Posted on 04/04/2009 6:23:28 PM PDT by reaganaut1
SCARSDALE, N.Y. — The privileged teenagers at Scarsdale Middle School are learning to be nicer this year, whether they like it or not.
English classes discuss whether Friar Laurence was empathetic to Romeo and Juliet. Research projects involve interviews with octogenarians and a survey of local wheelchair ramps to help students identify with the elderly and the disabled.
...
The emphasis on empathy here and in schools nationwide is the latest front in a decade-long campaign against bullying and violence. Many urban districts have found empathy workshops and curriculums help curb fighting and other misbehavior. In Scarsdale, a wealthy, high-performing district with few discipline problems to start with, educators see the lessons as grooming children to be better citizens and leaders by making them think twice before engaging in the name-calling, gossip and other forms of social humiliation that usually go unpunished.
“As a school, we’ve done a lot of work with human rights,” said Michael McDermott, the middle school principal. “But you can’t have kids saving Darfur and isolating a peer in the lunchroom. It all has to go together.”
Many Scarsdale parents praise the empathy focus, but some students complain that the school has no business dictating what they wear or how they act in their personal lives.
...
Nationally, some question whether such attempts at social engineering are appropriate for the classroom or should remain the purview of parents, churches and youth groups outside of school hours. “Who could be against teaching empathy?” said Michael Petrilli, a vice president for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education policy group in Washington. “But there’s a laundry list of seemingly important activities that, when added together, crowd out the academic mission of our schools.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
How are kids going to save Darfur, as the principal says? He sounds like a twit. It's not nice if a kid is shunned at lunch for no good reason, but can a school force kids to socialize?
“Research projects involve interviews with octogenarians and a survey of local wheelchair ramps to help students identify with the elderly and the disabled.”
Does research uncovering how much money has been wasted accomodating the world to handicapped people count?
I am so glad none of this occured while I was in school there.
I sometimes look at the SHS web site and the leftist clubs there now and wonder how I would survive if I was in school there now.
It was hard enought being a Rebel in yankeeland, except the girls ate up my southern accent.
One heckuva good start -- and I hope it was quick.
That's my empathy.
I’m all for good manners and social skills, but c’mon, this is what my parents called “home training.”
The fact is, parents and churches have stopped teaching children proper behavior -- most young people don't go to church any more. Our entire society is being run -- very badly -- by the sex- and violence-drenched media. So if schools can address empathetic behavior, it's a good thing. Look at all the kids who are bullied and the school does nothing -- and then they commit suicide, like that girl whose friend sent her phony MySpace messages, or some shoot other children, like the Columbine boys.
Interesting post (and you know I usually find your posts informative, and this one too).
It’s disheartening that schools have to teach kids proper behavior. Parents should be teaching/raising their kids. It’s common sense, imo.
We probably disagree on the bullying and the examples you gave, but agree in spirit.
If parents don't teach their children good manners at home, where do the parents expect the children to learn good manners?
I don’t know what those parents expect, but I know what those kind of parents are trying to force our government, schools, society to do. Raise their kids.
It’s not just about good manners. It’s about teaching our kids right from wrong. Sure, sometimes they screw up but that’s what we are there for, to correct them, show them, teach them. It’s what our parents did, and our grandparents, etc. They didn’t rely on outside influences to raise their kids. We shouldn’t either, imo.
As a parent, I can’t blame tv, movies, music, school, other people for the mistakes my kids make or expect anyone else to raise them.
I get what you’re saying, I think, that someone has to teach good manners, general values, etc.
If parents didn't abdicate their role as parents, they'd be raising courteous, considerate children who wouldn't need this waste of public school hours that could be better spent on education.
Shouldn’t that be the parents responsibility?
“Does research uncovering how much money has been wasted accomodating the world to handicapped people count?”
It is the law of the land.
Now share the research, and convince others that your definition of “wasted” trumps the law.
Back to the subject of the article-empathy. Does empathy require a cost-benefit justification?
Another reason to homeschool, my ass. This crap is going on in our sports programs, and in general, our lives even as adults. Can’t make anyone feel left out or not good enough or hurt the self esteem.
Bunch of wussies, imo.
We don’t need schools, any schools be it Catholic, private or public, to teach being human. It’s not just public schools. This is going on in private and Catholic schools too. Parents aren’t parenting in some instances. This is happening all the time, we see it at parties/events held at our homes, even with our own family. I know two kids on my kids teams (sports) that are homeschooled. One is just fine. Sweet girl. The other is the most obnoxious kid, and the parent isn’t any better. My kid isn’t allowed to invite her over anymore because she’s too high maintenance.
You and others may think it’s a public, private, Catholic school problem. I don’t. This is a problem in our society, in the last few decades. We are raising, or not raising in some cases, children who aren’t being held accountable for their actions.
Yes, my question was rhetorical. I was thinking of parents who do not teach their children (by instruction and by example) good manners, values, thoughtfulness, consideration, ethics, etc. These parents neglect such instruction and may even provide negative examples of behavior. It's these parents I had in mind when I asked my question.
I suppose the children of such parents could or would perhaps be resourceful and learn what they needed from good teachers, the parents of their friends, etc.
The reason to homeschool is because of the time being wasted on covering stuff like this because of the parents not doing it instead of educating the kids like they’re supposed to be doing.
The other thing is, they’re teaching values that the parents may not agree with. The rights and wrongs may be basically the same, but the reasoning and values behind them aren’t.
When you get to teaching values, there are going to be conflicts. If that’s important to one, then having someone else teach you child a different set of values is another reason to homeschool, not to mention that they are learning less as there is less time being devoted to academics.
If they’re not going to cut into academics, then they are going to have to increase the amount of time the kids spend in school, away from their parents influence.
Plenty of valid reasons to homeschool.
I never said I did. Believe me, I am under no illusion about the behavior of homeschooled kids. My kids have been the victims of them well enough, and the clueless parents who think that their darlings can do no wrong just can't be reasoned with.
Interesting. I guess they could learn from others also. I’m sure some do.
It’s not the job of the government (schools, etc.) to teach this. There are some parents who don’t teach any of this to their kids. And those kids grow up to be those who take but don’t give back, imo. And we pay for those people.
It just seems to me that we have an increasing population that expects the govt (in any form) to fix things. On a personal level, we have people who expect us to raise their kids. They don’t watch their kids at parties or events or out in public and expect everyone else to be ok with it or to correct their kids. I had one friend (don’t even get me started on the family members) who told her kid that I’d be mad and yell if she hit anyone or damaged anything. WTH? And when her 7 yr old kid was being destructive and obnonxious, she relied on me to correct her. I don’t get it.
I agree to an extent.
However, the argument (or discussion) about time being wasted is silly. IMO. The schools my kids attend and those I’m familiar with, don’t waste time on teaching anything but academics, for the most part and those rare times they teach otherwise, we deal with it. So, maybe a high school health class, one semester per year, and 40 minutes a day, 5 days a week, teaches about the reproductive system, or one day about breast exams/testicular cancer. This is nothing new from what I learned in Catholic grade and high school back in the 70s and 80s.
Ihave yet to see a school teach putting a condom on a cucumber that so many seem to keep being outraged about...where the heck does this happen? And if it does, I’m not convinced, where are the parents that are paying taxes or tuition to that school?
Kids spend 6 hrs in school, give or take, 5 days a week. 2+ months off in Summer, another week or two at Christmas, another week during Easter Break, and countless days off during the school year. My kids spend less time in school than I did back in the 70s and 80s. They spend way more time at home and even if they didn’t, the home is what matters. No outside influence has that kind of power.
I’m all for choice when it comes to education (and some other things). Catholic school, private school, public school, homeschool. Whatever works for those parents and kids making those choices. What my husband and I teach in our home to our kids can’t be influenced by any school they attend. Ok, maybe the influences are there, like everywhere, but they don’t have the power to override what kids learn in the home.
It doesn’t matter what my kids learn in their Catholic school or their public high school when it comes to values. What matters is what we teach and live in the home.
Plenty of valid reasons to homeschool for sure. Plenty of valid reasons for public, private and Catholic schooling, too.
I was out walking the other evening and saw a little girl, age perhaps six or seven, pedaling furiously down the sidewalk on her tricycle. (Yes, she was wearing a helmet.) I looked around for an attending adult and saw the father, who was half a block behind. He started yelling at her to stop, and she refused to listen and kept going faster. I thought for a moment about intervening, but decided he could handle it. He caught up with her (by then I was heading away from them in the other direction) and could hear him admonish her. Good.
But there have been other instances in my neighborhood when a small child has gone off unattended, and I've had to wait for the parent to show up, or yell (with great concern) at a child to please step away from the edge of the train platform (Dad was nearby and didn't care), etc. Did these parents hope "someone" would be there to look after their kids?
While you may not know of any schools that do that, they are out there as evidenced by this article.
I know schools that have extended homeroom for the kids to fill out lie on anti-bullying surveys. They have anti-bullying assemblies. There's anti-bullying posters and artwork made by the students hanging on the walls.
Each one by itself may not amount to much but put together, it adds up.
There is a great deal of wasted time in any public schools. Even with a good teacher who cracks the whip, he can't control all the extraneous activities mandated by the state or administration that cut into his teaching time.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.