joejohnston ● us

In part 1, we hypothesized that both parents’ and teachers’ effectiveness has been undermined by significant and long-term efforts to disempower both groups.  We stated that this disempowerment did not diminish the responsibilities heaped upon teachers and parents nor ameliorate subsequent blame.  In fact, blame directed at teachers and parents  has increased.  We further hypothesized that this “power vacuum” had created some level of youth anarchy. This anarchy has victimized rather than empowered youth.

Teachers have been blamed for “dumbing down” the youth of America, while parents have been blamed for creating self-absorbed hedonists lacking work ethic and a sense of deferred gratification or being too competitive and overbooked  We hypothesized in part 1 that the simultaneous disempowering of both teachers and parents would not have been possible without the creation of a wall of mistrust and enmity between them.

The wall of mistrust is easy to see. 

Ask any teacher what their biggest problems are and they will likely involve parents.  In “poverty schools” teachers complain about lack of involvement.  Parent workshops usually involve giving parents a laundry list of things they should be doing (translation: if you’re not doing these things, don’t blame me if your child can’t read).  This is unfortunate because, many times, these parents are not equipped to live up to the school’s expectations.  As a result, even if they desire to comply they either can’t because of excessive work schedules or lack of ability.  This breeds a disconnect with the school and the school culture.  The disconnect, along with cultural issues, tends to create suspicion and fearfulness abut school.  This, in turn, can limit the role of these parents to that of “regardless of the facts” advocacy. Thus the wall. (P.S. Not every parent is guildless.)

Teachers in so-called privileged schools have different issues with parents.  In more privileged schools the complaint usually involves a form of “too much” involvement – forcing teachers to justify, defend and spend a lot of time writing notes, telephoning, or meeting with the principal because of each and every decision or action (translation:  usually either “my kid is bored” so that’s your problem or for my kid “you should, but don’t” some the things I, the parent, know you should).  This creates a remarkably similar “regardless of the facts” advocacy in these schools also.

Whether the parents are rich, or poor, or in between, they are to blame for a lot of things in the teachers’ lounge.

Ask any parent about teachers and you might hear:  How teaching lessons that should be happening in school is thrust into the homework scenario (putting parents on the payroll, without the payroll).  The purpose of many a teacher conference is to build a laundry list of blame or to complain about a parent not making a teacher defined  problem magically disappear.  My personal favorite (remember, I was a parent by night and a teacher by day) is the gang-up-on-the-parent conference.  This usually involves assembling enough teachers to maintain a 5 to 1 ratio.  It’s difficult for a parent to make a point that’s not group pre-approved in this setting.  This gang conference usually has one or more teachers feigning some degree of disinterest coming in and out and generally displaying behavior similar to the behavior they are complaining about.  This approach is typically prominent in middle schools.  Then there’s that pesky fear of reprisal or as they say in the parent trenches, “taking it out on my child.”  For parents, it is frustrating to deal with your child’s issues and get blame and “to do” lists from teachers when you’re looking for help.

The fact is that neither parents nor teachers could possibly be as guilty as the other group supposes.  So what’s the source of this diminishing power and mistrust for both groups? 

The intelligentsia elitists –believing they know best – have concluded that they should keep both parents and teachers under their thumb.  They can do this with impunity because they are largely exempt from the consequences of what they pronounce.  As parents, they have nannies, babysitters, propagandists, and lawyers to insulate them—not to mention school choice.  In terms of teachers, their children’s teachers are largely underpaid private school employees and regarded as an extension of “the help.”  They can also play out this scenario in the public school system where their real estate taxes wield considerable sway.  Mostly, they see themselves above all this.  But they need to provide “safeguards” for everyone else.

This same group of intelligentsia elitists provide an incessant barrage of criticism directed at teachers and parents for the consequences of the things they—the elites—have been instrumental in putting into place (translation:  cramming down everyone’s throats from the bully pulpit).

If you are seeking elitist status, the easiest path is to find a group that has a great deal of problem defending itself or is guilty until proven innocent.  Both parents and teachers fit the bill nicely.  Since the politicians run the public educational establishment and other empowereds run the private schools, it is very hard as a teacher to defend oneself.  Most non-kids not involved in parenting can easily find unruly youth a big annoyance and many kids have learned to massage the “youth anarchy” machine, therefore, parents are under constant scrutiny usually by those with their own agenda.  There is a fairly sizable bureaucratic mechanism in place to enforce the dictums of the prevailing intelligentsia.

The phrase “I’m a good parent because …” and the phrase “I’m a good teacher because …” are difficult to finish.  This is particularly true when booth groups are propagandized or coerced into practices that are fundamentally not good parenting and not good teaching.

Teachers Can’t Always Teach

If you’re a parent of a child in school between 1990 and 2005, chances are your child was taught to read  using the “whole language” methodology.  Whole language advocates created almost a religion of this belief-system even though it was based on a largely faulty premise.  That premise, a gift to us from Noam Chomsky, being that reading – like language acquisition – was hotwired into children and all we had to do is immerse them in a literate environment to jumpstart that internal reading machine.  Reading per se wasn’t as important as a love of books.  There literally is a generation schooled in literature appreciation and not reading.  This had a greater impact on at-risk children than others so many learned in spite of.  Whether this was Dr. Chomsky’s intent or not, it was the reality as it was translated at the “practices” level.  Of course, criticism of whole language was met with largely ad hominen responses (criticism of the person doing the critiquing and ignore the issues).  Teachers were required to use this approach – many didn’t agree.

Parents Can’t Always Parent – The Deception of Incremental Steps

As a parent, you’ve been mislead by the intelligensia and then criticized for the results.  Spanking as a discipline mechanism – some of its criticism deserved – became less and less acceptable beginning in the 1960s and culminating in a virtual taboo by the end of the 20th century.  If you believed in spanking, you had to be mighty careful where, when, around whom, and “don’t leave any marks.”  Parents weren’t necessarily being asked to abandon their authority (or so they thought) just modify parenting techniques.  So parents largely replaced this with the “time out.”  This seemed innocuous – have the child leave the situation, take some think time, and understand the causes and cures.  The fact that time out didn’t work in the midst of a genuine parent-child power struggle. So parents thought if they stopped spanking they’d be OK.  Recently however, the “time out” technique was branded as “forcible isolation” (read imprisonment) (see comment by Alfie Kohn).  The implications of that hyperspeak can’t be good for parents.  OK, parents, you can’t spank, or say go to your room or sit on the thinking chair.  There must be another parenting technique acceptable.  Hmmmm….maybe a stern voice (many times even a stern voice is considered shouting) is OK?  Beeeep …….

No………If spanking=abuse, time out=forcible isolation, then shouting=spanking. The British Government has come out strongly against shouting (see newspaper article on this).  A recent Wall Street Journal article equates shouting and spanking (WSJ article).  OK parents, don’t spank, time out, or shout.  If your child misbehaves, then perhaps you should simply reward good behavior so much that good behavior will be incentivized..   Beeeep ……..

The British government pamphlet cited above encourages parents to shower their children with praise.  The old behaviorist psychology of B. F. Skinner would and has encouraged the ignoring of responses you wish to disappear and rewarding of proper responses.  This, of course has been characterized as “conditional parenting.”

So you can’t spank, time out, shout, or reward.  The reward part is especially puzzling.  Using praise to reward is deemed conditional in that it seeks to shape behavior. As Alfie Kohn (again) says, it:

teaches children that they are loved, and lovable, only when they do whatever we decide is a “good job.”

So parents, if you don’t praise everything, your praise (read love, approval, affection, etc) is not unconditional and thereby equated to punishment (in its lack of unconditionality).  News flash to parents and even teachers:  We have left the realm of “techniques” and are firmly in the realm of ideology, I mean, philosophy.

Punishment and praise are equivalent because they both are used to seek control.  So, parents, I think you’re not supposed to control your children.  That would mean all “discipline” is bad.  I guess.

Daniel Zalewski begins his article on how children’s books portray parents and children, this way (in case you think I’m exaggerating):

Anxious parents—the midnight Googlers who repeatedly seek advice from experts—learn that there are many things they must never do to their willful young child: spank, scold, bestow frequent praise, criticize, plead, withhold affection, take away toys, “model” angry emotions, intimidate, bargain, nag. Increasingly, nearly all forms of discipline appear morally suspect.

Most of this, of course, can be applied to teachers in the classroom.  So, teachers, no spanking, time out, shouting, rewarding, or whatever else attempts to control because the “experts” have “proven” that none of these by themselves work and they cause problems later in life.  And besides, they’re discipline!

All of the articles cited identify a parenting technique, criticize it for either not really working or having long term ill effects on children.  So what does one do when one needs – sorry – to shape behavior of children?  There doesn’t seem to be anything left!  Alfee Kohn, our esteemed expert, citing numerous studies, suggests the following:

unconditional acceptance by parents as well as teachers should be accompanied by “autonomy support”: explaining reasons for requests, maximizing opportunities for the child to participate in making decisions, being encouraging without manipulating, and actively imagining how things look from the child’s point of view.

Got that, parents and teachers, you should have no “power” to influence your charges, but should explain every request, perhaps take a vote, don’t reward to manipulate, and before you make a request of your child or children imagine their perspective.

(cut and past) So what does one do when one needs – sorry – to shape behavior of children? (out of necessity)

I am not seeing a real answer from the child-rearing intelligentsia.  There is plenty of blame (not to them, of course, but to parents and teachers) for all of the things gone awry, but the best I’ve seen is nothing more than a discipline vacuum creating youthful anarchy. 

I have a hard time believing that the intellentsia wants anarchy and chaos.  The only possible explanation for that would be as a pretext to grab power.  Or, more likely, maybe they think that something other than what is happening, will happen when everybody – especially you parents and teachers – finally gets it right.

The trouble with the elite is they never seem to face any consequences for the beliefs they foist onto our culture – especially on parents and teachers who find it hard to defend themselves.  If it doesn’t work, it’s because it wasn’t done properly.  Many people feel that way about Communism (or so I hear).

I think (my opinion) that what is being sought is the type of anarchy based on a faulty understanding of the philosopher Rousseau.  That belief being that society corrupts the innately noble natural man.  In other words, children without inappropriate (read any) discipline are noble savages who will choose the good – eventually.

The fact that the anarchy we are getting, as a result, is far from noble and it doesn’t quite seem to work out that  well when we use “autonomy support.”  If you disagree, go to the mall; go to a playground; read up on bully prevention; or maybe just think about it.

In part 3 (in about a week), we’ll talk more about the wall of suspicion, what parents and teachers can do to build bridges, and maybe a few top 10’s on parenting/teaching.

Joe Johnston Sr.

Tags: intelligentsia, Noam Chomsky, praise, reading, school culture, work ethic
Filed under: Education Rants