The Real Killer of Schoolkids: Schools
Schools teach everything – albeit not always well – but they don’t teach the most basic skill of all, a skill that has the capacity to save the world. Schools don’t teach kindness.
They’re making a dent by tagging bullies and troubled youngsters. It’s a start. But I know the way classrooms were run in the 1950s when I was a kid, and I imagine they’re not much better today, perhaps worse because class sizes are larger, and random acts of unkindness harder to detect and treat.
How to be kind is easily imparted, easily learned. For me it only required one lesson. It was delivered by a fellow fourth grader, Buddy Bridgers, red-headed, smart and aware.
It was recess, we were all hell-bent on four-square, that game with painted quadrants, a large ball, and a line of kids waiting to start in the first quad where you either washed out or worked your way up the chain. At #2, 3 and 4, you held on for dear life.
A big kid – not yet fat but hefty, with a bristle of black hair – entered the start-up square, myself in #4 and holding pat. I was a good athlete. Also smart, like Buddy. But hardly aware. Buddy held #3 when I and #2 began to razz the big kid in a not-nice way. Who knows where viciousness comes from, but suddenly #2 and I blasted #1’s volleys back with cries of rage suggesting that, after we vanquished him, we’d tie him up and roast him on a spit.
When the bell rang to return to class, Buddy followed me to a water fountain. As I drank, he said quietly, “The way you treated [big guy] was very wrong. You really hurt his feelings. I didn’t know you could be so mean. I hope you’ll apologize to him.”
I was stricken with guilt. I sought out the kid whom I’d inexplicably turned into a scapegoat. I told him how sorry I was. (He brushed me off, by the way. People of all ages are awkward with apologies, which may explain why all of us are so reluctant to offer them, but that’s another story.)
When Buddy scolded me, I was not, in fact, a bad person. My fault was that I was nine years old, simply plainly clueless about the concept of kindness itself, about what it entailed, about how it must be cultivated as a deliberate act. It isn’t difficult to be kind once you recognize the need for it when it arises.
A few years later, in the penitentiary of the psyche called junior high school, I myself was the victim of ignorant cruelty. My family touched down briefly in a downtrodden section of Van Nuys in the San Fernando Valley. In science class, a gangster girl who sat behind me (think of an infinitely less adorable Stockard Channing in "Grease") patted a length of masking tape along the back of my sweater.
When I pulled it off, I read, “I need a bra.”
For the record, I needed a bra the way Gloria Steinem’s fish needed a bicycle. At that age my chest size measured 32 quadruple A. But in the insane CC&Rs for cool teen-dom at the time, a savvy chick sported a trainer bra so that something in the nature of a grownup brassiere showed through her clothes.
Embarrassed, indignant, foolish, I marched up to the teacher, and handed him the tape. He called greaser girl up to excoriate her (excoriation, by the way, does not teach kindness, quite the reverse; it teaches hostility, just what a bully requires no further need of).
Later, back in our seats, my new nemesis handed me a note: “After skool [sic], meet me behind the fiz [sic] ed bilding [sic]. Me and my frens [sic] are gonna beat you up till you die!”
For the rest of my thankfully brief time at Van Nuys Junior High School, when the bell rang at three o’clock, I fled home. I told no one. Some mornings I woke up nauseous and my parents permitted me to skip school. My grades deteriorated, I was repeatedly grounded, I did drugs and, although I eventually went off to college, I spent four years engrossed in other activities – theater training, some acting work, marriage, divorce, a year in Europe – none of which I regret.
A close friend whom we’ll call Sheila had it worse. For three years in junior high, also in the Valley. For no fathomable reason other than that her father was a diplomat, they’d lived in Europe, so Sheila was quite simply different, she became the class pariah. Food and trash and names were hurled at her. At home she wept in her room, in the bathroom, over her homework. Her parents sent her to a psychiatrist. Looking back, who was in need of the shrink? How about the bullies, the rest of the student body enablers. the teachers, the principal?
Sheila’s parents, fortunately, had the money to send her to a good private school. Not “good” in the preppy sense, but good in that the classes were small, the teachers were both interesting and interested. For example, one day the kids read "Bartleby the Scrivener," by Herman Melville, about the clerk in a lawyer’s office who performs less and less of his tedious copying work, always declining with the words, “I would prefer not to.”
When the teacher asked the class to discuss the story, the kids replied in cheerful unison, “We would prefer not to!” whereupon everybody, teacher included, laughed long and hard.
Sheila has stayed friends with all her classmates from that private school. She attended college in Colorado, and earned a master’s degree in social work. She has never had difficulty landing well-paying jobs. She’s funny and smart and creative, and she makes friends easily.
A happy ending?
Not particularly. Sheila has never found contentment or any kind of sanctuary with any of these jobs. Her love life is a continuous mess, and she has no idea of how badly she chooses her partners, nor of how each period of post-fling mourning is always masochistic and prolonged.
We all have broken parts. Some of them come from genetics, some from faulty parenting, but perhaps for many of us, the unkindest cut of all stems from cruelties dealt at school.
These wounds make nut cases of us all. For the shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary School, his broken parts kicked in at the worst and highest point on the spectrum; something in him held the germ of a criminally insane killer. He snapped and returned to the symbolic scene of his own abuse.
But what about the rest of us who are all nutcases, some larger, some smaller, all in different ways? How much of our nutcase-ness comes from schoolyard violence, verbal or physical, that no one corrected? And within the chain-linked perimeter of the schoolyard, we were obliged to return day after day for fresh doses of it
All that any single youngster requires to get straightened out is a Buddy Bridgers at the water fountain, speaking words of wisdom soft and low. But, allowing for the scarcity of Buddys in the world, what if all teachers were indoctrinated in kindness to the point that they teach it all the live-long day, in lectures, in judicious interventions between feuding kids, in gentle insights shared with one lone, frightened, hurt child?
By all means, let us take action, sign petitions, and bug our elected officials to reduce gun ownership. But the root problem is far deeper, and yet, once accepted, so much easier to cure.
Perhaps we should keep our children home from school until a plan is put into place to make kindness the top job of education, with instruction in reading, writing and ‘rithmetic a quaint after-thought?
Editor's note: Holly Nadler is a columnist for Martha's Vineyard Patch and for the Vineyard Gazette. Her writing credits include the hit TV shows "Laverne and Shirley," and "Barney Miller." She also has published four books including "Ghosts of Boston Town," "Vineyard Confidential," "Haunted Island" and "Vineyard Supernatural."
Becky Luce
6:48 am on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Good morning! I appreciate your words, yet want to comment that I firmly believe teachers DO teach kindness. Students demonstrate kindness to others constantly. Kind deeds are a constant part of our days in the schools. I teach in a public school in NH (I grew up on the Vineyard), and I know our school is similar to thousands across the nation. We have students who show kindness and compassion easily, those who work hard at it and those who have a difficult time receiving it, much less demonstrating it. Is it possible/probable that we miss opportunities each day? Of course! But I challenge anyone to spend an hour in a school, and tell me that they witnessed NO acts of guidance toward greater kindness and compassion - it happens constantly and naturally every day.
Becky Luce
Lebanon, NH
Holly Nadler
12:17 pm on Sunday, December 23, 2012
I'm inserting this aperçue as close to the top of the commentary as I can get it, just to demonstrate that other people are re-thinking what we put our kids through. This is the subtitle of an article by A.A. Gill in the December Vanity Fair (he's a Manhattan dad, just to give you an idea of where he's coming from): "The biggest problem kids face is the byzantine education-industrial complex known as school, which ruins the most carefree and memorable years of their lives." He does not for a moment blame teachers. Basically I believe this new millennium is calling upon us to re-think everything.
Jen Ward
7:25 am on Thursday, December 20, 2012
As a teacher and parent I am surprised to read this article- spend a day at ANY school and then write there is no kindness being taught. We all work hard everyday to produce compassionate members of society- I couldn't disagree more with this post
Carolyn O'Daly
7:58 am on Thursday, December 20, 2012
It would help if our teachers weren't overworked and underpaid but, really, isn't it a parent's job to teach kindness? And while kindness is a nice trait I think that teaching compassion would be of more value. This from a kid to used to come home and cry to my mother because the kids were picking on someone else!
Mack
9:37 am on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Please stop with the overworked and underpaid mantra. Enjoy your summers off, every holiday ever imagined, multiple week long, sometimes two-week long vacations during your 180 day work year, half days galore, and seemingly endless sick time. I appreciate how important teachers are and that the good ones do work hard and have huge impact on our children's lives. This is not an anti-teacher rant, but rather an anti- woe is me rant. We all have our crosses to bear.
Chip Coblyn
8:09 am on Thursday, December 20, 2012
And yet something's wrong. How else to explain the rash of suicides by children literally bullied to death. Something's wrong when teacher's, principals and parents fail to protect such kids. I remember to this day the teacher who helped shield me from some of life's cruelties. I was doubly lucky because my father--ex paratrooper, two war, twenty year Army Major--happened to be the kindest man I have ever known. I hope most kids have such role models, but I'm going to say sadly that I doubt it. Teachers are wonderful people, but when I read the headlines about our schools (usually concerning violence planned or carried out) I know something's gone terribly wrong.
Nick Pebley
8:11 am on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Teachers teach kindness every day. What they *don't* do is create a strict environment by which children learn right from wrong - that's something lost in today's world of over-indulgent, self-entitled parents. In my day, teachers helped define the boundaries of acceptable behavior in society, and we were the better for it. Nowadays, teachers still accentuate the "kindness" but without drawing the other line in the sand, mostly because of fear of repercussions should they ever actually discipline a child of self-entitled "me first" parents. No teacher wants to have their job threatened for daring to tell little Precious that he shouldn't act in a particular way. So they try very hard to lean towards teaching kids to be kind, but never get to help the kids learn right from wrong, and what NOT to do.
We get spoiled children as a result.
So no, Holly, it's not Schools that are killing our kids. It's parents who refuse to define or let be defined boundaries for their children's behavior. There's a video on YouTube of some kids cruelly taunting the bus monitor which serves as testament to that fact - in my day we might wise off now and then, and be punished for it, but never in any way shape or form would kids from my generation act like that, so overtly anti-social and with no fear of repercussions (as such repercussions are clearly foreign to those kids).
Holly Nadler
9:17 am on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Nick, you're clearly a highly intelligent person, but I'm wondering if I could point you toward a ground-breaking book by Alice Miller, The Drama of The Gifted Child. A brilliant psychologist from war-torn Europe, she makes a very good case that you can't spoil a young, defenseless child and a Teutonic uber-discipline method of child-rearing was, she believed, what led to a Nazi Germany. A later, favorite child-rearing author of mine is Penelope Leach. I raised a very kind and compassionate son with the help of these ladies. He also, by the by, loves gangsta rappers and ferocious video games, but it doesn't make him want to hit anyone.
Carolyn O'Daly
9:39 am on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Children learn what they see. For the first five, impressionable years their parents and caretakers teach them. By the time they get to school they already have a pretty solid foundation of behavior. If we park them in front of the TV so we can go about our business then their behavior will reflect that. We need to interact with our children and teach them by our actions.
Michael West
8:44 am on Thursday, December 20, 2012
I really think most teachers are well-intended caretakers of our kids, but lack a trained-in awareness of how to manage conflict situations. For those who like to read, I would recommend this book - becoming the Parent You Want To Be by Laura Davis & Janis Keyser. While this book deals with early childhood parenting, it is a rich source of strategies and tactics for successfully setting limits, encouraging children to solve problems in conflict and teaching kindness and acceptance of differences in others. That's what I think this is about, yet I must agree with Holly that however well-intended our teachers (and parents) are, they generally lack the skills necessary to deal with this problem.
Holly Nadler
9:12 am on Thursday, December 20, 2012
I realize my essay will antagonize teachers, and I'm sorry to all those who make an effort to civilize their students. But I write from life experience. Kids were brutalized in the public schools when I made my way through the ranks. Are things so very different today? I'm tired of the conversation, post-Sandy Hook, being ALL about gun control. Listen, I abhor guns. But a real change needs to come from deep inside each and every individual, teacher, parent, student. Then maybe schoolyard shootings will cease. And so will being citizens of a country whose major export is war.
Cheryl Burns
9:42 am on Thursday, December 20, 2012
My biggest lesson in compassion came from my high school French teacher, M. Dufour. There was a boy in our class, bright yet quiet, awkward and gawky with a large misshapen head full of freckles. The boys teased him mercilessly, nick-naming him "heady." one day, when this boy was absent, M, Dufour told the class in a caring, mentoring way, "Never be the last straw in someone's life. You can never know what someone is going through." i obviously never forgot those words.
Michael West
10:25 am on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Beautiful, Cheryl. That's really one of the keys to compassion. We cannot know why the car in front of us is moving so slowly or the one behind us is so anxious to pass. Those lives are unknowns, and all we can do is accept that and not be the cause of any further stress or discomfort in those lives.
Holly Nadler
10:25 am on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Fantastic story, Cheryl! Fantastic teacher. I hope the hazing of this student stopped?
House Of Joyful Noise
3:20 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Not seeing noticing the comments here on this page, I commented on the PP Facebook Page. Reading through here, I see good points in many of the replies here. Even those in disagreement with each other. I agree that there IS goodness that happens in schools every day: both teacher and students who have a good heart, and whose actions and words serve as positive teachable moments for all. There are great parents, great teachers, and great kids. And then there are horrific parents, teachers and kids-who sadly can damage a developing young person for life, and that damage manifest itself in a host of heart-breaking outcomes. While I do believe kindness and compassion should be specifically taught all throughout the school years, it should start from home and parenting as well, and from the start. To be taught everywhere, would be the most effective on society as a whole. Peace and love through out the world, and for each other, would be world-changing.
ed
3:20 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Mack,
Let's look at a comparison: The average non-teaching employee works 230 days per year (assumes 15 holidays and 14 vacation days). The typical teacher works 180 days per year. While your average employee is paid overtime for work in excess of 40 hours per week, teachers are exempted from the overtime standards of the Fair Labor Standards Act and do not receive overtime, regardless of hours work. With that as a backdrop, let's look at teacher reaility through my eyes. My teacher spouse leaves everyday at 6 am to prepare for a schoolday that begins with students at 7:20 am. Her day ends at 2:00 pm in the classroom, followed by an hour of availability for extra help (12-15 students from 4-5 different classes all showing up at the same time for individual help) - On a good day, she is home by 3:45 pm and collapses for an hour. After dinner, she'll prepare for the next day which might include creating tests, correcting homework or calling parents to discuss their children. By 8 pm, she is asleep after a 12-hour plus day. She does this five days per week which now averages 60 hours.
Weekends are devoted to preparation, correcting, parent calls, gradebook entries and required paperwork. An average of 6 hours per weekend is conservative.
Let's do the math:
60 hrs/wkx36wks+ 2160 hrs + 6 hrs/weekend x 36=216=2376 hrs per year. 1260 are compensated!
Try this: take your annual salary and divide it by 2080 hours. Then halve it - that's your teacher salary per hour!
Mack
11:33 am on Friday, December 21, 2012
Fuzzy math ed. I, and all the people I know in the private sector, are also Exempt employees. We are frequently required to work nights and weekends for no additional pay or appreciation for that matter. We also get 9 holidays per year.
I have family, friends, and neighbors who are teachers. I know their routines well and I submit they are no more overworked or underpaid than I am or any of the non-teachers I know. Also, I drop my kids off at school every day at exactly the same time the teachers are arriving, i.e., ten to 15 minutes before opening bell. (It sounds like your spouse is different, which I applaud.) Your spouse, my family members, and my neighbors all chose to be teachers. Just like me and my private sector colleagues, they are free to seek work elsewhere if they are unhappy with their pay or schedule.
David Whitmon
3:20 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Holly. This is the most powerful, wonderful piece that I have ever read by you. My eldest daughter was so picked on, so brutalized by her peers at the Oak Bluffs School, with the full knowledge of staff and administration it has scarred her to this day. Almost on a daily basis I was back in that school, in that office raising hell as my daughter came out in tears yet again and again. All I got was lip service. Nothing that I could say to them would get them to take any action against those who treated her so poorly. Nothing. There were teachers who treated her with disdain. After two incidents with a Social Studies teacher, I terminated all contact that that person had with my kid. She had a Social Skills teacher lacking of any social skills what so ever. Like talking to a brick wall. I finally brought Attorney Rosemarie Haigazian into the school building to put the fear of $$$$$$ into them.
That is what it took. But the damage was done. Why was treated so poorly? Because she was different. A.S.D. Autism Spectrum Disorder. Aspergers.
Brian Weiland
3:20 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Yesterday funeral services were held for schoolteacher Victoria Soto who, along with five other teachers was gunned down while literally throwing her body in front of bullets aimed at her students, and you seriously spent the day writing an article effectively blaming the incident on teachers for not understanding the value of being kind? For not caring enough?! Really?!!!!!
And then you have the nerve - no, the absolute cruelty - to actually title the article “The Real Killer of Schoolkids: Schools.” Do you have any idea how offensive that is? You really signed your name to an article saying that the real villain here is not Adam Lanza, but is actually the teachers?!!!!! Though, like everyone else, you know absolutely nothing of what was going on in Adam Lanza’s obviously deranged mind, you wrote an entire article essentially saying, “the chickens have come home to roost.” Way to demonstrate kindness, there.
Do I really have to explain to you that Victoria Soto was only six years older than Adam Lanza and grew up in New York, and thus was not part of whatever bullying you imagine he must have suffered as a fifth grader at Sandy Hook? And do I really need to remind you that 20 beautiful children who were not even even born in 2002 were also gunned down? Did they “deserve” it too, Holly?
I’m sorry if you got teased in junior high, but based on this piece of writing, it seems likely that you probably spent far more of your time as the bully than the victim.
Philip Tucker
9:35 am on Sunday, December 23, 2012
Clearly you just skimmed the article- Holly did not "blame" the teachers, nor suggest that Ms Soto or the children "deserved" it. She simply pointed out that more awareness is needed in teachers; if they're aware of unkindness, they can address it. I grew up in Vineyard Haven, and was reasonably popular until 3rd grade, when one bully inexplicably chose me to be the class scapegoat. I was tormented until 10th grade by pretty much all of the other students, when I left the high school for the Alternative School. Just as inexplicably, I was popular again- and I was just being myself, as always. If teachers had paid attention in elementary school, my life would have been very different. I missed more school than I can say- I would hide in the attic until the house was empty to avoid another day of misery. My teachers at the Alternative School saved my life... Thanks, Clarissa Allen, Jennifer Lander, Dick Miller, and Russell Saucier. Awareness is the key!
Becca Rogers
3:20 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
I'd like to see teachers and parents teach happiness. Like all things worth having in our lives, being happy takes work. It takes knowing what makes each of us happy; be it music, a walk in the woods, or time spent with good friends.
"There is no duty we so underrate as the duty of being happy." - R L Stevenson
I believe compassion (kindness, awareness...) begins in our own hearts. I believe happiness is a choice. Tough times come for all of us, but a positive outlook and a little compassion for getting through the day couldn't hurt.
So many of us have friends and family who struggle with mental illness. In my opinion (go ahead, blast me), this stems from a lack of self-esteem. Self-soothing is a discipline that takes thought and patience and a little help from our adults.
Thank you, dear Holly, for allowing a dialog on something so important.
Michael West
5:36 am on Friday, December 21, 2012
Very wise, Becca. Have you read the book Happiness by Matthieu Ricard?
Jen Ward
3:20 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
News reports say the murderer didn't even go to public school. The title of you essay is offensive
Holly Nadler
3:58 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Whew, I must have started this particular conversation earlier than it was politic to do so. I wasn't making any attempt to analyze any of the personalities of the people involved in last week's shooting, only beginning to delve for answers in addition to gun control. I'm gonna go back to writing only chuckly stories -- some of the above insulting comments to me personally are reminding me of junior high school.
Philip Tucker
9:38 am on Sunday, December 23, 2012
Your article was very well written; I can only assume people are feeling defensive. Anyone who read the article through would see that it is not intended to be insulting. I always enjoy your writing- don't bow down to bullying!
David Whitmon
4:15 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Holly. As I said before, "This is the most powerful, wonderful piece that I have ever read by you." I find nothing that you have written offensive. Keep up the good work and keep us on our toes.
Nancy Jephcote
4:26 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
I said this on facebook put wanted to go on record here at the source as well: Weirdly I think each blaming critique I hear holds some truth. Soul searching after something so wrenching is a natural and healthy consequence. Sadly criticism is so much easier than constructive solutions. So I say TRY to hear each other. TRY HARDER to put children first. TRY to reduce inappropriate access to weapons. Say what you mean and don't be mean when you say it. TRY to improve acceptance of differences. TRY to notice dangerous ideation. TRY to allow spiritual practice to coexist with rational discourse. TRY to forgive the human scale of overwhelmed civil servants & teachers. Question authority. TRY not to make everybody feel worse right now than they do already. Accept our shared roles in demonstrating constructive dialogue and solutions. Divisiveness is counter-productive and is not the example our children need right now. Forgive and don't forget. "You might say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."
Holly Nadler
4:37 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
@Brian W., if you can grab a moment, could you kindly quote back to me even one sentence from the above essay that states or even implies that "The real villain is . . . actually teachers"?
Brian Weiland
7:07 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Don’t hide behind semantics. Every anecdote in your article includes an implication or outright description of what teachers did and are doing wrong, and how if they just bothered to teach kindness, tragedies like the one in Sandy Hook, as well as countless other more personal tragedies would be avoided. You state, wrongly, that addressing bullies is easy and can be done with a single sentence or gesture, you suggest that teachers (and principals) are no better than the bullies and enablers, and if that wasn’t clear enough your conclusion just outright states that teachers should be forced to teach kindness (as if they don’t already), and that children should be kept away from them until they start.
A pretty fair definition of a villain is someone who stands by and lets evil happen without lifting a finger to stop it, and you couldn’t possibly have been clearer about whom you feel is in that role.
You’re a writer. You didn’t choose any of your words accidentally. With the horrible tragedy at Newton so fresh in everyone’s minds, don’t deliberately title your article “The Real Killer of Schoolkids: Schools,” and then pretend to be surprised when teachers find that offensive.
Holly Nadler
10:37 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Okay, Brian, let's just talk about gun control and forget about all other avenues we can pursue.
Philip Tucker
9:45 am on Sunday, December 23, 2012
@Brian- You are clearly reading what you want to see into this article. I've reread it several times, looking for what you see, and it just isn't there. People can always find a way to take offense if they are determined enough. I see nothing that badmouths teachers in any way, just a suggestion that teaching MORE kindness would be a good idea. Of course there are amazing teachers who already do it- it would just be great if there were more of them. I have nothing but respect for teachers- it is a very hard job, and often thankless.
Nancy Jephcote
5:12 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Holly, Your headline may be the biggest problem for those who dedicate their lives to working in the schools. Please understand a teacher feels included when you blame "schools" as the "real killers". Teachers are blamed for a lot of things over which they have very little control. And despite what they way about free speech, teachers are not free to express their differences with their administrations and school policies without repercussions. I value your article. It is thought provoking and gets a healthy dialogue going. If people are hard on each other here I know it is because of grief.
Holly Nadler
5:46 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Nancy, you're making good sense. The headline of this essay IS on the provocative side, but all I'm trying to say is that lessons of kindness in our culture are, confoundingly enough, low on our list of priorities. Parents put all their pressure on grades, sports, college and, at the end of it all -- top jobs! And how's that working out these days? Teachers meanwhile have their time jammed up by being forced to teach to the tests, and we know that's been disappointing too. Let's just all take some deep breaths and keep on working for a better world.
Teacher
6:37 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
I just got home (at 4:50 pm) from a long, exhausting, and emotional day of teaching, and then coaching (for free!) 7th graders at an Intermediate school here on Cape Cod. I have four children of my own, including an actual 7 year old First Grader, who all spend their days being taught by interesting, caring, thoughtful, and kind(!) teachers at their various public schools here in town. I just read the article, and the comments, and many remarks made me feel angry, sad, misunderstood, and just plain terrible. Many of you truly do not know of what you speak, and for that, I forgive you. This has been a horrific week for ALL Americans, but for me, a teacher who genuinely loves her job and her students - I am beyond heartbroken. Thanks to all those people out there who have succeeded in actually making me feel even worse than I already did. Merry Christmas, everyone.
Jen Ward
8:29 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Holly you were not provocative you were rude and insensitive in your title and you should appoligize for insulting so many people
Cynthia Mascott
9:35 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
SO am I Sheila?
Holly Nadler
10:38 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Cindy, no, Sheila was a composite.
Holly Nadler
11:09 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Since when does the word "school" mean exclusively teachers? Anyone reading my essay, with some attention paid to the words, will see that I'm discussing school as a place where young people are legally forced to go every day for 9 months and endure a kind of concentration camp of humankind's inhumanity to humankind at an early age. Whether you're being picked on or doing the picking -- and lots of kids have experienced both, or stood by helplessly and been burdened by guilt -- all these students carry the scars forward. If you're a highly sensitive person you might have disastrously low self-esteem and make lousy life choices without knowing why. If you're genetically disposed to be a sociopath, you might end up hurting people. Do teachers make a huge effort to help? You bet! Could they do more? Of course. Could we create a culture of kindness from kindergarten up? I do believe that's a worthy goal. In fact, I believe, at my advanced age, that it's the only goal in life, so why not begin in kindergarten?
Cynthia Mascott
3:04 am on Friday, December 21, 2012
Oh please. I was Sheila to the max and maybe you didn't get that extra genetic gene of kindness from dad. I'd never write something on a public forum that so closely resembles a family member of mine
Michael West
6:02 am on Friday, December 21, 2012
This blogpost and all the comments, good and bad, are the first honest words I have heard about what went down in Newtown. The media did its usual BS job, The politicians covered their posteriors with pomposity. The pundits blithered on. But nobody took on the real problem.
We live in a profoundly sick society. Rotten to the core. All the manufactured Christmas spirit you see on television and in the marketplace is just a band-aid on a festering sore.
We can ban assault weapons and we should. We can throttle down those absurdly sick videogames and just maybe not give our children simulated mass murder for Christmas. We can avoid the blood-spatter movies and the glorification of criminals and killers on TV and in the music we listen to.
But something is very wrong at the root of our society if these things appeal to us. And if we don't do anything about it.
I think Holly has done us a service by raising these issues and these feelings. Clearly many teachers are good people and have the will to make a difference. But why are they unable to prevent bullying? Do they really have adequate and appropriate training to heal the harm that is done in schools every day?
I think we have to start somewhere to change things. Schools might be one good place to start.
Jen Ward
7:19 am on Friday, December 21, 2012
Holly- children are not forced to go to a concentration camp called school. School cannot be conpared to a concentration camp not be blamed for murders. You are the most insensitive writer I have read since the shootings. I am officially done reading this INSANE thread- Your words are so hurtful, it's pathetic.
Holly Nadler
3:26 pm on Friday, December 21, 2012
Jen, are you sure you wouldn't like to take one last opportunity to call me rude and insensitive?
Philip Tucker
9:54 am on Sunday, December 23, 2012
Jen- you should read the article without preconceived ideas as to what it's about. The clear suggestion is that other kids are the problem; and possibly more awareness of situations by teachers would help. When I was in elementary school (Tisbury School) it certainly felt like a concentration camp. I know teachers were aware of how extensively I was bullied, but it was never, ever addressed. I had the good fortune to go to a different high school, for which I am forever grateful. NOBODY is saying that teachers are bad! Just that some could be more aware. I know you, and am confident that you are one of the best.
Annie Bradshaw
7:56 am on Friday, December 21, 2012
Wow, by the amount of feed back, I'd say the heading of this blog got people's attention Holly! It's been painful to watch politicians and the media throw the blame on guns. More gun control is not the answer....it is much more complicated. Our country is socially f*#ked up. You can see where Mental Illness stands by counting the homeless in any and all major cities. The majority of these people are mentally I'll. Our kids have become a desensitized generation. It's not the teachers fault.....disipline has been removed from the classroom by parents who think little Johnny should be treated respectfully even at the cost of another child's hell. Our entire society needs an overhaul.
David Whitmon
8:14 am on Friday, December 21, 2012
During the time that my children were at the Oak Bluffs School, before I pulled them out for their own well being, I came to the conclusion that it was nothing more than assembly line education. So what if they screw up a kid or two every year or so. So what if another child left to fall through the cracks. It's OK. It's OK because we (society) just keep mindlessly feeding our children into the grinder, year after year after year.
That school failed both of my kids. Period. No Ifs, No Ands, No Buts.
My Youngest who is autistic started at the high school this year. Technically she is a Senior. I had pulled her out of Oak Bluffs and the MVPSS after 3rd grade and this is her first time back in the school system since. I have nothing but praise for the special ed department at the high school. I find it amazing how two schools, Oak Bluffs and the Regional, both under the same school system could be so different. One harmful and indifferent, the other nurturing and dynamic.
My failure was to let the former cloud my view of the latter, paint the whole system with a broad brush.
I've been told that there have been dramatic positive changes at the Oak Bluffs School. It's about time.
Holly Nadler
3:32 pm on Friday, December 21, 2012
Jeez, by the amount of abuse I've taken in the above commentary, you'd think I'd proposed testing biohazardous waste in every playground. All I've proposed is introducing greater amounts -- great whacking amounts, in fact -- of kindness into the educational syllabus. Why is this pissing ANYBODY off?
Brian Weiland
8:04 am on Saturday, December 22, 2012
Don’t play the martyr, you got exactly the response you were hoping for, and I for one regret rising to your bait, but I will respond one last time, because you still are completely missing the point.
The idea of teaching kindness is not what pissed me or anyone else off. I was offended by the way you squarely blamed teachers for nurturing cruelty, either by design or by neglect. Do you honestly think that you are the first person in or outside of the school system to wrestle with the frustration of how to keep kids safe from physical and emotional harm, whether from peers, adults, or themselves?
I took exception to not just your headline, but to the tone and content of your entire article because you never bothered to find out that the schools on Martha’s Vineyard DO teach kindness, and not just in the way that all good nurturing teachers do, but as a deliberate part of the curriculum. The Oak Bluffs School pioneered a program on the island called the Responsive Classroom, now employed to varying degrees throughout the island, whose first guiding principal is that “The social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum,” and whose main textbook is literally called “Teaching Children to Care.” This, along with amazing, dedicated, highly-skilled and hardworking teachers, is why even detractors note dramatic positive changes.
If you really want an informed dialog with teachers, try not insulting them first, even if it does increase your readership.
Philip Tucker
10:01 am on Sunday, December 23, 2012
Wait- you're accusing Holly of playing the martyr? Reread your responses. And it's great that the OB School has initiated these programs! Now, if we could only get all the other schools onboard! I'm not pointing fingers at Island schools- I mean schools everywhere. My opinion is that the biggest culprit in these huge school attacks is mainstream media. These troubled kids see the opportunity to be famous. Look how notorious they have each become.
Holly Nadler
8:44 am on Saturday, December 22, 2012
Hullo, Brian. Something has pushed a button that has made you unnecessarily critical and, dare I say it?, unkind to me personally, something that the content of this essay (were you to actually read it: there, do I sound like a teacher myself?) could not possibly offend you so much. I hope you have some helpful ways to deal with your anger issues.
Holly Nadler
8:50 am on Saturday, December 22, 2012
Another thing, Brian, you might find, again, were you to actually read my article, that I'm talking about the general culture of American schools, not the more ideal child-rearing environments in place on the island (w/ some exceptions, and I direct your attention to other commentary above). Also, not once do I say it's teachers who are cruel, although I'm sure cases can be made for that, and have been made, only that teachers are unable to prevent or treat the natural cruelty of children (see Lord of The Rings for more about that). However, by the tone of your multiple screeds, I have to admit I'd hate to be a kid in your class performing an erroneous f-sharp on his clarinet.
Brian Weiland
10:02 am on Saturday, December 22, 2012
Sigh...
If you can misunderstand me so completely that you feel that my obviously defensive responses are cruel, then I should allow that I have misunderstood you.
You are obviously a passionate and kind person who cares deeply this issue for reasons both personal and global. Yes, protecting children from physical and emotional harm is or should be the first goal of our society and schools, even before whatever else we as a society have decided should be taught and tested. No, I don’t believe that you hate teachers in general, or me in particular (though I may have gone a long way towards that with my blunt posts!)
I have reacted perhaps too defensively, and my tone has certainly not exemplified the ideal we are both talking about, and for that I apologize. I tire of schools and teachers being continual scapegoats, and your article was, for me, the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. If even a school massacre inspires yet another article describing what is wrong with schools, you can perhaps understand why teachers might feel that their efforts are unappreciated?
Brian Weiland
10:04 am on Saturday, December 22, 2012
Though I am very proud of the efforts of my colleagues around this issue, I recognize that we’re not perfect, and that I have no knowledge of how this issue is handled nationwide. As with everything else in education, improvement is our continual goal, and I recognize that this was the main point of your article.
Though I still don’t like anything about your title, and I wish you’d asked some schoolteachers what they are doing around this issue before you wrote your article, I again apologize for my unkind tone, and for any moments when my reactions became personally insulting.
Holly Nadler
10:52 am on Sunday, December 23, 2012
I meant LORD OF THE FLIES (rather than Lord of the Rings) as an example of kids' cruelty. What a difference!
Holly Nadler
10:33 am on Saturday, December 22, 2012
Brian, you have no idea how relieved I am to read your gentler, reasoned responses. It literally does my heart good. Thank you so much and I too am heartily sorry for any hurt I may have caused you. Blessings to you and your family . . .
Holly Nadler
11:04 am on Sunday, December 23, 2012
Phillip Tucker, thank you so much for your thoughtful comments and for sharing your own experiences. You turned out a really cool individual, and it's long been known in creative circles that childhood dramas, melodramas and even psychodramas can achieve a real alchemy of Art. Still, there is no reason in the world that a defenseless child should be made to suffer while all the adults in the vicinity turn a blind eye. And Philip, I'm grateful to you for pointing out that if the detractors of this essay would actually READ it, they would see that what they're objecting to is not there.
Gail Gardner
12:14 pm on Sunday, December 23, 2012
I am truly disheartened by so many posts - here and many other sites online that are beyond insulting and degrading of teachers. We do teach kindness. And empathy and compassion. And for those who have questioned it - we do work long hours. I will admit that I get to work around 8 am. My kids come to school with me and as a single parent, I have no choice but to arrive when they need to be there. As they already spend MANY extra hours at school because I stay after school every day, making them come in at 6 am does not seem appropriate to me, as their parent. But, as I said, I stay after school most days. I eat lunch at my desk many days so that children can come to my room to work on projects that they have not yet completed for other teachers or because they do not have computers or printers at home. If students need to come in early to work, I will come in early on the days that I can (and I do!). Students know they can contact me via email or phone during my "off" hours for help with projects - for other classes usually, not mine. I am generally up until 12 or 1 in the morning each night planning, correcting, or creating my state mandated portfolio to justify my existence as a teacher in the school system. While the State of MA clearly defines what teachers should teach, I agree that kindness is important. Perhaps some here didn't learn that lesson, including Ms. Nadler. Yours is truly a callous headline, especially in this difficult time.
Holly Nadler
12:26 pm on Sunday, December 23, 2012
Gail, I admit, mea culpa, the title was provocative, but, as you might see, if you go back and read the essay over again, no where do I say you're not working long enough hours or being the most upstanding teacher, citizen and mom in the world. That's it! I'm giving all the teachers above who thought this was about them an F in reading!
David Whitmon
4:12 pm on Sunday, December 23, 2012
An F! That seems rather overly generous Holly.
Brian Weiland
9:12 pm on Sunday, December 23, 2012
While we’re gleefully handing out F’s (and worse), can I offer a little more perspective, if I promise not to be so strident?
The reason virtually every teacher who has responded to this article has had the same defensive reaction - sure, call it an over-reaction if you like - is that teachers feel personally responsible for the schools they work in, to the degree that teachers basically do not make a distinction between how their school is doing and how they are doing. If a student fails, the teacher immediately wonders what he or she did wrong to not give the child whatever he or she needed to succeed. Similarly, a condemnation of our school IS a condemnation of us, and not of the building, or the students, or the custodians, or the institution. Teachers are acutely aware that THEY are held accountable for the success or failure of their school at every level. Therefore, from a teacher’s perspective, the title is not just provocative, it is deeply insulting, personally hurtful, and given the recent tragedy, in incredibly poor taste.
I am taking Holly’s word for it that this is not what she meant and have publicly apologized to her for my assumption and resultant over-reaction, but please understand that I (and, I’ll bet, every other teacher who read this) did not just read the title and angrily skim the article as we have been repeatedly accused, we very carefully read the article IN CONTEXT OF the title. It really does make all the difference.
Brian Weiland
9:12 pm on Sunday, December 23, 2012
Blessings to you and your family as well, Holly, and also to yours David. I think that if more parents were as wonderful as you are with your daughters, that would also go a long way toward solving the issues we are all so worried about.
Gail Gardner
2:32 pm on Sunday, December 23, 2012
Thank you, Holly. I was noting the posts below your article which indicate otherwise. I did not say that you said any such things about our work ethic.
Gail Gardner
4:35 pm on Sunday, December 23, 2012
"Jeez, by the amount of abuse I've taken in the above commentary, you'd think I'd proposed testing biohazardous waste in every playground. All I've proposed is introducing greater amounts -- great whacking amounts, in fact -- of kindness into the educational syllabus. Why is this pissing ANYBODY off?" - Number one: We teach it to the best of our abilities. Number two: It is not in the State frameworks for any class, to my knowledge though every teacher I know would like it to be and C) It is not MCAS tested and therefore not a priority of the government and politicians who control what we teach.
Two - this would be one of the posts to which I referred in my comment.
"Please stop with the overworked and underpaid mantra. Enjoy your summers off, every holiday ever imagined, multiple week long, sometimes two-week long vacations during your 180 day work year, half days galore, and seemingly endless sick time."
I never said Holly said we don't have work ethic. I commented on POSTS on this site and others. I voiced displeasure at her headline and the offensiveness of it to teachers, schools, administration and the general public during this sensitive time.
I don't accept my F, from Ms. Nadler or David Whitmon.
Holly Nadler
7:26 pm on Sunday, December 23, 2012
Oy vey.
David Whitmon
11:17 pm on Sunday, December 23, 2012
After I had pulled both of my children out of the Oak Bluffs school, my eldest started in the Charter School the following year. My youngest child I home schooled for three years afterwards. I really couldn't afford to home school my child but much more importantly, I could not afford to leave her in that school.
The following Summer after I had removed my children from that place, we were riding home one evening from town on our bicycle built for three. We had taken a dirt path from South Circuit Ave that brought us out on to the back parking lot of the Oak Bluffs School. As we rode by that building my youngest child, who is significantly autistic, she yelled out at that building with perfect diction and clarity, "YOU WERE A LIVING HELL!"
Holly Nadler
8:30 am on Monday, December 24, 2012
Brian & Gail & other teachers who've weighed in above, believe it or not, I'm on your side. If I had it to do over again, I would have written this article to make this more clear. I know teachers' biggest complaint is having to teach to the tests rather than spend more creative and personal time with their students. This 100 year-old idea of public education for all our kids has had its trial run, its enormous government stamp, and now it's time to re-think it in every which way; a process teachers, I'm sure, would gladly get behind. You guys are heros the way fire fighters are heros. Let's see what new directions lie ahead of us. We're all in this together.