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As a rurally-dwelling student attending a consolidated school district comprised of students from numerous small farming communities whose schools were closed, an extremely large percentage of my classmates and I were bus-riders. In my family, if after-school help was a necessity, my parents made sure that arrangements for transportation could be made, even around their work schedules. You do what you have to.
When I talk to parents, they are, usually, more than willing to do what it takes BUT, I still, rarely, see the kids. The few I've had come, come once, probably at the parent's insistance and that's it.
I had a few regulars who were B students who wanted A's.
I just went back and looked at this video. These are my students and their parents. Not the exact same town, but the exact same situation.
Unfortunately for these kids, their parents aren't like formercalifornian, who says
Quote:
We're right here, trying to ensure that our children receive an excellent education, which includes knowing how to write well!
Additionally, we're hauling our children to summer math enrichment courses, music lessons, and sports practice. We're taking them to the library and ensuring that they complete their summer reading requirements. We're teaching them how to cook healthy meals, do their laundry, and manage other household responsibilites, so they'll be able to live on their own one day. We're sitting at the kitchen table reviewing math facts every morning and reading bedtime stories every night. We're taking them on vacations to historical sites and teaching them what it means to be citizens of this nation. We're planning and leading Boy/Girl Scout meetings and organizing public service projects. We're teaching them how to play chess, Scrabble, & Monopoly. We're sharing the joy of planting a garden with them and giving them the first sweet strawberries of the season. We're taking them to the dentist and doctor for check-ups, and ensuring they get plenty of exercise and a good night's sleep.
They look like they're getting plenty of exercise, but somehow I don't think they're going home to a good game of Scrabble.
Wsop, these are the parents that deserve the blame for their children's school failure, not the parents on Long Island who are involved with their kids' schools. Can't you see the difference?
Well over half of the students in my school live in circumstances similar to that in the video. There are thousands of schools like mine and millions of kids like these. Are the teachers really to blame when their students spend more time gang-banging with their parents than they spend studying for their state tests?
As a rurally-dwelling student attending a consolidated school district comprised of students from numerous small farming communities whose schools were closed, an extremely large percentage of my classmates and I were bus-riders. In my family, if after-school help was a necessity, my parents made sure that arrangements for transportation could be made, even around their work schedules. You do what you have to.
It's really tempting to say "well, I did it, so they can too." Sometimes that's even true, but sometimes times really have changed.
I was lucky in high school, in that I lived on campus and had 24 hour access to some of my teachers and a ridiculous amount of access to pretty much all of them. OTOH, what I'm seeing with many kids now is that they ride buses (in an urban setting, so I cannot compare to life in a rural or farming community) and there's no way to get home/get in early, otherwise. For instance, dh works over an hour away from where we live and if my child had to depend on him for rides at odd hours, forget about it. Parents who work, parents who don't drive, parents with multiple obligations, and yeah, parents who are lazy drunken sods--combined with a crummy public transportation system-- create obstacles insurmountable to many middle and high schoolers.
Should some of those parents try harder? Sure. Most I know are already dancing as fast as they can. And in either case, it's ultimately not the parent or the teacher who loses.
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