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Feb 2009
District of Crisis
February 24, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I frequently read with interest your articles that appear in the Corpus Christi Caller Times. I, too, am involved in education, having attended and taught school and served on a school board for many years. I now am on a college board. I continuously look for solutions to our present problems in education, especially in public schools. I just read your article about Michelle Rhee where you said she had the “near impossible” task of fixing the D.C. public school system. What is your solution? |
The Assessment: I did say Ms. Rhee faces a near impossible battle to win, that of “fixing” the DC public school system but our educational system is doing the job that it was created for, that of teaching the minimum knowledge and work ethic needed for the Industrial Era. The problem is that we are far removed from the Industrial Era yet we’re still teaching the that era’s ethic: memorization (for rote tasks on an assembly line); following a job description or process to the letter (the company’s way of doing it, even though you know a better, quicker or less costly way); how to compete with co-workers to win the best employee award (obedience award); the sense that once you get a job with a company, you’re entitled to it for life so you can coast (called “having paid your dues”); and that you should not question things and leave your solutions and creativity at home (called “don’t rock the boat” so you won’t be labeled a troublemaker).
Even though the Industrial Era ethic has no way of taking this country forward in this new millennium, the same work ethic is still being beaten into our kids. And they are sending us the urgent message that they are ahead of their teachers, administrators and our politicians though the Internet, Facebook, and so much more. They know the world has changed and what teachers are teaching them is as outdated as the prison system schools from which this foolish content is disseminated.
What To Do: For some unexplainable reason, this nation thinks it could fix a broken horse and buggy and then go win a NASCAR race!
While the horse and buggy is an important part of history, it no longer meets the population’s need for an effective/efficient mode of transportation. So, you can’t fix the horse and buggy so that it will work for today’s need. You have to create and build new models. This is the case with our school system, so it is not broken, just outdated like the horse and buggy.
Until we can as a nation change what the product of education needs to be, not memorization, not teaching to the test, not studying, not learning, but knowing, our kids’ next challenge will be to find a country still willing to employ obsolete minds. You can’t create a product, service or machine until you have had the courage to define the need not yet known. Steve Jobs/Apple did this with the iPod. He didn’t try and fix the 8-track.
Bronowski in “The Ascent of Man” says the genius is not the person who gives the right answer. It is the person who asks the right question. The question is, “How can you expect to fix an Industrial Era school system to produce workers for a Creative/ Synergetic Era?”
The answer is so simple, it’s embarrassing: You can’t. Unfortunately Dinosaurs still rule in the United States. In other countries they never had the Dinosaurs to contend with so their children’s minds are being taught to rule. Cowardice to tear down a horse and buggy unionized school system is the root of all evil and the solution is to build a new model of transportation, not try and fix the old one.
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Trying to keep pace
February 17, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: Elementary
School
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Dear Dr. Fournier: Our three children are in a school that is known as one of the best in the community because of its excellent credentials. When did “best” become math equations in second grade; concepts of force, motion, lever, pulleys and leverage in third grade; and the Krebs cycle in fourth grade? Teachers are teaching more of what our children can’t comprehend at their ages and less of what they should be teaching, grade appropriate content and a love for learning. Instead we have a second grader that the teacher feels should be tested for ADHD, even though he has all A’s (he fidgets), a third grader who gets in the car crying each morning saying, “I hate school,” and a fourth grader who gets mad at me or her father when we try to help her with homework because, “The teacher said that’s cheating.” What recourse besides home schooling do we have? |
The Assessment: In 1957, the United States went through the shock of a lifetime. The Russians developed Sputnik and landed it on the moon first, thereby passing the country that was supposed to be the World Super Power and best at everything. The Space Race (also called the arms race by some) was ignited. The United States had to regain it crown of glory, power and military supremacy. Not only was culture, technology, political ideology and military supremacy at stake, the finger of the Cold War was pointed at education as the axis of evil for such a disgrace. All of a sudden, teachers were given the ultimatum that math and science had to be taught and learned beyond the expectations of any other country, thus the “push-down” syndrome of math and science at an earlier age was born.
With the “push-down” syndrome can Standardized Testing. To this day, our education leaders are still desperately clinging to the outdated idea that teaching to the test will work. Strange that the more microscopic the scrutiny has become, less is achieved, more students are rejecting education, and diplomas are handed out to socially promoted illiterates, all while the world’s momentum to super achieve academically increases every day.
The morale of the story is that when you have a problem and you choose the wrong solution, the problem gets worse. There is a right solution but the problem is just like the one on Wall Street and Detroit. You still have the same people who ran the business or institution into the ground as the people you are still relying on to right the ship.
What To Do: As long as you are a parent of a dependent child, you are in charge of your child’s education. Teachers are transitory people who instruct a portion of the big picture. Get over your fear of the person you hired to teach your child and assert your authority. Make regular appointments and talk with your children’s teachers, not just when parent-teacher conference time comes around. Don’t be afraid to ask teachers to help you solve the problems you have at home with your children that have been created because of school. For extra courage, write down what you want to discuss with your children’s teachers but make sure you talk to them in a civil and diplomatic way. If you do not get satisfaction and solutions, go up the chain of command just like you would do at your job if you had a problem. If this is a public school, write your state representatives and set up face-to-face meetings with them if possible to ask for help in changing the system. If this is a private school, and you do not get satisfaction from teacher or headmaster/board, then look for another school you can work with. Your children’s education and mental health is too important not to take immediate action.
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Teamworking Discipline
February 10, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: All Levels
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Dear Dr. Fournier: I am the stepfather of two boys, 11 and 17 years old. I raised three boys of my own (28, 30 and 31) and I think I did a pretty good job, defined by the fact they are living on their own. I don’t pay their bills and I didn’t have to hassle them about their homework when they were kids! The 17-year-old is the problem. He refuses to do his homework and thinks he rules the house. He demands we respect him. Where did the respect of child shown to parent go? I am for discipline but my wife just gives in to him. How do I get her to see this is not the way to raise a child? |
The Assessment: As a Boomer, my Greatest Generation parents taught me my own survival depended on knowing when to open my mouth and when to not even dare look sideways. I was taught to do as I was told, do my homework, and to not ask questions. My parents reminded me constantly that they worked for me, sacrificed for me, and that I’d better be grateful.
Yet the world was telling my generation to be free. Elvis was dancing and rock was in. With the advent of television, advertising permeated America’s living rooms and quickly became one of the most effective, persuasive, and popular methods of selling products that were glamorized by a life projected as somehow better than the viewers, unless of course the viewer had the goods or services being advertised (consumerism).
Boomer children were seeing more and wanting more and with that came the taking of liberties while obedience and responsibility took a back seat. What was happening here was something called disconnect of generations.
As Generation X grew up, they were bombarded by marketing messages on TV as well as from music, friends, teachers, and even at church. By the time Generation Y and Z came along, social networking sites were added and children are now blasted from all sides with the message to “be your own boss” and “excess is best” and thus the ethic of the Silent Generation has gone by the highway.
From this disconnect of generations came an attitude of contempt for authority and a desire to “do as I please,” and “get as much as I can by any means necessary.” (Is it any wonder this country is in the current financial mess?)
What To Do: Today’s dilemma is whether we are going to be their parents or not.
There are so many forces working in society that continuously tell our children that any good and redeeming values are worthless. Between marketing slogans and billboard and magazine pictures of what teens should look like and say, and television shows that use language even 17-year-olds should not be hearing, parents are made to look like idiots if they attempt to be parents.
One of the toughest jobs in today’s world is parenting. Every parent has to know where to draw the line in what they will accept and what absolutely is not going to fly yet both parents must agree on this and both must stand behind it.
No parent wants to stunt his or her child’s healthy emotional development. But no parent has to give in to the societal blabber that says it’s okay for children to “rule the roost.”
You and your wife must make a list of what is acceptable behavior and what is not, sit both boys down and present this to them, and do it as a unified team. Tell them there is no negotiation. And if you cannot get your wife’s cooperation, I suggest marriage counseling is in order if you ever hope to decrease the effects of the generation gap.
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Choosing her battles
February 03, 2009 12:00 PM Filed in: College
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Dear Dr. Fournier: Our college freshman daughter came home for the holidays and while she attends where she’s always wanted to go to, where her father and I attended, she is miserable. Before she returned for this semester, she said to us, “Don’t worry. I’ll stick it out.” She convinced her best friend to go there, too. We are not wealthy people, even though we have a college fund for her education. Even worse, greedy leaders of corporations and Wall Street have depleted part of our personal savings that contribute to her allowance at college. To make matters worse, she doesn’t even know what she wants to major in. She’s 20 years old and believes these should be her decisions. Does it make sense for her to stick it out? |
The Assessment: We live in a country that has thrived on past greatness for several decades and has even passed this now extinguished torch on to your daughter’s generation. This country’s early-end Baby Boomer leadership has foolishly thought and taught that hard work is all that is needed.
Sadly, the Baby Boom latter-end leaders have developed and passed on the mantra to our children that more is better, and they have attached the horrific idea that it’s okay for our children to get more by any means necessary. This is evident from the current economic crisis.
My son said to me in a recent conversation that he thought historians would one day write that the Baby Boomers were the worst generation of this country because of the avarice and greed the generation has espoused, regardless of the collateral damage it has caused to so many people.
Simply put, the values system in this country stinks. Just as rotten is the idea in your daughter’s generation that they are, at 20 or even 21, old enough to know what is best and to make decisions with other people’s money.
I can tell you, they are not.
What To Do: This is not the time for your child to be toughing it out at a college she doesn’t like because of some notion of obligation to a friend, and more important, with no vision of the future to guide her in her studies and playing Russian Roulette with your money.
When I counsel students for career pathing, they must start by learning about demographic visioning which reveals how the world is changing and what it will look like in the year 2020, 2030, and beyond. I make sure they see how new technologies have already eradicated even high paying careers. For example, a technology company recently terminated hundreds of people whose job it was to search the Internet for news content. A software program replaced them.
It is always frustrating to me that most of the children that come to me for career pathing have set their sights on jobs that won’t even be around by the time they graduate. Just last week, a student came to me excited and determined to be in a certain profession. When we looked up the average salary (something that never occurred to him), he found out it no longer pays six figures. The average today is around $42,000 a year, which, when taxes and other deductions are taken out, will be far less a year than what his parents recently spent on his extra-curricular activities for fall semester and a holiday ski vacation.
Until a child wakes up to career pathing with demographic visioning, going to college is useless act.
If she continues down this road, you might as well call her college fund her psychiatric fund, which she will need when she graduates with a useless degree and no one to hire her.
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