Educator Stephen Peters has tracked the main influences for students throughout the years and his findings should have important implications for educators and parents. His findings might just explain why “kids aren’t like they used to be.” According to Peters, in the 1960’s the top five influences in a child’s life in rank order were (1) home, (2) school, (3) church, (4) peers, and (5) media.
The 1980’s brought about changes in our society and culture, and with those changes, came a new order to what influences students. The top five influences in the 1980’s in a child’s life in rank order changed to (1) school, (2) church, (3) media, (4) family, and (5) friends. Most noticeably the disintegration of the family had a major impact on our children in the 1980’s, but fortunately, school and church continued to provide strong influences on our children.
As we’ve reached 2007, we now see an even greater change in what influences children. The top five influences in a child’s life in rank order now reads (1) friends, (2) media, (3) school, (4) church, and (5) family.
So, as parents and educators, what can we derive from the changes that have taken place in the last 40 years? First, we can try our best for our families, schools, and churches to regain the major influences on our children. Second, we can’t hide our heads in the sand and wish for the good old days to return. That probably isn’t going to happen. Third, we need to recognize the powerful influences that the media and our children’s friends have on them. Since we can’t completely control our children’s lives, we need to steer them towards appropriate media and friends who will be positive influences on them.
As an educator and a parent, the importance of programs such as peer mediation, peer tutoring, and peer mentoring is very clear. If these programs aren’t in every school, they should be. If we can’t be the ones that influence our children, then let’s direct them to sources of influence that promote positive messages for them as they think their thoughts, choose their actions, and live their lives.
Stephen G. Peters speaks nationally for the Hope Foundation. He has also authored the book Do You Know Enough About Me to Teach Me? His work helps frame the research behind the six principles of effective schools in Alan Blankstein’s book, Failure is Not an Option. To read more from the Hope Foundation visit www.hopefoundation.org.
15 comments:
What is going on...
...with the money wasted...
...sending administrators to...
...Arizona for a conference...
...that is going to be offered...
...in Chicago this summer!
I thought we were in the business of saving money in schools...It sure seems like a big waste of money to me...I hope the administrators enjoyed their luxurious trip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We all know that the administrators do nothing but waste money in order to make their lives easier in the first place, it comes with their job.
All of these expensive trips, and yet no money for Riverside library. How sad. Any thoughts?
Everyone might as well give up, you know Dr. Hill and Dan Tyree won't reply because they know we understand what is going on. Maybe it's time for someone to publish an article about money being wasted in Plymouth in order to get people to understand. My children deserve a good education, not a super intendant that seems to care more about his own thoughts than the thoughts of our beloved children.
Some of the comments on this post seem to be from people who need to get something off of their chests. Other comments start with personal and professional attacks. We choose not to respond to these comments. However, we do ask that anyone who has a concern, to pick up their phone and call any administrator. We will be happy to talk or meet with you.
What we would really like to read, though, are reactions to the subject matter in the posts. Good, constructive comments will help the school community solve problems that we face in today's educational environment. Thank you.
It amazes me that money can be found to send administrators to Arizon to a week of "fun in the sun," when school leadership can't find a few dollars to send elementary students to see a play done by the great examples of High School students, which could inspire these young students to accomplish such good works when they get older. When elementary students can no longer go to the High School to the to learn some swimming skills and water safety,because money can't be found to fund it, What does that say about how our school leadership prioritizes funded activities. Maybe we should ask the advice of our small school neighbor, Argos, how they can find the funds for their students to take field trips. Since Argo's ISTEP scores are high, you think our leadership would look into this. As our leadership often states: "It's about the kids."
When teachers ask to have a hotel room payed for one night, so they don't have to be on the road at 4:30a.m. to attend a workshop they offen get the response of "Can't you find some place closer?" The last time I looked at a map Chicago was a lot closer than Arizona.
Comments like these won't get a reponse because it is too easy to say it's just somebody getting something off their chest, instead of listening and having some empathy on how some actions and decisions affect other people.
If you set up a forum for public comment, you may control what's posted, but don't be shock that there are people out there that see things for what they are and have the will to comment on it.
Thank you for the genuine concern. Honestly, we can't tell you what the budget for transportation at Argos is. We do know that our transportation budget is fully extended. If you would like to come in and go through our budget for transportation we would gladly sit down with you and illustrate where we are.
As we develop a staff development plan each year, we have to take a close look at what our data shows us. We explained some of the complexities at the December Board meeting. We have some challenges that for which we need to prepare differently than we have in the past.
We feel that the Hope Foundation can give us the direction to focus on our specific challenges. We chose Arizona Institute because Carol Tomlinson, Stephen Peters, and Victoria Bernhard were speaking on the specific topics that address our challenges. If you look closely at the Chicago event, you'll see that it's a summit and not an institute. More importatnly, the speakers in Chicago will not address all of our challenges.
We fully understand that this forum invites public comment. We learn something from nearly every post that people make. For instance, an earlier post led us to discover why the Riverside Library is lacking books. We have initiated plan to fix that. We will try to respond to every post that has a genuine concern. We simply choose not to respond to emotional posts that level attacks on the decisions we make.
Finally, we are in the initial stages of creating a three-year staff development plan. There's a staff development committee and a cultural competency committee that will be involved in the final decisions. If you would like to come in and talk about this plan, please feel free to do so.
Reguarding Riverside I assumed you knew about the lack of books in the library at Riverside. You have asked for donations in the past for books. Thank goodness for the PTO who gave generously so the students could read!!!!!!
We were alerted to the problem at Riverside by several parents and educators earlier in the year. We wrote a grant for $5,000 to help with the situation. We're happy to report that we were notified today that we got the grant.
We also want readers to know that we are working on another source of books for the Riverside library as well.
We are all thankful that our PTO's and anonymous donors have been willing to help as well.
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