by Rick Lowe
Mr. Adrian Gibson (a sometime blogger here) had a thoughtful piece in The Tribune on Saturday past (August 25, 2012) on how disadvantaged children can't keep up at school.
Obviously if a child has not eaten this will no doubt impact his or her ability to concentrate and somehow a solution needs to be found.
Mr. Gibson points to "recent statistics" that suggest that "nearly 10 per cent of our population live below the poverty line…" so the majority of the public school population should not fall in this category but is it easily resolved?
Maybe schools/teachers/parents can organise fund raising drives to get people to sponsor individual kids for the cost of properly feeding the poverty stricken ones while they're in school?
What other ideas are there?
Mr. Gibson also refers to abusive home life etc. etc. which is a much different issue. If there are so many kids that are abused it creates a huge issue for the schools, our country is past the point of no return.
One final observation. Mr. Gibson, while lauding teachers, (he used to be one and is now studying to be a lawyer), and many teachers deserve praise, he points to the critics and tells us, "many of whom don't have the slightest idea about the intricacies of teaching". He is right, but many critics like myself grow more and more concerned each day as the educational system fails more and more of our children.
So instead of the players being so defensive about the critics, many of whom have taken the time to study the issue and seek results driven ideas, public school teachers, administrators, Department of Education staff , Ministry of Education staff and politicians need to put their collective egos aside and admit we have a problem, and find solutions. If they don't, I submit it will only get worse.
