Can you imagine allowing your adolescent, or younger, child make critical decisions concerning the running of your household?  How about having them evaluate your parenting, cooking, cleaning, or any other domestic work that you do and they don't.  No!

 

So my question to you is this, why would you want to have a teenager involved in the design of their curriculum or in the evaluation of the teachers? 

 

The argument to involve them in the curriculum design process poked its way into our local school system by use of the Baldridge process.  This process is used in large companies to gather information and ideas concerning the improvement of all aspects of a production process or a service provided to customers.  By gathering information from all portions of  the workforce, it is thought that, the process will be improved and the workers will all become happier.

 

When I heard that this was the way that our school system was going I was wondering... who were the groups?  Building services, cafeteria, PTA, booster?  Who?  The four groups involved would be the administration, the teachers, the parents, and the students.  So you have two groups of people who know little to nothing about the operation of a school involved in a round table with two who are.

 

I am not a surgeon.  I do not feel qualified enough to sit down with a surgeon and give him advice on how to run his operating room.

 

What grinds my gears the most about this is that parents are actually pushing for the involvement of their know-nothings in what they are taught.  This shows me that the old adage about an apple not falling far from the tree holds true.  By having this thought that "empowering" a young person to choose what they are taught will have a benefit shows the ignorance of the parents.  Fifteen year old kids don't know whats best for them.  If they did they wouldn't need parents.

 

The only thing that this would do is to erode the already crumbling wall of authority that teachers now hold.  If their statures drop any further the students will be teaching the classes with the teachers acting as referees.  I know I am exaggerating, but only a little bit. 

 

Here is a hypothetical to you.  Lets say that your son is a high school sophomore.  He hasn't taken Physics as of yet, but he is going to sit on a Baldridge team and decide what the major thematic units for this upcoming class should be.  How can he be an informed participant in this discussion?  Presumably he hasn't been exposed to this subject matter prior to this.  I see no constructive input this child can offer.

 

One of the parents introduced an idea to have high school students evaluate their teachers.  The evaluations wouldn't be used as a meterstick for their performance, it would just be nice to allow the students to express themselves.  GARBAGE!  I can see the constructive criticism that would come out of this.  Nasty epithets, ad hominem attacks, and overly emotional ratings would abound in these evaluations.  Students that have issues with teachers should voice them privately, face-to-face with the teacher to iron out whatever differences that there may be.  Saving your vitriol for an anonymous evaluation, especially when you have no constructive background on pedagogy or classroom management, would serve no purpose. 

 

Here's an idea for the evaluations.  How about the students write them and the parents of the students have to read them word for word in front of the entire staff, unedited.  I am sure that Mr. Jones would be so proud to read where his little darling had called his gym teacher a derrogatory term.

 

Parents.  Kids can be very smart.  Some can even understand the underlying meaning in everyday life.  But the majority of them don't know crap from crisco.  Students need to learn what is being taught to them.  Their input in an official process is neither needed nor constructive.  You are not doing them any favors by having them decide if learning the Pythagorean theory is necessary.

So the great state of California has decided to legalize a euphemism that has been named "same sex marriage".  A definition of marriage (albeit the third in the list) is:  the state of being husband and wife.  Now I am not going to get into a semantic argument over the definition of the word, but really!  Who is the husband and who is the wife in a same sex marriage.  Ok, so I made a semantic argument over the issue.  THAT IS HOW SILLY THE ISSUE IS.

 

The California supreme court has made a ruling that stands in the face of the referendum that was duly voted upon by the good citizens of California.  The Mayor of San Francisco has said that the Constitution is in place to protect the minority from the whim of the majority????  Pardon me, but this is a democracy.  51% is what is needed in most cases to pass a law by vote, not a cadre of judges looking down their noses at we simple minded chattel.  The enlightened Mayor also likened same sex marriage to inter-racial marriage and stated that he didn't think that inter-racial marriage would be approved by voters in present day California.  Elitist much?

 

Thank you so much for taking my hand and allowing me to see that all men are created equal, more equal if you are gay though.  I have a little problem with a small group of people telling the majority what they should recognize and what they shouldn't.  Objecting to the law is not a reason for not upholding a passed law, in fact it is the judge's jobs to enforce those laws passed either through the representative legislature or, in this case, referendum.

 

So lets lay this decision out for everyone to see.  The California state supreme court has decided that the law passed by the people of the State is unconstitutional.  This decision will undoubtedly go deeper than the "same sex" label that it has garnered.  The FLDSers in Texas, I am sure, would be interested in this decision.  What about the incestual couple in Australia.  Why wouldn't they want to move to California so they can drink from the trough of "same sex" marriage.  After all why wouldn't they want the equal protection that the state provides.  And why would they be able to prevent these "marriages"?  These people love each other.  Just because one group is more than two participants and one group is father and daughter shouldn't exclude them, should it?  Why?  Why not?  

 

I don't want to sound condescending to these well meaning gay people, but I most likely will.  You can call yourself married, you can go through the ceremony, you can wear the rings, you can even have children.  But, in my mind and in the majority of others in this great country you are not married.  I know that my friends get tired of my quoting a cartoon in serious debates like this, but in The Incredibles the evil Syndrome was attempting to market super power gadgets that would be available for purchase.  His idea was, since he has no super powers, to make everyone "super".  The argument being when everyone is super then nobody is super.  I see the same fate for marriage, when everyone is married then nobody is married.  It renders the term without meaning.  Sad.

My poor wife is a public school teacher.  She has to deal with pubescent teenagers all day.  That in and of itself is bad, but its not the worst of it.  For the rest of the day she has to deal with the parents of these walking acne scars.

I want you to take a trip back in your time machine.  Remember that test in the eighth grade that you forgot to study for?  Remember how you freaked out and didn't finish the last 4 essay questions (they are called ECR's now).  Could you imagine going home to your parents and explain to them that you didn't finish your exam in the class period and that it was unfair that you couldn't take another class period to finish the test?  If I would have done that my parents would have realized that I hadn't acted responsibly in my academic endeavor and would have summarily given me the business (business end of a belt, wooden spoon, etc.).

Nowadays, if a student experiences a similar event the parent will fight tooth and nail to get their child a better grade.  Here is a message to all of you parents out there.  Your child is not a genius.  Your child isn't even smart enough to know what they don't know.  It is the teacher's job to impart that knowledge upon your child.  It is your job to instill a sense of academic responsibility and a work ethic that will benefit them in the future.  It is not your job to beg for fake grades so your child can get into Berkeley.  I would bet that a smaller, less expensive, school would do your selfish little darling better.  Especially when they flunk out.

I think that the most appalling aspect of this is the fact that a parent can pick up the phone and call the teacher directly.  Email is also a plague in my book.  Having to get up off of your seat and actually visit with a teacher used to act as a barrier between these overzealous parents, but now with on-line grading and email the barrage never ends.

Here is the bottom line.  Parents, you need to realize how stupid you were when you were in high school.  Just because your kid has access to the internet and can play video games doesn't mean that he is smarter than you were when you were his age.  Enforce the authority that a teacher has or should rightfully have.  Stop eroding away teacher's stature.  Realize that colleges don't make a good determination of the success level of your child.  Let your children grow up by taking some hard knocks. 

 

Even more than that, parents today have no sense of shame.  Everything is by the child, for the child, and of the child.  To my own sensibilities it seems low ethically to call a teacher to beg for a grade that your teenager didn't rightly earn.  There are many other lessons that can be learned from a bad grade.  Take advantage of these situations to teach your own child a lesson for a change.  Don't run headlong into a situation where you are effectively acting as a bully and a con-artist for your child.  Trying to levy influence against a teacher is cheap and petty.