This Little Piggy Goes to School

The mind's first step to self-awareness must be through the body.--George Sheehan It used to be common sense that a healthy mind required a healthy body, but somewhere along the line educators have cast that much tested fact aside. I am not saying that childhood obesity lay only at the door of the public schools, no indeed, there is culpability enough to share, but my focus is on the culpability of the public schools. I am not impuning the schools for cutting fitness programs, because it is not the schools responsibilty to provide fitness opportunities to kids. No my complaint is that schools are completely filling up the time when kids should be outside playing or exercising. Look at the facts. Every public school system has consitently and regularly lengthened the school day and the school year. Most elementary schools have completely cut recess even for the youngest students. In addition to the time spent within the walls of the school, there has also been a steady increase in the amount of homework assigned per day. Most teachers believe that a student should get 10 minutes of homework per year in school. For instance if a child is in 6th grade they should get 60 minutes of homework. Okay, that might work well enough if a child is in a program with a single teacher, but is not such a reasonable formula in the higher grades with multiple teachers. Consider 10th grade. According to the formula, a 10th grader should have 100 minutes of homework each night. Now mulitply that by a minimum of 4 core-subject teachers = 400 minutes of homework each night. That's (well don't ask me I went to public school...just kidding. Fortunately, I learned math in college.) That's 6.67 hours of homework per night. Now include extra-curriculars, which are a necessity for any college-bound student, supper, and well you can forget family time. (See last blog) It's no wonder that the average high school student cannot get to bed before 12 AM, and it is certainly no wonder that we are seeing a steady climb in childhood obesity...by the way, obesity is considerably lower in home-schooled children where academic achievement is higher and where balance between mind and body is better maintained. If home-schoolers understand the balance, shouldn't we be able to expect professional educators to understand as well?

The Plumping of Failed Institutions

Why put more money into an already failing institution?--Paraphrasing Michael Medved First, by way of disclosure, I am a product of public schooling. However, when I went to public school, common sense reigned and no one need tell teachers how to deal with profanity, drugs or bullying. For the most part teachers, because they had the morality of such issues clear in their minds, knew how to deal with such problems utilising "common sense" unclouded by moral relativism. Common sense, however, is dead. That leaves us with the current state of the public school. A state of abject failure. So how do we address that failed upon failed institution, well we plump it up with more money, and even worse, more control over our children's lives. Even though, the school day has gotten steadily longer with each new legislative year, schools continue to decline. Even though each school year has been lengthened with each new legislative year, schools decline. Even though the amount of homework has increased exponentially, student achievement declines. Wake up and smell the coffee! This is a trend that must be reversed, but the answer does not lie with the public school, it lies with the parents and the pubic schools need to get out of the way. Note: The more time kids spend in school the less time they spend with their parents. Duh! While the schools, disingenuously, decry having to parent children, they have in fact grabbed more parenting by law since the 1940's as educators convinced themselves and lawmakers that educators knew better than the parents what was best for the children. The steady decline of this society is proof of how well that has worked. The best thing that we can do for both society and public school is to retrench. We need to stop pouring additional money and time in plumping up a failed institution. We need support strong families by allowing and expecting parents to be the primary educators in children's lives with the public schools serving a supporting role. Next: Public Schools and Childhood Obesity