with unhealthy, poisonous people can reduce a student's self-esteem and shatter their self-confidence.  Trying to please that person can lead the student to become involved in crime and illegal substances; thus, reducing his/her chances of a happy prosperous life.  Two different types of love relationships are depicted in Oliver Twist: love relationships between a guardian and a child and romantic love relationships between two adults making this an excellent choice for helping students make the distinguish between healthy people and poisonous people.  In all of the unhealthy relationships, one person dominates the other person by using manipulation, psychological and/or physical abuse. In the healthy relationships, the two work as partners both sacrificing to improve the life of the other.  The healthy relationships are caring relationships that improve the life of the other partner; the unhealthy relationships, one person abuse and manipulation for his/her own selfish gain. 
     By using a graphic organizer with students, their comprehension will improve and they will be able to synthesize abstract ideas supported by specific details from the reading material in a well-organized essay.  This means students' test scores on the Common Core Final Exams should increase.  The class could complete the chart together or students could work in pairs or small groups to complete it.  With struggling students put the information on sentence strips and have them glue them to the chart.  With brighter students give them a blank chart and have them brain storm their answers. Below is analysis of each of the relationships in the book and chart that could be used to help the students organize this information.

Analysis and Assigments

The five major guardian-child relationships include:

• Mrs. Mann and the toddlers
• Mr. Bumble and the boys at the workhouse
• Fagin and his band of pick-pockets
• Mr. Brownlow and Oliver
• Mrs. Maylie and Oliver

The major romantic love couples include:

• Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry
• Charlotte and Noah Claypole
• Nancy and Bill Sikes
• Mr. and Mrs. Bumble
• Rose and Harry Maylie

• Mrs. Mann neglects the infants and small children that she fostering using all of the funds to purchase food and gin for herself while the children starve or drown in the washing tub.  However, she does provide them with a bit of gin to quiet the cries of the starving, ill children.  They sleep better and so does she.  What a humanitarian!
• Mr. Bumble does not apply alcohol to the boys in his charge, but he does belittle them and liberally applies his cane to their bottoms to motivate his ill-fed boys.  While the employees of the workhouse sit well dressed devouring, banquets of food.  When dear little Oliver makes the mistake of asking for more, he is flogged before the other boys, and taken to church for the group to pray for his forgiveness all while searching for a sea captain who might murder him while he is serving as a cabin boy. 
•   Fagin uses social isolation, alcohol, and peer pressure to motivate the boys to commit petty larceny for his financial gain.  He shows no remorse when one of his young bandits is hung for his robbery.  When Oliver refuses to steal for him, he keeps in alone in a dark, moist room reading books about boys who meet their end through violence.  When Oliver is particularly depressed, he sends The Artful Dodger and Charlie Bates to urge him to cooperate. 

• In contrast, both Mr. Brownlow and Mrs. Maylie provide Oliver with a warm, caring household where he is nursed back to health, protected from an unjust legal system and provided with stylish clothing, proper nourishment and a proper education.   Both treated Oliver kindly with dignity and respect and wanted nothing in return except for his happiness and well-being.  Mr. Brownlow runs to the court when Oliver is arrested for pick-pocketing him to testify on his behalf because he is uncertain that Oliver is the culprit.  Mrs. Maylie lies to the police to protect from apprehension after her house was broken into even though he is shot just like the boy who entered her house illegally.  Furthermore, Mr. Brownlow and the entire Maylie family, Mrs. Maylie, Harry Maylie, and Rose, collaborate to bring Monks, Oliver’s half brother, and Fagin’s entire gang who kidnapped Oliver and conspired to incriminate Oliver so Monks could inherit their father’s entire estate.

•  The undertaker and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry, who take Oliver in as an apprentice after he is removed from the workhouse, are prime examples of  romantic love couples where one person dominates the other for his/her personal gain.  Mrs. Sowerberry dominates Mr. Sowerberry by belittling him and subjecting him to loud wails of complaints.  She is especially unhappy that he brought Oliver home without consulting her.  When Oliver finally punches Noah Claypole for taunting him about his late mother, she willingly joins the mayhem and beats Oliver with Charlotte.  When Mr. Sowerberry returns home, she exaggerates the situations and bullies him into flogging Oliver.

•  Charlotte, Mr and Mrs. Sowerberry’s maid, is dominated by Noah Claypole through manipulation.  Noah plays on Charlotte’s desire to be loved to manipulate her into stealing Mr. Sowerberry’s food for him. When the two decide to steal the money box and run away from the Sowerberry’s establishment, he thoughtfully allows her to carry the money box in case they are apprehended by the police. Obviously, he is not concerned about her happiness or safety.  He is simply using her to get whatever he wants.  What a gentleman!

•  Mr. Bumble weds Mrs. Corney for financial gain, but his marriage doesn’t turn out quite as he anticipates.  Mr. Bumble pursues Mrs. Corney when he sees her lovely tea set and silver spoons.  His dream of comfortable life is thwarted when Mrs. Corney, now Mrs. Bumble, turns out to be a tyrant.  She dominates him by belittling him before others and when he finally tries to stand up to her, she leaps upon him like a leopard and beats him. She bullies him into criminal activities with Monks by selling him the wedding ring, the golden locket and the lock of hair stolen from Oliver’s dying mother.

•  Although the Bumble’s relationship seems humorous, the effect of spousal abuse is best depicted with Nancy and Bill Sike’s relationship.  Bill knocks Nancy unconscious when she disagrees with him and tries to protect Oliver.  Although Nancy is offered a safe haven by Rose and Mr. Brownlow when she heroically seeks them out to protect Oliver, she refuses to leave Bills who she loves.  Her choice leads to her demise.  Manipulated by Fagin into believing that Nancy has turned against Bill and the gang, Bill bludgeons her to death. 

• The one positive romantic love relationship in the novel is that of Rose and Harry Maylie.  Harry asks Rose to marry him, but believing that her illegitimate birth will hamper his political career, she sacrifices her own happiness and turns him down.  In response, Harry sacrifices his career and joins the clergy.  As a result, they happily marry. 

     Using visual organizer below, students can organize information about the two types of relationship and use that information to compose an essay:  Using examples from the novel, Oliver Twist, identify the characteristics of healthy and unhealthy human relationships.  Explain why Charles Dickens has more unhealthy relationships than healthy ones.  What is he trying to say?

           

Type of Relationship		Characters	Characteristics and Examples	Healthy/Unhealthy
Guardian/Child	Romantic
X		Mrs. Mann	Mrs. Mann neglects the	Unhealthy
			children and infants.  She
			allows them to drown in the
			washing tub and starve while
			she uses all of the funds
			allocated for the children to
			feed herself and buy gin. She
			does give a bit of gin to the
			ill children so she won't have
			to hear them crying at night.
X		Mr. Bumble	Mr. Bumble belittles the boys	Unhealthy
			and flogs them with his
			cane.  The employees at the
			workhouse are well-fed and
			well dressed, but the boys
			wear rags and are nearly
			starving since they are only
			given watery gruel to eat.
			When Oliver asks for more
			food, he is flogged, dragged
			to Church to hear the others
			pray for his salvation while
			they find him an appropriate
			apprenticeship with a Captain
			who might flog him to death,
			because according to Mr.
			Bumble, he is "just a poor
			orphan that nobody could
			love."
X		Fagin	Fagin motivates his boys to	Unhealthy
			pick-pocket by providing them
			with a home, alcohol and
			a sense of belonging.  He
			shows no remorse when one
			of the boys is being hung for
			his involvement. When Oliver
			refuses to participate, he
			uses social isolation by
			confining him, veiled threats
			by having him read books
			about murdered children and
			peer pressure by sending
			the Artful Dodger and
			Charlie Bates to describe
			their "rum life."

Other related discussion questions that could be used for Literature Circles and/or writing questions might be:

• Why do people like Noah Claypole bully others and how does his behavior affect others?
• Why are homeless youth more likely to become involved in crime or game activities?
• Why do people with little or no social mobility like Fagin turn to life of crime?
• Compare Bill's treatment of Nancy and Bulleye. Why do both remain loyal to him?
• What role does alcohol play in enticing Fagin's boys to staying with him? Does alcohol and drugs play a role in modern gangs?
• Charles Dickens' father was an alcoholic.  Discuss how his personal experience influenced his writing of Oliver Twist.
• Discuss the connection between poverty rates in urban areas and crime rates?
• Compare and contrast the lives of the middle and upper class families depicted in Oliver Twist to the lives of people living in poverty.  Does that difference still exist today?
• Compare and contrast the lives of Nancy and Rose.  What role does environment play in their moral codes and lives?
• Compare and contrast the lives of Oliver and Monks. What role does environment play in their moral codes and lives? 
• Research the characteristics of child abuse and spousal abuse.  Compare and contrast your findings to the examples of child abuse and spousal abuse illustrated in the novel Oliver Twist. Postulate ideas of breaking the circle of abuse.
• Possible Project: Since Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist as a social commentary on the how the industrial revolution of his time improved the lives of the more affluent classes, but not those living in poverty, it can serve as a media to explore how the effects of the informational revolution has had on our lives.  Charles Dickens based much of this novel from his own experiences living in the workhouse as a child.  Students are to write a resource paper and present the paper.  Both the paper and the presentation should include correct M.L.A. documentation and a graph depicting the data collected during research.  Ask students to research the effects of poverty on a developing country of their choosing.  Select one of the social problem Charles Dickens explores in Oliver Twist:
• How available is quality medical care and education to those living in poverty?
• How does society care for the disenfranchised population, the orphaned children, the homeless population and single women?
• How has the crime rate been affected by the poverty?

The Importance of Teaching Values in School Part 1 of V

The Importance of Teaching Values in School Part 1 of V

By Jill Jenkins

            With Isis recruiting our teenagers who are attracted by violence and religious extremists, with elected officials arrested for dishonest acts, with news of the corruption on Wall Street, teaching values to our children seems more important than in any other time in history. Students are being enticed by the lure of drugs and gangs.  Violence in our streets is more often committed by adolescents than any other age groups.  Yet many schools have abandoned value instruction for skill-based education.  Nazi Germany’s leaders were well-educated scientists and mathematicians, but it didn’t stop them from murdering seven million Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, and those who disagreed with their dogma.  They burned books and controlled what type of education students received.  Today, students are reading only excerpts from selected novels and non-fiction focusing on reading skills.  Is this a healthy?  Shouldn’t students be encouraged to ask question and use literature to explore the human condition? Since the purpose of education should    

be to prepare them for a productive, healthy future, can we actually do with if we ignore the importance of ethical behavior?

             I recently read an article about why we should not be addressing the topic of “Love” in school.  This article postulates the theory that love is too closely connected to religious beliefs; as a result,  it is better discussed in the home instead of in an academic arena.   On the contrary, learning about the human experience is fundamental to any student’s educational experience.  The new Common Core Curriculum emphasizes non-fiction reading, but it does not preclude the teaching of literature in all its genres.  It includes them.  Many publishers have reduced this instruction to careful analysis of excerpts from literature, Close Reading.  Although this increases acquisition of reading skills, it lacks what Janet Allen refers to as being “memorable andmeaningful.”  Students are naturally curious about the nature of human relationship, so this is a perfect time to use that interest to motivate them to increase their reading skills by selecting novels with complex sentence patterns, intertwining plots, and complicated characters while learning about human nature.  Furthermore, most people establish their life-long marital relationships during their “twenties.”  That relationship not only builds financial stability, but emotional security and happiness.  A bad love relationship can be detrimental to the individual’s financial security, emotional stability, and can result in physical abuse, great unhappiness and sometimes death; therefore, helping students understand relationship may be the most important role schools can play in preparing students for their futures.

            Conflicts do happen and students need to have skills solving them in a productive manner.  Using literature as models of problem solving is excellent. For example, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee provides readers with the character, Atticus Finch who represents Tom Robinson, a black man unjustly accused of raping a white woman.  Despite mod cries and unjustified attacks on his children, Atticus remains calm and resolute in solving problems with legal action.  In The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lilly Owen, a fourteen year old girl, is given sanctuary from an abusive father who she believes killed her mother by the Boatwright sisters with her caregiver and only friend, Rosaleen.  The story depicts healthy human relationships even when they are from different racial groups. When her father ascertains the whereabouts of his daughter and demands her return, the situation is resolved in a caring and rational manner.   Even better is to give students first-hand knowledge about solving their own problems by using conflict resolution.

            As a society, we have a moral obligation to help students develop life skills that include ethical behavior, understanding the nature of human relationships, communication skills, and a solid set of values.  This is too important to pretend the home can do this.  Students spend a great deal of their time at school interacting with peers and teachers.  As they grow older these relationships play a greater role in molding who they become as adults. Therefore, it is imperative that we create a balance of learning skills and life skills.  Selecting literature and nonfiction that reflect important values is paramount.  Giving students opportunity to analyze and discuss these pieces is equally important. Furthermore, insisting that teachers treat each other and the faculty and staff with kindness, dignity, and respect is the most important.  Students learn by models and imitation.  It is important teachers and staff to treat each other and their students with kindness, dignity and respect.
In the upcoming editions, I will explore four different literary selections that might be useful with some activities that increase student's ability to behave as ethical. productive members of society.

Reducing Bullying by Creating Community

Reducing Bullying by Creating Community

By Jill Jenkins

            All human beings have a basic need to belong, but children and adolescents feel this need even more keenly than do adult.  Teachers and administrators can create a strong community in their schools and reduce bullying at the same time by creating a sense of community.  To create the feeling of belonging administrators must encourage faculty and staff to work together as a team.  Students in each classroom must not only know the names of other students, but must feel comfortable working together.  Older students in a school must know younger students and feel a sense of compassion and caring for the younger students.  The younger students need to look up to the older students and respect them.  Parents need to feel that school is a comfortable place and that the teachers are working in conjunction with them to provide the best education possible. The administration needs to establish relationships with local businesses that might provide needed resources for the school.   The school should become the center of the social and intellectual development for the community. 

            To create a feeling of belonging between faculty and staff, it is important for the administrators to have an open-door policy where teachers feel free to share problems with students or parents and the administrator helps solve those problems.  When the doors of communication close, administrators can be blind-sided by a small miscommunication between parent and teacher and has expanded to a huge legal problem that is not easily resolved.  On the other hand, it is also important for the administrator to be aware of faculty and/or staff who are not doing their job.  A school is only as strong as its weakest link.  If an employee is not performing, it can create a great deal of strife between the staff trying to compensate for the incompetent one.  Therefore, it is important to know what is happening in the school and handle any problems quickly and discretely.

            Teachers need to create a sense of community in their classrooms.  This can be done by using a variety of interactive activities involving all of the students.  Have students work in groups comprised of students from different social groups: small group discussions pair/share and group created projects. Getting to know each other in these varied activities makes classrooms more inclusive and less exclusive.  When I was teaching in San Bernardino, I taught a debate class comprised of students from different ethnic groups, economic groups and social groups.  One exercise that I often used to improve the students’ ability to listen and develop arguments quickly was we sat in circle and I would present a discussion topic.  Students had a few minutes to develop arguments both pro and con.  Then I would call on a student and tell him which side of the issue he was to speak.  That student presented a two minute impromptu speech.  When his time was out, I would call on a second student and ask him to first paraphrase what the first student said to that student’s satisfaction and then he was to present a two minute opposing speech forcing students to actually listen to each other. This continued until every student had an opportunity to speak.   After we completed one day’s activities, a young man who considered himself a Neo-Nazi turned to a Black student and said, “I would never have guessed that you and I could have a discussion together. “ The two became friends by the end of the year.  Today many applications allow students to work together even if they reside distances from each other. The program,  Google docs, allows students to collaborate on essays together and Google Presentation allows students to create slide presentations from different locations.     Open communication and working together builds bridges. 

            In many schools, older students bully younger student so it is important to help older students to develop a sense of compassion and caring for the younger students.  To alleviate some of the tensions between grades, one seventh grade remedial reading teacher asked if my ninth grade honors English class could tutor her students during our advisory class.  The students both seventh and ninth grade loved the interaction and the seventh grade student improved their academic skills and the ninth grade students felt compassion and felt they had to protect those students from bullies.  In my daughter’s former school, they created families with one student from each grade (Kindergarten through 8^th grade) in each “family.”  During their advisory time, they met together.  The older students helped the younger ones and read them stories.  The students shared Valentine’s and gifts for holidays and they bonded just like a family.  These social connections reduced bulling and help students feel a sense of belonging. 

            Parents need to feel connected to their child’s education if their child is going to do well academically. To do this, teachers need to reach out to reluctant parents, provide frequent interactions with all parents and provide transparency and resources to parents.  If you do this parents will become more effective allies, students attendance and performance will improve and teachers will be rewarded with better test scores.  I have heard teacher complain that the parents of honors classes are helicopter parents that put a lot of pressure on schools to provide adequate education for their child.  This is precisely why their children are in honors classes.  Students who feel that their parents expect them to do well in school and who actively participate in their child’s education perform better in school.  So, how do we get all parents that involved?  One principal tells me she not only has her teachers invite parents to parent-teacher conference who are struggling, but if the student improves 10% or more a congratulatory letter and phone call is sent to the parent with a special invite to parent-teacher conferences. Teachers need to improve communication with parents.  When I was an elementary student, my older brother would not bring his homework home always claiming that he had none.  My mother’s solution was to send me to his teacher and retrieve the homework daily.  It was embarrassing for me, but it improved my brother’s academic standing.  Not all students have a younger sibling to handle that chore.  One way is to create a website with calendar listing all of the assignments for every day of the month.  If you use Google Calendar or Google Sites, a calendar is easy to create and update.  Make sure you provide links to electronic copies of assignments and worksheets.  Students often forget the resources they need to complete their work, so include lists and resources so parents can help students complete their assignments in a timely manner.   If your parents use cell phones, you might want to use Remind101.  It is an application especially designed for teachers that allows teachers to send reminders to their students and parents about upcoming assignments and tests.  The parents will get a text message reminder and they can persuade their children into completing their work.  Send emails and call parents when students need help or better yet to praise a student’s accomplishments.  Send post cards home to parents letting them know when their son or daughter has been successful.  The better you get to know your students’ parents and guardians, the more they will feel like part of the community.  Involving parents in decision making committees and supervision of activities will also increase their sense of community. When my daughter attended elementary school, parents were required to donate 100 hours of volunteer time per year.  I spent my time coaching volleyball giving me an opportunity to work with students and staff and develop a sense of community. The more involved your parents are the more likely they are to support the school’s agenda.

            Finally the principal and teachers need to establish connections with local businesses.  For example, one year the Language Arts-Reading Department decided to give each student who achieved his/her Accelerated Reading Goal a “Live Strong” bracelet.  We hoped to reward them for reading and to help them develop a sense of compassion for people in our community who had cancer.  My sister worked for a local car-dealership and the owner was a cancer patient.  As his grandchildren attended our school, he was connected more directly to our program.  I approached him through my sister and asked him if he could donate the money to purchase the “Live Strong” bracelets.  He was more than happy to do it.  His generosity bought him some promotion and helped us promote reading with our students.  Making connections with local business can be a valuable asset for any school

            People perform better in an environment where they feel they belong.  Helping students, parents, faculty and staff feel connected and appreciated is a great way to reduce bullying.  Connecting with local businesses can help the school provide useful resources to students that local school districts could not afford. Students who feel they do not belong often have a higher absenteeism rate making it difficult for them to succeed academically.  Parents who do not feel comfortable with teachers and staff often don’t provide the emotional support their students need to succeed at school.  Creating a warm, caring environment is everyone’s responsibility and everyone wins.  Transparency and frequent interaction will increase everyone’s sense of ownership.