A funny post for an unschool page. However, as a teacher, I just can’t let this go.
Today, our erstwhile local newspaper – obviously at a loss for any real news to print (as often seems to be the case) – decided to publish this article:
REVEALED: Coast’s best and worst schoolchildren
Which appeared accompanied by this picture on their web-based “front page”.
Really? “Best and worst schoolchildren”…really? Because labelling children as “best” and “worst” really tackles the issues here.
For the tl:dr among us (or for those for whom the link doesn’t work) the meat of this article lists the Sunshine Coast region’s state schools and the numbers of students who were suspended or expelled in each school last year.
So why, one might ask, do I find this so offensive? How long do you have?
Let’s begin with the issue of labelling.
I don’t like to be labeled, to be anything. I’ve made the mistake before myself of labeling my music, but it’s counter-productive. – Neil Young
There is ample research to suggest (honestly, plenty – I was spoiled for choice for articles…here’s a good general place to start) that labelling people – children in particular – is, at best, limiting. At worst, it is an excellent way for children to internalise negative self-belief systems.
I take issue with this. I have worked with so many young people who have been told they are “bad”, “dumb”, “lazy”, and so on, that they have come to believe that this is all that they are, or all that others – and themselves – can expect. Conversely, I have worked with other young people placed under the enormous strain of being labelled “intelligent”, “brilliant”, or the “G” word (yes, “gifted”); who suffer a different kind of pressure to perform.
Neither is helpful for our children and young people. Certainly, a local newspaper using broad labels such as “best” and “worst” offers no constructive options for discussion on this topic.
That, however, is merely the tip of my iceberg of dissatisfaction
with this article. What can’t be denied – and certainly this article doesn’t express – is that there are SO MANY individual factors that contribute to the often very difficult decision to suspend or expel a child or young person from our education system. These factors are often complex; and have their roots in environments and issues far removed from – although undoubtedly exacerbated by – an industrial school system that values cookie-cutter “best” behaviour above the needs of the individual. Such factors may include unstable home environments, trauma, change of schools, inability to cope with transitions during the day, puberty (yes, it’s a thing), or (heaven forbid) a student having a bad day. And, to be fair, sometimes students have ongoing behaviour patterns that need to be addressed – although that is a topic for a very different post.
Also, how is a list of suspensions and expulsions an insight into “the state of the region’s schools”? Are schools now being measured by yet another arbitrary yardstick: the behaviour of the students who attend? Ridiculous, particularly when one considers just how infinite that particular piece of string may be. I can think of many other, far more accurate, measures of the “state” of our region’s schools (hint: NAPLAN is not one of them). There is no analysis here, nothing offered about the population in each school, data relating to reasons for suspensions/expulsions, information about any School Wide Positive Behaviour programs that might be in place. Nothing.
Nobody wins with an article like this. Not the schools, not the teachers or management staff, and certainly not the students – whose mums and dads and extended family reading it may make assumptions about the quality of education their child receives based on shallow reporting of numbers that mean absolutely nothing. My hope is that the majority of Daily readers identify this “reporting” for the desperate cash-in on recent news issues that it is.
What do you think? Comment below or join the discussion on Facebook.
