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In the classroom, we have mandated material to cover. It varies from state to state, and district to district, but in some places spending ANY instructional time on something that cannot be directly related to the standard you are supposed to be teaching can cause teachers to be "written up." This is the bi-partisan "standards and accountability" movement that brought us NCLB and other high-stakes testing programs at the state level. The movement that Democrats as well as Republicans keep voting to support.
Before I moved 4 years ago, I worked in a district that mandated what was allowed to be on the walls in the room, when each standard was to be taught, for how long, with what materials; a district that evaluated teachers by observing how closely they stuck to the "script" an adopted scripted curriculum gave them.
Does the school's curriculum make any effort to demystify bigotry or bullying? Sometimes. My district has counselors who spend one period a week with each class, using an adopted curriculum that is supposed to address those sorts of things. At least, we did until the current round of budget cuts, which cut enough counselors to ensure that they won't be meeting regularly with everyone on campus.
Not that one period a week is going to overcome the home culture and conditioning. It's not. It makes some enemies, of course. No family wants school teaching their kids something counter to the family "values," whether those "values" are constructive or destructive.
Repeated complaints to staff ignored? This can be attributed to a number of things; I don't know which factors may have contributed in this particular case:
1. Staff that has been there long enough to know that know matter how they try to address it, it doesn't end. Apathy.
2. Staff that didn't ignore it; that addressed it in some way that didn't work. When a teacher or an admin is dealing with a student transgression, it isn't done publicly. The victim, or anyone else on campus, isn't part of that process unless asked for testimony. Verdicts and consequences are not public.
2b This can result in anger from some. The "Why am I getting in trouble when nothing happened to ___________" syndrome. They really don't care that someone else's trouble is none of their business, ethically or legally. Adolescent transgressors will almost always try to blame their behavior on someone else, or to transfer responsibility in some way. Not unlike the dysfunctional American culture that they are growing up in.
3. The resources available to address this problem are inadequate, overloaded, or non-existing.
It amazes me how many things public education is blamed for. The bottom line is that, according to some, WE are failing to raise America's kids right; parents are not accountable.
WE are supposed to feed them, supply them, sometimes clothe them, teach them respect and responsibility, provide mental health services, academics, social skills, honesty, and a work ethic.
While we are understaffed, under-supplied, underpaid, and over-crowded. In a systemic structure that is counter-productive.
And when we fail to achieve all of the above, we "tacitly support" the dysfunction.
Reality? Ask any teacher how to restructure and fund the system so that bullies can't run rampant; they will eagerly offer up constructive ways to do so.
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