Helping Our Children to Learn

Our Schools, once a safe haven for learning and socialization have become the scenes of growing violence. Hardly a week passes without hearing about a school shooting, an incident of bullying, and other forms of harassment and violence that confronts our children every day. While these incidents shock and saddens us, have we ever really stopped to think how they affect learning?

A teachers job is to teach. Whether it is math, reading, or science. They have trained to be competent in their field of endeavor. They have acquired not only the knowledge of their subject matter but also skills in how to pass on that knowledge to their students. But teachers are teaching less and less. Instead their main role in many school systems seems to be that of referees and policemen. Jobs they are not trained to do, do have the skills to perform adequately, and that take them away from their real job teaching. Our teachers are being asked to do all they can to keep our children safe, which in turn may jeopardize their own safety. Is it any wonder that our teachers are failing to teach our children even the basics in any given field.

And what of our children. Many go to school each day wondering what is going to happen to them. Will they get through the day unscathed, will they be a victim of bullying or worse? Learning is not top priority for these children, survival is. How can a student concentrate on math concepts when he is worried about what is going to occur between classes or in the lunch room?

How can we educate and prepare our children for the future, when we can manage to keep them safe and focused on learning in the present? The answer is that we can’t. Unless, we are willing to take some drastic steps to ensure our children and teachers safety our children will continue to fall behind the rest of the world.

So how do we make our schools safer?

Accept the fact that not every child belongs in school.

While every child deserves an education, they do not deserve that education at the risk of the student body as a whole. Any child who is perpetually threatening and violent towards other children or a teacher should be expelled. Schools are institutions of learning, and learning should be the top priority of everyone who is there, from the principal on down. Tolerating violence on any level, only allows it to escalate. School boards, Superintendents, and principals should be given back the power to remove any threat to a student at any time. And they should not be afraid to use that power. While there are those that will argue that expelling a child from school serves no purpose they are wrong. It may not help the child who is expelled, but it will serve to make a safer environment for the majority of students. A child who is violent, may be society’s problem, but he should never be allowed to be a problem and a threat to our schools. We isolate adults who are violent from the rest of society, why should be reluctant to isolate a child who is violent from the part of society he threatens?