Growing problems plague schools

Schools have never been just schools and teachers have never been just teachers. Schools have always been neighbourhood centres, community halls, voting places, sports facilities and performing arts centres. Teachers have always also been social workers, grief counsellors, first aid responders, psychologists, psychiatrists, motivational coaches and police officers.

There is a good case to be made that they have also been jail guards and babysitters.

Seeing their jobs this broadly, the irony of angry parents demanding teachers stick to the three Rs and stay out of sex education and gender studies, as well as vaccinations, becomes clear.

The job of teachers is not to stuff the heads of their students with facts but to give them the knowledge and skills to be lawabiding citizens, particularly the ability to continue to learn and think for themselves through their adult lives.

It’s difficult to focus on that huge responsibility when teachers and administrators have to spend so much of their time and efforts focusing on basic health and safety issues affecting their pupils, as two stories in The Citizen this week showed.

The first story was about the frustration of a local father over how a restraining order on the bully of his teenaged daughter isn’t being followed while she’s in school.

Putting the details aside, it’s safe to say that no one heads off to earn a degree in education in order to spend their day figuring out how to enforce restraining orders. The teachers and administrators at that local high school are left with the juggling, satisfying that court order while continuing to deliver a quality education to both students involved.

The second story explained how nearly half of the 40 schools in the local district offer some sort of breakfast program for students. The amazing generosity of concerned parents, service clubs and business sponsors is heartwarming. The need for these programs because kids are coming to school hungry is heartbreaking, as is the fact that the number of schools offering breakfast, as well as the number of students needing that meal to start their day, is growing.

Hungry students can’t possibly concentrate on their studies over the sound of their grumbling tummies, so a meal before first bell gives them the mental and physical energy to learn. Without those breakfast programs, teachers and administrators would be dealing with far more class disruptions, discipline issues and lower education outcomes.

Those two problems were less common in years past but they did still occur from time to time.

Smartphones have brought a whole new pile of worries into local schools and not just distracted kids and new ways to cheat on tests. High school fights are now routinely filmed and immediately posted on social media. Students share photos and videos of themselves or others fully or partially nude, no doubt unaware that they are in blatant violation of child pornography laws, not to mention the prospect of humiliation and public shaming.

That’s over and above the online bullying and social media threats that have made headlines in Prince George and elsewhere.

That’s why it’s so disheartening to teachers, who are referred to as glorified daycare providers, when politicians demand administrators do more with less.

The job was always hard and now it’s getting harder. The Ministry of Education, superintendents and school board trustees need to take bold action to reduce that burden on teachers.

Ban students from having smartphones and iPods at school, right through Grade 12. These devices should be treated like peanut butter sandwiches in a nut-free school. They should be seized and only returned to parents. Repeat offenders should be suspended.

(Parents: need to get hold of your kid in an emergency? Call the school, just like your parents did. Non-emergency? Leave a message at the office, just like your parents did).

Expel students who require police investigations and court orders to control their bullying.

Eventually, school breakfasts may have to be funded by government, so those meals can also be provided in all schools, not just the ones where parents, businesses and charities are able to step up.

Teachers and administrators clearly have enough on their plate when it comes to their educational duties and their deeper responsibilities to the welfare of students. The more action that can be taken to reduce obstacles to learning, the better it will be, not just for teachers but for children as well.

Neil Godbout is managing editor of The Prince George Citizen. He was once a reporter at The Penticton Herald.