“Several senators and more than 100 privacy groups have requested that the database be eliminated, but the Pentagon officials seem convinced that it is necessary if we are to maintain a volunteer Army. Oh, brother.”
Let us recall malingerer Dick Cheney when he said, “I had other priorities than the military.”
David A. Hancock
Chesterland
American Public Schools Dehumanize, Inhibit Kids
To the editor:
Educator John Holt, author of How Children Learn and How Children Fail, was not an aficionado of either Ritalin or our mass-production school system. Holt told Congress that we give kids this drug so that we can run our schools as we do—like maximum security prisons for the comfort and convenience of the teachers and administrators who work in them.
Holt also inferred that America’s public schools are not particularly shining examples of how to bring out the best in young people. Although thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers, aides, counselors, and administrators, a good number of the schools end up teaching little more than obedience and conformity. Research by the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development concluded, “Many large public schools function as mills that contain and process endless streams of students. Within them are masses of anonymous youth. Such settings virtually guarantee that the intellectual and emotional needs of youth will go unmet.”
One of the most penetrating critics of contemporary schooling is New York State 1991 Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto, who states, “The school bell rings, and the students in the middle of writing a poem must close her/his notebook and move to a different cell, … it is absurd and anti-life to be part of a system that compels you to sit in confinement with people of exactly the same age and social class … it is absurd and anti-life to move from cell to cell at the sound of a loud gong for every day of your youth, in an institution that allows you no privacy.”
For the entire school day, students are under surveillance. They hardly have any private time or private space. Many teachers do their best to be humane, but students are typically expected to sit still for hour upon hour and do whatever they are told. This is not only totally unnatural and profoundly frustrating for students, but it also inhibits learning. Human beings are programmed by evolution to develop by moving, touching, and being involved in life’s tasks.
Neil Postman said it best: “School and prison are the only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. Children enter school as question marks and leave as periods.”
David A. Hancock
Chesterland
Hancock is a science teacher at Cleveland Heights High School.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
SUPERINTENDENT EXCELS
I need to respond to West Geauga Board of Education member Michael Kilroy giving Superintendent Anthony Podojil a grade of C.
I have personally and professionally known Dr. Podojil since 1991 when he became our assistant principal of curriculum and instruction at Cleveland Heights High School. I retired after thirty-five years of teaching experience, all in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights City School District, in 2003. I have had experience with scores of school administrators, including ten superintendents.
I would like to distinguish among grades, evaluation, and assessment. An assessment and evaluation is more valid and reliable than a grade. In my opinion, Dr. Podojil has earned an A-plus in assessment and evaluation. I base my judgment on the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, a professional organization involved with educational leadership.
A research study involved twenty-one responsibilities of effective school administrators and a correlation with student academic achievement. The most important are the following:
— Situational awareness. Takes note of details and undercurrents in the running of the school system.
— Flexibility. Adapts leadership behavior to the needs of the current situation and is comfortable with dissent.
— Discipline. Protects teachers from issues and influences that would detract from their teaching time or focus.
— Monitors the effectiveness of school practices and their impact on student learning.
— Fosters shared beliefs and a sense of community and cooperation.
— Establishes a set of standard operating procedures and routines, resources, financial stability, knowledge of curriculum and instruction, communication, ideals, and beliefs.
— Visibility.
— Has quality contact and interactions with teachers, students, and parents.
— Inspires and leads new and challenging innovations.
— Recognizes and celebrates accomplishments published in local newspapers.
Again, an A-plus is my professional grade to Anthony Podojil.
And the answer is no to the question, are you (am I) a sycophant-milquetoast?
David A. Hancock
Chester
Hancock is currently an adjunct professor of education at Notre Dame College in South Euclid.
Teachers Teach Kids—Administrators Don’t
Mayor Michael R. White has given Barbara Byrd-Bennett a 5 percent raise and a 15 percent bonus for her hard work, dedication, performance, and inspirational leadership. I do not recall White expressing this kind of thinking toward teachers, who get a raise of less than 5 percent and no bonus.
Also, Byrd-Bennett is going to Jerusalem to learn more about educational leadership, funded by the Mandel Foundation. In the meantime, teachers are in classrooms (which administrators are happy they are not) doing their best to manage students and encourage them to learn—even the resistant students who are stressed, frustrated, and have physical and mental health problems.
Classroom teachers really resent administrators—especially superintendents. They have zero impact and influence on me personally in terms of inspirational leadership.
All the demagoguery, diatribes, harangues, incantations, and gibberish about US education are nonsense. So-called leaders, especially politicians, cannot make teachers change or improve. No one can make anyone else change or improve. Only each student can make himself improve or change. We can only support, direct, guide, and encourage. Let us get one thing straight: national standards, threats, coercion, administrators, rules, proficiency tests, state and federal regulations, and politicians do not teach kids. Teachers teach kids.
Our job is to teach the kids we have, not the kids we would like to have. Neil Postman, author of Teaching as a Subversive Activity [sic] and The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School, said it best:
“Children enter school as question marks and leave as periods.”
David A.
