Without ranting about the nature of schooling in today’s culture (for example, for the vast majority of students, teaching math or grammar for its own sake, as opposed to teaching it as an end to solving more immediate problems, is more difficult and wasteful), the core problem I see is that we tend to equate intelligence with discipline and blame the student entirely for his lack of interest.

(Yes, I realize that we all need to buckle down and deal with things we don’t care about, but keep in mind that it often results in physical illness.  At such an impressionable age, question what enforcing that obsessive “work ethic”—especially the franticness of high school, where you must focus completely, but only forty minutes at a time before the bell rings—might do to a child.)

As a kid, I was in all the “honors” programs, but without wasting time on details, I spent a lot of time with the kids in “remedial” classes.  By real-world standards, a lot of them were brilliant and all were independent learners, and were failing because they didn’t care about grades because they didn’t have much respect for their teachers.

As a result, and comparing notes with people younger than I, I’d be very curious to compare the numbers on minority kids pushed down to remedial classes with the white and Asian kids treated for ADHD or ODD.  Is it possible that white “problem children” are simply suppressed through drugs rather than being actively disciplined?

(Also see Sugata Mitra’s “Hole-in-the-Wall” experiments, one of which asked young children from slums to learn a college-level topic like genetics, with no adult structure at all.  It’s entirely possible we’re worrying about offering the wrong sorts of opportunities entirely.)

I’m interested in one key point: why aren’t commentators raising the possible link between father or parent absence and these children? 24 million children live in homes without an absent biological father and 2 out of those 3 children are African-American. 1 out of 3 Hispanic children also suffer this fate. Do you think there may be a possible link? I blogged about it here, and if you have time, please check it out (and comment!): http://thefatherfactor.blogspot.com/2012/03/father-absence-and-school-discipline.html

Take care,

D.L. Chandler

I suppose it is a matter of inequality: A disproportionate number of African American and Hispanic students are not being taught the values at home that keep them from getting suspended and/or enable them to excel in school which later translates to getting a good job and keeping that job which translates to poverty/crime and passing the same traits along to their children and around and around it goes. Those who break the cycle are those who refuse to be victims.