As a
retired, but still active (substitute) teacher I am required to maintain a
current teaching certificate (i.e. send the state $) Blood borne Pathogen and
“Mandatory Reporter” certificates. For the latter, last week I sat online for
three hours and listened to a string of tawdry stories of abuse behavior
collected by the Iowa Department of Health & Human Services and law
enforcement across the state
Shockingly, the most prevalent
class of abuse—over 80%--is denial of care, that is, caregivers of dependent
individuals, who simply aren’t willing or don’t have the resources to make
humane arrangements for children or adults dependent on them. Without ever
analyzing the societal source of the problem: the poverty that I daresay
afflicts many of the people who “commit these crimes,” the nurse who delivered
the session repeatedly urged us to
file a report.
I came away horrified at finding
myself in this horrific position: Without knowing the specifics, on the basis
of what little I can observe in a classroom, I am to turn in a caregiver! Fortunately, subbing less than once a week and in high
school exclusively, I am highly unlikely to need to. In the interim, horror has
given way to anger.
How dare we hang this burden on
schools/teachers? Teachers used to be tasked with the intellectual development
of a child. Now schools are being held responsible for the physical well-being
of kids, teaching everything sex to driver’s ed. I have yet to see an expert
make a correlation between all that is demanded of schools and their mediocre
performance.
It doesn’t
take a genius—or a Critical Eye—to see something has to give.
No comments:
Post a Comment