Have You Ever Seen Anything Like This?

No.  I have never seen anything like this, this being the novel coronavirus, otherwise known as COVID-19.  I have never seen anything that has resulted in so many changes over such a short period of time on such a large scale.  The World Trade Center attack on 9/11 comes the closest.  I recall back when that happened air travel was shut down shortly after, and some of that same “emotion buying” took place.  However, that was a lot different from what we are experiencing right now.

Two weeks ago, Friday the 6th to be exact, I was driving south out of Waterloo on my way to Austin, Texas to attend the SXSWEDU conference.  Each year I try to attend a national conference and this was the first time I had planned to attend this one.  I was truly excited because this one was a lot different than any other I had attended, and I was planning to stay with a good friend who lives in Austin.  I had plans for stops on the way down and trip back, and my friend was putting together a list of famous BBQ joints we were going to check out.  I don’t know if it classified as a “dream trip” because a large part of is was a work trip, but I was really looking forward to it.  Then I got this text just south of Hudson from a friend in Minneapolis: SXSW cancelled.  What!?!?

That was 14 days ago that I pulled over in Traer, got on the phone and confirmed that yes, the mayor of Austin, Texas shut down the entire SXSW education conference and festival.  At that point there were four people identified with the virus in Texas and less than ten in Iowa.  I think most people did not realize what was going to come, or at least refused to believe what was being said about it.  However, that was a punch in the gut to me.  At that point it became very obvious that this was going to become a big deal.  If the city of Austin, Texas was shutting down a three week long evert that has been going on for 34 years and in essence throwing away millions and millions of dollars that would be pumped into its local economy, this was a big deal.

When I came into the high school building last Monday morning, my mind was on what impact this was going to have on  school and our students.  I have been able to get a few other things done, but I would guess that at least 70% of my time and focus has been on the coronavirus.  I cannot count the number of conversations Mr. Willhite and I have had, as well as with other administrators.  Regular communication has taken place with Jessica Wegner from public health.  We have made plans for this and plans for that, and then things change.  Until last Thursday night the 8th graders were still going on their trip to Washington, DC.  On that Friday the travel company for our music trip up to Minneapolis recommended we cancel.  Some state organizations, the music and speech associations, have proactively cancelled contests.  Others, the IHSAA and IGHSAU, have not.  

This past Sunday night I got a call that I strangely expected.  The Governor was shutting down schools for four weeks.  I now know what crisis mode is.  I lost track of the meetings we have had online with various groups.  The experience of working in a bureaucracy where every one is trying to come up with answers to questions, yet having to wait on guidance from those above you is painful.  Acknowledging that in many ways we are in a war, and having to deal with life in a whole different way than what we were living two weeks ago.  On Wednesday the stress got to me.  I could feel it in my body and I had to get away from what our administrative team had been so focused on.  We had basically been holed up in the “war room” in the superintendent’s office and I had to get out.  Fresh air, a good walk, and a little to eat got me back to where I needed to be.

How life has changed in two weeks.  

How Involved Should You Be?

Once again I am going to defer to Tim Elmore for the first article this month.  I have a few articles of my own in the works, but have not completed them.  That said, I think you will find his perspective interesting and his advice helpful.  It’s a relatively short article and I believe has good information for all of us.

How Involved Should Parents Be in Their Child’s Education?

https://growingleaders.com/blog/how-involved-should-parents-be-in-their-childs-education/?mc_cid=2d2b7154dd&mc_eid=2e5183e691

Address the Other Side of The Sexting Issue

It has been a little while since the last sexting issue at our school, but there is no question that up to this point, we have primarily addressed one side of it: telling girls not to send nude photos of themselves.  We have basically interrogated boys about where they have gotten pictures, and implemented consequences if warranted, but rarely have we talked to boys about the issue.  On the contrary, I’ve given sometimes very emotional “lectures” to girls about not letting the boy convince you to send pics.  All of those conversations have included me talking to them about developing a strong self-identify and having control over their life.  The reality, however, is that in many high schools, girls are under tremendous pressure to share explicit pictures of themselves, and we adults do not always have a full understanding of it.

Researchers from Northwestern University found through a study on cyberbullying and sexting that about 66% of girls age 12 to 18 had been asked for explicit pictures of themselves.  In that survey, a high percentage of girls said that they faced persistent requests, anger, and threats from boys to send them pictures.  It is also quite common for some boys to play on emotions common in dating relationships, emphasizing trust and commitment as reasons to share pictures.  “If you love me you’ll share a picture with me” type pressure is often used.

What is particularly disturbing, according to psychologist Lisa Damour, are the repercussions some girls face if they do not share photos.  In some instances girls face harassment and threats if they don’t sent pictures.  They are sometimes cut off from relationships.  At a period in their life when relationships mean everything, being isolated takes a tremendous toll.  We also know that there are significant emotional and psychological concerns, with young girls experiencing depression, and some opting to take their life once the pictures become public.  

While attention given to sexting is not as intense as it was a couple of years ago, it is still going on.  At NFVHS we have dealt with a handful of incidents that have been brought to our attention over the past four or five years.  In each case, we involve law enforcement.  We investigate the matter as it applies to the impact at school, and then we let law enforcement handle it in the manner they see fit.

After the first couple of times we dealt with a sexting issue, and basically telling girls “don’t send the boys pictures,” I started wondering about this constant “blaming the girl” for what happened.  In the bigger picture, we tend to blame the girl for a lot of negative things that happen in teenager relationships, perhaps because many of us simply accept the “boys will be boys” philosophy or because we expect more from girls than we do boys when it comes to traditional views on sexuality.  That said, I have asked myself why we aren’t sending the message to the other side of the equation?

Many of you may remember the news from the University of Notre Dame that made the rounds a little over a year ago.  A mother of two boys who attended the catholic university in South Bend, IN wrote an open letter to girls at college to quite wearing leggings on campus because her boys basically couldn’t keep their eyes off of them and she was worried about how they (the boys) could cope with this.  When I heard that I thought “are you kidding me!”  It’s kind of like those who blame girls through dress code policies for boys having “impure” thoughts, not being able to control their imaginations or urges because of what a girl was wearing.  Come on!  Give me a break!  Like this mom with boys at Notre Dame,  at what point do we hold boys accountable!

That’s the other side of the equation.  Rather than pointing the finger at girls and blame them for sending “nudes,” we need to put our focus on boys and tell them to quit asking for them!  Heck, I have heard unsubstantiated stories of boys who have hundreds of photos of girls, each one of them could be used to bully, blackmail, or embarrass a young person.  The irony, is that in the State of Iowa, this is illegal.  Now, most county attorneys and local law enforcement do not want to ruin the life of a teenager in possession of photos like this, but why are we not putting the focus on the boy who is asking for the pictures rather than the girl that is being harassed into giving them up?  It seems to me that is the approach we need to take.  We need to at least balance the how we approach issues like this, holding boys accountable at least to the extent we do the girls.  We need to hold our boys to a higher level, and not just accept that boys will be boys.

Thoughts About the Gymnasium Uberlingen Exchange — Part V

For this last article about the trip to Germany, I am shifting back to an educational topic, and am posing the question as to whether American schools are becoming more like German schools, or is it the opposite.  Are German schools moving toward what we have for public schools in our country?  Actually, I think a better question is “should” either one of them make a shift.  The reality, at least from my experience, is that there are shifts in both countries, and whether those are right or wrong will not be resolved for some time.

In the United States, most  of the high schools (at least the public ones) are considered to be comprehensiveschools.  In essence, the schools provide educational programs for all students, whether they plan to go on to college or chose a path that is more technical in nature.  All students are educated under the same roof, regardless of their ability, background, socioeconomic status, proficiency, or vocation.  Public schools in the United States are set up to educate all of the youth in the community.  

In Germany, and many other countries in Europe, they have a tiered system or a dual system of education for high school age students.  At the elementary level, children go to the same schools, but then around the age of 10 or 11, they take a series of exams that will determine what school they go on to the next five to ten years of their life.  For those who perform at a high level, they will be allowed to attend a professional Gymnasium or a general-education Gymnasium, depending on their career aspirations.  In essence, they are the top students academically who are planning to attend a college or university.  Students who do not score as well, are able to go to a Hauptschule or Gesamtschule, which teach many of the same subjects as at a Gymnasium, but at a slower pace.  And, the students who attend these schools at some point will most likely move on to a full-time vocational school, enter into an apprenticeship, or start work in the public service at 15 to 17 years of age.

Most of us, particularly due to the presence of the exchange in our school community, have at least a bit of knowledge about this system.  For example, we know that the students who come from Uberlingen Gymnasium are those who are very bright, scored well on their exams, and intend to pursue a professional career by first attending college.  And, after getting to know a number of these students over the years, yes, they are very intelligent young people that seem to have a solid grasp of what they want to do with their life.  We also know that if a young person has a desire to work with their hands or pursue a job that involves more technical skills, they are going to attend a different school.  Perhaps many of us were not aware that they actually finish formal school at a younger age than our students, and most of them complete some kind of an apprenticeship.  What we do know is that by common American definition, students in Germany (and many other European countries) are “tracked" and attend secondary schools that have a much more specific focus.

Tracking has been somewhat of a four-letter word in American education because it implies that there is inequity.  The common belief is that every child should have access to the same educational opportunities.  There are multiple reasons for this, among them the American value of equality and that just because a student learns a little different from others they should not be denied a chance to pursue their dreams.  Kids are told they can be whatever they want to be, and people do not want to close doors to their future.

Exam scores are not used by public schools in our country to determine where students go to school.  It is only at the college level where exam scores are used to sort students out.  However, even in Iowa, we are starting to see a bit of a shift away from the traditional comprehensive model.  In recent years there has been a strong effort by the Department of Education, political leaders, as well as business and industry to move students toward an education that prepares them for highly skilled trades.  Do not mix that up with what what at one time was called vocational programs.  Today, it involves much more technical skills, though there is a huge need for people to be electricians, plumbers, and the like.  There is pressure being placed on school districts to “regionalize” their efforts and work closely with area employers to create programs to meet the future demand.  There are efforts to start with students in middle school to more clearly identify what career they are interested in, so that their high school educational program can be tailored to that path.  In some areas, new “high tech” high schools with a focus on career preparation are being created.

In Germany, the change that is moving fairly quick is parents being able to choose the school their child attends, with those rigid exam scores being a guide, rather than a way definitive way to assign students to particular schools.  This is basically a federal requirement, and like many top down decisions, the cart has been put in front of the horse.  As I spoke to teachers at Uberlingen Gymnasium, a common concern was that they now were getting students who were in no way able to perform at the high standards in place, some with disabilities.  More important, those teachers were never trained to provide supports like tiered interventions or academic supports.  A student with a disability did not attend these schools, and some of the teachers feel totally unequipped to teach them.  For decades, teachers in American public schools have been given a full toolbox of strategies to work with students of all ability levels because since the inception of public education in our country, our doors have been open to all.

For education geeks, debates over the purpose and structures of school could go deep into the night.  There are certainly pros and cons to both systems, and from my perspective, it will be interesting what public schools in the United States look like in twenty years.  My personal opinion is that they will look similar to what we have today unless there is some major economic shakeup in our country that forces change.  Our schools have changed quite a bit over the years, but the fundamental structure and purpose of school has not.  I believe a high percentage of high schools will still be comprehensive, providing programs for all.  In metropolitan areas we will see some high tech schools, but unless there is a huge infusion of money in rural areas and consolidation of small districts, twenty years from now I would predict things will be quite similar to what they are now.

Dealing With Entitlement

It has been a while since I have fallen back on Tim Elmore of Growing Leaders: Ready for Real Life for an article.  The one that I am sharing with you today is one that came to my email the last week of the first semester, and shed a lot of light on some of the issues that we are dealing with now that some students have recognized they have not done enough to satisfactorily pass a class.  This generation of students in high school right now may turn out to be one of the most influential in our nation’s history.  As a group, they are going to face incredible challenges left by the mess that we boomers are leaving them.  At the same time, never have we had the level of entitlement among such a large segment of the student population.  Give this a read and ask yourself if you see this in your kids, and if so, imagine how you can take steps to reign them back in so that they recognize that they have to earn what they get.

Five Steps to Reverse a Sense of Entitlement

https://growingleaders.com/blog/five-steps-to-reverse-a-sense-of-entitlement/?utm_source=Master+List+%28Monthly%2C+Weekly%2C+Daily%2C+Events+%26+Offers%29&utm_campaign=1d1e4bc4be-January_Leadership_Link_2018_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b8af65516c-1d1e4bc4be-304263301&mc_cid=1d1e4bc4be&mc_eid=2e5183e691

Kids Retiring From Youth Sports

In a report from the Aspen Institute that was released as part of their Project Play research, some very disturbing numbers where shared about the declining percentage of students who play sports.  I’m not talking about high school students; I’m talking about those in elementary schools!  Here is a statistic to give you a picture of what I am referring to.  According to the Aspen Institute, the average child in our country spends less than three years playing a sport, and quitting by age 11, because it just is not fun anymore.

This study has sent a major warning shot across the bow of sports organizations from youth to professional.  Professional sports leagues have responded quickly with a marketing campaign put together encourage kids to stick with playing sports.  They have called it #DONTRETIREKID.  Kind of interesting when you think about it as retirement is generally associated in sports when an athlete can no longer compete.  We have seen some athletes agonize over that decision, and for others, they really do not have a choice because they have exhausted their opportunities to play a game they love because they do not have the skills to move to the next level.  Now, many 11-year olds are making that decision!  In 2018, only 38% of children from the age 6 to 12 played team sports on a regular basis.  That is down from 45% ten years earlier.

Another reason cited by the study that kids are quitting at a young age is because of the economics.  While parents report that the primary thing they are looking for with youth sports is that their kids have fun, it can cost a lot for their child to play.  To that end, many parents pay upwards of a few thousand dollars each season for their child to play.  Hockey has the highest average price tag at $2583.00 per year, with track and field having the lowest average at $191.00 annually.  The average cost across the board for all youth sports participation in the country was $698.00 a year.  But, keep in mind that these are averages.  Even the least expensive sports saw some parents spending in excess of $9000.00 per year per child, taking into consideration private coaching, travel, uniforms, and other costs.  

It goes without saying that because of the cost, kids are left out.  Even nominal fees to participate can be an obstacle for some low-income families, and certainly, in some areas public and non-profit organizations do not provide the same opportunities as in the past because of cutbacks that have been made over the years.  Another phenomenon is that for those families that can afford it, their kids play on travel or “select” teams, depleting numbers for local leagues and lowering the level of competition,.  Whereas for previous generations sports were a way for kids living in poverty to “get out,” without opportunity that is not as readily available.  Leagues sponsored by Boys and Girls Clubs, the YMCA, and city recreational departments are the ones most likely to be free or at a low cost for kids, but in many areas of the country, it has become increasingly difficult for these programs to find funding.

While a majority of parents state that their primary hope for their child that participates in sports is to have fun, many of them are also looking for extrinsic rewards for their kids as well.  Many parents rank admission advantages to college, athletic scholarships, and professional sports opportunities very high as to why they want their kids to play sports.  For many of these kids, the level of stress becomes very high, and “burnout” is something that is often the result.  In addition, many families are under the impression that if their child is going to get a scholarship, they need to focus on one sport, which obviously results in a decline in overall participation.  An increasing problem with sport specialization, according to medical professionals, is overuse injuries.  Dr. James Andrews, the foremost orthopedic surgeon in the country working with professional and college athletes, reports an alarming increase in the number of young, pre-teen athletes coming to him to repair injuries.  This is quite scary when you think that an athletic career could be finished before a child starts high school due to injuries!

According to the Aspen Institute study, kids are cycling out of sports relatively quick.  On average, kids quit playing a sport after 2.86 years.  At first look, this is not a good sign, especially if the kids move to the couch or end up spending their time on something other than sports.  If they are in fact leaving, then there truly is a problem and people need to figure out why.  It is critically important for their long-term health that children do remain active and get the recommended level of one-hour of physical activity a day.  It does not have to be in organized sports, but it needs to take place somewhere!

Referenced earlier is the growing issue at a young age of kids specializing in one sport.  According to the report, 45% of children play only one sport.  The multi-sport athlete — the life blood of small high school athletic programs — is declining.  We see it at NFVHS as fewer students are participating in three or four sports.  In some cases, students play a sport at the high school and then move on to a club program, opting not to play another sport with a school team.  Specialization is also something that college level coaches caution against.  Many of them have been very outspoken in their desire to recruit multi-sport athletes.  Coach Kirk Ferentz at Iowa has a number of offensive linemen that were outstanding wrestlers in high school.  Coach John Cook at Nebraska loves to recruit volleyball players that have competed in other sports as well.  

There is certainly a bias here from the perspective of a high school activity director wanting to see a high level of participation playing at a competitive level.  It is concerning that fewer young kids are playing sports, and more so, they are quitting at a young age before they get to high school.  Yes, there is an obsession in this country with sports, and certainly some people taken them a lot more serious than they should.  However, they can have very positive benefits for young people that participate, and they are something a community places an emphasis on.  Let’s take some time and figure out how to give more access to kids and create an environment where they want to continue playing as long as they can.

Rewards and Recognition: What Works

As I begin this article, I want to fully disclose that I have never been a fan of rewards for participation, motivation, or self-esteem.  The “everyone gets a trophy” mentality has been detrimental for years, doing more harm than good, and the spillover continues to damage the development of young people, and in turn, have a negative impact on a number of things we do in high schools.  I have written about this same topic previously on this site, and after recently reading a bit more on the topic, and am going to discuss it a little further.

In a recent Harvard study led by Carly Robinson, it was found that attendance awards, generally used to motivate students to come to school, can actually lead students to miss more days of school.  This study included 14,000 students in California in schools that gave out awards to students for school attendance.  Many of the students, once they received an award, started attending school less often.  The question then becomes, why?  We will get to that in a few minutes.

Rewards are a very big deal in American culture.  They have been used in all aspects of society to motivate performance.  Whether it is Employee of the Month in a department store, or the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, rewards permeate our society.  We have organizations that spend huge amounts of money to publicly recognize people.  The CMA Awards are just one example of a major television production, and each year the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame puts on an incredible program.  At the local level, you can most likely put together a list of rewards people are given pretty quick!  Just check out the local newspaper and someone is being recognized.

So, why am I bringing this up, and why is it a negative for kids?  Well, research is showing that rewards do not necessarily do what we want them to do.  They do not motivate people the way there were necessarily intended. 

There is a sense that there is a saturation of rewards.  Everyone is giving them.  In a school, look around a lot of classrooms and hallways and you will see stars for this, names on the wall for that, and any number of ways kids can be recognized. The volume of rewards has increased dramatically, and in some instances, you do not have to do much to get one.  Today, many of our students have figured out the game that they have to play in order to get the reward, and some simply do not want to play the game.  

To the casual observer, one would think it works because there are kids with stars and names on the wall, right?  Wrong.  If it worked, wouldn’t all kids have a star and all kids have their name on the wall?  Youth wrestling tournaments give medals to any youngster that  pays an entry fee and shows up, so why aren't youth wrestling tournaments turning kids away?  Go to some schools and get your picture on a banner when you are a senior.  Why don’t all seniors go out for athletic teams to get their banner on the wall?

There have to be reasons why.  Let’s take a look at a few possibilities, some of which have already been alluded to.  Tim Elmore provides a number of possibilities, and in my opinion, the biggest mistake people have made when it comes to giving rewards is that they have done it for behaviors that are expected.  I have had a number of colleagues question why are we rewarding students for doing what we expect them to do?  That has bothered me for a long time, and I suppose I get criticized because of my lack acknowledgment of kids.  I’ve done some of this, but I have a hard time handing out praise or rewards for things students, or anyone else, should be doing.  Rewards should be given to those who exceed expectations.  I will never apologize for having high expectations, and neither should anyone else!  Exceeding those expectations is what should get recognized.

Elmore points out that we must make sure that we understand how the reward is perceived by those who receive it, as well as their peers.  I remember a classmate of mine, Bruce Feigenbutz, who did not miss a day of school from Kindergarten through his senior year in high school!  That is impressive, and goes beyond anyone’s expectations.  As an educator, I am impressed and would certainly agree that giving a reward to someone for that kind of accomplishment is warranted.  That said, for the majority of high school students, consistent school attendance is not seen as something cool at all.  In some school cultures, really good grades are not cool either, at least for some members of the student body.  How much influence they have will often determine how a reward is perceived.  Some students will resent the recognition if they believe they are going to be mocked for their success.  Thus, a reward for attendance may in fact be something kids do not want.

I’ve already pointed out that too many rewards reduces the meaning.  Here is a real quick example.  Compared to a lot of high schools, we have a high standard for admission into the National Honor Society.  To even be considered, a student must have a 3.5 GPA, which is actually higher than the national recommendation.  For the most current induction, there were 30 students eligible to apply, and through the selection process, fourteen were inducted.  Our NHS Chapter has 29 current members.  We have another school almost exactly the same size in our area that had 100 students eligible this year, and over thirty were selected.  Their GPA requirement is 3.25.  Which one of these is the greater honor?  How about schools that have an overwhelming number of valedictorians?  How much an honor is it when 20% of the senior class is recognized as a valedictorian?  The rarer the reward, the higher the value.  For something to be motivating, it has to be valued.

What do students value?  What kinds of rewards do motivate?  That is something that those giving the reward need to find out.  In some communities with high poverty levels, the reward of a free college education paid for by wealthy benefactors has had a huge impact on academic performance.  I’m not so sure that would have the same impact in wealthy communities.  In some schools, access to free computer time has been an attractive reward.  For many, finding ways to reward excellence or exceeding expectations can be quite difficult.  What researchers have shown time again is that to be most effective, the reward must have intrinsic value.  The individual must have a high level of personal satisfaction and sense of personal accomplishment for the reward to have value, regardless of what it is.  

I have to admit that the hair stands up on the back of my neck when I am with various groups and we are talking about students and the topic of rewards come up.  In most instances as soon as that happens, I ask “What are our expectations?” and generally follow with “If kids meet the expectations, why is it necessary to reward?”  Other than a “thank you” or “good job” do we really need to give more?

A Legal Age for Cell Phones and Social Media?

What does the ping or buzz of a cell phone have in common with drinking alcohol, smoking a cigarette, and gambling?  All of them result in the brain releasing dopamine, and that makes us feel good!  Dopamine is a chemical in your brain that affects your emotions, movements and your sensations of pleasure and pain.  It functions as a neurotransmitter that sends signals to other nerve cells and is a major component in reward-motivated behavior.  Dopamine motivates one to take action toward goals, desires, and needs, and gives a surge of reinforcing pleasure when achieving them.  It is important to note that while this chemical is released by the above mentioned acts, along with endorphins and serotonin, dopamine is also released when exercising.  In reality, your body craves physical movement and even though a person may not like to exercise, when they do, the chemicals are released and the person feels good.

So why this little mini-lesson on dopamine and the “pleasure release?”  Because we often become addicted to things that give us pleasure.  As mentioned above, our bodies crave the release of this chemical, and to get that we often develop both a physical and mental addiction to it.  In the case of cigarettes, manufacturers have added other chemicals, like nicotine, to reinforce addiction.  And even with exercise, there are people that one could argue go too far, causing their bodies to break down.  And now, we have people, particularly young ones, who get that rush of pleasure when they hear that phone ping or feel it buzz.  The natural consequence of this is that they cannot put their phone away or get away from it.  In our classrooms we see this all the time, and when it becomes a disruption and I take a phone away from a student, it often looks like an addict giving up their drugs.  It is very difficult for them, and when they return to the classroom they are highly distracted because they are wondering what they are missing out on because they do not have that phone in hand.  They even become a bit agitated because they do not get that dopamine release without hearing the ping.  I am not making this up!  We see it happen with some of our students!

Here’s something else we know about young people and their devices.  According to a recent study published in January 2019 edition of the Journal of Applied Biobehavioural Research, spending too much time on “social media” sites like Facebook is not only making people miserable, it is also making them depressed.  In a study that involved 504 millennials that are active users of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and/or Snapchat, who met the criteria for a major depressive disorder also scored higher on the “Social Media Addiction” scale and exhibited other behaviors that are associated with major depression.

In another study conducted by psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania, they concluded that for those subjects who drastically cut back their use of sites, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, they often saw marked improvement in their mood and how they felt about their lives.  One of the researchers, Melissa Hunt, stated “It was striking.  What we found over the course of three weeks was that rates of depression and loneliness went down significantly for people who limited their (social media) use.” 

Simon Sinek, a British-American author, motivational speaker, and organizational consultant, who once worked in advertising, makes it very clear about the addictive nature of cell phones, and most important, how relationships are impacted.  When people go to meetings or out to dinner, and they pull out their phone and lay it on the table, they have sent the message that the people around them are not important to them.  They have told everyone else at the table that the phone is more important than the people in the room.  They are much more interested in what is going to happen on their phone than what is being said across the table.  Think of what people do when they are waiting for an appointment, whether it is at the dentist’s office or for a meeting with the principal.  They pull out their phones.  There may very well be other people in the room and instead of talking to other people, they are running through their phones.  When this is done at conferences or meetings, relationships suffer.  People get to know one another in the in-between times, and they cannot do that when they are checking out their phones.  This is not just an issue with teens; it is an issue with all of us!  However, teenagers have grown up with these devices and have not learned how to talk to each other, face-to-face, and socialize with each other.

Sinek also talks about the fact that young people are not learning to talk to people and have no idea how to develop meaningful relationships.  They have grown up in a world of immediate satisfaction, in large part supported by their smart phone.  They have the world at their fingertips!  They have developed what Sinek calls “systemic impatience,” and if they do not experience success right away, they consider that failure.  Relationships take hard work to develop, and young people do not have experience talking with people and working through difficulties.  In many instances, they are afraid to talk to people because they haven’t had to in order to communicate.  

Addiction.  Depression.  Damaged relationships.  Is it time to step in legally to prohibit use by our youngest and most vulnerable?  In the summer of 2019 there was a bill  in Congress to raise the age to use vapes, e-cigarettes, and tobacco products to 21.  Yes, serious health conditions result from their use over time, but I believe we can same about the emotional, mental, and physical health of those addicted to their electronic devises and what they can access.  For a very long time I have made the comment that we are putting incredibly powerful devices — smart phones — in the hands of kids that are not developmental mature enough to handle them.  It’s like putting a six-year old behind the wheel of a race car.  Kids do not need them.  They were fine before these things came about, and they will most likely be better if they could not use them until they are mature enough to handle them.  Yes, there is no doubt that there are positive uses for this technology.  But there needs to be balance, and for many of our young people, that does not exist.

Thoughts About the Gymnasium Uberlingen Exchange — Part IV

Upon my return from the trip to Germany, I have had a number of people ask the typical questions of “What was your favorite part of the trip?” or “What was the one thing that really stood out?”  Generally my reply was along the line of “There were many things; too many to pick just one!”  Then I would tell about how all of my mental images of the country I had developed over the years were confirmed, and how beautiful the place was.  Of course I shared about the Mercedes Benz Museum in Stuttgart, as well as a couple of side-trips Tammy and I took to Oberstdorf and Dachau.  However, as I reviewed the journal I kept on the trip, and have thought back to different things we did, there were a number of “smaller” things, those that were not necessarily in the travel guide, that made a significant impression on me.

Something that I have come back to a number of times since the trip was a very brief, but memorable encounter we had with a gentleman that stacks stones and sells photographs of his natural sculptures to make a living.  His name was Sepp Bogle, a tanned, burly man with long white hair and a matching, bushy beard that wore a blue t-shirt and blue shorts.  We had about a half-hour wait for a train at a village called Radolfzell, located along Lake Constance, and we decided to walk a little ways down a pier to enjoy the beautiful day.  I saw these stones that were stacked on a concrete ledge, and Bogle standing near by when we found a bench to sit on facing the lake.  Shortly after, a large swan came out of the lake right in front of us, walked toward and then past us, headed toward the stone sculptures.  This burly man then proceeded to “shoo” him away, and at that point we struck up a conversation.  

He shared with us that he spends six months in Radolfzell, staying in a room at a hotel or on the pier when the weather permits.  The other six months he goes to one of the Canary Islands, where he basically lives the same life as he does on the shore of Lake Constance.  He provided an English copy of an article that was written about him, and talked to us a bit as well.  He was soft-spoken and very nice, and we discovered he was a very successful business man earlier in his life, acquiring great wealth and living that fast-paced lifestyle.  However, that was not what he wanted, and after his marriage fell apart, he opted to leave all of that behind and get in touch with what he believes is much more important in life.  In fact, in addition to stacking stones and selling pictures, he often counsels people who seek him out, as well as others who are referred to him by people he has gotten to know over the years.  I wish we had spent more time talking with him as there are times that I wonder if I could actually live a similar life.  

Another one of the little things I enjoyed was a visit to the small village of Birnau, about ten miles from Uberlingen, where we saw perhaps the most incredible church I have ever seen.  The Birnau Abbey Church was decorated in the Baroque style, and included beautiful ornamentation, sculptures, and paintings.  While I have not seen some of the great churches, cathedrals, or basilicas in Rome and elsewhere, I have visited a number of them in other places, and I have to say that nothing has struck me the way this small little church did on the Bodensee.  It was amazing!

Coming from an agricultural family, I was particularly interested in farming in Germany, and since we spent the majority of our time in Baden-Wurttemberg and Bavaria, there was a lot to see.  These are the two primary agricultural states in the country.  Though nearly all of my observations were from the road, it was none the less very interesting to me.  For one thing, the farms were very small compared to what we have in Iowa, and in some respects, it seemed that everything was on a smaller scale.  Their tractors and machinery looked the same as what we have, but were about two-thirds the size.  The same with hay bales.  Dairy barns were constructed of wood rather than metal, and smaller because at most a farmer may have had twenty cows.  What was fascinating to me was that there were many places with fruit trees that were a hybrid that grew up instead of out and were planted very close together.  And, they had netting over the top to protect them from birds and hail.  They also had taller nets that covered hops that were growing, climbing over cables that were stretched the length of the nets.  Fascinating!

We also experienced a number of different things in their culture.  To no surprise a lot of people ride bicycles, and ride them significant distances.  There is no place in the towns and cities to park cars, so bikes make a lot of sense.  Of course you can take a train about anywhere, and people do.  It is a very popular type of transportation.  Some of our kids stayed with families outside of Uberlingen and rode the train every time they needed to come for an event or departure.  We rode a train quite a few times, and I have to say that it is a shame we do not have that kind of transportation more available to us in our country.  

One thing that was a surprise to many of us is that bottled water had “gas” in it, and you could buy it with different levels of gas.  Gas means carbonation, and most of our kids really did not care for it.  In a few places you could find water without gas, but that was the exception rather than the rule.  Along the food line, I expected different cuisine and was able to try traditional German food.  However, just like in our country, there were ethnic restaurants every where we traveled.  Pizza places were all over the place and it wasn’t hard to find a Chinese or Italian restaurant.  McDonalds was interesting as it lacked many of the traditional choices we have, and had quite a few different ones.  While we were there they were promoting a number of items with jalapeños.  Most satisfying were the ice cream stores!  In downtown Uberlingen there must have been at least ten ice cream shops, all of them featuring very elaborate treats.  I believe I ate ice cream every evening!

There are a number of things I am sure I will remember from this trip; some that I had never seen before.  There was also quite a bit that was familiar.  All of that said, I think two of the things that will remain with me as they took me back to the days of my youth were that every vehicle I rode in had a manual transmission, and I saw many of the old cigarette machines that used to be by the exit of restaurants years ago.  It was kind of strange to once again see those things as I had not thought about them in years.  I guess in some respects, the more things change, the more they stay the same!

Thoughts About the Gymnasium Uberlingen Exchange — Part III

Over the years I have talked to a number of people who have participated in the exchange, either as a student or as a parent of student.  I have to admit that I am still digging into the history as bit, trying to learn more about it, so my knowledge of who has been involved over the years is still quite limited.  What continues to impress me is the friendships that have endured over time.  Certainly that has not happened in all cases, as I know not everyone has continued to stay in touch.  But that said, I am impressed with those who have built relationships over the years.

To no surprise, one of the founders of the exchange, former principal Steve Story, has maintained relationships with Lothar Fritz, a former educator at Uberlingen, who was integral in starting the exchange.  They visited each other over the years and have continued correspondence far beyond their time working at their respective schools.  I know that Mr. Story often communicates with Herr Fritz in regard to their mutual interest in football, or as we call it, soccer.  In addition, I have talked with a number of parents of former students who have visited their former exchange students in their travels to Germany, some attending weddings and other big events that have taken place over the years.  

Earlier this year I had conversation with Judy Heyer, who has remained in contact with her exchange partner, Thomas Lailach, over the years since they first met each other in 1985.  They have become very good fiends, visiting each other countless times, including attendance at the recent wedding of Judy’s son. She remarked, “What an awesome experience the exchange was and I cannot express what it has meant for me!  So glad it is still an option for our students.”  Thomas’s son Nik came for a visit this fall at the start of the school year and spent a couple of days at school.  Perhaps in the future he will be part of the exchange as well!

While we were in Uberlingen I had the opportunity to meet Joerg Burghardt, a retired teacher who participated in a number of previous exchanges.  He traveled more than once with students, and developed a very strong relationship with former North Fayette teacher, Aaron Bicknese.  Over the course of a number of years, Herr Burghardt has made a number of visits to West Union to visit his friend Aaron, as well as others he has met over the years.  The reality is that in the big picture friendship can extend beyond oceans and continents, and because of this exchange, some friendships have endured for years.  When you think about it, having that friend that you are willing to get on a plane and fly ten hours to see is a pretty special friend!

In recent years, at least in the time that I have been at NFV, I have seen siblings come on the exchange, and I have seen one of our families host seven exchange students, with all five of their daughters traveling to Germany.  The Brian Gibson family has been all in on the exchange, and in talking with Linda, mother of the five girls who have participated, it has been an incredible experience.  We have had a number of conversations over the years and being able to meet students from Germany and travel to their home has certainly been a highlight of the educational experience for their family at NFV.

One of our most recent students who was involved in the exchange, Rezner Buhr, has traveled back to Uberlingen, spending time with a number of people that she met when she took her initial trip in 2017.  We have had students who have from Uberlingen on the exchange, and then their sibling has come over after the fact.  A few years back, Janika Merkle was on the exchange and stayed with the David Pleggenkuhle family, and then the next year, younger sister Hanna spent the entire school year at NFV, staying with the Tim Feldman family.

When we were in Germany on this last trip, I was informed by Hans-Juergen Borde that according to GAPP, the German American Partnership Program, this is the longest continuous running exchange between two schools that currently exists.  When you think about a chance meeting that took place almost forty years ago between two teachers who thought it would be a great idea to have an exchange, and the friendships that have been established, it is truly incredible!

If You’re Not Cheating You’re Not Trying: I Call BS!

I am sure that many of you, especially those of you have have competing in athletics, have heard someone say “if you’re not cheating you’re not trying."   I honestly cannot tell you the first time I heard it, but I can tell you that I have heard it come out of people’s mouths too many times to count.  I have heard it from coaches, parents, family members, fans, and athletes, among others.  It has been said to me by people I have worked with closely, sometimes jokingly, but not always.  It generally is said by people who maintain a win-at-all-costs mentality, that tend to believe that the integrity of the game is secondary to winning.  More often than not, it comes from people who recognize that they do not have what it takes to win, and thus they believe that either they or the team they follow must circumvent the rules to beat the better team or individual.  

This was brought up not long ago in a conversation that I was having with a colleague at school who shared that 1) he absolutely hates that philosophy and 2) he was bothered because someone had made the comment in front of one of his kids, who did not understand the context in which it was being said.  As an avid sports fan, I value the integrity of sports and recognize that in order for games or contests to be fair, there must be rules to govern them.  A person of character respects rules and follows them.  As a former athlete and a coach, I recognized how important it was to find an edge, an advantage, to improve my/our opportunity to win.  They way that is done is to put in more time to sharpen skills, or studying the opponent to plan strategy that will better take advantage of my/our strengths.  Building up one’s cardio fitness, or developing a game plan to our maneuver a team are common, accepted methods used to pursue victory.  Cheating is not.  Exploiting loopholes in rules is not.  Attempting to injure an opponent is not.

A true sportsman wants to compete against the best, when their opponent is at their best.  Whether it is in team competition or individual against individual, to truly measure yourself in the quest for ultimate victory, you want to compete with integrity so that you can honestly say you won.  Victory is not as meaningful when the opponent is not at their best, whether it is a football game against a team who has lost it’s best quarterback, or a 3200m race against a runner that is under the weather.  To be the best, you have to beat the best!  True competitors want to challenge themselves against the best, and frankly, are frustrated when they do not get that chance.  By the same token, they want to compete on a level playing field, which is where the issue of cheating comes in to play.

For all of their Super Bowl championships, history is not going to be kind of the New England Patriots.  People can argue all they want about the greatness of Coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady, and it is reasonable to consider both of them as the greatest of all time in their respective positions.  That said, in the sporting world, they are considered to be cheaters, and one has to question whether or not they would have won as many championships without cheating.  Belichick has pulled different shenanigans over the years, including “Spygate” when a Patriot staffer was directed to videotape the New York Jets play-call signals so coaches could study them for a future game.  The team and head coach were fined a combined $750,000.00.  Perhaps more famous was “Deflategate,” when the game balls used by the Patriots had air let out of them so Brady could grip them better.  In that same season, they used “deception” with what were determined to be illegal formations in a game versus the Baltimore Ravens that were so cleverly designed that they fooled the referees as well!  Bill Belichick epitomizes the statement used for this article: If you’re not cheating you’re not trying!”  And the crazy thing is, most football pundits argue that they most likely would have won without cheating!

Cheating is a character flaw, and if I have heard it once, I have heard it thousands of times . . . sports build character!  Some of the same people that I have heard make the later comment, have also said the former.  Or, perhaps they have not said it, but have done it!  In my younger days I coached against one of the most competitive people I have met in my lifetime, and he was busted on more than one occasion helping or supporting his wrestlers cheating at weigh-ins.  Caught red-handed!  I am aware of coaches that have covered up incidents that would have otherwise resulted in their athletes being found in violation of the Good Conduct policy.  One of the more prominent softball coaches in the state of Iowa, who knows the rules as well as anyone, has broken them by having his players use illegal equipment.  I cannot count the number of times when I have brought up rules regarding coaching out of season I have heard the reply, “coaches from other schools are doing it."  The question then is “Why?”  Because, if you aren’t doing everything possible to win, you aren’t doing enough, and that includes cheating.  That is unacceptable!

In some parts of the sporting world there truly is a cesspool in which the win at all cost mentality is pervasive.  In particular I am thinking about college basketball recruiting.  What is frustrating is that to some degree there is acceptance, though recently, federal law enforcement has gotten involved and perhaps there will be changes.  I am concerned that our society has come to accept cheating as something that is going to happen and we just have to acknowledge it.  I would hope that we are better than that, and would prefer that our attitude would be that if you have to cheat, is it really worth it.  We cannot turn a blind eye to it and accept that we cannot do anything about it.  Those who cheat are not worthy of victory, under any circumstance.  

Failing Online Charter Schools

I am not a fan of charter schools, or rather, I am not a fan of for-profit charter schools that siphon public money away from public schools.  It does not matter whether they are brick and mortar schools, or online programs.  In recent travels to other parts of the country, I have seen brand new buildings housing charter schools that look like palaces, and I have driven by some that occupy space in what appears to be worn out strip malls.  I am very aware of a few charters that have done incredible things, particularly KIPP Public Charter Schools, turning lives around for kids who come from poverty stricken backgrounds, but note that “public” is included in the title.  In Iowa, charter schools have struggled to gain a foothold.  In large part I believe that is due to the fact that the majority of people in a community have a positive feeling about the job being done in our public schools.  However, there are a few, and while proponents can argue that they provide more educational options to parents, overall, in our country they are not doing what they were intended to do.

In a report published in April 2019 by the Education Week Research Center, nearly three-quarters of students enrolled in online charter schools in the U.S. are attending “schools” where less than half of the students have graduated in four years.  Also contained in this report is the following:

Nationally, half of all virtual charter high schools had graduation rates     below 50-percent in the 2016-17 school year. Thirty-seven percent of schools had graduation rates at or above 50-percent. Graduation data for the remaining 13-percent of schools was masked for various reasons, such as to protect student privacy. There are about 163 virtual charter schools educating over 30,000 seniors nationally as determined by the adjusted cohort graduation rate, according to federal numbers.

In a Stanford University study in 2015, it was found that students attending an online charter school made so little progress in math over the course of a year that it was as if they hadn’t attended school at all.  That is unconscionable!  Let us apply that to our high school, or for that matter, any public high school in the United States.  If our students were not learning math in our classes, the community would be justifiably upset and many of us — from teachers up to administrators — would most likely lose our jobs.  In essence, we are talking about malpractice, and yet it appears that nothing is being done to demand accountability from these charters.

Most of the online charter schools are run by for-profit companies, and since the beginning, they have struggled with academic performance.  On a trip four summers ago we stopped in Indianapolis and spent some time downtown.  In a shopping mall, there was a lot of signage, including forty-foot banners spanning the walking area, advertising a couple of different online charter programs.  Both schools had kiosks where you could get information and sign your child up.  According to the Education Week study, not one virtual charter school operating in Indiana in 2016-17 had a graduation rate over 50% in the past four years.  What would you think if our school had a graduation rate of less than 50%?  On a national level, anything under a 90% graduation rate is considered low!

In Iowa, there are two “state approved” charter schools.  Both of them are for-profit, and both of them are aligned with and administrated by public school districts.  Students in the state can open enroll to either of the two districts and then enroll in the online charter option.  One of them is Iowa Connections Academy that is aligned with the CAM school district in southwest Iowa.  The other is called Iowa Virtual Academy in the nearby Clayton Ridge district.  In looking at graduation rates in Iowa, the state average for public schools in 2018 was an all-time high of 91.4%.  (North Fayette Valley has consistently exceeded the state average.)  The school district with the lowest graduation rate in that year was Storm Lake in western Iowa, a district with a very high percentage of ESL and low-economic status students, as well as a very transient population.  The second lowest graduation rate was CAM at 77%, which must include those students who enrolled in the Iowa Connections Academy (ICA).  In an online search, ICA’s profile reports a graduation rate between 70 and 79%, which is in lowest 50% of Iowa schools.  Clayton Ridge’s graduation rate was reported at 82.7%, which also puts them very close to the bottom of schools in the state.  There is no additional information provided by this district on the ICA profile.

While I am not sure of the financial arrangement between these two schools and their partner school district, I do know that state funds in the form of per pupil costs go to them through the open enrollment law we have in Iowa.  We have had a small number of students from our district choose to open enroll into the programs, two of whom graduated as they transferred their senior year.  None of the others graduated.  

In my opinion, this whole charter movement, which is strongly supported by current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, is a way to separate certain groups of kids from other groups.  Many of the brick and mortar charter schools have specific entrance requirements that prevent students from certain demographic groups from enrolling, despite state and local laws that are supposed to prevent it.  It has been a way for the private sector to get public funding, and yet stay free of the same requirements and standards that public schools must meet.  In the accountability laws that exist in every state, no public school could survive unscathed with a graduation rate less than 50%.  The state would have swooped in, shut it down, and either close it or forced dramatic restructuring.  They have done this since the advent of No Child Left Behind.  However, the for-profit charter schools have been protected, and have not been held to the same standard.  It is a significant question of fairness and a level playing field.  In my mind, it is a misuse of taxpayer dollars to allow these failing schools to continue.  We wouldn’t stand for that if our school was failing.

What Your Kids Need to Know Before They Move Out

As a recent “empty-nester” I could have used something like the list I am sharing with you as my wife and I prepared to send both of our kids out the door to adulthood!  A lot has been said about our generation of parenting, quite a bit of it negative in terms of making our kids too dependent on us.  To a large extent, I agree with the criticism and have worked hard as a dad to prepare my kids to take care of themselves.  Some of it has taken hold, but some has not.  Tim Elmore, in his blog Growing Leaders, shares a list of 14 skills he believes we must instill in our children to prepare them to become independent, self-sufficient adults.  You may want to create a checklist from this and let it guide you over the course of the next few years.  I know that as I looked it over I still have some work to do!

14 Skills Your Kids Should Have Before Moving Out

https://growingleaders.com/blog/14-skills-your-kids-should-have-before-moving-out/?inf_contact_key=dc65e819cba97831f58b3c140340838d680f8914173f9191b1c0223e68310bb1

Thoughts About the Gymnasium Uberlingen Exchange — Part II

Shortly after I arrived and spent a couple of days in Uberlingen, I sent an email back to my administrator colleagues at NFV entitled Universal Truths!  We had gone on one of our outings, and I had just spent a good chunk of the morning at Gymnasium Uberlingen, with an opportunity to observe students and teachers, and to talk to my principal colleague, Hans Weber.  I also had a chance to talk with a teacher that we will get to know much better in the future, Ute Kramer, as she will travel on the next exchange to NFV.  In that small snapshot of time, I made some determinations, perhaps a little too soon or without adequate evidence!

First,  female students at Gymnasium Uberlingen dress very much like girls in our school, with shorts shorter than a conservative old foggy with a young daughter like me are comfortable with.  They do not have a dress code, but there were some observations made by a couple of their teachers that would indicate that many push the boundaries of what is acceptable in a school setting.  The boys, on the other hand, dressed a lot different than our’s.  First of all, sports are not nearly as large of a part of their culture as ours, and thus that kind of apparel influence was for the most part nonexistent.  No long baggy shorts, and not nearly the number of t-shirts.  They wore shorts and jeans, most of them other than blue denim, that were a lot more form fitting.  The point is that you could not tell the difference between American and German teenage females, but you most definitely could between the boys.

Kids do not do homework!  Teachers from the gymnasium expressed deep frustration that a high percentage of their current students do not do homework.  We see a lot of the same, to the extent that researchers have dug in trying to figure out why, and others in the field have spent a great deal of time determining what is valuable homework and what is not.  I was particularly surprised to hear this from gymnasium teachers because of their tiered educational system.  Those kids attending their school will take some very intensive exams at the conclusion of their final year of high school that will determine whether or not they will get into college, and then what college.  Talk about high stakes!  Perhaps it is indicative of this generation of young people that they haven’t internalized the concept of putting in the time to learn before you are assessed.  There are differences in motivation between our students and theirs due to the difference in school systems, but none the less students are choosing not to do homework.

Teachers from Uberlingen and our district claim that students are coming to school less prepared, and that parents are not as supportive of the school’s handling of student issues as in the past.  The same has been said in our nation’s schools as well.  In fact, schools have gone to great lengths to teach and provide services that are traditionally the responsibility of the family.  We have some great parents in our community, and I am sure that there are in Uberlingen as well, but like a lot of things, a “loud minority” often grabs the attention and focus of others.  Problems tend to receive more attention than things that are going well.  However, teachers in both places complain about giving up instruction time in their content area to teach things that should have been taught at home by parents.  

Something that was a bit of a surprise was that teachers do not feel appreciated, which is the same in our schools.  It has been well chronicled how teachers in our country face incredible challenges in the face of overwhelming criticism from a variety of different sources, and changes made by politicians.  A number of studies have determined that teacher morale is at an all-time low.  What I heard from teachers over there is primarily connected to changes in the school system made by the government.  The educational program is a lot more centralized in terms of curriculum that must be taught and assessments that have to be given.  Gymnasiums are the highest level schools for students in the country and designed to prepare students to go on to a university.  In recent years the government has relaxed admission standards and basically have taken the position that if parents want a child to go to a gymnasium, then they can, regardless of the child's academic level.  That is a drastic change, and means that there are kids in their schools that do not have the skills to succeed, and teachers are being asked to do more to see that they do.  It is a dramatic shift in expectations for teachers, and many are having a great deal of difficulty making the adjustment. 

Gaming online is a main competitor for student’s time outside of school, just as it is with some of our young people, as well as time spent on social media.  It seemed like as soon as we walked into a place that had free WiFi, out came all of the phones!  Fortnight is every bit as popular among German teens as it is with our’s.  One thing I did not see were phones in hand when students were moving through the halls at school, but at the same time, they were not carrying laptops either.  Keep in mind, however, that in their schools students stay in the same room and the teachers travel, thus the devices may have been left in the room.  Teachers expressed a similar frustration that students come to school tired in the mornings after late nights of gaming.

Over the years as I have traveled across our country, visiting schools and talking to educators, I have developed the belief that kids are kids, regardless of where they come from and live.  Now, having experienced a little bit of another country up close, this belief is further confirmed.  In this “smaller world” referenced in a previous article, technology has removed a lot of the unknowns.  More of the American way of life has seeped into the daily life of the areas we visited.  Technology has also caused change, and regardless of who you are or where you are, change is difficult.  Some of the challenges are the same for educators, both here and in Germany.  The more we communicate and work together, perhaps we can find positive ways to deal with them.

Thoughts About the Gymnasium Uberlingen Exchange — Part I

We recently completed the 19th exchange between our school and Gymnasium Uberlingen from southwest Germany.  In my time at North Fayette Valley I have been part of five exchanges, and this year was my first as a participant that traveled to Baden-Wittenburg, and the community of Uberlingen on the shores of the Bodensee, or Lake Constance.  It was an incredible experience, and I actually started to write this article on one of the “off days” we had early in our visit.  I was quite reflective that day, and already blown away by the experience up to that point.  Now that I am back in West Union, I have had more time to reflect on the experience and the exchange.  Over the course of the next few months in this blog, I will share different thoughts I have had relative to this experience.  Hopefully, some of what I write about will resonate with you, and if nothing else, give you a little more insight into the exchange that has impacted so many lives in our school district.

While this was the first time in Europe for me, my wife has traveled there before, and I remember a conversation with her about how surprised she was in regard to how much Europeans knew about our country.  And, on the flip side, how little we really know about Europe, other than a few things we learned in high school history classes.  Jay Leno used to do these “quizzes” on the street that were often about topics from history, primarily in my opinion to show how ignorant some people were about the world we live in.  He got some laughs and other people used those short clips to point fingers at school systems or “kids these days.”  What I found out in my time in Germany reinforced my wife’s view, and I was actually quite surprised how much people knew not only about our political system, but also about our economy, culture, and basically what goes on in many aspects of our society on a daily basis.  Yes, most of the time I was with highly educated people, but even when we had experience with others, this seemed to be true.

A number of years ago I read Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat, and in different settings I have referenced a number of things that I took away from that book.  Without going into a full-scale review or summary of the book, one of the fundamental points he makes is that due to technology and advances in communication we live in a “smaller” world.  We are a few keystrokes away from knowing what is going on, or being able to communicate with someone anywhere in the world.  In many ways there are not as many “mysteries” about places foreign to us because we can easily find out about them on the Internet.  Our students who have participated in the last two or three exchanges have communicated extensively with their German partners before even meeting them, and then more between visits.  A lot of this is done via social media, and so the kids were very tuned in as to what to expect when they arrived in each other’s homeland.  They were also more informed about each other’s interests, families, likes and dislikes, than in the past.

This smaller world also presented itself with signs, literally and figuratively, of the United States all over the place.  Our host drove a Skoda Citigo, a Czech manufactured vehicle.  I never heard of it, and as I started car watching on our walks and drives, I noticed a few other manufacturers I did not recognize.  At the same time, I saw a number of Fords, though they were all smaller compact cars.  We also saw a number of brown UPS trucks, though in Germany they were Mercedes Benz!  In many communities there was a McDonalds restaurant, and at the checkout in grocery stores one saw a number of familiar candy bars, such as Snickers and Kit Kat.  There was a Levi's store in a mall we visited, and a lot of people wearing Nike shoes.  We also went to an Aldi grocery store.  Oh wait, that is a German business that happens to be the faster growing grocer in the United States!

Something else that has happened is that because more information is available quickly, and because the United States is the dominant country in the world, people in other countries are hungry to know as much as they can about us.  They are very tuned in to our political situation, and many that I spoke to have established very strong beliefs about the President and current policies of the Republican Party.  More than one person remarked that based on recent foreign policy decisions, it will be decades before they trust our country if the GOP is in control.  I found that concerning, as I did the parallels that some of the people I met were drawing between the white nationalist emergence in our country and similar movements in the eastern region of theirs.  That was directly addressed by our tour guide during a visit my wife and I took to Dachau, the notorious concentration camp created in the 1930’s by the Nazis.  In fact, there was a very high level of concern expressed because our nation is viewed as a leader and if things like this are happening on our soil, they rationalized that it could happen anywhere.  

Taking all of this in, my “worry-ometer” has kicked in and I am truly concerned about how little our students know about the world, and for that matter many of us adults.  We do not have much of a global awareness or understanding compared to the average German.  They know how our economy works, and are very current on market trends in our country that have an impact beyond our border.  As the campaigns for the 2020 election are gearing up, some have studied the various Democratic candidates as much as any of us.  They are very tuned in to the migrant problems at our southern border, and easily compare it to similar situations in nearby countries.  I mention this because who among us can even name the major political parties in Germany, and outside of Angela Merkle, who are other political leaders in that country.  For that matter, beside Teresa May, Vladimir Putin, and Emmanuel Macron, who are the other leaders of European nations?  What countries belong to the European Union and what ones do not?  The people we talked to know a great deal about the various leaders in our nation, and have very strong opinions as to what they believe needs to happen.  

The United States is a model for the rest of the world, and while it may sound kind of goofy, in many ways, people want to be like us, or at least have many of the things we have.  Because of that they are very aware of most things American.  At the same time, the last thing that can happen to us is to continue this path toward isolation.  We must recognize that we are dependent on other nations, and in order to better work with them, we need to know more about them.  This exchange is a very small step toward that end, and while the fact that we have twenty kids share a couple of months with a German teen every two years does not lead to dramatic changes in the world order, it does make a difference in how some people view the world, or at least part of it.  It may matter more in the future when they are adults and have a vote, and perhaps make a decision to run for political office.  This smaller world is different from what it was in 1982 when this exchange started, but the mission is the same: to develop understanding and relationships among young people from different nations.  That mission is still very important and very much alive.

Prisons Are More Important Than Schools

I hope you disagree with the title of this article, because I certainly do.  However, if you look at the amount of money spent on both institutions over the past 33 years, there is no question that among politicians, and perhaps some other members of our society, it is more important to fund prisons than it is to fund education.  When one looks at how much a state spends on a prisoner compared to how much it spends on a child attending school, more money is spent in this country on the prisoner than the child.  According to a report by the personal finance site GoBankingRates, fifteen states spend at least $27,000 more per prisoner than they do per student, with California having the biggest gap, spending $64,642 per inmate compared to $11,495 per student.  That difference of $53, 146 is astounding!  In Iowa, the cost of educating a student is a bit under $10,000, while the cost spent on each inmate is over $30,000.  Just think what kind of education could be provided to our young people if those dollar amounts were flipped!  Or for that matter, find the average and fund them the same!

There is no question that our nation has a problem with incarceration, and perhaps some of the conversation about prison and sentencing reform you hear about every so often will come to fruition in the near future.  It is astounding that in the richest country in the world, while our country accounts for 4.4% of the world’s population, it also accounts for 22% of the world’s prison population.  The crazy thing about that statistic is that there are many other countries in the world that have far more restrictions on their citizenry and yet, do not have as many people confined.  Maybe even crazier is that in the United States, incarceration rates have tripled in the last thirty years despite crime rates falling!  How does that add up?  We are spending an incredible amount of taxpayer money, in some respects keeping for-profit, private prisons very much in the black, and at the same time short-changing the education of young people.

Within this inequity of spending, there exists some very interesting correlations between education and incarceration, students and prisoners.  The most obvious is that uneducated people are much more likely to end up in prison.  According to the U.S. Department of Education, 66% of state prison inmates have not graduated from high school, and for one demographic group in our country, black men aged 20-24, those without a high school diploma are more likely to be in jail or prison than to have a job.  It is not complicated, earn a high school diploma and stay out of jail!  Heck, we have examples in our own community of this!  Dropout of school, do something stupid because you do not have access to a good job, go to jail.  We read about these individuals in the police report all of the time!  According to former U.S. Secretary of Education John King, a 10% increase in high school graduation would result in a 9% decrease in criminal arrest rates.  Where should we put our money if we truly want to impact our future?

Another interesting statistic is that in our country it takes one prison guard to supervise an average of 5.3 prisoners, while each American teacher supervises an average of 20.8 students.  Of course that makes it more expensive simply looking at labor costs.  Toss in the fact that there are extreme shortages of educators in some parts of this country, even to the extent that teaching positions are going unfilled, and can you see where our focus is at?  Based on this, our nation places a higher priority on people giving attention to prisoners than to students.  It is more important that we have a lower guard to prisoner ratio than teacher to student!  How about we work to level that out a little bit?  I’m not saying move those prison guards into schools (though some may argue that would be helpful!), but I suspect being a teacher would be much more attractive if they did not have to deal with as many of the problems that they face on a daily basis.  That could be dealt with if schools had resources for mental health professionals and counselors to provide services to young people who bring all kinds of social and emotional issues into the building each day.

When one in three Americans of working age have a criminal record, that is a problem.  Not only does it create barriers to employment, it certainly does not bode well for an economy in need of workers.  Statistics tell us that if more people graduate from high school, fewer will become criminals, the number of prisoners will decline, and less money will be needed to operate jails and prisons.  So how about we invest up front, allocate money to education and mental health programs, and give our young people an opportunity to earn a quality education, rather than continuing to see our costly prison system expand.  Makes sense to me.