iowa underground blog

Lloyd Miller of Des Moines writes an outstanding letter. Gosh, who would think that the society we actively create would have effects on young people being raised in that society? Kids learn exactly what we teach them.

Change culture to change schools

In the Feb. 13 dialog on teacher pay, both Linda Lantor Fandel and Andie Dominick are right (“Pay Teachers More?”). Iowa teachers deserve better salaries because their pay is abysmal, and, no, higher pay probably will not improve student learning.

Schools are run by adults and thus reflect their values and behavior. High school students are astute observers of adult behavior. They recognize the contradictions between what adults say and what they do.

They’re told that learning is important but see exceptions made for the best athletes and experience social promotion irrespective of academic performance. They’re told to revere their teachers but see that teacher pay is less than that of any profession requiring comparable levels of education.

They’re told that values such as honesty, integrity, care and concern for the welfare of fellow human beings and the planet are important. What they see are politicians who lie, corporate heads who cheat, and people in power who are grossly incompetent. Few are held accountable. Many students decide that personal accountability is just not that important.

To improve schools, we must understand that our cultural behavior often has consequences beyond what we intend, and if those consequences are harmful, we need to change the behavior.
— Lloyd Miller, Des Moines.

• Sousy

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006 at 7:12 am and is filed under Politics, Iowa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.