No
Child Left Behind
By Jill Piantedosi
Reading Specialist Grades 6-8
Parker Middle School
Reading, Massachusetts 01867
Subjects
currently teaching:
Reading & Language Arts, Middle School (12 years) (full
time)
Literature and reading courses Salem State College (part time
Subjects taught in the past:
Elementary Grades 1-5 (All subjects)
Grade 8 Reading/language arts,
Elementary Reading Specialist Grades K-4,
Reading Study Skills Teacher Grade 7,
Special Education (Early Childhood & Adolescence)
Coordinator and teacher for Program for Gifted and Talented (Middle School)
Spending quality time with children
is the most important way that we can invest in their future. All children
need role models and mentors to help them develop into healthy adults and
successful members of society. Since parents are the primary caregivers of
their children, positive parental involvement is the best way for adults to
serve as role models. Parents
need to continually invite their children into their world and affirm them
daily. Words of encouragement and understanding should be a regular part of
each child’s life, especially as they move into their adolescent years. The
parental relationship should be constant, mature, and sincere, with a
child-centered philosophy adopted. A
lack of parental involvement places a child at risk for all types of
rebellious behavior.
What do we do when adults refuse to
be good role models for their children? This
question has haunted and continues to haunt all sectors of society. When
parents fail their children as role models, able members of the community need
to rally in their support. With a recent explosion of teenage violence and
aggressive behavior, people in the community should work together to help
build a healthier and safer environment.
Teachers, counselors, coaches, clergy, lawyers, medical staff,
community workers, and any and all others, should reach out to help our
children succeed and achieve. When parents take an inactive role in the lives
of their children, members of the community need to share in the
responsibility of mentoring.
Mentoring is one of the best ways
for members of society to become involved with children. Mentoring allows us
to recognize the importance of contributions made by many citizens. People of
all professions give time and effort to serve as role models for children.
Through numerous programs, community initiatives, and personal involvement,
mentors can work together to help youngsters become better citizens. Strong
mentors help children to make right choices, work hard, and look after one
another. A strong mentoring relationship can help disadvantaged children deal
with feelings of abandonment and loss that they face in their daily lives.
Mentoring gives children a sense of protection and helps them realize that
someone cares about them. Special
relationships can come from teachers and other caring members of society. Mentors are able to play an important role in a child’s
life when the parent is unavailable or absent.
The key word in any mentoring
situation is attention. In the
article, Why Children Turn
Violent, Geoffrey Cowley makes a strong statement when he says, “Experts
say many kids could be diverted from killing if parents and teachers simply
paid more attention to what children say.” (3) Children often reach out with
their words and body language. Violent threats and explosive words need to be
taken seriously. In school environments, teachers should listen carefully to
what children say and read their written responses with concern.
Journal entries often reflect the thoughts and feeling of students, and
can serve as a springboard for conversation. Intervention is most important
when dealing with serious matters and complex problems. Teachers can reach
students through books that focus on important themes. Themes that deal with
divorce, abandonment, violence, serious illness, or school and home problems,
can help children make connections to their own lives. As they read through
story plots, they can identify with certain characters and travel with them as
they encounter various conflicts. Bibliotherapy
is a good way to get at a problem that is troubling an adolescent. A young
adult often interacts with the text personally and can view ways to resolve
conflicts. Through written
reflection and response, students can write about their feelings and explore
ways to deal with ongoing issues. Teachers, school counselors, and
administrators can work together to help troubled youngsters find a place
where they can feel successful.
Many adults can recall what they
learned as a result of observing and interacting with role models. They can
remember places where they were encouraged and given instruction on how to get
through difficult situations. Most adults remember some of the tools they were
given to help them solve their problems. The role of schools, families, and
communities are crucial to giving children the stability and direction they
need to survive. These institutions can help to serve as moral institutions
for our children.
The Moral Intelligence of
Children by Robert Coles, reinforces the importance of learned behavior in
character development. The building of moral intelligence is as important as
emotional and intellectual development. Emphasis on morality among the youth
of our society should be expected and reinforced.
It is our responsibility to help children develop a conscience or sense
of morality. Moral behavior reflects how we behave and live. This development
is important for everyone if we want to have a moral society. As role models
and mentors, we have a responsibility to teach the children under our care
about values. There are many teachable moments for everyone. Teachers can
discuss morality and values through literature and textbooks. We can use
selective quality literature to teach global humanist values.
Stories are one of the most effective ways to teach life lessons. Cole
says, “Stories encourage the moral imagination to work, and they are
concrete and connected to everyday experiences. Stories are based on real-life
experiences.” (12) Role models
need to reinforce these experiences with good deeds however. In other words,
we need to practice what we preach. It will be our moral example that will
prevail in the end.
Children today are influenced by
the mass media. They view hours of unsupervised television and make reference
to movies that have affected them. Television glamorizes drugs, sex, and
alcohol, while promoting violence. Materialism is the center and focus of MTV
and other entertainment channels. The youth of today strive for the luxury
cars, expensive jewelry, and designer clothes. They are encouraged to seek
materialism to find happiness. They
do not know what they value besides money. James Garbarino writes about the
violence and confusion of the boys in our society. In his book, Lost
Boys, he shows how violence seems normal and viewed as the right thing to
do for many boys. He believes like many other social psychologists, that
television has caused our youth great emotional damage and desensitization to
violence. As mentors, we need to help children limit their television and
interactive video games. Helping youngsters engage in sports, recreation, and
social programs is a positive step in the right direction.
Today’s teenagers and youth are
more isolated and unsupervised than ever before. It is not just the parents,
but adults in general, that are missing from their lives. Children of all ages
cannot grow up on their own. They cannot grow up without adult guidance or
intervention. Adults can make a difference, when there are enough of them. In
Patricia Hersch’s book, A Tribe Apart,
she discusses the threatening and unsupervised world that we have created for
adolescents in America. She agrees with psychologist Peter Scales of the
Search Institute, that children need to have the “chance to sample a lot of
content, a lot of different subjects and topics and themes and activities to
find out, What in the world am I good at?” What do I like to do? What
talents do I have? What interests do I have?”
(18) Adolescence requires a journey of guidance. Teachers and mentors
can help children of all ages discover the subjects they like, the activities
they enjoy, and what strengths and weaknesses they have. By helping a child
discover what they like, you can help give them a new focus and build their
self-esteem. Teachers and mentors can help individuals succeed through their
guidance and supervision.
Solid mentoring and active
participation by numerous members of society will help anchor our children.
Programs that help organize daily life experiences around successful
opportunities and life lessons will help individuals to grow in a positive
direction. Our children need spiritual and moral anchors to help them deal
with the violence and problems around them.
Success can be achieved for our youngsters if there is someone
available to show them the correct path to take. We need successful role
models in society to guide them. Through
role models and mentors that promote quality education, community service, and
personal involvement, we can work together to build better citizens. Our
government must continue to support programs that help adults become involved
and stay involved with our youth. Everyone should pay tribute to the parents,
teachers, community leaders, and citizens that serve as mentors and role
models for our children.
Attention
is the greatest form of generosity because it represents time and commitment.
Our children are our most important resource that we have. They are our future
firefighters, law enforcement, engineers, scientists, and care workers. The
September 11th tragedy reminded us of the caring devoted society
that we live in. The numerous people that risked their lives to help others,
the millions of dollars that was donated for the victims, and the attention
and time that was given by so many relief workers, is testimony to the
morality on which our country was built. There are many wonderful caring
youngsters in our society today. They can be found studying in the classrooms,
working in community service jobs, participating in sports programs, and
reaching out to people in need. They are by far in our majority population.
There are an alarming number of at-risk children however, who are crying out
for our attention.
They are the children that are left behind, the youngsters that
have been abandoned and secluded. We as a society should reach out to embrace
this community of children and give them the heart, time, and effort to help
them succeed. Not one child should be left behind.
Questions Regarding the Required
Reading
Q1 Comment on the 6-year old with a telescope and his interest in abstract
ideas. How unusual was he?
Have you encountered students with similar focus and reasoning
abilities? Discuss.
In the exert selected from “The
Moral Intelligence of Children,” by Robert Coles, he references a 6-year old
with a telescope and his interest in abstract ideas. The little boy was not unusual.
It seems that in every class there is at least one child that is
interested in abstract ideas. What
is different here, is Coles’s attention
to the matter. Children are sensitive and aware of adults and how attentive
they are. The little boy knew
that Robert Coles was actively listening to him as he explained his universe
and connections to human behavior. With the right lead questions and his
sincere devotion to the 6-year old boy, Coles was able to make his own
observations and learn more about the child.
He said his voyage “enabled
him to travel further into his mind, his life, and into the thinking of other
children, ” (8) Coles made
connections to good and bad in every day life. As teachers and mentors, we
need to listen more attentively to
better understand each other.
The 6-year old student reminded me
of a child I had in my third grade classroom many years ago. He use to sit by
himself at recess and watch the other children play. I would often watch him
from a distance and try to comprehend his actions. One day I sat down next to
him and asked him if he wanted to join a group of students in a game. He said
that he really enjoyed watching the others play, because he was inventing a
game and was learning more about what kids enjoy by observing them. He then
went on to explain some of his inventions. Most of them were based on abstract
ideas, but his games reflected who he was.
His games involved all of the children and were fair with the rules.
I had interpreted them as a reaching out to those children who had
excluded him. In his games,
everyone had a part. He never
wanted to share any of his games with his classmates however.
My attentiveness to his words helped me to plan more activities in the
class, where he was a part of a group. I felt good about my active
involvement.
Q2 Were you surprised to read that
young children may be ethically introspective citizens”?
Discuss.
I have always observed children to
be ethically introspective citizens. I agree with Coles, “that the
conscience constantly presses its moral weight on our feeling lives, our
imagination life.” (9) Traditional literature from early times portrayed
children as good citizens, displaying honesty, integrity, and loyalty. Their
conscience was evident in their deeds. The children of ancient communities
often modeled moral lessons and worked together to create harmony.
Most children understand what Goldilocks
did wrong and who is the villain in Little
Red Riding Hood. Children know about the value system in which they live.
Q3 Do you agree that morality can be taught in all kinds of classes?
Give examples from experience.
There are numerous opportunities to
teach morality to students in all kinds of classes. Every day brings new
teachable moments. Each subject offers a new opportunity to teach values.
When teaching history or social studies, teachers can discuss morality
through the content of the subject. Were citizens treated fairly throughout
history? The topics of slavery, the Holocaust, elections, child labor, and the
terrorist attacks, are all topics that could focus on values and morality.
When I teach literature, I always
include questions in our discussions that are centered around morality.
I have written several literature units based on values. I use the
novel Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds
Naylor to discuss honesty and integrity. Students read and reflect in their
writings about these subjects. The focus questions help them to give evidence
from the story to support their answers. When you support your statements with
facts from a story, it gives you a deeper understanding of its conflicts.
Q4 What was meant by the phrase
encountered in your required reading: “We are all moral witnesses”?
Describe an instance in the classroom when you were a good moral witness.
“We are all moral witnesses”,
refers to the experiences that everyone encounters as they work to sort
through their struggles in life. Coles
refers to “The Bronx Tale”, as a moral moment.
The comments of the sixteen year old boy reflects his responsibility to
understanding about being a moral witness to his own growing struggles to
learn how to live a reasonably good life.
He reminds everyone how continually we are challenged morally. Cole
says that, “we don’t conquer this world’s mischief and wrongdoing and
malice once and for all, and then forever after enjoy the moral harvest of
that victory.” (13) He talks about how we struggle along every day and need
the help of a good story, movie, or experience, to connect to in our daily
lives. Teachers spend much of their day observing behavior and
reacting to what they see. Being a witness means that we have an opportunity
to learn from our observations and decide what we think is right or wrong.
When we see behavior that is inappropriate or immoral, we need to react
appropriately and model for our observers.
Morality begins with good decision making.
We need to be strong moral witnesses whenever we have an opportunity to
do so.
I had an opportunity to be a good
moral witness one day while actively participating in a literature discussion
group. My students were off -task and gossiping about another student and an
incident that had happened during lunch. I listened to their comments and then
had them pretend that the student they were talking about was a member of
their own family. I asked them to
take a few minutes and free write in their journal about the situation. When
they were alone with their thoughts and not feeding off of each other, their
comments were kinder. All of them
did not want anyone to talk about a family member or loved one. I had an
opportunity to then relate the incident to a character in the book that they
were reading. The character Bradley in the book, “There’s A Boy in the
Girl’s Bathroom”, was portraying a bully and talking about other students.
After discussion, students were able to make connections to their own lives
through the characters in the book. Many of them felt bad about what they had
said about the student.
Q5 Define courage. Tell of a
youngster who has had the courage to stand up for his/her beliefs/values.
Courage is having the strength to
do the right thing in any difficult situation. It is the ability to stand up
for what you believe in and make a difference. So many people learned about
courage through the September 11th terrorist attack. Courage is a
strong theme that is portrayed in many of the novels that we read. My students
have learned about courage through the character’s actions, words, and
thoughts that they have read about and discussed. Courage is always connected
to our values. When you believe in something and feel strong about it, you try
to do the right thing. Our history books are full of examples.
One youngster I had in my small
reading group told the other children in the group about the many tragedies in
his life. We were reading the book The
Outsiders, by SE Hinton, when he began to make many connections to his own
life. He had been quiet while we read together for most of the book, then he
raised his hand and began to talk about how the book reminded him of his own
life. He shared many personal stories with the other students and they
listened attentively. He displayed a
magnitude of courage as he told his
story to the other adolescents. Many of them asked him questions and he
answered them honestly. His story was courageous and connected to his values
and beliefs. We learned a lot about the student by listening to him.
Q6 Comment on the discussion on courage that took place during a 4th
grade history lesson, as outlined in the required reading.
Share an experience where your class spontaneously engaged in a moral
analysis.
Discussions about virtues are often
spontaneous throughout the day. The altercation about the pilgrims and their
journey, and the theme of courage is
one that is often explored. In this example, the students began to discuss the
courage of the Pilgrims in a new light. Through the discussion, they clarified
their own beliefs and values. The discussion unraveled a moral analysis that
connected not only to the Pilgrims, but also to the children involved in the
discussion. Topics that are centered on decision making and choices, can be
explored in many directions. Students such as those in this classroom had an
opportunity to view courage through a historical setting. They were able to be
a part of the story from an outside point of view.
I had a similar experience where my
class spontaneously engaged in a moral analysis. While reading the book Shiloh,
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, we read about the main character Marty, who never
told his parents that he was hiding a dog he wanted to keep. When his father
found out about it, he told his son that he had been dishonest with him. Marty
felt that he had not lied to his father because his father didn’t ask him if
he was hiding the dog. His father
talked about lying by omission. This created a stimulating whole class
discussion. We talked about white lies and levels of dishonesty. It was clear
to see that most of the students’ beliefs were similar to those of their
parents. Many of the students gave examples from their own home. One little
girl said that her father often told her to say he wasn’t home when there
was a phone call for him at night. The discussion went in several directions
and planted a few seeds in the minds of many. In the end, most of the class
decided that a “lie was a lie”.
Q7 How is a good person described at the end of the required reading
involving a Bronx Tale?
In A Bronx Tale, a good person is a person who works to make the right
decisions. The good person is
that vigilant witness not only of
others, but to his or her own “ethical tensions as they flash their various
signals, warn of conflicts ahead or of ambiguities not so easy to resolve, or
of mixed feelings and temptations and the rationalizations that justify
them.” (13-14) A good
person is a person that tries to make the right decisions about the conflicts
in his life. Most of the conflicts that he has to deal with are centered
around good versus evil. The story tells how we are all controlled by human
nature, and it is easy to stray in the world. The theme of the story tells us
that if we are strong and we let our conscience guide us, we will make good
decisions in the end.
Q8 What should a teacher do when she/he sees a student trying to get
another student in trouble or somehow disrupting the class?
There is no one answer or formula
to this question. All children are different and should not be treated the
same. Although the situation must be dealt with in a timely fashion, every
situation must take the whole child into consideration. If a child is fragile
or traumatized, the teacher should first talk to the child alone. The child
may be going through a difficult time at home and may be working out his
problems through disruptive behavior. At that point, it would be favorable to
bring the school counselor on board.
Sometimes I find that if I ignore a
behavior of a child the first time, he may not do it again. If a child
continues to disrupt the class and he appears to be doing it to get the
attention of the others, he should be told in a couple of sentences that it is
inappropriate behavior.
Immoral and violent behavior needs
to be addressed immediately. The child should be told what he/she did wrong
and what is acceptable and not acceptable in the classroom. A quiet controlled
voice of a teacher works best. A teacher that yells at a child is modeling
inappropriate behavior. Many times children do not listen if they are being
yelled at. A teacher should
always try to be firm, fair, and
flexible when disciplining a student. He or she should always try to set
the classroom rules ahead of time and use opportunities to discuss books and
films in the context of core values.
Q9 The Harry Singer Foundation pilot project, Dream machine, White hats and
Problem solvers are based on the premise that students have the capacity to
act responsible, interact with adults in the community and make mature
decisions. In light of the article by Shannon Brownlee regarding the
development of the teen brain, do you think the Foundation may be giving teens
too much credit?
The Harry Singer Foundation has a good understanding of the
whole child and is eager to learn about solutions for achieving success. Their
goal of wanting to find out what works within a desired framework demonstrates
their active involvement in exploring new information. The Foundation appears to be looking at a variety of studies and
giving teens the right amount of credit. The article “Inside the Teen
Brain,” by Shannon Brownlee, offers a strong explanation as to the brain’s
capacity during adolescence. The study however, is only one small piece of
information in the makings of a complex topic. In short, it attempts to answer
the question, “what makes teens do what they do?” It offers some good
insight into behavior of the adolescent, but the research is only in its
infancy stage. The Foundation appears to be viewing many dimensions of
research that supports children and is giving teens the credit they deserve.
The Harry Singer Foundation ‘s motto of think, do, enable, is testimony to its commitment to reach out in
many directions to identify the major concerns of communities everywhere.
Q10 If you think your students are capable, will you engage a
group in one of our pilot projects? If not, why not?