The Civic Club Project

Not that long ago, I was at a civic club meeting where one of the members gave a committee report on a social media challenge issued to a local high school.  The idea was to find student clubs willing to accept the challenge of going one full week without using their cell phones.  No calls, no texts, nothing for a week. 
After the report, one of the other members asked, “are any of us participating in this challenge as well?”  Several club members immediately chuckled, as if to say ‘good one!’.  The report-giver himself got an immediate look of confusion, as if to say ‘Why would we do that?’.  He recovered enough to respond that no, this was only for the students.  The club members seemed relieved.
Hold on to that story for a couple of minutes.  We’ll be back.

A Kindergarten Teacher Calls it Quits

I recently came across an article (sources/links provided upon request) about a Facebook post from a kindergarten teacher.  She had decided to quit the profession in frustration and posted a list of 5 reasons why she did so.  She pulled no punches whatsoever, and the post apparently went viral.  It’s a thought-provoking post, and I was intrigued.
At times, I found myself thinking ‘you go, girl!’  But I also experienced at least a couple instances of ‘whoa, not so fast!’ reactions.  We’ll only look at the first of her 5 points today, but I think others will follow. Quoting directly:

1. The old excuse “the kids have changed”. No. No friggin way. Kids are kids. PARENTING has changed. SOCIETY has changed. The kids are just the innocent victims of that. Parents are working crazy hours, consumed by their devices, leaving kids in unstable parenting/coparenting situations, terrible media influences… and we are going to give the excuse that the KIDS have changed?

Personally, I might have softened this a little, and I don’t think I’d have gone quite that far.  But there is much in this response that rings true to me.  It speaks directly to two of my pet peeves.  The first is our tendency to blame schools for changes in society we perceive as unhealthy, accompanied by our expectation that schools fix those changes.  The second, closely related, is our simultaneous reluctance to accept our part in those changes, and our part in fixing them.

Wrapping Up

Back to the civic club story above.  It’s clear that this project was aimed at reducing teens’ dependence on social media, without realizing that many of us have an advanced case of the same disease.
Proliferation of social media is a change that’s affecting our entire society. While it is true that many of our students have known nothing else, this change is not specific to youngsters.  It is not caused by public education (regardless of how we feel about the use of technology in the classroom), nor can it be entirely cured by public education. 
Nonetheless, as usual, education is having to account for and adapt to this change in society. And it’s having to do so while continuing to prepare our students to become well-educated citizens in this society and those ahead.  And it’s having to do it without much visible support.
It’s been over 2500 years since Heraclitus first noted that the only constant is change.  We all know this, but we always seem to react with surprise to whatever the current change is.  Let’s help our schools by realizing we’re all in this together and do our part to help adapt to them.  It will help society and it will help our schools.
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NOTE:  If you’re still reading, you will have noticed the addition of headings and an image to this column.  My ‘SEO checker’ always suggests those things (and it now pleased), but I’m not sure what I think.  Did these things make the reading easier – or get in your way?  Any feedback?  If so, use the Contact Form.