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The Gaffer's Philosophy:
Part 61: Child Welfare:
Summary:
July 28, 2003:
Now, I want to summarize, collect some lose ends, and finish up
with child welfare. I have made the point that everyone is responsible
for child welfare. Some people who have no children may claim
exemption, but that is wrong. To make that claim would require
a denial of interest in the future of mankind. What happens to
kids affects our future and thus affects all of us. Often those
claiming exemption are older people who have no interest in anything
much. They are just diddling away time while they wait to die.
If that is your true position, I urge you to hurry up and die.
Please just get out of our way. You had your time. If you cannot
participate, at least stay out of the way.
I cannot say too many times that our kids are our future. Kids can do anything. We must give them the chance. With the proper support and guidance a kid will find his own way and become a superior person. I saw kids on the 2003 Capitol Fourth of July Celebration doing a clog dance just as well as the adults. That is a very difficult disciplined dance, but they were happy doing it.
My six year old granddaughter does a similar thing in ballet. She chose to study ballet. For her parents, that meant transporting her to and from lessons on a regular basis. For the stay-at-home mom-mobile mom, that would not be a huge sacrifice. For my full time employed son-in-law and daughter it was a logistics juggling act. Still, on the day of the public performance, there was a very impressed and proud pair of parents in the audience, not to mention a grinning grandpa.
As to the dance instructor, I can only say she is some kind of dominant genius. She gets these kids to do things that you would not think possible. I am told, she does not do this by taking it easy on the kids. She is a busy professional dance instructor. She has no time or patience for slackers or crybabies. The kids love it and they respond with their best. They understand the terms and the payoff.
This sort of thing has been documented too many times to be called a fluke. We can say that those kids are special and not all kids are like that. I will agree they are special. I must violently disagree that all kids are not. What makes these kids special is the special support and guidance they have had. All kids are special when they get that.
The kids need our support and that begins in the home. If we look at the way many parents put their kids down, we must conclude that their goal is to ensure the mediocrity of their kids. In fact, they are coming out of their own failure and projecting it onto the kids. At the other extreme are those who put such unreasonable expectations on their kids that no one could live up to them. This also guarantees mediocrity and often failure. Again, the parents are coming out of their own failure and, in this case, demanding that their kids make up for it. In one way or another we project our own failure onto our children. We don't need to do that.
What we should be doing is encouraging our kids to fulfill the potential to excellence that is in them. The choice is quite simple. Do we want all kids to be special or not? Do we want them to stand out? Do we want them to do better than we did? Do we want to be proud of them? Do we want them to be superior humans? Do we want curricula driven education that beats the kids down or interest driven education that draws them out?
One of the big mistakes we adults make in our own path is in choosing our goals before we know our path or interests. Then we get into a program of curricula driven education and begin to focus. In this context, focus means shutting out the world and dumbing down. For our kids it's even worse. They do not get to choose anything. With a fixed curriculum in k-12, the kids path is chosen for him before he even shows up in school. Without even seeing the children we decide before they even get to school what they are going to learn.
It is ridiculous on the face of it. This gives no credence whatsoever to the kids interest or aptitude. I am suggesting that is completely backward. I am suggesting we go completely the other way to an interest driven system. If we look at them carefully, we will discover that interest and aptitude are synonymous in the person who has not been messed with.
I believe all kids are capable of learning. We run upon a problem
when we try to teach kids things that they have no aptitude for
and cannot learn. Then we label them as slow or something worse
instead of letting them learn the things they can learn.
As the kids learn new things, with their enthusiasm in explaining
it they will interest each other. Then learning becomes a choice
rather than an assignment.
Now I want to look at school districts with respect to size. This is about span of control. The reality is, some school districts are too huge to be properly administered. Flint, Michigan and Detroit, Michigan come to mind. I'm sure there are others in the larger cities. That situation must change. No matter how many assistant superintendents and vice principals we hire, we will reach a certain size wherein meaningful administration is not possible. A school should be big enough to offer a full curriculum including all of the electives, but not much bigger. This means some school districts should be divided into regional districts.
Now, let's discuss bureaucracy. Many of the schools I have looked at lately have vice-principals coming out of the woodwork. The worst case of this I noticed was in one of the failing school districts. What, I ask, does a vice-principal do? Why does the principal need them? A principal should be able to do his or her job without a bunch of overpaid gofers. I think we need to take a very hard look at the executive staffing in all schools and make some adjustments. We want as much money as possible for educating kids, not paying bureaucrats.
I have touched on higher education in previous essays. It may still become a subject for a future essay, but I have some thoughts now. I have said the concept of higher education may become superfluous if we do k-12 right. That may not be entirely the case. We must consider how we can still educate doctors, nurses an other essential specialties. We may need publicly supported specialized institutions of some kind.
We may not need universities, but we do need doctors and nurses. Doctors and nurses are the ones who come to mind. In the public service sector we may need highly skilled technicians of many kinds. These people are really in public service as opposed to private industry for profit. For sure, hospitals now operate as corporations. I am not convinced that way of operating is in the public interest. I think we need to move away from that model. Health care should be a not for profit public service operation as it was in the beginning. In that case, we will need a way to train the people and support them handsomely.
As an example of one possibility, Ford Hospital in Detroit used to have a Nursing School to train its own nurses. It worked well at the time. These nurses were sought after by other hospitals. Perhaps some kind of an internship program may be needed. I think we will also still need teaching hospitals. There are already many of these and we may need more.
For sure, industry could take part in this. Universities are
something the business community could be implementing and supporting.
Perhaps, specialized universities should be run by coalitions
of businesses. GM did that at one time with General Motors Institute
(GMI). They cut it loose later and it is now Kettering University.
Ford did it differently with Ford Trade School. Their goal was
cannon fodder for their mills. Currently, universities obligingly
produce this fodder. The universities ought to be paid by the
people who want that fodder. Perhaps even professional sports
could have a place in this situation. The pro teams could support
those universities that produce the best athletes. How all of
this will be implemented and organized must wait until the new
model of basic education is implemented.
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