Culture of Failure

The gauge for whether a country and society is going to succeed or fail is the quality of its education system. Many tend to follow developments in education only when something of "noteworthy" interests come up such as evolution, Islam, length of school year, teacher evaluations, etc. The United States ranks among the lowest of all industrialized nations when it comes to progress and students scores in education. A strong tendency is the place the primary blame on teachers and their inefficiency in the classroom. No place is this felt than in Washington D.C. where 388 school employees received separation notices. Teachers are evaluated based upon students' test scores to determine whether they receive job security or not. There is no doubt that teachers need to be held accountable for the performance of their students and the quality of education that they receive. But to only focus on this side of education is to miss the overarching problem. The other side to this coin is our culture and parental neglect. It has become increasing difficult to enforce learning and use discipline to address disruptive behavior in our schools. Teachers increasingly find themselves having to confront behavior that detracts from their teaching. Much of this behavior is reflective of a poor home environment in which principles, ethics, and respect are sadly ignored. If parents are failing students at home, teachers should not be expected to shoulder this burden in addition to their teaching responsibilities. Furthermore, teachers should not be held entirely accountable for test scores and results when positive behavior and accomplishments are not reinforced when the students arrive home. What is the reason for educational laxness in our country? Why is the rest of the world leaving us behind? Simply put, we foster and live in a culture where failure and mediocrity is accepted. We like to hide behind laws such as "No Child Left Behind" to give us the false impression that we are doing what we can to help our children. We like to coddle and assure our kids that it is the educational system that is failing them without giving proper consideration to parents and our culture.

This past year in one of my classes I had a parent that did not even look at her child's report card for the entire year and was surprised when her son failed my class. Despite unheeded email notifications and online grade updates, she abdicated any responsibility and placed the blame solely on me, the teacher. This behavior is symptomatic of a society that likes to "pass the buck" to avoid taking responsibility. Our culture teaches that if we can find a scapegoat we have done our job. We need to foster a system in which both the educational and parental sectors mutually reinforce the other in a more effective and meaningful way. It takes a village to raise a child, not just a teacher.