Notes From My Knapsack 8-15-19

Notes From My Knapsack 8-15-19

Jeff Gill

 

School is beginning again, always

___

 

While writing newspaper columns is one of my favorite hobbies, I am employed other than tapping away at my keyboard. One of those vocations I serve is that of mediator, and I am employed by the county Common Pleas Court system to provide mediation services, mostly in regards to youth and families.

 

We had a meeting recently at Family Intervention Services downtown (years ago, we were in the now demolished county Children's Home on the East End), talking about online education and how we as a court interact with families, helping them get their students on track for a high school diploma. And talking about the changes we've had to adapt to in the last few years about testing, graduation requirements, and open enrollment, it got me to thinking.

 

When I began working for Judge Hoover and the Licking County Juvenile Court in 2005, there was no Facebook. There were no iPhones, none; "candy bar" cellphones were popping up in student bookbags, and occasionally early flip phones, but they were expensive and rare.

 

Tablet computers were essentially non-existent, laptops unusual, and my desktop Dell ran Windows 98 SE. E-cigarettes did not exist, and we still handled unruly cases based on a complaint from a parent that a child was swiping their cigarettes. We'd still take one down at the courthouse, but as far as I know such a stand-alone complaint hasn't been made in a decade.

 

For my first dozen or so years, I was an un-official resource in our office helping explain computers and devices and platforms and apps to our staff . . . now, I'm playing catch-up along with everyone else, as newer staff is more familiar with technology but newer developments keep us all back on our heels. But my office computer is all the way up to Windows XP!

 

Online schools didn't exist, not as they do now. Credit recovery was a by mail thing. Our vocational education was at a place called JVS, now known as C-TEC, and the offerings were fewer than they were now. Home schooling was an option, but if you wanted to participate in your school district's extra-curricular it was effectively not an option.

 

Today, as the 2019-2020 school year begins, for the vast majority of students school looks, on the outside, largely the same as it did for their parents, and even for their grandparents. Student registration and the handbook is online, and Mom and Dad complain about not understanding the way they teach math nowadays, but in general you go to a building in your geographic area, walking or by bus or dropped off at the door, find your rooms and take your classes and get grades and aim for graduation in the twelfth year after kindergarten at around age eighteen.

 

But in 1970, a school district that graduated 50% of the students who began first grade with a diploma was considered successful. Today, a district that graduates 95% is just crossing the threshold of acceptable. Not until 1975 was the education of children with disabilities a legal requirement; Licking County was an early adopter in the 1950s, but many students in outlying areas were missed and it wasn't the school's responsibility to find them or educate them until after '75.

 

We are educating more children on more subjects with a higher level of success than ever before. And as the environment children are being raised in changes, we're going to see the school environment continue to change. I suspect in another fifteen years we will see changes in the nature and structure of schools that will surprise even me.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's fascinated by what's changed and what hasn't in education in general. Tell him what changes you think are coming at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.