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Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Ever wonder what the kids think?
Sometimes on a job like this you get insights from the most unexpected places.
Even when you visit a lot of schools, as I do, you’re always seeing them as a visitor. So often you are seeing the school in the equivalent of it’s Sunday best. A keen observer will pick up on clues as to what things are really like in a school and no dog-and-pony show can completely disguise reality. You have to trust your instincts.
But what if, instead, you could get an independent, unbiased insider’s report on a particular school? What if someone you knew could tell you what it was really like on the inside, but didn’t have any axe to grind?
I sort of stumbled onto such a source a couple months ago.
That’s when I met a young man who is a graduate of Dayton Public Schools. He works at a local business I frequent and we’ve struck up a friendship. This young man is in his 20s and now working his way through college.
One day he told me the story of his DPS school experience. Growing up in the city, he attended church-run schools until high school. That’s when he made a big mistake and was asked to leave, prompting a transfer to a city high school.
It was his first public school, he told me. Overall, he said, it wasn’t as bad as some had told him it would be. He was able to finish high school and he did just fine. But there were a few things that jumped out at him, he said. The students were less close-knit and there were more conflicts. There was more bad language and some unruliness that would never have been tolerated at the private school he attended. There was racial tension.
But here was the big thing that shocked him about his new school — the difference in leadership. The principal of his new school has a reputation for being able to relate to the kids on their level. The first time he saw this, my friend said the principal was mixing it up with a couple students who had been goofing off in the hallway. The principal was not shouting at them, but chewing them out somewhat. The principal was not using bad language but was talking in a slang the kids use.
To my friend, the approach was improper. He’s the big thing I remember him saying — “The principal should not talk the way the students talk. The principal should set an example.”
Now, the ability to speak to the students in their language is a useful talent and it has its place. And discipline sometimes requires creative strategies. But I see my young friend’s point. Above all, a principal should set an example and model appropriate, adult behavior.
Have you seen teachers or principals who talk like the students? When does it work and not work?
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