For the week of May 12, 1999  thru May 18, 1999  

The same old system does no one any favors


In Blaine County, 72 percent of children have both parents working outside the home, compared to a national average of 64 percent.

School gets out hours before most parents with day jobs get home.

Is it any wonder that some kids are hanging out on street corners or going to unsupervised parties at which all manner of illegal drugs and alcohol may be present?

The system ensures that kids are unsupervised. The mystery is that the very people who struggle with the system are the same ones who could change it—but don’t.

Schools have stuck with the same old for much of the 20th Century. Kids don’t go to school in the summer because when their great grandfathers and great grandmothers were school age, families needed them home on the farm to do chores that helped support the whole family. During the school year they were released before dark for the same reason—so they could do chores before the sun went down.

Even though mechanization removed the need for child labor on farms and ranches and even though most families left the nation’s farms and ranches a couple of generations ago, school schedules still haven’t changed.

Extracurricular activities and part-time jobs haven’t filled the gap for a lot of older kids. Time hangs heavy on them.

In the meantime, schools blame parents for not producing better kids. Parents shoulder the guilt and wonder why kids are so difficult to raise.

The same old system isn’t doing anyone any favors.

In the meantime, the Blaine County School District is searching for ways to give kids a better education. Teachers, parents and students huddled last week to brainstorm and come up with ideas.

The ideas—creative mentoring, more counseling, course work delivered over the Internet and improved technology training—were great. But it’s possible the things that will create a better education and better kids at the same time are simpler—and cheaper.

Why not coordinate the school year with the work year, and a school day with a work day? Why not create a system that gives families more time together?

As we expand training in technology for teachers and students, why not offer parenting classes for parents? Parenting shouldn’t be something learned only through some kind of secret osmosis.

Better yet, require parenting courses for seniors in high school. It makes no sense to offer driver’s education, but fail to teach parenting skills to kids who will soon become the next generation of parents.

Why do kids seem more troubled today than in the past? How can the nation prevent what seems to be escalating teen violence in schools?

The answers may be simpler than we think.

 

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