May 15, 2024 • 26 mins
Having spent quite a bit of time in schools, there is a pattern emerging and it's not a good one. In this episode we discuss our perspectives on what's going on in schools today and how we as parents can help address some of the issues faced by teachers and administrators. Also, anyone got a guy in Public Works....asking for a friend.
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(00:01):
Welcome to What's Happening Here. Thisis a podcast for finding the perfect imbalance
of being a parent, a partner, and a person without losing the things
that matter most to you in theprocess. Like you're Sennity, you might
know me as doctor Sarah the BrainGal. I'm a pediatric neuros psychologist and
mom of two who translates brain scienceto everyday life. I see all kids,
really all people like little brains.You probably don't know me. I'm
(00:24):
Kevin, Sarah's partner in crime,Bourbon Afcinado, discusser of all things,
and father of two. We startedthis podcast because we saw a big gap
between research and practice, especially whenyou have a unique family structure like ours,
and we wanted to share what wehave learned and hopefully what we continue
about navigating our lives through the lensof brain science with a big old helping
of reality. Next day, weknow there are lots of families that look
(00:47):
like ours, we're kind of likeour, or maybe look nothing like ours,
which makes finding a single source ofguidance and advice so hard. But
we're going to try to help you. So join us as we try to
figure out what's happening here. Havesomething spent on my mind lately? Oh,
it has nothing to do. Andyou know, we've got to settle
in here. I've been thinking alot about well, you know, I
(01:08):
do all the work in schools.Of course, you don't do all the
work. You work. That's true. I do all my work in schools.
I do it all exactly the oppositeof what I want to talk about.
Actually, yes, very much.So we're coming towards the end of
(01:29):
the year in schools, you know, anytime after May, even though our
schools end at the end of June, is the end of schools, testing
seasons, looking at data, planningfor next year already, while still trying
to figure out how to help thekids while they're there. And so you
know, uh, teachers are gettingrifted let go, not renewed. I
(01:51):
guess you should say, yeah,is that like an education term? Yeah,
okay, it was just one ofthe things that kids are saying these
days. No, but they're they'relike care it is. And so when
they don't renew their contracts, andthen you're looking at I just Facebook.
You gotta love Facebook. All thegroups talking about how their districts are cutting
(02:12):
this or cutting that. Many peoplecomplaining that they might be hiring an admin
like a vice principal, but gettingrid of teachers or extracurricular activities, which
would get rid of funding some ofthe funding for teachers to pick up extra
work. And I've just been thinkingabout this as a as a problem because
you know, we as I'm inschools, you hear from teachers that are
(02:37):
frustrated with parents not kind of jumpingin participating as parents. You hear frustrations
with teachers not taking over or adminand the numbers for students. Next year,
one district reached thirty seven students withone teacher in an elementary school classroom.
(02:58):
I don't know about you with usA, that's a lot of kids.
I could barely handle my two elementschool kids when they were elementary school
kids. Now kindergarten is held toa state standard of like twenty four or
twenty five, so there'd only betwenty four to twenty five. That's twenty
four to twenty five cats. That'sbasically what that is. In it asisted
that they're around how to be students, right, and they can't even learn
(03:21):
that anymore because they're supposed to learntheir they're barely academic humans, and then
we wonder why we have these issuesof yes, we're getting preschool in districts,
that's wonderful now, but preschool,you know, the kindergarten has become
first grade, first grade has becomesecond grade, and everything gets pushed back,
not setting them up for success ifyou're undermining that success the next year.
(03:42):
Right, and now we're in asituation where I feel like we have
responsibilities as parents not just to stepin and participate in our kids' class,
but to change the rules. Youknow. Right now, there's only so
many things schools can do. Youknow, they don't have the staff.
They try to hire subs, theycan't find people, they can't hire people
(04:03):
for the positions they need for theirspecial education students, let alone their JDID
students. And I just I don'teven know what the solution is anymore.
Well, it's very complicated and Iand I'm only an expert in this because
I'm a father with kids in school, and that's basically where my expertise ends.
I'm not an educator, I'm notan administrator. I'm not an education
(04:26):
professional like you or psychological professional,psychological professional, so I can only speak
from my experience, and you knowwhat's troubling, And I think that the
issues are are are like cyclical,right, Like you have kids in school
who are making it difficult for theteachers to do their job behaviorally, and
(04:54):
so the teachers don't have the supportof the parents to make sure their kids
behave and aren't disruptive to the otherstudents. They become difficult to manage.
So then the administration can't get theparents to help, can't get the kids
to behave, can't get the parentsto help, can't hold those kids.
(05:15):
They're almost hand coffed a little bit. And what they can do with those
types of kids. The teachers gothrough this cycle every year, multiple times
a year. The other kids aredistracted by the behavior, outbursts and the
lack of consistency in the classroom,the lack of time to be able to
spend without interruption and instruction, andthe teachers are just like, I can't
(05:40):
do it anymore. I know thatin my kids' school, our kids' school,
both the middle school and the highschool, they've had multiple teachers who
have left just up and left inthe middle of the year, sometimes two
weeks in, sometimes two months,and sometimes two days and sometimes two weeks
ago. Yeah, it's almost atthe end. She just from what I
understand, she left because who knowshow much truth it is. A student
(06:03):
had an outburst in class at theteacher, specifically targeting the teacher, not
physically, but verbally targeting the teacher. And from me from the story I
was told by my daughter who wasthe first person witnessed to it, it
was totally unwarranted, unprovoked. Sheasked her maybe to do something that she
(06:23):
would have asked any other kid inthe classroom to do. You know,
like I forget what it was,but it seems very miniscule compared and so
that teacher, for all the timejust decided they had had enough. That
kid was back in the classroom thenext day, right back in the classroom
the next day. So you know, there's no consequences, seemingly no consequences.
(06:45):
There's no support for the teachers.There's nobody willing to step into that
situation because why would you. Andyou know, I'm sure the administrators are,
you know, they're probably handcuffed too, but with what they can actually
do to prevent those to do totry to change those situations, both for
the student, the students, theteachers, you know, like so I
(07:12):
agree, I you know, andthat's just one type of problem that they're
having. There's a funding issue,you know, there's there's just holding the
teachers to standards that are unachievable basedon you know, the history of the
students, past education, COVID,you know, being an impact on there,
and holding these teachers to test scoresthat are unachievable. Well, not
(07:33):
just that, but a lot ofthe way instructions started to run. They
are rubric driven, meaning I'll tellyou exactly what you need to put into
this essay, and I will markexactly those things, only in terms of
giving you a great gray leaving noopenness for problem solving, creativity for figuring
out how to do the assignment inthe first place, and then giving the
(07:55):
teachers the leeway to be able togreed based on what they're looking for in
their their own classrooms, what skillsthey want those kids to build. You
know, we have gotten so standardizedacross the board. Everyone has to be
done in the same way that we'vestarted to lose that in many classes,
some of the honors AP classes,you have a little bit more wiggle room
but and then as what you seeas parents, his parents getting upset when
(08:18):
kids get bad grades instead of workingwith teachers. You know, it's the
teacher's responsibility to fix the kid.And what I'm saying is you now you
have to look at the system.And it's really interesting listening to you as
a parent talk about that, becausewhat I see is that whole situation could
have rolled out in a number ofdifferent ways. Right. This could be
a kid who had as a traumahistory, which by the way, a
lot of our kids do at thispoint. They've all been through pandemics.
(08:41):
Whenever your life is going in onedirection, it makes a sharp left turn
for a series of times years whereyou don't know how the outcome is going
to be and that never occurred toyou. That can create trauma responses.
Everybody responds differently, right same event. We have lots of kids who and
families and parents who've been through thisat this point, so we're and teachers,
(09:01):
thank you, and so we're stillrecovering from this. This year is
probably the first year where we're kindof getting back to expectation setting and life
as we knew it prior. Andthe issue with that is we are going
back to that, but we stillhave kids who don't have coping skills,
don't have adaptive skills. And I'veseen this in when you just get such
(09:24):
a kind of collective trauma that youcan see the way people develop these skills.
So some people had coping skills,they knew what to do, they
knew where to put their minds,they knew how to get through this,
and some people didn't. And therewas no distraction, no way to get
around it. So now instead ofprocessing the whole thing, we threw everybody
back in to the same system andthe same broken pieces, and we reduced
(09:48):
funding. So now what we haveis that student, just as an example,
that student could have a trauma history. So what happens in trauma brains
is that they're more susceptible to thesame they're or a Meg's are kind of
triggered more easily, right, sothey become kind of hyper reactive. And
so what we see is the samekind of thing. You drop the pencil
(10:09):
and you say, hey, pickthe pencil up. Yeah, it's frustrating
to drop the pencils frustrating that youdrop the pencil and to be told to
pick the pencil up, but ina trauma brain that can trigger likes to
shoot you up, and there areways of interacting with those brains that will
help to calm them down a littlebit more, but that would require some
attention that a teacher with the kids, with thirty seven kids in their classroom
(10:31):
doesn't have the capacity to be ableto do all the time or the training
to recognize those children and to knowhow to address them well. And even
if you have someone like me comingand doing that training, there's so it's
thirty seven students, so there's somany other things to think about, and
(10:52):
there's standards and just getting kids fromA to B. My team is just
doing all this work on how doyou set a classroom up for kids like
that, just that many kids,and what does it look like? There's
so much that goes along just inthe setup to it, and then if
you don't have those pieces in place, you have nothing to build on.
So what I see is a brokensystem that's maxed out in terms of the
(11:13):
strains on it. And from anadmin standpoint, you know, you're always
reacting, so instead of actually beinga principal and trying to get kids connected
to the school and really paying attentionto the systems that are happening and trying
to help support your teachers. You'reliterally putting out fires all day long,
every day. So even if thatkid had the most supportive family, you
(11:35):
know, we've learned the solutions aren'tpunishment driven, right, So do I
think the kids should come back thenext day, No, there's usual there
should be some consequence. But unlesswe have a skill building method, unless
we have kids that are making goals, that are thinking about who they are
and who they want to be,that feel connected to what they're doing in
a school system, it doesn't matterwhat you throw out that kid, it's
(11:56):
probably going to get worse anyway.And you have a legal responsibility to educate
that child, and you're not goingto send them out a district that day.
That child is going to stay.And even if they go through the
process that they need to do inorder to remove the student and help them
find another program that might be morebeneficial to them, that's a ninety day
testing process. Minimally that that student'sgoing to be even if he's speed it
(12:16):
up right, and that kid hasprobably forgotten about what the problem was in
the first place. Well, theonly reason you would have a kid out
of district, would be that itwould be repetitive problems anyway, So one
issue wouldn't require those things. Buta teacher who quits after that is a
teacher who's protecting themselves, who hasn'tfelt supported or who wasn't made for that
(12:37):
job. I mean, middle school, in high school. You have to
be made for those positions. Andright now we are in a situation where
those people who are made for thisare getting out of education because their hands
are being tied so much. Sothat's the system that you're working in.
Then you have from a parent's side, my kid's not reading just in elementary
(12:58):
school, so you are required toteach them to read and listen. That's
absolutely true. But when we asparents as citizens have created a system where
it's legal to put thirty seven studentsin a classroom with one teacher, guess
what it is all hands on deck. And even if that school wants to
help that kid with whom they justcut all their basic skills teachers, they
(13:20):
don't have the budget for it ornot approving budgets. So it's this like
terrible cycle. And I think thatthat's what is frustrating to me, I
feel like we need like a callto parents and to say we are now
at a point where we have togo help schools. You know, there's
for years I've done this for along time, and it used to be
that schools really could step up alittle bit more here and there. Now
(13:45):
their capacity has been their hands havebeen tied so much that it's really been
made really really difficult for them andthey only you can yell and scream all
you want, but they don't havethe resources. So then on and I
think that that's the frustrating part whenit comes to the school and home dynamic.
Well, there's another frustrating part aboutthe school and home dynamics that I'd
(14:07):
like to air. Since we're airingthings about education, I would really like
it if somebody could do something aboutthe trash truck coming up the streets at
pickup and drop off time. Itdoes seem like they're out to get you.
You in particular, but probably everyonewho's dropping. I think they're targeting.
(14:28):
It's like what a four it's fourblocks maybe six of what of an
area to stay away from it?I think you could probably get away with
it. The two block area thatstay away from for about a half an
hour, right, and just likeseven forty five to eight, even like
eighth five, because after that you'reyou kind of like, maybe you deserve
(14:50):
to be stuffed, right, Yeah, But they come down two streets like
clockwork during the drop off. Andnow this is a residential school, it's
right in the middle of a neighborhood, and so there are teenagers driving their
cars to school and parking on thestreet because there's no parking lot for anybody.
(15:13):
There's no parking lot to begin withat all. And now you have
young drivers who are all collectively arrivingat about the same time, parents who
are dropping who are also arriving atthe same time and are distracted by getting
their kids out of the car andgetting to work and getting where they need
(15:35):
to be, and buses also drivingdown these residential streets. And you throw
in a very slow moving trash truckwith a crew hopping on with individuals who
are in danger because they are hoppingoff and on, and ad teenage drivers
driving by them. Teenage drivers.It's just beyond me why it's allowed to
(16:00):
happen. And I haven't had todrive Ruby to school in quite a long
time. Because Run is a seniorand he's driving, which is wonderful.
Yes, we have lots of seniors. Hannah as a senior. I think
she's a senior, I know,but the way she acts, I just
always I told her the other dayshe was putting on a prom dress and
I'm like, oh, you're asenior prom. She's like, it's my
junior problem. But she just seemslike she's got her stuff together, like
(16:23):
she's off and running. But anyway, yes, she drives for right.
So I went today to drop Rubyon and there it is. There's the
trash truck coming up the street thisday was I believe was it was trash
today, trash in that area.And I'm just like, you know,
and I've spoken to I've corresponded withthe principal about this, multiple principles about
(16:48):
this, and I'm sure anything hesays as a new guy in town,
listen, he's actually I really fallson deaf years over at public works.
If he had the chance to call, which I really do believe that he
probably I believe that when he saidthat he was going to do it,
I believe that he did it,and I believe that nothing came of it.
(17:08):
Because they don't care well. AndI think that that school right,
not the school. And that's thething, like, that's what I mean
about being the right girl. Thatis one of the things that he could
help make the lives of his studentsand parents better. And you're right.
To his credit, he really respondedvery well and answered you and followed through.
But I'm surprised even had time todo that with this chick coming out
(17:32):
of the room screaming and yelling andhaving and a teacher quitting, I mean
in that school district. And thiswas even prior to this principle. You
know, Juliana started her her yearwith she lost three teachers her seventh grade
year. One teacher was out thebeginning of this year, but that was
paternity leave. But because there's nosubs, it was a computer program,
(17:53):
so she is she learned math foryears. It was a computerized math program.
And they, to the credit,have been trying to make it up.
But they have to take away theirlike study hall kind of period,
their catch up period, and sothat has other effects. And they are
doing I honestly believe that they're doingeverything that they can to catch them up.
But this is what I mean,what I find interesting about this is
(18:15):
I was just talking to somebody theother day because you know, I do
assessments outside of school, and wethink we talk a lot about sports.
We talked about that in another podcast, and we are our schools provide sports,
but many of us do outside sports, travel sports, things like that,
right, But when it comes toeducation, we're often like the school
(18:36):
should do that. And there area few families, but not as many
as are involved in sports that arewilling to say, all right, well
we're going to get tutor, We'regoing to pull somebody outside will help,
We're going to dedicate ourselves to this. I see it with kids learning to
read, like just little and read, and sometimes in the high school like
(18:56):
prepping for SATs or you know,particularly difficult courses. But there's a lot
in between there, you know,And we don't want to fund our own
assessments. We don't want to fundour we I say we because I don't
think about doing it either with tutoring, thinking about catching them up in the
summer or helping to support this schoolbecause the school should, right, this
should, But being on both sidesof this, how with what money,
(19:19):
with what staff, they're just notavailable. And so you know, kudos
to the I think this principle iswonderful, and he's trying and he's doing
these things, but it makes itvery, very difficult to be able to
support the community and be a partof that community, Like I think this
principle wants to be when you haveall of these other things happening in the
(19:41):
school districts, and I don't.I think it's also interesting to me,
Like we talk about systems a lot, right, you from business perspective,
me from a school perspective, Andthe school system is a very unique system.
So if you've never been involved inlet's say your child gets a head
injury in high school, it's asystem you have probably never a nderstood.
Right. There's a five zero foursystem, which is a federal law for
(20:03):
access, which just it's the samelaw you would use for access to a
ramp if you had a wheelchair thatyou need to get in. So that's
one set of laws. Then there'sspecial education, which is an individualized education
program, the IEP system, andthat has its whole other set of rules
and laws and timelines and ways ofdoing things. And I just find the
(20:25):
fact that when those worlds cross likewhen you need to get something done for
your kid but you don't understand thesystem you're working in. But that can
be very difficult. Be like megoing into a corporate environment and be like,
well this is in efficient, justdo it this way. It doesn't
work very well. You know,I don't know necessarily how to make those
systems better. I just know thatthey're all completely strapped, really tight.
(20:45):
And I think that we as parentshave to start thinking about education and our
kids' lives very differently. You know, what we can do to help them
build skills at home that we canpush back in the classroom. How do
we get on a team with theteachers instead of playing blame games? And
(21:06):
then I think from school side,you know, schools really need to rally
their parents and try to support thestudents as much as they can when they're
there, and try to come upwith some unique systems. That being said,
you know I hear a lot,Well, it's it's things happening at
home, That's what the problem is. And I just say to teachers too,
(21:27):
you know, remember you can teachmath and reading to kids who aren't
getting math and reading at home.You can teach social emotional skills to kids
who aren't getting the right kind orthe kind you'd like to see, or
the support that you'd like to see. And remember, everybody's going through something,
right. Our teachers are going throughsomething. They're trying their hardest in
the classrooms. Our parents are goingthrough something, they're trying their hardest as
(21:51):
parents. If we all came toit from that perspective, without the blame
game, and just kind of rallyto try to do what we could,
you know, being part of thesolution. Yeah, you know, and
think about it. You just hearingthe story that Ruby said to you.
You know, there's so many lensesto There's the first one to just of
course say, well, the admindidn't support the teacher, right, or
(22:11):
the teacher quit, What does shecare about the kids? You know?
But you look at that teacher,That poor teacher could be going through cancer
treatments or have a you know,a father that she's trying to take care
of after school and is overwhelmed andis just trying to do her best.
You're smirking at me because it's like, is this like the car thing?
Very much like the car thing?But oddly enough, I'm agreeing with you
(22:33):
at this time. Well, it'sbeen a while. I may be off
on you maybe well, And speakingof which, I feel like this is
the question, right, I keepsaying to you, you know, are
you is your cynicism rubbing off onme? Right? Or I'm am I
just getting older and seeing all thedifferent You're just seeing the world as I
say it in the right And it'sso important. It's so frustrating, you
(22:59):
know, when you have kids growingup in the system, and we have
kids that are about to like flythe coup, you know, like they
are about we are. We arein a position where they are getting to
me old enough where I can seethat they're going to need to function on
their own, and we can't.We shouldn't. We can't protect them in
the ways that we would want to. And so then you start looking at
(23:22):
the systems and what skills do theyhave, and what time you have left
to help them grow. It getsa little scary. It is very scary
as a parent of somebody who's achild who is trying to figure out his
next steps after high school, whichis quickly approaching in a month and ten
days. You know, it's Itry to talk as Ronan is I try
(23:47):
to talk to him about it inbits and pieces because I feel I get
a sense that he's almost overwhelmed byit, right, and there's some pressure,
and I don't want him to toshut down and not be engaged in
it because he's overwhelmed. So I'mtrying to do it in stages, but
(24:10):
still keeping a momentum going with it, right, And then you just like
just the number of skills you justmentioned, like how do you not shut
down and get overwhelmed when you havea big decision? How do you work
for these things? What are thesteps you take to come closer to a
decision? Like all of those thingsand all of these things are like these
social emotional skills. How do youget along with friends? How do you
(24:32):
cope? How do you problem solve? How do you determine? You know,
be aware of how you're behaving andrecognize that you're feeling something and output
that feeling in a different way.Right, So I realize that I'm snapping
at everybody, so I know I'mfrustrated about something and I have to work
through that feeling. How do youwork through that feeling? You know,
all of these things that I alwayssay you can google anything that you want
(24:56):
to know. You know, youcan google it. Really, schools have
now shifted to needing to teach kidshow to think using the content that they
can grab. Right, So,how is this? Is this true?
Is this not? How does thisfit in with what you know? Do
you like it? Do not?And then really about how do you make
decisions? How do you problem solve? And we've lost that in our schools
(25:18):
because we've gotten so behavioral with reinforceand punish that we've forgotten the gray and
the gray is where life is.And I think that's the point of what
we've been discussing, is there's grayto all of these issues within the school
systems. With our issues as parentsand our goals really need to be about
raising kids who can function in theworld and contribute as adults. And we
(25:44):
need to empower our schools to beable to do that, and we need
to remember as parents that we havea strong responsibility to do that. And
if we partner together, we canreally make something happen. A great wel
sad partnering partnering, thanks well,thanks for joining us for this episode of
What's Happening Here. Don't forget tosubscribe to our YouTube page, or you
(26:07):
can follow me on Instagram at DoctorSarah l Allen and keV shows up a
lot there too. Be sure totell a friend what you liked about this
episode and share it with them.After all, we're all in this together,
just trying to figure out what's happeninghere.
Welcome to What's Happening Here. Thisis a podcast for finding the perfect imbalance
of being a parent, a partner, and a person without losing the things
that matter most to you in theprocess. Like you're Sennity, you might
know me as doctor Sarah the BrainGal. I'm a pediatric neuros psychologist and
mom of two who translates brain scienceto everyday life. I see all kids,
really all people like little brains.You probably don't know me. I'm
(00:24):
Kevin, Sarah's partner in crime,Bourbon Afcinado, discusser of all things,
and father of two. We startedthis podcast because we saw a big gap
between research and practice, especially whenyou have a unique family structure like ours,
and we wanted to share what wehave learned and hopefully what we continue
about navigating our lives through the lensof brain science with a big old helping
of reality. Next day, weknow there are lots of families that look
(00:47):
like ours, we're kind of likeour, or maybe look nothing like ours,
which makes finding a single source ofguidance and advice so hard. But
we're going to try to help you. So join us as we try to
figure out what's happening here. Havesomething spent on my mind lately? Oh,
it has nothing to do. Andyou know, we've got to settle
in here. I've been thinking alot about well, you know, I
(01:08):
do all the work in schools.Of course, you don't do all the
work. You work. That's true. I do all my work in schools.
I do it all exactly the oppositeof what I want to talk about.
Actually, yes, very much.So we're coming towards the end of
(01:29):
the year in schools, you know, anytime after May, even though our
schools end at the end of June, is the end of schools, testing
seasons, looking at data, planningfor next year already, while still trying
to figure out how to help thekids while they're there. And so you
know, uh, teachers are gettingrifted let go, not renewed. I
(01:51):
guess you should say, yeah,is that like an education term? Yeah,
okay, it was just one ofthe things that kids are saying these
days. No, but they're they'relike care it is. And so when
they don't renew their contracts, andthen you're looking at I just Facebook.
You gotta love Facebook. All thegroups talking about how their districts are cutting
(02:12):
this or cutting that. Many peoplecomplaining that they might be hiring an admin
like a vice principal, but gettingrid of teachers or extracurricular activities, which
would get rid of funding some ofthe funding for teachers to pick up extra
work. And I've just been thinkingabout this as a as a problem because
you know, we as I'm inschools, you hear from teachers that are
(02:37):
frustrated with parents not kind of jumpingin participating as parents. You hear frustrations
with teachers not taking over or adminand the numbers for students. Next year,
one district reached thirty seven students withone teacher in an elementary school classroom.
(02:58):
I don't know about you with usA, that's a lot of kids.
I could barely handle my two elementschool kids when they were elementary school
kids. Now kindergarten is held toa state standard of like twenty four or
twenty five, so there'd only betwenty four to twenty five. That's twenty
four to twenty five cats. That'sbasically what that is. In it asisted
that they're around how to be students, right, and they can't even learn
(03:21):
that anymore because they're supposed to learntheir they're barely academic humans, and then
we wonder why we have these issuesof yes, we're getting preschool in districts,
that's wonderful now, but preschool,you know, the kindergarten has become
first grade, first grade has becomesecond grade, and everything gets pushed back,
not setting them up for success ifyou're undermining that success the next year.
(03:42):
Right, and now we're in asituation where I feel like we have
responsibilities as parents not just to stepin and participate in our kids' class,
but to change the rules. Youknow. Right now, there's only so
many things schools can do. Youknow, they don't have the staff.
They try to hire subs, theycan't find people, they can't hire people
(04:03):
for the positions they need for theirspecial education students, let alone their JDID
students. And I just I don'teven know what the solution is anymore.
Well, it's very complicated and Iand I'm only an expert in this because
I'm a father with kids in school, and that's basically where my expertise ends.
I'm not an educator, I'm notan administrator. I'm not an education
(04:26):
professional like you or psychological professional,psychological professional, so I can only speak
from my experience, and you knowwhat's troubling, And I think that the
issues are are are like cyclical,right, Like you have kids in school
who are making it difficult for theteachers to do their job behaviorally, and
(04:54):
so the teachers don't have the supportof the parents to make sure their kids
behave and aren't disruptive to the otherstudents. They become difficult to manage.
So then the administration can't get theparents to help, can't get the kids
to behave, can't get the parentsto help, can't hold those kids.
(05:15):
They're almost hand coffed a little bit. And what they can do with those
types of kids. The teachers gothrough this cycle every year, multiple times
a year. The other kids aredistracted by the behavior, outbursts and the
lack of consistency in the classroom,the lack of time to be able to
spend without interruption and instruction, andthe teachers are just like, I can't
(05:40):
do it anymore. I know thatin my kids' school, our kids' school,
both the middle school and the highschool, they've had multiple teachers who
have left just up and left inthe middle of the year, sometimes two
weeks in, sometimes two months,and sometimes two days and sometimes two weeks
ago. Yeah, it's almost atthe end. She just from what I
understand, she left because who knowshow much truth it is. A student
(06:03):
had an outburst in class at theteacher, specifically targeting the teacher, not
physically, but verbally targeting the teacher. And from me from the story I
was told by my daughter who wasthe first person witnessed to it, it
was totally unwarranted, unprovoked. Sheasked her maybe to do something that she
(06:23):
would have asked any other kid inthe classroom to do. You know,
like I forget what it was,but it seems very miniscule compared and so
that teacher, for all the timejust decided they had had enough. That
kid was back in the classroom thenext day, right back in the classroom
the next day. So you know, there's no consequences, seemingly no consequences.
(06:45):
There's no support for the teachers.There's nobody willing to step into that
situation because why would you. Andyou know, I'm sure the administrators are,
you know, they're probably handcuffed too, but with what they can actually
do to prevent those to do totry to change those situations, both for
the student, the students, theteachers, you know, like so I
(07:12):
agree, I you know, andthat's just one type of problem that they're
having. There's a funding issue,you know, there's there's just holding the
teachers to standards that are unachievable basedon you know, the history of the
students, past education, COVID,you know, being an impact on there,
and holding these teachers to test scoresthat are unachievable. Well, not
(07:33):
just that, but a lot ofthe way instructions started to run. They
are rubric driven, meaning I'll tellyou exactly what you need to put into
this essay, and I will markexactly those things, only in terms of
giving you a great gray leaving noopenness for problem solving, creativity for figuring
out how to do the assignment inthe first place, and then giving the
(07:55):
teachers the leeway to be able togreed based on what they're looking for in
their their own classrooms, what skillsthey want those kids to build. You
know, we have gotten so standardizedacross the board. Everyone has to be
done in the same way that we'vestarted to lose that in many classes,
some of the honors AP classes,you have a little bit more wiggle room
but and then as what you seeas parents, his parents getting upset when
(08:18):
kids get bad grades instead of workingwith teachers. You know, it's the
teacher's responsibility to fix the kid.And what I'm saying is you now you
have to look at the system.And it's really interesting listening to you as
a parent talk about that, becausewhat I see is that whole situation could
have rolled out in a number ofdifferent ways. Right. This could be
a kid who had as a traumahistory, which by the way, a
lot of our kids do at thispoint. They've all been through pandemics.
(08:41):
Whenever your life is going in onedirection, it makes a sharp left turn
for a series of times years whereyou don't know how the outcome is going
to be and that never occurred toyou. That can create trauma responses.
Everybody responds differently, right same event. We have lots of kids who and
families and parents who've been through thisat this point, so we're and teachers,
(09:01):
thank you, and so we're stillrecovering from this. This year is
probably the first year where we're kindof getting back to expectation setting and life
as we knew it prior. Andthe issue with that is we are going
back to that, but we stillhave kids who don't have coping skills,
don't have adaptive skills. And I'veseen this in when you just get such
(09:24):
a kind of collective trauma that youcan see the way people develop these skills.
So some people had coping skills,they knew what to do, they
knew where to put their minds,they knew how to get through this,
and some people didn't. And therewas no distraction, no way to get
around it. So now instead ofprocessing the whole thing, we threw everybody
back in to the same system andthe same broken pieces, and we reduced
(09:48):
funding. So now what we haveis that student, just as an example,
that student could have a trauma history. So what happens in trauma brains
is that they're more susceptible to thesame they're or a Meg's are kind of
triggered more easily, right, sothey become kind of hyper reactive. And
so what we see is the samekind of thing. You drop the pencil
(10:09):
and you say, hey, pickthe pencil up. Yeah, it's frustrating
to drop the pencils frustrating that youdrop the pencil and to be told to
pick the pencil up, but ina trauma brain that can trigger likes to
shoot you up, and there areways of interacting with those brains that will
help to calm them down a littlebit more, but that would require some
attention that a teacher with the kids, with thirty seven kids in their classroom
(10:31):
doesn't have the capacity to be ableto do all the time or the training
to recognize those children and to knowhow to address them well. And even
if you have someone like me comingand doing that training, there's so it's
thirty seven students, so there's somany other things to think about, and
(10:52):
there's standards and just getting kids fromA to B. My team is just
doing all this work on how doyou set a classroom up for kids like
that, just that many kids,and what does it look like? There's
so much that goes along just inthe setup to it, and then if
you don't have those pieces in place, you have nothing to build on.
So what I see is a brokensystem that's maxed out in terms of the
(11:13):
strains on it. And from anadmin standpoint, you know, you're always
reacting, so instead of actually beinga principal and trying to get kids connected
to the school and really paying attentionto the systems that are happening and trying
to help support your teachers. You'reliterally putting out fires all day long,
every day. So even if thatkid had the most supportive family, you
(11:35):
know, we've learned the solutions aren'tpunishment driven, right, So do I
think the kids should come back thenext day, No, there's usual there
should be some consequence. But unlesswe have a skill building method, unless
we have kids that are making goals, that are thinking about who they are
and who they want to be,that feel connected to what they're doing in
a school system, it doesn't matterwhat you throw out that kid, it's
(11:56):
probably going to get worse anyway.And you have a legal responsibility to educate
that child, and you're not goingto send them out a district that day.
That child is going to stay.And even if they go through the
process that they need to do inorder to remove the student and help them
find another program that might be morebeneficial to them, that's a ninety day
testing process. Minimally that that student'sgoing to be even if he's speed it
(12:16):
up right, and that kid hasprobably forgotten about what the problem was in
the first place. Well, theonly reason you would have a kid out
of district, would be that itwould be repetitive problems anyway, So one
issue wouldn't require those things. Buta teacher who quits after that is a
teacher who's protecting themselves, who hasn'tfelt supported or who wasn't made for that
(12:37):
job. I mean, middle school, in high school. You have to
be made for those positions. Andright now we are in a situation where
those people who are made for thisare getting out of education because their hands
are being tied so much. Sothat's the system that you're working in.
Then you have from a parent's side, my kid's not reading just in elementary
(12:58):
school, so you are required toteach them to read and listen. That's
absolutely true. But when we asparents as citizens have created a system where
it's legal to put thirty seven studentsin a classroom with one teacher, guess
what it is all hands on deck. And even if that school wants to
help that kid with whom they justcut all their basic skills teachers, they
(13:20):
don't have the budget for it ornot approving budgets. So it's this like
terrible cycle. And I think thatthat's what is frustrating to me, I
feel like we need like a callto parents and to say we are now
at a point where we have togo help schools. You know, there's
for years I've done this for along time, and it used to be
that schools really could step up alittle bit more here and there. Now
(13:45):
their capacity has been their hands havebeen tied so much that it's really been
made really really difficult for them andthey only you can yell and scream all
you want, but they don't havethe resources. So then on and I
think that that's the frustrating part whenit comes to the school and home dynamic.
Well, there's another frustrating part aboutthe school and home dynamics that I'd
(14:07):
like to air. Since we're airingthings about education, I would really like
it if somebody could do something aboutthe trash truck coming up the streets at
pickup and drop off time. Itdoes seem like they're out to get you.
You in particular, but probably everyonewho's dropping. I think they're targeting.
(14:28):
It's like what a four it's fourblocks maybe six of what of an
area to stay away from it?I think you could probably get away with
it. The two block area thatstay away from for about a half an
hour, right, and just likeseven forty five to eight, even like
eighth five, because after that you'reyou kind of like, maybe you deserve
(14:50):
to be stuffed, right, Yeah, But they come down two streets like
clockwork during the drop off. Andnow this is a residential school, it's
right in the middle of a neighborhood, and so there are teenagers driving their
cars to school and parking on thestreet because there's no parking lot for anybody.
(15:13):
There's no parking lot to begin withat all. And now you have
young drivers who are all collectively arrivingat about the same time, parents who
are dropping who are also arriving atthe same time and are distracted by getting
their kids out of the car andgetting to work and getting where they need
(15:35):
to be, and buses also drivingdown these residential streets. And you throw
in a very slow moving trash truckwith a crew hopping on with individuals who
are in danger because they are hoppingoff and on, and ad teenage drivers
driving by them. Teenage drivers.It's just beyond me why it's allowed to
(16:00):
happen. And I haven't had todrive Ruby to school in quite a long
time. Because Run is a seniorand he's driving, which is wonderful.
Yes, we have lots of seniors. Hannah as a senior. I think
she's a senior, I know,but the way she acts, I just
always I told her the other dayshe was putting on a prom dress and
I'm like, oh, you're asenior prom. She's like, it's my
junior problem. But she just seemslike she's got her stuff together, like
(16:23):
she's off and running. But anyway, yes, she drives for right.
So I went today to drop Rubyon and there it is. There's the
trash truck coming up the street thisday was I believe was it was trash
today, trash in that area.And I'm just like, you know,
and I've spoken to I've corresponded withthe principal about this, multiple principles about
(16:48):
this, and I'm sure anything hesays as a new guy in town,
listen, he's actually I really fallson deaf years over at public works.
If he had the chance to call, which I really do believe that he
probably I believe that when he saidthat he was going to do it,
I believe that he did it,and I believe that nothing came of it.
(17:08):
Because they don't care well. AndI think that that school right,
not the school. And that's thething, like, that's what I mean
about being the right girl. Thatis one of the things that he could
help make the lives of his studentsand parents better. And you're right.
To his credit, he really respondedvery well and answered you and followed through.
But I'm surprised even had time todo that with this chick coming out
(17:32):
of the room screaming and yelling andhaving and a teacher quitting, I mean
in that school district. And thiswas even prior to this principle. You
know, Juliana started her her yearwith she lost three teachers her seventh grade
year. One teacher was out thebeginning of this year, but that was
paternity leave. But because there's nosubs, it was a computer program,
(17:53):
so she is she learned math foryears. It was a computerized math program.
And they, to the credit,have been trying to make it up.
But they have to take away theirlike study hall kind of period,
their catch up period, and sothat has other effects. And they are
doing I honestly believe that they're doingeverything that they can to catch them up.
But this is what I mean,what I find interesting about this is
(18:15):
I was just talking to somebody theother day because you know, I do
assessments outside of school, and wethink we talk a lot about sports.
We talked about that in another podcast, and we are our schools provide sports,
but many of us do outside sports, travel sports, things like that,
right, But when it comes toeducation, we're often like the school
(18:36):
should do that. And there area few families, but not as many
as are involved in sports that arewilling to say, all right, well
we're going to get tutor, We'regoing to pull somebody outside will help,
We're going to dedicate ourselves to this. I see it with kids learning to
read, like just little and read, and sometimes in the high school like
(18:56):
prepping for SATs or you know,particularly difficult courses. But there's a lot
in between there, you know,And we don't want to fund our own
assessments. We don't want to fundour we I say we because I don't
think about doing it either with tutoring, thinking about catching them up in the
summer or helping to support this schoolbecause the school should, right, this
should, But being on both sidesof this, how with what money,
(19:19):
with what staff, they're just notavailable. And so you know, kudos
to the I think this principle iswonderful, and he's trying and he's doing
these things, but it makes itvery, very difficult to be able to
support the community and be a partof that community, Like I think this
principle wants to be when you haveall of these other things happening in the
(19:41):
school districts, and I don't.I think it's also interesting to me,
Like we talk about systems a lot, right, you from business perspective,
me from a school perspective, Andthe school system is a very unique system.
So if you've never been involved inlet's say your child gets a head
injury in high school, it's asystem you have probably never a nderstood.
Right. There's a five zero foursystem, which is a federal law for
(20:03):
access, which just it's the samelaw you would use for access to a
ramp if you had a wheelchair thatyou need to get in. So that's
one set of laws. Then there'sspecial education, which is an individualized education
program, the IEP system, andthat has its whole other set of rules
and laws and timelines and ways ofdoing things. And I just find the
(20:25):
fact that when those worlds cross likewhen you need to get something done for
your kid but you don't understand thesystem you're working in. But that can
be very difficult. Be like megoing into a corporate environment and be like,
well this is in efficient, justdo it this way. It doesn't
work very well. You know,I don't know necessarily how to make those
systems better. I just know thatthey're all completely strapped, really tight.
(20:45):
And I think that we as parentshave to start thinking about education and our
kids' lives very differently. You know, what we can do to help them
build skills at home that we canpush back in the classroom. How do
we get on a team with theteachers instead of playing blame games? And
(21:06):
then I think from school side,you know, schools really need to rally
their parents and try to support thestudents as much as they can when they're
there, and try to come upwith some unique systems. That being said,
you know I hear a lot,Well, it's it's things happening at
home, That's what the problem is. And I just say to teachers too,
(21:27):
you know, remember you can teachmath and reading to kids who aren't
getting math and reading at home.You can teach social emotional skills to kids
who aren't getting the right kind orthe kind you'd like to see, or
the support that you'd like to see. And remember, everybody's going through something,
right. Our teachers are going throughsomething. They're trying their hardest in
the classrooms. Our parents are goingthrough something, they're trying their hardest as
(21:51):
parents. If we all came toit from that perspective, without the blame
game, and just kind of rallyto try to do what we could,
you know, being part of thesolution. Yeah, you know, and
think about it. You just hearingthe story that Ruby said to you.
You know, there's so many lensesto There's the first one to just of
course say, well, the admindidn't support the teacher, right, or
(22:11):
the teacher quit, What does shecare about the kids? You know?
But you look at that teacher,That poor teacher could be going through cancer
treatments or have a you know,a father that she's trying to take care
of after school and is overwhelmed andis just trying to do her best.
You're smirking at me because it's like, is this like the car thing?
Very much like the car thing?But oddly enough, I'm agreeing with you
(22:33):
at this time. Well, it'sbeen a while. I may be off
on you maybe well, And speakingof which, I feel like this is
the question, right, I keepsaying to you, you know, are
you is your cynicism rubbing off onme? Right? Or I'm am I
just getting older and seeing all thedifferent You're just seeing the world as I
say it in the right And it'sso important. It's so frustrating, you
(22:59):
know, when you have kids growingup in the system, and we have
kids that are about to like flythe coup, you know, like they
are about we are. We arein a position where they are getting to
me old enough where I can seethat they're going to need to function on
their own, and we can't.We shouldn't. We can't protect them in
the ways that we would want to. And so then you start looking at
(23:22):
the systems and what skills do theyhave, and what time you have left
to help them grow. It getsa little scary. It is very scary
as a parent of somebody who's achild who is trying to figure out his
next steps after high school, whichis quickly approaching in a month and ten
days. You know, it's Itry to talk as Ronan is I try
(23:47):
to talk to him about it inbits and pieces because I feel I get
a sense that he's almost overwhelmed byit, right, and there's some pressure,
and I don't want him to toshut down and not be engaged in
it because he's overwhelmed. So I'mtrying to do it in stages, but
(24:10):
still keeping a momentum going with it, right, And then you just like
just the number of skills you justmentioned, like how do you not shut
down and get overwhelmed when you havea big decision? How do you work
for these things? What are thesteps you take to come closer to a
decision? Like all of those thingsand all of these things are like these
social emotional skills. How do youget along with friends? How do you
(24:32):
cope? How do you problem solve? How do you determine? You know,
be aware of how you're behaving andrecognize that you're feeling something and output
that feeling in a different way.Right, So I realize that I'm snapping
at everybody, so I know I'mfrustrated about something and I have to work
through that feeling. How do youwork through that feeling? You know,
all of these things that I alwayssay you can google anything that you want
(24:56):
to know. You know, youcan google it. Really, schools have
now shifted to needing to teach kidshow to think using the content that they
can grab. Right, So,how is this? Is this true?
Is this not? How does thisfit in with what you know? Do
you like it? Do not?And then really about how do you make
decisions? How do you problem solve? And we've lost that in our schools
(25:18):
because we've gotten so behavioral with reinforceand punish that we've forgotten the gray and
the gray is where life is.And I think that's the point of what
we've been discussing, is there's grayto all of these issues within the school
systems. With our issues as parentsand our goals really need to be about
raising kids who can function in theworld and contribute as adults. And we
(25:44):
need to empower our schools to beable to do that, and we need
to remember as parents that we havea strong responsibility to do that. And
if we partner together, we canreally make something happen. A great wel
sad partnering partnering, thanks well,thanks for joining us for this episode of
What's Happening Here. Don't forget tosubscribe to our YouTube page, or you
(26:07):
can follow me on Instagram at DoctorSarah l Allen and keV shows up a
lot there too. Be sure totell a friend what you liked about this
episode and share it with them.After all, we're all in this together,
just trying to figure out what's happeninghere.
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