|
 What
immediate changes would you make in junior and senior high schools
to improve the learning environment there?
Most
important, we must make schools safer for students and teachers.
Guns, drugs and adolescence make a deadly cocktail. It is unbelievable
what we have permitted to happen on our campuses. No wonder some
kids can’t think about their studies. Their lives are in danger!
Yes, we can reduce the violence if we’re committed to the
task. Armed guards? Maybe. Metal detectors? If necessary. More expulsions?
Probably. No-nonsense administrators? Definitely.
When
schools are blessed by strong leadership, like the legendary Joe
Clark at Eastside High School in Paterson, N.J., they make dramatic
progress academically.
Above
all, we must do what is required to pacify the combat zones in junior
and senior high schools.
We
will not solve our pervasive problems, however, with the present
generation of secondary school students. Our best hope for the future
is to start over with the youngsters just coming into elementary
school. We can rewrite the rules with these wide-eyed kids.
Let’s
redesign the primary grades to include a greater measure of discipline.
I’m not talking merely about more difficult assignments and
additional homework.
I’m
recommending more structure and control in the classroom.
As
the first official voice of the school, the primary teacher is in
a position to construct positive attitudinal foundations on which
future educators can build. Conversely, she can fill her young pupils
with contempt and disrespect. A child’s teachers during the
first six years will largely determine the nature of his attitude
toward authority and the educational climate in junior and senior
high school (and beyond).
+ + +
When
parents need help with sex education, who do you think should provide
it?
It
is my strong conviction that churches believing in abstinence before
marriage and in lifelong marital fidelity should step in and offer
their help to families sharing that commitment. Where else will
moms and dads find proponents of traditional morality in this permissive
day?
There
is no other agency or institution likely to represent the theology
of the church better than the church itself. It is puzzling to me
why so few have accepted this challenge, given the attack on biblical
concepts of morality today.
A
few parents who enroll their children in private schools are able
to get the help they need with sex education. Even there, however,
the subject is often ignored or handled inadequately. What has developed,
unfortunately, is an informational vacuum that sets the stage for
far-reaching programs in the public schools that go beyond parental
wishes, beginning in some cases with kindergarten children.
o
These
are excerpted from books written by Dr. James Dobson of Focus on
the Family and published by Tyndale House.
|
