What’s Wrong With Our Schools Today

I wrote this article after attending a pre-school meeting for my youngest son and the teachers listed what they could and could not do because of the law. Law suits have taken over our schools and it has to stop. People can sue for anything today and they usually do. That’s why on the side of a cup of coffee you see the warning label, “Caution, contents may be hot”, or on the side of fishing lure package: “Caution, contents may be harmful if swallowed.” Schools are literally drowning in a pool of law. In high schools today 43% of the teachers spend half of their time making order in the classroom. That means those students are getting half the learning they’re supposed to be getting. If one child is disrupting the class, no one can learn. And when the teacher tries to control the one student, they’re threatened with a legal claim, not from the parent, but the student. The students are threatening the teachers with legal claims, and you wonder why our schools are producing students who have no respect for anything, even themselves. Teachers have an agenda they have to follow because the school system doesn’t trust the teachers to teach the way they see fit. Creativity is a thing of the past. 78% of the teachers in middle and high schools have been threatened by their students with a legal claim. This is an indication of the corrosion of authority. At a school in Florida they banned running at recess because one student fell, hurt himself and the parents sued the school. All the children at this school are going to be ADD. If someone falls off a seesaw, it doesn’t matter if the parents sue or not, all the seesaws will be removed because the school doesn’t want to go through with the legal hassle. When I was in school, if I fell off the seesaw, I’d get up brush, myself off and continue playing. It’s not that way today. Parents and students both are looking for a quick way to make a quick buck. If the student gets hurt on the playground, all they see are dollar signs. They don’t care what the law suit does to the school or the other children. We need to do something about the law. The law has to be simple enough so that people can eternalize it in their daily choices. If they can’t eternalize it they won’t trust it. We have to restore authority to the judges and officials who interpret and apply law. We have to re-humanize the law. The accountability at the top of the line is judging the decision against the effect of everyone not just the disgruntled person. We cannot run a society on the lowest common denominator. If the teachers don’t have authority to run the classroom all the students suffer. What the world needs now is the authority to restore common choices. It’s the only way we can get our freedom back.