Too many teachers want to "change the world" or whatever. It's easier to turn (someone else's) kids into "agents of change" or "members of The Resistance" than it is to teach them to read, write, and calculate.
Yet, teaching them to read, write, and calculate is what the public expects of us. We should do that before we put on our amateur psychologist or community organizer hats:
Nearly half of U.S. children have experienced childhood trauma, according to the National Survey of Children’s Health. “Adverse childhood events” or ACEs, include parental divorce or separation, as well as poverty, racial/ethnic bias, witnessing violence, living with an alcoholic, addict or suicidal person and having a parent in jail. Twenty-two percent have experienced two or more ACEs, one in 10 three or more...The "soft bigotry of low expectations", anyone?
With the rise of social-emotional learning, we are in danger of pathologizing childhood, writes Rick Hess in Education Week. He cites Fordham fellow Robert Pondiscio, who warns that “trauma-informed” education “can push us to view children as trauma victims and teachers as therapists.”
Pondiscio worries about teachers devoting their time and energy to social work rather than academics.
If you view half your class—and in impoverished areas the vast majority of your class—as trauma victims, as struggling or vulnerable, it’s almost inevitable that low or reduced expectations will take root.
I agree with this comment on Joanne's post:
Ann in L.A. says
Teachers are not psychologists. It takes about 7+ years to become a psychologist: college, grad school, apprenticeship, etc. Teachers are simply not qualified and should not be tasked with being psychologists.We should do what we're paid to do.
There have always been children who have struggled. My Dad was a child of the Depression and move nearly 20 times before he graduated. My mother was a child of divorce in a time when that was uncommon. My Dad had a cold remote and sometimes abusive father. My mother's father was never in her life. Kids have gone through losing parents in war, in divorce. Families have always struggled to get by. The idea that this is the first and only generation to suffer adversity ignores history (as they so often do) I think back to the two students that landed in my class straight off of a plane from Vietnam. Neither spoke English and only the boy could read some English. They were 14 and 15 when they arrived. Four years later they both graduated and the boy went on to become a diesel mechanic and the girl entered art school and now works as an art director for a retail chain. They were orphans who spoke no English, yet we're supposed to treat affluent kids of divorce like victims. Give me a break.
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