Educational Discourse

I’ve been asked, along with a group of other educational leaders, to contribute to a blog for educational leaders, LeaderTalk, being organized by Scott McLeod of Dangerously Irrevelant fame. Today was my first post. Now, I discussed how it is that I have come to be the administrator that I am. Like all other people, there are good days when I remember all those bits of widom that I have picked up and then there are days when, well, I’m still not sure about something so I need to relearn it, making a mistake despite having already made it before. My most recent area of learning is with a group of students in our upper highschool. This group has been very difficult and has demonstrated some unique characteristics that I just haven’t been able to really understand until I recently when I read an article in Maclean’s which was an interview with Michael Ungar, who is a social worker, family therapist and associate professor at the School of Social Work at Dalhousie University, is the author of a new book, Too Safe for Their Own Good. In this article, he defines this idea of a bubble-wrapped kid.

I’m talking about kids who are being denied opportunities to experience risk and responsibility. I began to notice in my practice a group of young people who were coming from quite stable, nurturing, middle-class homes, and they were showing up for one of two reasons — either they were very compliant young people with depression and anxiety and an incapacity to take on responsibility or to show much common sense in getting on with their lives, or they were coming in with very dangerous, risk-taking behaviours that they had come up with on their own to cope with what they were telling me were very restrictive or overprotective environments at home.

Bingo. Now, most of these kids in my school are male but not all of them. It has now got to the point where I cannot talk to 6 of them withoug having their parents present. There is limited dealings with the parents because of the way that things have been turned against teachers in the past. In fact, from what I’ve heard, the most incredible stories go home regarding school.

These parents want to be in on the discussion so that their child’s rights are intact and that things are done properly. They do not trust that things will be done fairly and want to mak sure that this is so. They have a right to hear what is happening. My one experience with this did not work. It ended up being an I said/they said which ended up getting us no where. The final outcome was unsatisfactory, from my point and just seemed to reinforce the whole absurdity of the situation.

What is interesting is that it is isolated to a single group of students. Now I may find that there will be more but right now, it is one group. What is even more insteresting is that this group is the most vocal about their rights but they seem to understand very little the responsibilities that accompany those rights.

I worry about this group much more than other students. Many of them are talented and bright but they lack the “common sense” and “respect” toward others that make interactions appropriate. They are much more immature in how they handle situations and their parents protect them, even argue for them, despite what is going on. Right now, I’m dealing with a situation that is really small but has been turned into a major letter and a meeting with my supervisor. The next year and a half may be one of my most learning filled years to date.

There is a disturbance in the force and thousands of young voices cry out in pain …. and continue to cry.