I would like your opinion. What do you think?
Who is to be held accountable for this child?
Did the parents fail him? Did the school fail him?
Or did they both do a terrible injustice to this child?
(Refer to my article)
LOST CHILDREN
I'm not sure what child you're talking about...? Are you talking about children who should've been flagged by the schools for child abuse and the teachers/admin didn't?
I'm sorry if I was not clear before. I am having a little trouble with the forum.
Please visit the School Reform site.
Article: Lost Children
I don't understand, he only got a paper saying he completed k-12? How does that work?
And where would that be...can you post a url. tks
Hey Trina!
Welcome to the school reform forum!
In answer to your question, I think it's a multi-part responsibility:
the system;
the teachers;
the parents;
the coaches; and
the student
At the onset we can look at and blame the system, teachers and parents. The kids don't know what they should be getting in the form of education. As time goes on though, we can add the rest of the parties to the blame.
It's not clear that this actually happened from the article. But what they're referring to with his reading is actually taught--it's called "sight reading". It's possible that he was taught to read that way and is simply not a fluent reader--having only picked up on the things that interested him.
The system: is set up to test the kids to prevent this from happening. Gripe about testing all ya want, but that is the mechanism by which these problems would be caught.
The teachers: the only issue it mentions in the article is his reading. If he sight reads enough to get by on, he could quite possibly fool the teachers enough to pass his courses. There's no additional information about his actual lack of knowledge--just his reading level. Hard to say where to hold the teachers accountable just on reading, because believe it or not--reading (especially if you can sight read to a degree) is easy to fake/compensate for. Adults did it for years--to the point where people didn't know they couldn't read.
The parents: You can't blame parents who themselves didn't graduate high school. Not that it's a requirement to intelligence and logic; but you can't assume they have it, either.
The coaches: there's no mention that the kids was involved in anything that would involve a coach.
The student: Well, let's--for the sake of argument--assume the school simply passed him with C or better in everything. How would the student actually know he wasn't performing?
And I have a hard time believing any school would document a student having completed 12 grades but not graduating. It's an enormous liability issue for them.
The bottom line is that no one is capable of faking to that extent. Tests have to be taken by reading. So unless he had extraordinary luck with picking answers at random, someone was not paying attention.
Although it is very hard to believe that such a thing could happen, this was a real account of an actual event.
Thank you so much for all your opinions. You guys made good points.
Now for my final word:
Responsibility is a triangle that corners three prominent figures.
1. Parents...I have 5 children in my home and there is no way that I would not notice if one of them could not read. Recipes, DVD jackets, websites, street signs, board games...reading is everywhere. There is no way this was not at the very least a concern of the family. They may have chosen to ignore it and let the teachers do their job, but they did know.
2. Student...This child knew he could not read. He should have brought this to the attention of those adults responsible for his education. However, I sympathize with how embarrassing it may have felt for him.
3. Teachers...If they did not notice a child in their class could not read then they are severely guilty of neglect. Did they even know the child's name?
Of course they noticed! Each teacher passed it off assuming someone else would take care of it. No one did.
In fact, his lack of reading was considered a disability which is the reason he only received a certificate of completion rather than a diploma of graduation.
**It is important to note that he was not incapable of reading. Although he must have been slower than others, he was capable of learning. Someone decided he couldn't learn to read. Someone quit on him.
Thanks to the literary council, he is now on a third grade reading level.
Thank you to volunteers all over the world who give up time with their own families to give strangers the gift of reading.