We Shouldn’t Fear Lessons Of Life
Teaching kids how to get along in life these days means more than making sure girls can sew and boys know how to open the door for a lady.
Life lessons of the 1950s have been replaced by 1990s essentials like anger management, handling fear and dealing with harassment.
Some people might not like it, but teachers have to deal with these issues and others like them regularly in the classroom and on the playground. But how they’re dealt with can cause a roar of disapproval.
Last week, Spokane District 81 revealed a new program called “180 Lessons for Daily Living.”
About a dozen elementary classrooms will test the new first-grade through sixth-grade curriculum in the coming month. It’s aimed at giving students structure and guidance for the many social issues that face them inside school and out.
Political correctness run amok? Or necessary groundwork for tomorrow’s citizens?
Probably a little bit of both. Only a teacher’s common sense can determine which side of the fine PC line this kind of instruction falls on.
For example, it makes perfect sense for teachers to give their students confidence and self esteem. They should do this by working with kids to learn to read and pass tests rather than chanting by rote, “I am special because there is no one else exactly like me in the whole world.”
Most teachers know this. There’s nothing more powerful for a student than the flush of success - actually accomplishing something - to reinforce the feeling and knowledge “I can do anything!”
Critics of the Life Lessons - and there has been plenty of fire-and-brimstone griping on talk radio - fail to see the value in some of the goals of the curriculum. What could be wrong with teaching children it’s wrong to lie, interrupt or put down other people? Why be afraid of teaching children how to talk about their feelings, work with other people and appreciate differences?
The greatest threat is not that teachers will be programming little minds with liberal rot (teachers have always had a hand in shaping the social upbringing of children, and they’ve handled it admirably), it’s that they won’t have the time in the day to focus on the basic aspects of education.
The largest concern all parents should have is that their children are learning how to read, write and compute.
School officials would be wise to encourage all teachers to incorporate some of the curriculum into their regular lesson plans, but it’s a mistake to take 20 minutes a day out of valuable class time to sit in a circle and talk about feelings.
If nothing else, the 180 lessons will prove to be a useful source of new ideas for teachers as they struggle to fit a growing body of requirements into an ever-shrinking school day.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Anne Windishar For the editorial board