Welcome Home Johnny

My February 16, 1980, journal entry makes a note that I should write about all the things that schools have taken over for parents and call it “Welcome Home Johnny.” I don’t recall exactly what led up to me thinking this was something to write about but I do remember thinking many times the parents and the general publics perception was that we should do everything for the kids.

The same problem is pervasive today. I remember hearing many people, even my parents commenting, “Why don’t they teach that in schools?” when someone came up short of what was expected of them. It could be anything from common courtesy to how to ride a bike, table manners, counting change, fire safety, or any of hundreds of other things. I remember feeling frustrated that it was impossible for teachers and schools to cover everything.

We added and continue to add things that need to be covered often, but nothing is ever taken away. Parents have abdicated much of their responsibility. We have to teach kids sex education because their parents don’t. The same is true with health education, nutrition, bicycle safety, stranger danger, how to behave in public, how to pay bills, and even how to wash their hands.

Every group from the National Rifle Association, to the Egg Producers (Also the pork, beef, turkey, and organic producers) to dentists, fire departments, police departments and every other group you can think of has their own curriculum they want taught in the schools. They are incredulous when we turn them down. They can’t understand why we wouldn’t want to take a few days and cover their pet topic. There is no denying that they may be important but there are only so many hours in the school day and the basic curriculum is difficult to cover in the time we have.

Even now a group that has something they want us to teach approaches me almost weekly. This week it was the fire department that wanted 6 days in the junior high program to teach a values based fire safety program and a Habitat for Humanity representative who wants the schools to teach a financial education program because he encounters so many people who don’t know anything about taking care of their money. Both are, no doubt, valuable but how could we ever work them in?

As a fourth grade teacher, I developed a systematic way of covering everything the district expected me to cover and documented it with a yearlong plan. I referred to it often to make sure I was about where I should be and then planned accordingly. It obviously annoyed me when things came up that disrupted that plan. Elementary people are schedule and clock driven and frustrated when things don’t play out the way they should. When I look at my old weekly lesson plans there are arrows all over the place indicating things forwarded to the next day or week. I tended to over plan most of the time.

If schools take over all the parent responsibilities maybe school is home for some kids?