It is absurd and stupid to blame teachers for students that do not do class work, homework, and study for tests or read books outside class.
Washington D.C. and the president of the United States are demanding that teachers do the impossible.
We must repeal the No Child Left Behind Act and enact into law “No Student and/or Parent Ignored” (NSPI), because that is what we are doing—ignoring the students and parents.
An old friend suggested this idea, and it is how America will resolve its problems with public education.
The reason students do not show gains on the Academic Proficiency Index is NOT because of bad or boring teachers or teacher unions. It is because most of those students are not doing homework, studying for tests or reading outside of school and many are not reading in school.
Since no one in Washington D.C. and/or the White House has placed blame where it should be, on students and parents, then why should students work?
Students must be held responsible to learn but they are not. Instead, many are encouraged to feel good and have fun and/or are ignored by parents.
After all, thanks to “No Child Left Behind”, parents are not responsible for their child’s education—only teachers have been held responsible. However, teachers cannot follow 150 to 200 students home and make sure they do homework, read and study each day.
A Kaiser Generation M2 – Kids/Youth/Media Survey (January 2010) said, “Total Media Exposure for all 8 to 18 year old’s average amount of time spend with each medium in a typical day was 10:45 hours
That average 10:45 hours was divided up with 4:29 hours spent watching TV; 2:31 hours listening to music; 1:29 hours on the computer; 1:13 hours playing video games; 30 minutes reading print media, and 25 minutes watching a movie.
If this is what the “average” child is doing daily in the US, when are they doing homework, reading or studying?
Continued on May 16, 2011 In Putting the Blame where it Belongs – Part 2, where we shall see my “old” friend’s solution to solve this problem.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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