Wednesday, January 16, 2019
The age we live in...
This is kind of a quirky post, but I just had a strange glimpse of the age we live in. Today one of my students told me that I should friend his mom on Facebook. I feel so weird about this, but I also feel weird when I run into a parent in the store and I have beer in my cart. It's like if I'm not the perfect person they will deem me less than fit to be a teacher. Many of my colleagues friend parents from our school on Facebook and see no problem with it. I usually don't unless they work at the school. What do you think?
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
Teaching, danger, and mental health
Last week I had to teach my students how to defend themselves in case a dangerous, armed person came onto our campus. It breaks my heart to teach my students how to become a difficult target. My hands shake as I answer questions about what kinds of things make good projectiles, answer a million "what if" questions with "use the tools I have taught you and your best judgement. You will not be in trouble if you are truly trying to protect yourself," and hedge their fears with "this kind of situation is unlikely, but we need to be prepared and practiced just in case."
Yes, I will prepare my kids for the reality of this terrible danger and while I am very thankful for Alice training, it makes me absolutely nauseous to think of a situation where I would have to protect my school babies with my life. I have my babies at home. Last week was the first of many of these drills for the year.
Just the pure fact that so many people are willing to hurt and kill innocent children and adults is proof that we have a mental health crisis on our hands that we are totally unprepared to deal with. In our current system we have no tools to help people with mental health issues unless they have the means and the drive to pursue it themselves. And even still, our model for "treating" mental health problems is to punish for transgressions, not to teach strategies to cope and overcome. Mental health is a dirty little secret that is pushed down with rewards, blame, and punishments until it festers and boils over.
This criminal system starts in the school system. We have an insane rate of violent, suicidal, and antisocial behavior in schools right now. Teachers are often expected to just deal with problems that are not within our training to handle. We are not trained psychologists. Every day we feed hungry kids, let kids sleep in our bean bags that don't have a safe place to sleep at home, look for lice, problem solve, teach positive character traits that sometimes aren't encouraged at home, and so much more while also trying to teach the curriculum. The problem is, we don't have the time or the education to treat mental illness. Don't get me wrong: do I believe in consequences? Absolutely, yes. But do I believe consequences teach people how to be functional in society? No. Consequences motivate us to make good decisions, but do not teach us what positive behaviors are.
Besides this, anyone who thinks teachers should carry guns has never met me. (To illustrate this point: I often have a hard time locating my pen and unlocking the gate from the staff parking lot and I curl up into a ball when confronted with tickle torture). Conversely, I think it would be tragic and disadvantageous to replace good teachers with good marksmen. Guns are not the answer. To find the answer, everyone of us will have to move toward a paradigm shift.
Yes, I will prepare my kids for the reality of this terrible danger and while I am very thankful for Alice training, it makes me absolutely nauseous to think of a situation where I would have to protect my school babies with my life. I have my babies at home. Last week was the first of many of these drills for the year.
Just the pure fact that so many people are willing to hurt and kill innocent children and adults is proof that we have a mental health crisis on our hands that we are totally unprepared to deal with. In our current system we have no tools to help people with mental health issues unless they have the means and the drive to pursue it themselves. And even still, our model for "treating" mental health problems is to punish for transgressions, not to teach strategies to cope and overcome. Mental health is a dirty little secret that is pushed down with rewards, blame, and punishments until it festers and boils over.
This criminal system starts in the school system. We have an insane rate of violent, suicidal, and antisocial behavior in schools right now. Teachers are often expected to just deal with problems that are not within our training to handle. We are not trained psychologists. Every day we feed hungry kids, let kids sleep in our bean bags that don't have a safe place to sleep at home, look for lice, problem solve, teach positive character traits that sometimes aren't encouraged at home, and so much more while also trying to teach the curriculum. The problem is, we don't have the time or the education to treat mental illness. Don't get me wrong: do I believe in consequences? Absolutely, yes. But do I believe consequences teach people how to be functional in society? No. Consequences motivate us to make good decisions, but do not teach us what positive behaviors are.
Besides this, anyone who thinks teachers should carry guns has never met me. (To illustrate this point: I often have a hard time locating my pen and unlocking the gate from the staff parking lot and I curl up into a ball when confronted with tickle torture). Conversely, I think it would be tragic and disadvantageous to replace good teachers with good marksmen. Guns are not the answer. To find the answer, everyone of us will have to move toward a paradigm shift.
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