Learning Matters: When it comes to publicly desired subjects, some hurdles are meant to be jumped

Public education exists to provide what the public believes necessary to secure the constitutional “blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.” In other words, we want our children to know how to assume responsibility for the world and for themselves, and we want them to be safe.

But getting from one individual or group’s notion of what’s educationally necessary to a place in the state’s Education Code or school district policy and ultimately into a school’s master schedule is a bigger hurdle than often supposed.

It’s not as easy as, “They should require a class.” Just ask the student who’s trying to balance a sport, a third or fourth year of a foreign language and Advanced Placement classes, or ask the student who’s struggling to earn enough credits to graduate.

Ask a counselor, who’s trying to make sure all the seniors on her caseload have what they need to be considered college and career ready. Where would she recommend the school fit another teaching module?

Teachers are rightly concerned about “one more thing” being added to their already overloaded plates. They know new material requires additional staff development, and that means time out of their classrooms and shortened time for teaching.

So on the one hand, it’s a good thing curricular changes don’t come too easily, since nearly everyone who’s ever been to school has an idea about what teachers should teach, myself included. I may get impatient at the prospect of a lengthy, bureaucratic wait for a course of study to be approved, but I appreciate the necessary processes.

I’m glad for the teams of teaching professionals who vet new academic standards and the curricula to deliver them. I’m glad, too, for the parent and community volunteers who serve on Local Control Accountability Plan committees, doing their best to incorporate their own perspectives into district planning.

Still, some hurdles are meant to be jumped. Some information doesn’t fit neatly into required grade level curriculum but yet is critical for student health and welfare.

For instance, there ought to be a more reliable delivery system for life-saving information on disease transmission than what students get in one semester of required ninth-grade health. Yes, some students take biology or anatomy in later years, but many don’t. And some need to hear the information more than once.

About 20 years ago, when the school district and PTA were looking at how to improve AIDS education, some of us visited South Pasadena High School for its AIDS awareness day.

As I recall, every junior and senior in school that day heard a classroom presentation in their history or English class by an AIDS healthcare provider.

The speakers were well trained and ready with scientific details they presented in a “this is important” way that made students listen. I still think of that day both for the information shared and as a model for teaching vitally important subjects with the help of outside partners.

How many other publicly desired subjects could be addressed with a schedule of outside experts partnering with our schools, sharing with students and their teachers?

I’ve heard many parents wish schools provided some education in personal finance. And how often do we hear employers bemoan the lack of basic workplace skills among young employee applicants?

I know employees of the Glendale Youth Alliance and other community organizations who could provide compelling lessons for our students in these areas, but we’d need to find a place for them in the school day or year if we want the opportunities available to all students.

On the emotional-health front, we’d do well to provide all our students and teachers with training in recognizing and responding to students in distress. Nearly three years ago, amid heightened concerns about teen suicide, the district provided such training to a group of staff and community members.

The intent of the “Question, Persuade, Refer”, or QPR, training was for the trainees to go out and teach others the relatively simple techniques of listening and responding to friends in need, in the hope of averting future crises.

Without clear expectations or commitment to ongoing training, QPR faded from the scene, but it remains a subject worth sharing. As with the other subjects, it’s a matter of recognizing urgency and then finding the place and time — a class period here or there — to teach it.

Perhaps more schools should do as Roosevelt Middle School did this year and carve an extra period in the day.

About the time our middle child had finished ninth grade, I was among those who successfully argued in favor of discontinuing the ninth-grade requirement for a semester of guidance that paired conveniently with the semester of health.

In too many classes, not enough useful guidance was being offered, and it seemed a waste of time better devoted to other classes. I wonder how hard it would be to get that semester back?

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JOYLENE WAGNER is a past member of the Glendale Unified School District. Email her at jkate4400@aol.com.