School: A Kinder, More Meaningful Place?

Bill Watterson

Dr. Flint's Place

I used to think maybe I wasn't warm and fuzzy enough to be a teacher; boy was I EVER wrong! Kids don't want warm and fuzzy, especially when it's phony warmth. Nope. What they want is respect, humor, work that's worth doing, and someone who really cares about them, every day.

Want to radically reform education? Do it in a way that costs little or nothing, benefits students, raises test scores, reduces behavior problems, and makes educators' jobs easier and more fulfilling? You won't have to do a whole lot of staff development, or buy new packaged programming that will probably just end up on a shelf somewhere in the near future anyway.

How to do it? Be nice. Love your students. Be professional. Respect one another. Individualize. Teach to strengths. Help each and every student become functional in his or her own environment. Seriously, that's how it's done.

Think about it: when's the last time you saw or heard a bank manager screaming at a teller in the middle of the bank lobby, wagging his finger in her face, decrying poor performance or bad behavior? Silly to even imagine such a thing, yet we see teachers screaming in the faces of students every day across America. Not in every school; no. But often enough that it's still not uncommon. Shouldn't professional educators behave as such and curb their impulses to behave in such controlling ways?


What about bullying, one of the top problems in schools today? Some people say it's impossible to eliminate it, but that isn't really so. All we need to do to stop bullying in schools is to not allow it. Not allow it (and every school has at least one bully on faculty) among faculty and staff, between administrators and faculty, or between students. Create a school full of classrooms and people with a commitment to treating one another with respect, and everyone will get along better. Even better, teach parents where the roots of bullying start--between siblings at home--and how to deal with it , and everyone benefits. Don't believe me? Go visit a model school with such a philosophy in practice.

I challenge you to go visit a school where the environment is warm and inviting, learning is fun and meaningful, and then visit a building where the atmosphere is palpably unpleasant and stressful. Where would you rather learn and/or work?

Want to reduce your population of students labelled as exceptional in any way? Simple.Teach to individuals, stop engaging in power struggles, allow learner choice and differentiated response, teach to strengths while remediating weaknesses, learn how to do effective multifaceted intervention. Think you don't have time to do those things? Bah! Takes less effort than all the crazy things we currently do in the name of student achievement and No Child Left Behind, and leaves students, teachers, and families some dignity.

One of my favorite teachers, Tom King, recently retired from Bexley, once said "Primum non nocere," or "first do no harm." If we do no better than that with a child or any student entrusted to our care, we've done okay. Of course we want to exceed that minimum standard, but even if we don't, we have at least let a child leave our care with an intact love for learning and spirit, and that's more than happens with many kids in school today.

Just remember what Aretha says, "R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to me." In school it means learning.
LJF