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Pollyanna and Evil Public Schools

By
Tom Deighan
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Local rivalries abound in public schools, where parents and students rally around their local mascots. Likewise, collegiate supporters bleed the colors of their alma mater.  Such wholesome rivalries create a sense of community and an opportunity to cheer on our kids and the corresponding cartoon characters. On a national scale, however, the rivalry is not nearly as good natured. We are told to see our local public schools exclusively through our Cable News Goggles, and when we do that, we can only see Pollyanna Public Schools or Evil Public Schools.  

The Pollyanna Public Schools (PPS) hero myth paints all public schools as perfectly motivated institutions in need of no improvement or innovation, regardless of the facts or outcomes. The only thing Pollyanna Public Schools need is more funding to achieve educational utopia. The Pollyanna Public School crowd demonizes all public-school critics as greedily motivated to destroy public schools at all costs. PPS heroes stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that anything is systemically wrong within public schools, even in the most egregious situations. 

The Evil Public Schools (EPS) villain myth, on the other hand, paints all public schools as corrupt and incompetent institutions with no redeemable qualities or outcomes, regardless of the impossible challenges or expectations they face. The only option for the EPS antagonist is to dismantle public schools entirely and give more public funds to private entities. The Evil Public Schools crowd asserts that public school supporters are only motivated by greed and protecting existing educational power structures at all costs. The EPS villain stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that the school district does anything right, even when presented with truly stellar examples.  

Predictably, both sides faithfully scream, “Keep politics out of education!” And both sides profess to be fighting “For the Kids!” Nevertheless, both sides willingly ignore the obvious complexities of kid-level situations because nuance does not lend itself to high drama.  Few educators, however, have any Pollyannish delusions about their public schools, and likewise, few parents think their local educators are evil. Our modern Cable News Goggles focus almost exclusively on the extremes, incessantly keeping parents and educators on edge. It sure seems like we are being forced to choose between either a progressive march toward Marxism or a progressive march toward crony capitalism. 

Unfortunately, the kid-level voices of common-sense parents and educators disappear in the din of extremists. Ultimately, the PPS and EPS perspectives are simply two sides of the same political coin, for neither side has much of a message besides demonizing each other and asking for more money, without accountability.  One side refuses to consider any model wherein money follows the kid.  The other side rejects the idea of any public rules following the money as it is passed without oversight to private entities.  

Critics of public schools have many valid points, especially after the issues that developed during the pandemic.  Champions of public schools also have valid points, and most educators are dedicated, selfless professionals. Yet, the endless back-and-forth between PPS and EPS has resulted in stacks of legislation unrelated to the three R’s and seemingly designed to control kid-level options.  On one hand, legislation forces people to celebrate what they should tolerate in a free society, and on the other hand, legislation restricts people from tolerating much individual freedom at all. 

Local parents working with their local educators can work miracles, but both sides will need to cede a little more local control for this to happen. The conditions, causes, or solutions are rarely simple, so let’s take off our Cable News Goggles when we look at our neighborhood schools, parents, and educators.  They probably aren’t evil or Pollyannish, but they are undoubtedly dedicated to the local mascot, and as long as we can agree about cartoon characters, we have hope.  Please pray for kid-level wisdom, and please pray for the safety of our schools this Second Sunday of the Month. 

Tom Deighan is author of Shared Ideals in Public Schools. You may email him at  deighantom@gmail.com and read past articles at www.mostlyeducational.com

Mostly Education: “Hitting the school bubbly”

By
Tom Deighan
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Third-graders wiggle. They fidget. They giggle and laugh for no apparent reason. Honestly, they are a little goofy. This time of year, however, they hit the bubbly for the first time, as they take their first standardized tests, and they seem to lose a bit of their own bubbliness. As kids, we penciled in bubbles, but kids now click bubbles on a screen. Never mind that 9-year-olds often lack the fine motor skills to use computers effectively, and never mind that 9-year-olds’ maximum attention spans are below 30 minutes. By federal and state decree, they must endure numerous tests that require 60 to 80 minutes of intense concentration, mouse-clicking, and keyboarding. Their answers not only decide if they enter fourth-grade but also their teacher’s employment, their school’s funding, and their community’s A-F Ratings. Those are pretty high-stakes resting on a nine-year-old’s mouse click, but a little bubbly never hurt anyone, right?

Because the stakes are so high, these tests shape every aspect of our schools. They drive our schedules and calendars, determining how and what teachers teach every day. We no longer just teach to the tests; we live and die by them. They shape our entire school culture. They impact our property values and economic development. We even mow around the tests!  Bubbly, anyone?  

Ok, the tests may monopolize our time and focus, but they least measure the right third-grade skills, right?  We have all been third-graders, so we remember critical skills like multiplication that prepared us for things like long division, algebra, geometry, and higher math courses. Logically, therefore, most parents know what skills third-graders need for success, like multiplication, yet less than half of the test focuses on Number and Operations (44-48%). Over 50% of the test measures students’ understanding of Algebraic Reasoning and Algebra (12-18%), Geometry and Measurement (26-20%), and Data and Probability(12-18%).  I wonder if a 9-year-olds’ time is well spent focusing on Algebra before they have mastered multiplication. I wonder if our teachers feel pressured to cover test specifications even when they know their students have not yet mastered essential skills. I wonder if the educational corporations or bureaucrats who produce our standardized-tests know better than our parents.

But let’s just drink the bubbly Kool-Aide and assume that these tests accurately measure what a third-grader needs to master. Let’s also assume that teaching to these tests with such high-stakes is entirely appropriate. Maybe, just maybe this makes sense if it has all at least been consistent. Unfortunately, over the lifetime of our current third-graders alone, our state curriculum has been a hot mess, changing at least four times since 2014, when we abruptly scrapped Common Core for the old PASS Curriculum (that we originally replaced with Common Core). We soon replaced PASS again with the hastily produced Oklahoma Academic Standards (that bear an uncanny resemblance to Common Core). It takes several years of consistent curriculum and reliable testing to determine validity on a statewide scale, but Oklahoma has changed course so much over the last decade that no one can keep track. And since we did not test last year due to the pandemic closure, this year’s scores are literally another start-over. Need some bubbly yet?

For most of my career I willingly drank the bubbly, but “teaching to the test” has not worked. Perhaps it is because of the inconsistency or perhaps because the tests do not measure the right thing, but we cannot rely on an unreliable system. After over 20 years following the advice of central planners and corporations, maybe we should provide parents and teachers more input on our school culture. Yes, we must take these tests, but they do not have to drive everything. We fill out our taxes this time of year and go on with our lives. Likewise, let’s take the tests but focus more on mastering what is age-appropriate and critical to their academic success, good character, and overall health. And maybe, our third graders can truly be bubbly again. 

Tom Deighan is a public educator and currently serves as Superintendent of Duncan Public Schools. He may be reached at deighantom@gmail.com

The Omicron Transforming Robot and Open Schools

By
Tom Deighan
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When I heard that Omicron was coming to the United States, I was excited to hear that the next Transformers movie would be released early, but news of the latest giant robot from Cybertron generated more questions than answers.  Would Omicron ally with Optimus Prime and the good guys, or would Omicron join the evil Decepticons?  Would it hide as a cool car, semi-truck, or maybe even an airplane? Eat your heart out, Marvel Universe. Your puny Iron Man will be trembling in his shiny little boots! 

But sadly, Omicron was just another COVID variant, and I blame any confusion on the World Health Organization for picking a name that sounds like a giant robot.  Come on, Man! Nevertheless, it did make me think of all the cool Transformers we discovered during the COVID age. 

Zoomicron appeared early in the pandemic, and it hides in the form of an unassuming dining room table. As a Transformer, however, Zoomicron is the only robot wearing a business suit with pajama bottoms.  Never far away is Pelotonicron, the most useless of Transformers, who can often be seen on Zoomicron’s screen.  Pelotonicron hides in plain sight as a very expensive piece of exercise equipment, but as a robot, Pelotonicron spins and spins but never gets anywhere.  Together, they are a frightening duo.

Of course, the most mysterious new Transformers are Injecticron and Masquicron.  We do not know if they align with the noble Optimus Prime or the evil Megatron, but that certainly depends largely on whichever cable news channels people watch.  Injecticron and Masquicron are also relatively tiny for Transformers, so be wary of anything pokey or with elastic ear straps because it might just be a robot.  Clearly, post-pandemic Transformers have potential, and if your local theater is closed, they could introduce Streamicron, another pandemic Transformer with obvious branding issues.

As a superintendent, I am sorely disappointed that Omicron is not a hot new Christmas toy, but I am more disappointed at talk that schools should consider closing again. Before we even start a discussion, however, let’s acknowledge that no one knew what to do three years ago, so anyone without COVID sin should cast the first robot.  Secondly, we must accept the possibility that Omicron could destroy us all.  Nevertheless, we now know that the early studies suggesting that schools should be open were correct.  At this point, the issue of in-person schooling should be settled, not only in relations to the disease but also regarding the impact on students’ learning, physical health, and mental health.

We did not hear much about schools like Duncan that managed to offer full-time, in-person learning during the COVID saga, but a recent CDC study, “COVID-19–Related School Closures and Learning Modality Changes — United States, August 1–September 17, 2021”, suggests that upwards of 96% of all school districts in the United States started this school year with full, in-person learning. Unfortunately, schools who stayed open throughout the pandemic have not received much attention lately, but I suspect that the majority of our nation’s parents and educators now want open schools. 

Therefore, as Omicron or other fearful robots invade, let’s resist the urge to further transform the lives of students out of fear and speculation. We know a lot more than we once did, and although we may be scared, we should no longer speculate as much. Omicron and the other COVID transformers may doom us all this time around, but so far . . . so far . . . the predictions of humanity’s total annihilation have been mostly wrong. This time around, I hope our nation’s schools can confidently move forward based on what we have learned, rather than what we fear.  

Whatever happens, the next Transformers movie is predicted to appear in 2023, and although it may not feature Omicron or the others, I hear that they have recruited Chaka Khan for the soundtrack (Chakacron?).  I don’t know about you, but I will pay good money for any movie that includes giant robots dancing to “What Cha’ Gonna Do For me?”  That’s a guaranteed recipe for success, even during a pandemic.

Tom Deighan is superintendent of Duncan Public Schools. You may email him at  deighantom@gmail.com and read past articles at www.mostlyeducational.com

The Right of Parental Input and Output

By
Tom Deighan
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I have never visited a hot dog factory, but I have been warned against it by people who refuse to eat hot dogs afterwards.  Apparently, lots of stuff can go into a hot dog, and none of it looks like something you would slap on the grill, so the input does not match the output. I rarely buy hot dogs because I ate too many in college. (Seriously, the cheap ones were sometimes four packages for a dollar!) Nevertheless, toss a few on the grill, and I still find them hard to resist.  Something about animal lips and mustard!

Come to think of it, schools are like hot dog factories because the tiny tots that entered Pre-K do not always resemble the graduates we produce, but there is a clear difference between hot dog factories and schools. It is a matter of input and output.  Factories have full control of whatever enters and exits the manufacturing process, but schools can never exercise complete control over input or output, for those are ultimately parental rights.  Parents have the right to know everything introduced into their children’s education, and they also have the right to everything their child produces during that education. No individual parent can unilaterally decide policy, curriculum, or library books for everyone, but when it comes to your child, you have the ultimate right of input and output.  

Regarding input, nothing should ever be taught, introduced, or presented to school children without parental access to the information, parental knowledge, or parental assent.  Parents rarely demand to preview everything, because they are busy, but everything should be available if they ever ask for it.  And above all, parents should always be notified beforehand if something is potentially controversial, sensitive, or age inappropriate – to ensure parents can opt out their children for religious, moral, or cultural reasons. 

Likewise, parents always deserve full disclosure regarding the output. Anything a child says, produces, or discloses in a school must be provided, available, or accessible to the parents. This includes not only classwork but also potentially harmful or sensitive issues, so parents can be involved in the solution. One of the biggest mistakes an educator can make is withholding sensitive information from a parent, even if the motive is good. Parents have a right to know information about their children that is uncovered in school, even if it is unpleasant or difficult to discuss.

Of course, in extreme cases involving the safety of the child, parents may be temporarily excluded from input and/or output, but this is the exception and not the norm, and it involves the appropriate authorities. Normally, all parents deserve full access and disclosure to both input and output related to their children. When this happens, schools run well, and parental rights are upheld and respected. Parents and educators trust each other. Furthermore, when parents have access to all input and output, they can make the best educational decisions for their children, based on factors that only a parent can know. Thankfully, most parents and educators understand this partnership, despite what you may see in the news.  

Making hotdogs and making graduates are both messy processes, but unlike hotdog factories, schools do not fully control the manufacture of their future graduates.  Our “hot dogs” also enter the factory cuter than when they exit, so I suppose schools are backwards hotdog factories.  They enter as bubbly cuties and exit as moody teenagers!  

Another big difference: our factories are open for inspection by parents. You really should see your hot dogs being made, every darn step. You will not always like or agree with everything in your local school, but when it comes to your children, you can expect full disclosure about the input and the output.  It is a fundamental parental right, and if schools ever forget that, we have lost our way.  On the other hand, if you start demanding to know what’s in your hot dogs . . . well, you’re just asking for trouble.  Sometimes, ignorance (or mustard) is bliss.  

Tom Deighan is superintendent of Duncan Public Schools. You may email him at  deighantom@gmail.com and read past articles at www.mostlyeducational.com

What’s Next, For the Kids?

By
Tom Deighan
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In recent years, satire and parody from comedy sites like The Onion and The Babylon Bee have proven to be prophetic, as many “jokes” later became true. Parody, satire, and old-fashioned comedy are now dangerous for many reasons. First, they may get you cancelled, and secondly, your silly joke may become reality.  

I used to joke that politicians’ worn-out battle cry “for the kids” had been used to promote everything imaginable. Under that slogan, Oklahoma has championed issues like liquor by the drink, horse racing, the lottery, and medical marijuana. The only thing  left, I foolishly surmised, was legalized drugs and prostitution, “For The Kids!”  Our proposed state question for recreational weed lists education as its first beneficiary. So far, I was only half prophetic.  

The surreal is now real, not unlike professional wrestling, which is why I call this new reality the “educational smackdown”. It’s all theatrics, and level-headed parents and educators are forced to choose between two elitist mindsets: Pollyanna Public Schools (PPS) and Evil Public Schools (EPS). Meanwhile, neither side accepts any responsibility for their antics, leaving us with very stark choices in the upcoming elections. Now that primaries are over, I wonder if either side will pivot to reflect the beliefs of common-sense parents and educators. 

To capture the hearts and minds of sensible parents and educators, the PPS crowd must admit that radical agendas have been pushed into schools for decades. Age-inappropriate issues, hostility towards people of faith, and out-of-touch national unions have alienated many from public schools. We need to own that as educators. To win back rational parents and educators, the PPS crowd needs to get real. We have usurped the parent-educator partnership in favor of faraway activist agendas. 

Likewise, the EPS crowd cannot continue to pretend that everything in public schools is deplorable. Local schools accomplish miracles every day, and local communities know it. Clearly, the new strategy of replacing one form of indoctrination with another doesn’t work; neither does focusing on isolated examples of bad behavior while ignoring their own complicity in crippling public schools. We can do better than taxpayer funded barbeque grills or vague teaching laws that proponents cannot even follow in their own classrooms. We trust the doctor-patient relationship; let’s trust the parent-educator partnership, too. 

Case in point: as data emerges from the pandemic, both sides are outraged, but neither side will admit their part in the dumpster fire. Sensible parents and educators struggled to survive it while flaming pennies (the radical one-percenters on both sides) set their schools ablaze. One side openly advocated to close schools while the other side created knee-jerk rules that forced schools to close. In retrospect, both sides needed closed schools for their own contradicting political purposes, and the proof is now in the pudding. As a superintendent during all this, I navigated both sides to keep my schools open, but in the end, no one won.

We now need leaders with the courage to represent everyday parents and common-sense educators, but so far, we are only faced with extreme choices offered with faux outrage, bluster, and backroom deals of elitists in a pretend educational smackdown. We need a leader willing to betray their own orthodoxies to serve sensible, everyday, common-sense parents and educators – leaders willing to honestly resist the extremes of their respective political cults. Eighty percent of parents and eighty percent of educators agree on eighty percent of kid-level issues, and this 80/80/80 rule works every day in your neighborhood schools. May the forgotten and ignored majority of parents and educators rise. 

Most importantly, however, we must stop all jokes, parodies, and satire. Let’s call on the government and big tech to immediately shut down, de-platform, and block sites like The Onion and Babylon Bee, because we can no longer discern pretend from reality. Besides, God only knows what will happen next . . . for the kids!

Tom Deighan is a public educator and author of Shared Ideals in Public Schools. You may email him at deighantom@gmail.com.

Open Schools Versus Preemptive Closures

By
Tom Deighan
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January 7, 2022 by Tom Deighan

Once again , schools across our nation are preemptively closing due to COVID-19.  Yes, closing is always an option for Duncan Public Schools, but we will stay open as long as we can safely do so. We will continue to face this pandemic as we have from the beginning. If we close a single site or the entire district, we will close for a defined period due to actual conditions. Our children need the structure, safety, and normalcy of open schools. We have faced this threat before, and we will face it again, together.  

Hundreds of schools in our nation preemptively extended their Christmas Breaks, and who can blame them? We are in our third school year with COVID, and national educational leaders still exert intense pressure on schools to close, terrifying parents and staff.  Due to endless media reports of school closings, I suspect much of our nation is unaware that schools have been open safely since the beginning of this pandemic.  No wonder parents and educators across this nation are still terrified to fully commit to in-person, full-time instruction in the age of COVID.

We know that schools have been open from the beginning – not just during the current 2021-22 school year but last year (2020-21) – and yes, even during the spring of 2020! Wyoming and Montana reportedly did not preemptively close schools, even as the majority of other states preemptively closed (including Oklahoma.)  Yet, by the summer of 2020, we had solid research from Europe suggesting that schools could be safely open, and it was correct. Why don’t we hear about more research and the thousands of schools that have been open safely during all of this?  Why don’t we reassure these parents, educators, and students with the evidence available at this time?

We now have literally thousands of models available to reassure fearful parents and educators that full-time, in-person instruction is not only safe but also prevents the negative social, psychological, and academic impacts of long term, preemptive closures. I suspect that parents and educators may be unaware of how many schools have offered full-time, in-person instruction. Even if they are in an open school, I suspect they believe open schools are the exception – not the rule 

Rather than focus on the current slate of closures, perhaps we should reframe our national discussion as we prepare for the 2022-23 school year.  If we can somehow raise awareness of open schools (or just acknowledge them) – we may not have to constantly struggle against the pressure to preemptively close schools. Where are the studies, the examples, the research, and the data about all these schools that have stayed open? Why aren’t national leaders helping parents and educators welcome their students back with confidence?  Where is the proof that preemptive closures have worked? 

The fear and reality of COVID-19 is real.  It terrifies me every day at some level as a superintendent, and closure of our sites or entire district for the safety of our students and staff is always an option.  As we prepare for the 2022-23 school year, however, this is the time to settle the issue of full-time, in-person learning versus preemptive closures. 

No school is a model for how to manage COVID, especially not Duncan Public schools, but national experts can surely knit together some best practices from the thousands of schools who have stayed open during this nightmare. Districts who have been open feel alone, and districts who are closing preemptively feel alone. That is not necessary as we face our fourth school year with COVID.  May God protect our schools, children, and staff once again as we enter another fearful time, but may we also face any challenges with confidence, experience and wisdom . . . for that is how we want our students to face the world.

Tom Deighan is superintendent of Duncan Public Schools. You may email him at  deighantom@gmail.com and read past articles at www.mostlyeducational.com

Muddy Bottom Blues and Open Schools

By
Tom Deighan
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In “Muddy Bottom Blues,” the modern Delta Blues artist Tab Benoit describes what it’s like to get stuck in a shallow, muddy swamp, when it’s “too soft to walk, too hard to swim.”  To make it worse, swamps are full of alligators waiting for night fall, when the moonlight glints faintly in their reptilian cornea. You got the muddy bottom blues: “That gator eye on me . . . that gator eye on me . . .”  

Schools that decided to stay open this year certainly experienced a long, hard year with gators always close by. Fear and uncertainty. Conflicting science and dueling experts. Pro-maskers and anti-maskers. Changing guidelines. Kaleidoscope maps. A face full of swamp gas in every email and social media post. A constant battle between drowning or being trapped. CDC and NIH and OSDE and OSDH and OMG!  

Every public-school staff member and board member who committed to in-person learning slogged through this daily all year. But it was no easier for parents or students, either. Would we close at Labor Day or Fall Break or Christmas Break or be ready for the surge after Spring Break?  On top of this, they had the quarantines. 

Through all this, schools that stayed open felt like the exception, alone in a swamp at nightfall. Whichever news source you choose for daily affirmation, the topic of crisis schooling with kids isolated behind screens served both sides of the narrative well. Honestly, it seemed like the system incentivized schools to close and penalized schools who fought to stay open. Barely any attention was given to districts who made the other hard choice. Despite the inconvenient fact that most schools in Oklahoma were open all year or only closed temporarily, we all felt “stuck on muddy ground . . . that gator eye on me.”

Nevertheless, districts that stubbornly refused to close did not do so out of ignorance or for political reasons. On the contrary, by July of last year, the “science” was pretty clear regarding the low risks of transmission in schools as evidenced in studies of schools in Switzerland, China, New South Wales, France, and Germany. Similar studies also determined that the risk of outdoor transmission was almost nil. Despite the swamp gas, in schools that remained open, educators, parents, and our school board slogged through these issues on a local level, focused on our kids’ and communities’ needs. Our kids needed school; parents needed to work; businesses needed to open. We cussed and discussed, as Okies do, and we figured this out. Local hospitals, departments of health, and emergency management all helped.  None of us ever agreed completely on any particular detail except one: school must be open. Everyone pulled together, and somehow, by the grace of God, we all emerged from the swamp.  Seniors graduated!  You made it, so congratulations! 

And what about those muddy bottom blues?  Washed away by tears of joy. Those gator eyes?  Handbags and boots. The swamp gas of Facebook and cable television remains, however, so don’t light a match just yet!  As hard as it was, I have heard from many in districts who went virtual, and they seem to have been miserable. As tough as this was, it was worth it for communities who kept school open. We got muddy, but we definitely made the right choice. We made the decisions locally, and we made them together. We should all rejoice to be Oklahomans, where schools and our economy could reopen. 

As your local educators, however, we are most honored and blessed, for you trusted us with your children, and you crawled through this swamp, too, despite all the gators. We all put on a brave face, for courage is not the absence of fear but rather moving ahead despite the fear. Thank you for courageously making this school year possible, and for our own local versions of “The Muddy Bottom Blues” all over this Great State.  Enjoy a well-deserved summer!

Tom Deighan is a public educator and currently serves as Superintendent of Duncan Public Schools. He may be reached at deighantom@gmail.com

Feeding the Smartphone Pig

By
Tom Deighan
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A few years ago, miniature pigs were all the rage.  Unfortunately, many people couldn’t tell the difference between a normal and a miniature pig, and many entrepreneurial farm kids took advantage of the market.  It didn’t take people long to realize they had been swine-dled, however, for pigs can exceed 250 pounds in six months.  Just imagine your surprise when your little Piglet turns out to be a full-grown Pooh Bear.  Oh, bother!

During the pandemic, we unwittingly invited a similar beast into our homes: the 24/7 Digital Pig.  What started as a convenient smartphone has since grown into a 500-pound feral boar.  Zoom pigs, email pigs, and social media pigs already devoured our lives before the pandemic, but I am not sure we can feed these monsters anymore.  With COVID hopefully waning, maybe it’s time to send this digital piggy to the market.

Remember when computers were supposed to simplify our lives?  Enhanced communications would enrich our relationships.  Technology would declutter our schedules, so we could focus on the people and activities that mattered.  Less stress, less worry, more sleep.  We would even use less paper.  Smartphones were supposed to tie it all up into one cuddly package. Those crafty country kids on the side of the road lied to us! 

We now navigate giant piles of digital clutter (the piglet and Pooh jokes write themselves!).  We even use more paper than ever before. I measure cash register receipts by the foot now, which simply adds insult to injury after self-checking and self-paying.  I missed the training, so I have discovered that not all apples are coded equally. I complained to customer service, but it is self-service, too. Now it’s just a giant mirror and a frustrated bald guy holding a bag of ridiculously expensive honey-crisp apples. 

Unfortunately, all these so-called technological conveniences have crept into education, too.  After the pandemic, we learned that 24/7 instruction, feedback, parent-teacher conferences, and tutoring were all possible and necessary. Online learning has its place, but for most educators, parents, and students, learning is as social as cerebral.  More collaborative than computerized.  Some students and teachers thrive in a virtual world, but most of us hated it, especially when given an option.  

We are now starting to reclaim some normalcy, and virtual school at 2 AM and weeks of quarantines are less necessary, so why are we still feeding this smartphone hog?  Between social media, texts, emails, and midnight snacks, I don’t know how anyone gets any sleep. Families are more exhausted than ever, and I believe it is partly due to the cute little piglet that turned into a 24/7 digital nightmare.  

Families need downtime.  We need to reclaim our nights and weekends (or whenever you can catch a moment of rest). The 24/7 digital pig has gobbled up every spare minute, and what once helped us cope with the pandemic has become our tusked overlord. Life is already hectic enough; we don’t need work and school dominating our homes and family times any more than it already does. 

Unfortunately, this 24/7 digital pig will never go away.  We cannot butcher it, but we can put it in a pen where it belongs.  Social media, texts, and emails will still be there in the morning, and somewhere among those apps is an actual phone, so someone can call you if it’s important. Parents, students, and educators need a break from the digital monster we have created over the last two years.  Let’s unplug, log-off, and disconnect more.  Trust me, no matter how much that 24/7 digital pig squeals the world won’t end if we ignore it occasionally.  And if anyone is thinking of buying a cute little mini pig, consider a layaway plan.  If the little guy adds 40 pounds in a month, you don’t have a pet; you have a pork dinner, and it’s really hard to find a sparkly phone case for one of those.   

Tom Deighan is currently the superintendent of Duncan Public Schools. Email: deighantom@gmail.com  Past articles: www.mostlyeducational.com

Saving Us Dumb Locals from Ourselves

By
Tom Deighan
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0

Far away in an undisclosed coffeehouse, a hero in a white hat squints and looks suspiciously up at the rising sun. A kerfuffle is rumored among rubes in a faraway village, and nothing . . . absolutely nothing . . . worries a high-noon stranger like a bunch of local yokels facing the terrors of our modern world. A white horse soon appears. A quick pic for social media, and our hero drives away while a handler returns the horse to a waiting trailer to follow. Time to save us dumb locals from ourselves. 

Historically, Americans have always doubted the motives of self-identified heroes, but lately we seem to have succumbed to the hype. They predictably invade our towns and schoolyards for mock battle, and just as quickly move on for the next town, confident that they have made the world a better place by spotlighting an isolated, local, and complicated issue as a universal blight on our entire nation. The Twitterverse explodes. Facebook looks on in disgust. Tik-Tokers eat laundry detergent. 

Whatever the issue, local yokels must never fear!  Far away heroes from opposing sides will step in to fix our city councils, school boards, and main streets. They often swarm virtually, their manicured thumbs tapping away in outrage, but occasionally, they even make phone calls. If it’s something truly serious, however, like Dr. Suess poisoning our youth, the truly elite heroes stop just outside of town while hired hands un-trailer their white horses, so they can gallantly ride into town without a hair out of place.

Like never before, our communities, small towns, and schoolyards have become battlegrounds for faraway elites with deep pockets and obscure motives. While most Americans are concerned about silly issues like the economy, inflation, and school safety, these new saviors run unchecked and celebrated through our social media world. They always boast a vast local constituency, even when no locals recognize them. It’s just another high-noon standoff for them in an unknown town sure to produce collateral damage among people far too simple to understand their historic mission. Sure, local communities and schools have been dealing with these issues successfully without their help for years, but never waste a crisis, and when there is no crisis, create one.    

Not long ago, such high-noon strangers rode in, made a lot of noise, and disappeared. They only had blanks in their guns, so no harm, but now, they ruin lives, careers, and relationships. When the dust settles, locals are left empty, embittered, and betrayed. Meanwhile, outside of town, they trailer their horses and move on to the next backwater hotspot. A savior’s work is never done, and lattes are getting cold.

This new breed of elitist central planners have not yet rediscovered the futility of micromanaging local affairs. Self-proclaimed heroes rarely find the support they seek, so they inevitably devolve into their own form of tyranny, whether by governmental or mob decree. Tacit agreement with either orthodoxy is no longer enough, so normal folks keep their heads down and avoid eye-contact. No matter what you say or how you say it, it’s not good enough. We can no longer merely tolerate differences or partially agree – we must fervently celebrate and participate to prove allegiance. Most Americans hate being told what to do, even if they agree, but this has gotten out of hand. 

There will always be a need for far-away perspectives and experts, but everything is eventually a local issue. Local news. Local problems. Local solutions. Local responsibility. Of course, our new heroes champion these things, as long as locals bow obediently to the upheaval in our schools and communities under threat of national attention or cancellation. When it’s all over, local yokels must scoop up the messes left by these self-appointed heroes’ gallant white steeds. That’s now our role. Ironically enough, our only options after all their damage: blow up Twitter, slap Facebook, or eat Tide Pods. Maybe those Tik-Tokers have the answer, after all.

Tom Deighan is a public educator and author of Shared Ideals in Public Schools. You may email him at deighantom@gmail.com

More Juvenile Justice and Mental Health Needed

By
Tom Deighan
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The specter of a school shooting always lurks in the back of parents’ and educators’ minds, but this week, it openly torments us. Adequate prayers cannot be uttered at a time like this, but we pray, nonetheless.  In the days and weeks ahead, we will learn more details, but we will also lose focus and interest as well.  Before that happens, we must seize our current state of crystal clarity and chart a different course regarding school safety, juvenile justice, and juvenile mental health.      

First, we must recognize who is to blame for this school shooting. Yes, the Uvalde shooter was troubled, bullied, and disadvantaged, but so are billions of children who do not do such things.  This young man was simply evil.  Yes, he was once a good boy, but in the end, he proved to be pure evil. Yes, he watched bad movies, listened to bad music, and visited bad websites, but unlike the countless others who also do those things, he chose to do evil. Yes, in hindsight, everyone could have done more for him, but he alone is responsible for his evil acts, not everyone and everything else who could not see the future.  Evil people will always have somewhat of an advantage because normal people do not think the way they think.  Evil people have an even greater advantage, however, when we are unwilling to recognize evil, or we keep blaming evil actions on everyone but the evil person. He and he alone is responsible for this. 

Our responsibilities lie in trying to prevent this in the future, while this is fresh on our mind. We must commit to quickly rebuilding our juvenile justice and mental health systems. Almost without exception, people who were close to school shooters recognized the evil tendencies, but they rarely had any options because we have completely dismantled our juvenile justice and mental health systems in recent decades. Schools are clearly not equipped to serve the modern variants of violent or disturbed children, but schools are often legally required to keep violent and disturbed children in school with everyone else. 

We recognize the right of all students to attend school free of harmful adults. The same right should apply regarding a school free of violent or disturbed children.  We know that the earlier we identify and serve them appropriately, the better chance we have of helping them, and this cannot always happen in school.  I don’t know if the Uvalde shooter had such services available, but they are almost non-existent in Oklahoma. We desperately need a robust juvenile justice and mental health system for kids who pose a threat to other children, so they can get the help they need at early ages.  

Thankfully, few children turn evil, but those who are struggling deserve the appropriate mental health services, and often that means long-term, in-patient mental health care, especially for the violent or disturbed. School shootings are extremely rare, but the numbers of violent and disturbed children are growing, and they should not attend school with everyone else until they have received the services they need.  Such children are suffering greatly, and they also have a disproportionate impact on the schools they attend – even if they do not turn into shooters. No one wishes to institutionalize any child, but without that option, we are institutionalizing whole schools.   

We need a system to serve disturbed or violent children before they turn evil for their sake and for the sake of schools struggling to deal with them. This is a very difficult discussion, and not very politically correct for a superintendent, but we clearly need to adopt new strategies for this growing segment of students. They deserve to be helped, and our schools deserve to be safe, but we do not currently have the system to serve them.  While this wound is fresh, let’s commit to create that system.  And although our prayers seem inadequate, keep praying for our brothers and sisters in Uvalde.   

Tom Deighan is author of Shared Ideals in Public Schools. You may email him at  deighantom@gmail.com and read past articles at www.mostlyeducational.com

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