This is an ad that was put into the Laconia Daily Sun. Now, I expect for many communities, there are going to be a lot of ads for teachers and such due to staff not wanting to physically to return to the schools (and some not wanting to even do Remote Learning as well.
I’ll be honest here, it may be my memory but I can’t remember our school system advertising for a study hall monitor before. OK, WuFlu and all that other stuff dealing with this contagion.
I’m old school and given what I’m seeing in the school systems nowadays, it’s a far cry from what I remember being “the basics”. Back then, schools were there to, well, teach academic subjects. Reading, writing, ‘rithmatic. Science, history, civics – then and only after those, electives (which, I point out, based on that clustering, are NOT the basics). As Ian has written before (and I agree with a lot of his points), what is the purpose of a public educational system?
To teach them how to be critically thinking citizens (and not experts, I hastily add, in the Marxist based Critical Theory or Critical Race Theory). First off, note the morphing of “students” into learners – to me that was a surprise. I know what a student is – someone who is learning “stuff”. But I am betting there is a nuance there that I’m missing with the swapping out of the traditional word (unless I’m overthinking that part but hey, I’m trying to be critical in my thinking here). Even the mission statement has “learners” vs students. The only thing I can think of is that schools have changed from where the kids were expected to be vessels into which knowledgebases and taught how to think to an environment where the schools have become more Montessori and the kids are more in charge (even as they haven’t the knowledgebase or systems thinking to do so).
And then the ranking order starts to make sense. Not good sense, just sense in how schools have morphed away from what they have been in the past.
“…their social, emotional, and academic needs“. In my mind, this is why our kids aren’t performing to the levels that parents (and the rest of us) believe they should be. Words matter – and so do the order of words in defining missions. My view of a study hall monitor:
- Maintain suitable order – it’s a study hall, not a teen club.
- Studying to be the primary action (yes, teens – some are going to be getting friendly with their friends; that’s not going to stop)
- For those who need academic help, answer best as possible but admit when you can’t (let the student’s teacher know some help may be needed)
- Maintain suitable order – it’s a study hall, not a teen club.
*I*, as a Parent, am alone responsible for my child’s social and emotional needs. Not the school’s Administration, not the teachers, and not the growing phalanx of assorted support staff. But this may well be the driving force of student to learner – and the growing sense of importance of the educational system that they aren’t just the in loco parents (“in the place of parents”) folks, they ARE the parents and those “learners” are THEIR children. As that outlook permeates everything, more and more of what should be the Parents responsibilities are being taking on by the school staff – deliberately and steadily over time.
All you have to do is give them your money – and they take over your kids. According to what THEY believe is the proper social and economic norms for their learners.
Not you. It takes a village and you’re not the Chief:
Hillary Clinton: There is no such thing as other people’s children (as reported by Newsweek, although I can’t find a URL)
Michelle Obama (First Lady of the US, (D-unelected Progressive National Nanny):
- “…for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback“
- But when our kids spend so much of their time each day in school and when many kids get up to half their daily calories from school meals, its clear that we as a nation have a responsibility to meet as well. We can’t just leave it up to the parents.
- And when many kids spend up to half of their waking hours and get up to half their daily calories at school, you know that the food you serve, and more importantly, the lessons you teach, you’re not just shaping their habits and preferences today, you’re affecting the choices they’re going to make the rest of their lives. That’s why we start with kids, right? We can affect who they will be forever.
- (on the Tonite Show with Jimmy Fallon, talking about Obamacare): “A lot of young people think they’re invincible. But the truth is, young people are knuckleheads.”
- “Make no mistake about it, this November, when we get to the polls, that is what we are deciding. Not Democrat or Republican, not left or right. In this election, and every election, it is about who will have the power to shape our children for the next four or eight years of their lives.
“Who will have the power to shape out children” – can anyone get more political than that? It is an anti-Parent screed from where I see. These “learners” are not the Parents responsibilities – it is the Collective (just like the Soviet notion of Society’s kids). And the most telling, straight forward person (who lost her MSNBC host job for a while because she said the “quiet part” really, REALLY out loud), made it quite clear: Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry (Ph.D, MSNBC hostess):
- “We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had a private notion of children; your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children,”
Sure, this is a rant but it is also an indictment of the ‘truth’ that I once overheard two union bosses say during a Deliberative Session about why our school system needed bigger budgets: “well, the enrollments are down but the needs are up”. Well of course, because the schools keep taking on more and more stuff. Feeding the kids all year round / food pantries, clothes exchanges, medical help / clinics, help hiding pregnancies from parents, help hiding sexual orientations / gender dysphoria outlooks, excusing bad behaviors (like at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that lead to 17 deaths; and highlighted all the government failures that enabled it?). I could go on and on.
Each one, however, is the school systems moving their emphasis from academics to stuff they should be taking over and weakening their main mission. Let me say the quiet part out loud – if I was a Parent, why would I be a diligent one in all my responsibilities to my child if some entity came along and said “we’ll do that for you; we’ll pay for your child’s basic needs”.
It sounds rational until you realize that, under the umbrella of “helping”, government dependency and overreach are enhanced. And your Right to raise your child is being quietly and slowly removed.
I didn’t expect to go this long but this topic just winds me up. A classic case of government bureaucracy growing its reach and overstepping its boundaries by adding just that one more thing to its portfolio. And then you wonder why it snarls when you try to cut off its food source – your money. Doubt me? Put in a motion at your next town meeting to cut the budget. Remember, it’s not about the kids, it’s about the adults.
All from a simple ad…
