School Crossings: Societal change runs far ahead of schools' resources
By Dan Woll
SDMA District Administrator
Sunday, January 4, 2009 7:07 AM CST
It makes me shake my head when my favorite uncle tells me about the sorry state of today’s schools and lectures me about the “good old days.”
Do you want to know about the good old days? Right in my office there is a picture of education 100 years ago.
My grandfather Woll taught in a hardscrabble one-room school on the Plains in 1907. In his school picture that hangs on my wall, you see the entire one-room school — 18 students and my grandfather.
Only two of them appear to be what we would call high school age. All the rest are little ones. It is the first thing you notice. The reason is that education was not mandatory, because between the rigor of farming and factory work, there was no time for mandatory education. Education was not needed to make a living the way it is today.
Everybody in my grandfather’s class is white. It is a fair assumption that, despite a lot of German and Scandinavian accents, they all spoke English, too. You know how that has changed. It has brought needed diversity and accompanying gifts, but it has also added complexity to the mission of schools.
There are no handicapped children in the picture. As recently as when I went to high school, the country had not stepped up to the fact that the severely handicapped were not accepted in schools.
There were no kids in wheelchairs in my school. They stayed home. If you were “bad” or had trouble learning, they threw you out. For good.
I’m glad those “good old days” are gone, but again, it is a change that people don’t seem to think about when schools reach out for help.
I preface this next change measure by reminding people that I am a stepdad doing the best he can. Having said that, the cold hard fact is that disrupted families are hard on kids.
When I went to school, I knew no kids whose parents were divorced. I think the same is probably true for the children a century ago.
Today, statistics vary, but more than 40 percent is a reasonable summary of children in America who go through a divorce situation. The farm kids in my grandfather’s picture did not know about X-rated DVD rentals, Internet trash, crack and cocaine, misogynous music and other “progress.” Schools deal every day with the effect of this change.
I bring this up because of the irony I perceive when I hear calls for change in education. One of the reasons we need to change is because our country itself has changed so dramatically — and that is not recognized. In fact, considering the few examples of the differences between my grandfather’s time and mine, one can see that societal change has run ahead of the resources of American schools.
Schools must do more, but know that changes in our societal fabric have outpaced the inputs needed to keep up with mandatory education, diversity, handicapped accommodations and negative cultural influences.
The recent economic crisis is another example. It emphasizes that we are not as smart as we thought we were, and not as ethical either. (Maybe some of that bailout money should be put in to the front end where we educate the business people of the future.)
I am committed to change and improvement at Menomonie. I have enjoyed my first semester here. I’ve met a lot of good people who are dedicated to Menomonie kids. I continue to sense great potential. But it’s a tough road, exacerbated by declining enrollment which sucks away needed state aid faster than we lose students. Nonetheless, we have changed in this time, and we have met goals. I will detail those improvements next week.
It’s not enough.
We need to change more. However, please remember that positive change is best lobbied for by first acknowledging that the biggest change of all is in the condition of the American child who shows up for school every day. We need to be on the same page on that to make a difference.
Thanks for reading. Happy New Year.
Dan Woll is the district administrator for the School District of the Menomonie Area. |
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