Raising The Standards Among Our Youth

Editorial by Robert Kirwan

I am sure most of you have noticed an increase in the number of disturbing stories and articles about young people both here at home and around the world who are involved in crime, vandalism and generally what we would consider downright disrespectful behaviour. While I am not sure if the actual crime rate among our younger generation is any worse than that of adults, it seems as if the media is quick to pounce upon examples of out-of-control youth as a way of attacking our education and police systems as well as our publicly funded social services agencies. These incidents also give an opportunity for politicians to feed the media frenzy by calling out for stronger enforcement and punishment measures to deal with youth crime or more funding for public education.

   As I prepared to write this column, for example, I read several feature articles about how our education system has been forced to lower its standards in order to reduce the failure and drop-out rates among our students. Teachers in classrooms today are required to make adjustments to their programs in order to provide adequate accommodation strategies for children who have been identified with learning disabilities, and it seems as if there are more and more identified students every year. In order to cover the curriculum many teachers are therefore forced to “teach to a lower level” than normal so that all of the children have a chance of understanding and keeping up. What results is a system where marks are inflated and children expect that they will get high grades with less actual work effort. On top of the lowering of the standards in the classroom, teachers coming into the system today are entering the profession at a time in the history of education where being a curriculum expert is nowhere near as important as being an effective classroom manager and disciplinarian. Unfortunately, classroom management and discipline falls into the same category as parenting in our society. For example, once you become a parent it is generally up to you to learn parenting on your own from experience. “Here’s your child. Good luck!”

   The same can be said about teaching. Once you graduate from Teachers’ College and are given a class of kids to look after, you are on your own when it comes to learning how to manage the group of children effectively in order to help them learn the concepts in the curriculum. You can always read books, attend workshops and talk to other teachers, but how you manage your classroom is pretty much left up to you. Some do an excellent job of managing a classroom of children and some have a terrible time keeping control.

   Without a doubt, students seem to have the upper hand today. They are not allowed to fail in most jurisdictions so teachers lose one of the primary motivational tools they had in the “old days” – FEAR! Fear of failure; fear of punishment; fear of authority; and most of all fear of how their parents would punish them at home for misbehaviour at school. And so, we conclude that it is becoming increasingly important for teachers to be true motivators and inspirations for their students. This is a profession that is under a great deal of stress today, and it doesn’t look as if things are going to change much in the next little while.

   While we can always look on the dark side, it is refreshing when we witness students who are “making a positive difference” in the community and who truly care about maintaining their own set of high standards. Confederation Secondary School’s Evolutionary Band comes to mind as a group of 25 or 30 young students who are simply “top of the class” in what they have done and what they have accomplished. Many other individual students have excelled and risen to the top level of achievement in their fields. You’ve read about some of them in The Vision Paper.
   As a community we have a collective responsibility to ensure that whenever a young person does something great, it is a cause for celebration and public recognition. It is something that we must hold up high as an example for others to follow.

   I have always believed that if you hold the bar up higher, students will jump over it. All you have to do is give them the right kind of motivation and give them credit when they accomplish their goals. We can raise the standards, but it will take a total community effort. Let’s work together in this.