Unfortunate That The Distasteful Topic Of “Censorship” Emerges
“Well, I’m surprised this idea of “child abuse” still gets by moderation. “ Stephen Hurley, Society for Quality Education, April 02, 2016
Surely the author of this quote does not propose that my comment to this blog should have been denied?
I had mentioned that “Stories abound concerning crying, frustrated students” who are confused about some current educational experimental practices. I said: “This abuse of children is so painful to watch.”
In another comment on this blog I had shown how my 45 years in the parent involvement cause still drives my efforts. I reflected how many years back this was an important topic with many groups and agencies concerned but that regrettably this was no longer the case. Parents are more diminished than ever. I will copy some of the material I wrote in 1979 on the topic:
EDUCATION ABUSE OF CHILREN
Raised awareness helps us see that children’s interests must be protected wherever they are. The schools have their share of practices which hurt children and parents can be on the alert for these and intervene when needed:
1 EXPERIMENTATION — . . . Anything new which has not been in your school before should have safeguards built in so that children are not used, either for half-baked amateurish effort or major shifts in educational practice without the public knowing . . . Two key documents on human experimentation apply to schools as they do elsewhere: Nuremberg Code and the Declaration of Helsinki . . . (I Don’t Want My Kid to be a Guinea Pig, Lipsitz, 1977)
2 INCOMPETENT TEACHERS — “there are thousands of mentally ill, severely disturbed, and incompetent teachers in our schools who should not be teaching children”. . . ( Positive Mental Health for Teachers, Mackiel, 1979)
3 HOMEWORK ABUSE — . . . There is abundant literature for teachers to know what are good and bad homework practices.
4 “MILKING” THE EDUCATION DOLLAR — . . . without proper monitoring more and more of the educational dollar will be diverted . . .
5 FAILURE TO TEACH FOR COMPETENCE — It is known that most children can be taught the basics of most school subjects . . . Educationally handicapping practices which fail to remediate and educate all children in the basics should not be tolerated.
6 EXCLUDING PARENTS FROM EDUCATIONAL PLANNING — . . . Failure to work in partnership with the home handicaps the child’s educational potential.
[The above is a very abbreviated shape of the original Tipsheet on Educational Abuse of Children in “Education Advisory”.]
[[ posted on SQE 20160402 ]]