"Don't spend your precious time asking 'Why isn't the world a better place?' It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is 'How can I make it better?' To that there is an answer."
- Leo F. Buscaglia
I am proud to say Leo was a personal friend, having met in the early '70's when he spoke at the University of Utah, and then reconnecting a couple of times after, including, by happenstance, a magical afternoon at his home in Santa Monica with a graduate seminar of students during the Christmas holiday break in 1975. He was a Master of education (actually, a Ph.D., which we so highly revere in the Canyons School District)... rather, a MASTER of education, who simply believed so fervently and wholeheartedly in his students it literally consumed him and those who came in contact with him. Not in their academic CONTENT, but in their humanistic POTENTIAL...in that, he was a Master, a Zen Buddhist concept he so loved.
CONTINUING debate in the Canyons School District and the Utah Legislature somehow steer far south of of this fundamental issue and into the hot-button political topics of 'accountability, more testing, more measuring, how-much-knowledge-can-be-crammed-into-these-vessels-of -tomorrows-workforce (sarcasm intended). According to Elise Cramer, a Cornell University junior:, "Life is planned out for us, but we don't know WHAT to want. Parents and schools are no longer geared toward (human/child) development, they're geared toward ACADEMIC achievement." My question is simply: at WHO'S behest. And, if they've NEVER spent a moment in the classroom observing the challenges, frustrations, joys and roadblocks, WHY do they get a chair at the negotiations table. Simply because they've been elected by a complacent/ignorant populace, and are now subject to the whims of others with money that got them elected?
In Hara Estroff Marano's excellent article in Psychology Today-2004 entitled 'A Nation of Wimps' she warns the epidemic of students' fragility factor(s) now making its mark in education (indeed, in other areas, as well) is a result of our endless drive to push kid to succeed at any cost. Consider teachers now shuffling through literally PILES of reports certifying the educational 'accommodations' required for students to be 'allowed' to succeed in the classroom. At the other end of the spectrum, our Administrators/Legislators are constantly DEMANDING better scores/ results or heads-will-roll. WHO is looking out for the welfare of the child...schools were supposed to maintain a safe place for the continued development of the child, but we're losing that. Leo would be gravely disappointed...and so am I.
The severity of this epidemic is witnessed in the escalation of student mental health problems since 1988, according to an annual survey of counseling center directors. As a lifetime educator/coach, we know playtime has gone with this phenomenon. Toys, and even sports are designed by adults, and we tell them where to stand on the field and how to play a game and what's fair or not. Then, we justify it by saying it's in the best interest of business leaders who are begging for a 'compliant workforce', and they disguise this by saying we're NOT producing students who are 'workforce-ready'...this from the VERY people who have driven the American economy into the ground with their lack of ethics and business sense...maybe, just MAYBE we need to be developing better PEOPLE, not better academicians...
Leo thought so, and so do I. Our current problems are the result of those who supposedly 'know' and less of those who 'know better'...
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