How Did This Become the Job of the Teacher?
Before the school year started, I received no less than a dozen emails about training and school safety. Thanks to school shootings and the ever-increasing, highly magnified violence, public schools now feel obligated to do something. And the “something” that they’ve decided to do is: everything.
In addition to beefing up security at the entrances to schools and all over school campuses, and installing surveillance cameras into the elementary schools, and screening all visitors through sex offender databases, our public schools are requiring teachers and school staff to prepare to change the entire world.
Teachers are not only required to do compliance training, which goes into depth on handling everything from bullying to abuse to suicide prevention – but they are now required to teach “personal body safety lessons” for all students. “Streamlined reporting” will supposedly ensure that any suspicious behavior will be reported to the authorities who – somehow – will fix everything. Not only are employees going to be re-fingerprinted and undergo more background checks than they’ve already had, but they will also be responsible for teaching students how to take care of themselves.
Teachers and staff are now responsible for controlling/preventing bullying, harassment, cyber-bullying, gender identity issues, teen dating guidelines, suicide starting at the age of 11, mental illnesses, behavioral threats, all forms of discrimination and all kinds of addiction.
Considered essential by the public school system, staff and teachers are not only expected to be above-board, but they also have to make sure all of the kids in the schools are 100% healthy and happy, at all times, so that nobody ever gets hurt.
How did this become the job of the teacher?
I still believe that parents are responsible for their own children. Without good parenting, there is no chance for kids. And there are never any perfect kids – including mine – because parents are human beings, doing the best they can with what they’ve got. But shouldn’t they be responsible for these things?
Unfortunately, many parents aren’t gifted with knowing what to do, or how to do it, when it comes to raising children. Too many parents beat their children out of frustration. They have no idea what else to do. Too many parents ignore the questions their children ask, or lie when their kids need honest answers. Too many kids can’t trust their parents for support. As a result, parents can’t trust their teenagers to do the right things.
Too many parents are too preoccupied with themselves to do anything at all with their own children. And the thing that children crave the most is calm, happy time with their parents.
So many kids go to school seeking solace from an agonizing home life. Not only are their parents a mess, but there’s no food on the table. Sometimes there’s no table. Sometimes there’s no food for weeks.
And so many, many kids, struggling at home, walk into school desperate for acceptance, with no idea how to get the love or attention they so desperately need.
So the schools have taken it upon themselves to require all staff not just to keep these children safe from harm – which is impossible even in the best of schools – but to identify and report all problems to the authorities. If this actually happens the way administrations demand, how could the authorities do anything except file report after report after report about kids’ home lives?
I just can’t imagine being expected to do any more than everything I can possibly do.
Which, of course, I would do anyway.