School Curriculum needs balance? Life Skills and Academic Skills go hand in hand man

Back to school ... students arrive at St Edmund's College in Canberra

Under-fire principal explains he is taking a shot at cultural change

[Why are our teachers lost? Because the punishment is the crime.]

Colin Dwyer has no regrets about banishing 300 senior students from the school grounds for two days last week.

[But the power he used which is unequal in terms of the students power means that he will be less likely to get any form of obligation to change made by the students themselves.]

[Colin you need to be the students friends not their judge. Only when you can invite the students into the decision making process will you get an obligation by them to change their behaviour, because you Colin could lead by example and not by power.]

Speaking the day after addressing a 90-minute meeting of more than 400 parents, the principal of Canberra's best-known Catholic college, St Edmunds, said there was already a "marked improvement" in student behaviour.

But, he concedes, some might see his actions as "drastic". And, with hindsight, he probably would have done things a little differently.

"The meeting with the parents last night was very productive," he said yesterday.

"There was some hurt, there was some anger there amongst the parents. There was also a lot of positive support.

"But at the end of the meeting there were three outcomes - certainly one was that the parents generally were unhappy about the process. Now, I apologised to them for that."

However, Mr Dwyer, who is the first lay principal of St Edmunds, said the parents agreed very strongly that the culture of the college needed to change.

[But within the culture is the student's ability to relate to others in order to socialise with respect to everyone else. In short more Life Skills/Social Skills. Lack of these skills poses a threat to any form of Academic skills the students may attain.]

[A culture that had seen charges of bullying, vandalism, disrespect towards others, immature behaviour and poor work ethic is the result of lack of social skills. At the end of the day 5 percent of these kids will end up in jail.]

A suggestion that a cultural change consultant be appointed was yet to be considered. But parents made it clear at the meeting that they wanted to be consulted before future decisions were made.

Mr Dwyer said he had received incredible support for his decision, with e-mails popping up every five minutes from all sorts of people.

"I'm a fairly humble person and I didn't set out on this path to become the guru on cultural change in schools," he said.

"That seems to be something that's come after me for some reason. I'm just trying to do the best for the boys in this school."

Staff, parents and students would now embark on a process of "cultural redefinition", the principal said.

"There's no textbook on this, this is new ground."

"How do you change the culture of an organisation? They tried it with the NSW police. They've tried it with the defence forces," he said.

"Changing cultures is one of the hardest things to do, but we're having our shot at it."

By Ying Yang 12 June 03

THE PRISONER: Then have a shot at this! You don't make up a label (Cultural Redefinition) then categorise it and say, oh now there is no textbook do you? Why not choose a holistic approach? Social Skills and Life Skills must be balanced with Academic Skills within the curriculum. Then you have the root source of the problem, which is the inflation of the lack of resources (social skills) put into these children either at home or at school.

It's just a jump to the left! Collin! Do you know how many Social Skills there are? Contact Justice Action 02 9660 9111 and keep those kids out of jail by leading by example, because those kids can be your friends as well as your students. What are the benefits? Your friends are more obligated to learn and share ideas with you. In short, they like you. Incidentally we get more support from helping students to stay out of jail than we do from helping prisoners who are in jail.

Related:

NSW education professor warns further commitment needed
The author of a report on the New South Wales education system has urged the major political parties to do more for education in the election campaign.

Fiona Stanley, the children's crusader
It is all about prevention. As Fiona Stanley sees it, with one in five Australian teenagers experiencing significant mental health problems, there are just not enough treatment services to cope with the demand.

Parents call for feedback on social skills
Parents are calling for the same level of feedback on their children's social development as on their academic progress, according to a national survey.

The Seed
Respect, you only get out what you have put in. What about Life Skills, Communication and Conflict Resolution. Evolution, perhaps some children and adults miss the whole or part of the course. I did, and so how surprised do you think I was when I realised my parents missed the course as well. Things like Compromise, Win Win, Empathy, and Love. Invisible energy and other skills like public speaking, how to Relate, Assuming, Blaming, Forgiveness, Freedom and Discrimination. This is how I learned respect. If you don't know what it is then how do you relate?

The punishment: Is the 'crime'
The punishment is the crime according to retired chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia Justice Alistair Nicholson. "Smacking a child ought to be seen as assault".

RESTORING TRUE JUSTICE:
Australian prisons are fast becoming the new asylums of the third millennium. The prison industry is booming, while Australia spends far less on mental health services than similar countries.

Youth Suicide

I would like to suggest firstly that starting at the root in a holistic pattern so that everyone in our community is included and a seed is planted to prevent our youth dying.

Firstly, children in our country have had extraordinary help from loving parents and perhaps for the right reasons. Hopefully the main reason is love.

However, we are all to willing to solve our children's problems, which can lead to children being stunted in problem solving areas.

For instance a child at any age can be asked to solve a problem before we suggest an answer to them. You may find that the child already has the skills required to solve their problem. If that is the case we can allow that child to solve the problem (whether we think there is a better answer or not). Unless the child asked us to help either because they do not have an answer or because they require a better way of solving the problem.

A child of six recently came up to me and said "can you open this box for me Mr?" I said Mm why dont you open it? The child said "ok" and opened the box. Therefore his parents may be opening this box at his request and not allowing the child to solve this simple task. All to willing to help because they love the child and had the time to show the child their way. Or it may simply, take a parent less time to deal with the problem. But did those parents help the child? Perhaps not, if in fact the child already had the skills.The child is not learning here to be affective at solving problems. In fact being road blocked by parents who either think it is either important to help all the time or because they have a better more efficient or suitable idea or because the parent is in a hurry.

The child is now a youth and is sixteen and doesn't make his/her school grade. Devastating to the youth's peer group and perhaps frustrating. Who knows how the youth really accepts the reality? That is why it is so important to know how to solve this loss of esteem for the youth.

The youth now is eighteen and loses his/her lover because the lover has moved on (as we do) and the same situation above may be also a problem (in this example) as well as the last (example) to move on past it by meeting someone else and accepting the loss.

Some things cannot be put to parents to solve for instance a drug dependency that has been hidden from the parents. Or in the last example even the (lover) depending on the culture and attitude of their parents.

Education Seed at the Root

At the root of course there is also a better seed to be planted in Government to prevent youth suicide.

Primarily our education system needs to be overhauled. So that ideas that are in the current literature are available to parents, friends and peers. Because parents somehow in their lives can get busy taking on a lot of commitment to get on in their lives (as we do) without thinking that there may be more efficient and new ideas to use raising children.

For instance Parent Effectiveness Training by Thomas Gordan PhD Importantly is redesigning the curriculum. For instance we need to have paramount those skills required for the children and youth to have maximum efficiency towards growth without taking to many risks and needing less resource to achieve equality. Like life skills, communication and conflict resolution together with John Howard's latest idea to improve Science and Maths. Further equal opportunity to obtain these skills.

The reason for this is that if you only depend on Maths and Science you may achieve more fiscal policy results (income from taxes) but not taken into account the inflation of loss from people who fall by the wayside not communicating or agreeing together Co-operatively to achieve a better result. If I may suggest some 5% in fact who end up either deceased or in jails.

For example try running to many sheep on a small block or farm land achieving an income without accepting that somewhere down the track the land will be worthless (inflation) and must be re purchased. The cost of course now needs to be taken off the income of the sheep to repurchase the land so you did not make as much as you first thought because the land was mismanaged. So how much income would be achieved by using our land efficiently?

A recent example is how much money was needed to be injected into the doctor patient regime whereby doctors who were highly educated still needed to notice that somehow they were not listening or getting the feedback required to solve their patients problems (sickness or ills).

Whether you're from lower, middle or upper class skills are not necessarily available to parents, friends or peers even if you have been to university level of education. Especially if we are all too willing to over help thinking we are doing our best (communicating).

Children need to be encouraged to express themselves, love themselves and communicate effectively and to resolve conflicts in order to form an agreement effectively.

For instance John is constructively feed back his achievements "I am a poet" Peter " I am a dancer". Mary "I am a pastry cook". Peers can suggest constructive criticism likes "John you're doing a great job and you have really tried hard that is so cool."

John can make an agreement and solve lots of problems in order to achieve without being frustrated to the point of wanting to end his life even if he cannot talk about his problem solving with any other person.

John may need less resources in order to achieve his goals and take fewer risks. John has a higher level of self worth and self esteem and sees himself as a dynamic instrument and loves himself. So much so that he would not want to hurt anyone elses feelings because he realises how important he is. Nor does he think he is not important enough to live.

Tantamount is that there is less inflation affecting the root source fiscally or otherwise. Like john who ends up (deceased) or in (jail) that in turn affects the macro level of resource leading to inefficiency. For Australia as a whole, or parents, friends and peers who are busy with their commitments.

We have heard it so many times.That no one had any idea that the deceased had such an enormous problem leading them to commit suicide. Even those so close to the person they loved so much.

By Gregory Kable 8 August 2001