Keep school focus on basics

Re: “Magnet school ideas heard” (B-1, Dec. 6)

I agree with Laura Boord, the special ed teacher who advocated for Lee High to teach problem solving and thinking skills and “not get too married to training for careers in an ever-changing job market.”

While I applaud the leadership of the East Baton Rouge Parish schools for wanting to introduce new programs to attract students to our public schools, I also cling to the stubborn belief that the most meaningful education a high school student can have is a foundation in the “boring” basics — strong reading and writing skills and critical thinking. Yes, learning about filmmaking, aerospace, culinary arts etc. can be enhancements, but the basics seem to have often been sacrificed in the quest to make students “happy.”

Twenty-one percent of Louisiana adult residents have a college degree; that means that the majority of high school graduates will not attend or will drop out of college without finishing. That said, high school, then, becomes the best hope to prepare students for “the world” — but not just the world as it is, out the door, today …

Mary Ann Sternbergs

freelance writer

Baton Rouge

Comments

1) Comment by ovation - 09/12/2012

With the new Common Core guidelines along with the Value Added requirements for teachers, you will see the rigor in the class improve. Children will be taught how to think more deeply about topics and use reasoning and logic skills. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen. The vast amount of content that has been dictated by the LDOE to teach will be reduced and more focus will be on critical thinking. This can be achieved with the 'basics' and with the enhancement classes.

2) Comment by twinkie1cat - 08/12/2012

I had a student in a regular education home room (10th grade) a few years ago who could not stand it if anyone touched him. He was smartmouthed and prone to screaming fits when he was angry.. He was not autistic or otherwise disabled. Some of the other students who had known him for a long time said that he was being beaten at home and lived with "a lot of other people". They didn't know if it was a group home. But something changed in his life and he became Mr. Southside a few years later. When he posed for his yearbook picture it was in a white tie and tails with his toddler son at his side. Someone had intervened and made things better. I knew another guy who was homeless and fought all the time. Mama was an addict, abandoned the kids and daddy a drunk and when he was dumped on Daddy, he threw him out as soon as it was legal. A teacher with a Ph.D requested a special home room of all overaged boys. She taught them in several of their classes, took them on field trips and helped them catch up. They also gave him a mentor from the Carter Center. He won the Most Improved award for his school. He was almost 20 when he graduated, but has now been on the Atlanta Police force for about 10 years and has even been on COPS. If you take time and get the right teachers for high risk students instead of just kicking them out of school, they can do better and many will get out of the prison pipeline..

3) Comment by twinkie1cat - 08/12/2012

SPQR: Do you have the funding to keep kids in the same apartment for the full year? The resources help their parents with the bills after the rent special is over? A counselor to enter every home where there is domestic violence, stop it, and keep the parent from moving where her husband (or wife) can't find her? Transience is rooted in poverty and the conservatives who run Louisiana's government do not want to solve that problem. Tradewinns and SPQR: Violence in school is rooted in problems at home. Disciplining the children, which in this case usually involves suspension or expulsion for the symptoms instead of trying to find out what the problem is, only makes it worse. This is why so many kids drop out or are kicked out of school. You have to start in pre-K teaching non-violence and create an atmosphere of tolerance and acceptance for everyone by faculty, staff, and students and recognizing the value of individual differences. Make the schools high quality and respectful of everyone and the discipline problems will decrease or leave completely. Try to fit ever child into the same mold and dress them all like little Republicans and you are going to have problems.

4) Comment by twinkie1cat - 08/12/2012

Yes, high school graduation is the best hope for any child today. That is a given. But I differ with the view that it is best taught through "basic" subjects only. Ms. Sternburg thinks that vocational subjects are just "enhancements". No, that is not the case. Vocational subjects can be a way of teaching the basics, especially at the high school level. That is how we do it in special education. It is called Functional Academics. You use the materials of the profession to teach both the profession and literacy, writing, and thinking skills. Many students by high school or even middle school need programs that keep their atttention. With some, hands-on is the only way they learn. So why not come out of high school with a marketable trade and both numerate and literate as well as able to analyze problems and make decisions? The graduate is employable, unlikely to hang on the corner, go to jail or get pregnant because he or she has or can get a good job straight out of high school or go on to college or further training in a vocation. There is nothing wrong with this. Even college prep students benefit from knowing how to do something with their hands. I know a brilliant person who fixed TV sets while in college at LSU. My brother worked as a mechanic in the summer while he went to Auburn and did his boss' bookkeeping. Leave hamburger flipping to those who can do no better and let the kids leave high school with a job that pays a living wage, whether they go to college or not.

5) Comment by bourbon-soda - 08/12/2012

A product so bad you can't give it away.

6) Comment by tradewinns - 08/12/2012

".......to attract students to our public schools", i didn't know that was a problem. the educational system in america has problems, concentration of the minutia isn't one of them. the single largest problem with the educational system in america is discipline. until that is corrected, teaching anything is a problem.

7) Comment by spqr - 08/12/2012

Want to attract more students to EBR? Limit class sizes, get really serious about the fighting at school and disrespect for authority, and stop the horribly transient behavior of students (each high school teacher will add/drop about 30-50 each year) who enroll in two to four schools per year. Now there is the real issue and it is NEVER discussed.