Tag: education

School Days…Golden Rule Days?

“…Let’s take a trip on memory’s ship / Back to the bygone days… / School days, school days / Dear old Golden Rule days / ‘Reading and ‘riting and ‘rithmetic / Taught to the tune of the hick’ry stick….”

Did you sing this in childhood? OK, I’m dating myself. As a youngster in rural Indiana, it was a well-known song. Thankfully, I never was spanked either at home or in school, although many children receive this wayward discipline. The 1907 song was composed by Will D. Cobb and Gus Edwards. Imagined crooners were adults looking back on childhood experiences in elementary school. Were Cobb or Edwards paddled in school?

As a new school year is in first gear, it rattles my psychology training that in 2025 corporal punishment remains “legal” in private schools in every U.S. state except Illinois, Iowa. Maryland, New Jersey and New York. What educational textbooks are these educators reading? And to make it clear that private education is not the only believer in spanking, it is also “legal” in 17 states in public schools (supposedly “practiced” in 12 states). Spanking is not a healthy choice for either the inflicted child or the perpetrator doing the spanking. As a family therapist, I taught parents and kids, “Hands are for hugging, cooking, playing and ____________________; hands are not for hitting.”

An online Newsweek article (8-22-25) reports that a nonprofit organization, Lawyers for Good Government, has investigated corporal punishment. Sadly, their findings are that Black children comprise 37.3% of the inflicted, and disabled children make up 16.5% of the incidents. This discrimination is disgraceful.

In case you wonder, here are the 17 states allowing corporal punishment in schools: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. Florida made a recent concession – parents must give consent — and “it depends upon the school” in 4 more, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

There is hope for change to archaic discipline in schools. According to Elizabeth Gershoff, Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, “…school principals either realize that school corporal punishment is not effective at improving student behavior, that it is not necessary, is cruel and physically harmful, or that it could lead to lawsuits from parents of children injured by school corporal punishment.” 

Sarah Font, Associate Professor of Sociology and Public Policy, Pennsylvania State University, suggests, “…instilling proper respect for authority figures” and adults who received spankings believing they learned something, are reasons the outdated practice exists, despite research that corporal punishment does not improve long-term behavior.

Justin Driver, Professor of Law, Yale Law School, states, “Public school students are the only group of people in American society who government officials strike with impunity for modest transgressions.”

Who is educating government officials? Who educates the educators?

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

423. Were you spanked in childhood at home or school?

424. What effects have you observed in individuals who were hit by teachers and/or parents?

Communicate Perils or Pearls

Jitish Kallat, Public Notice 3 (The words communicate 2 historical moments: A speech by social reformer Swami Vivekananda on 9-11-1893 and the terrorist attacks on 9-11-2001), Art Institute of Chicago

In an interview with psychologist Jill Suttie, journalist Nicholas Carr details social media history and its variable effects upon the public. The telegraph and telephone arrived in the 1800’s. The first commercial radio station followed in 1920. As a wireless telegraph, radios provided Morse codes to ships and lighthouses where wires could not reach. Then came an onslaught of radio news, music, and perhaps most important – opinions that dominated the one-size-fits-all airwaves for mass consumption. Some complained that radio was “dumbing down the population.” A dangerous force of radio’s power was when German Nazis took over radio stations in the 1930’s and communicated their propaganda.

Carr makes the argument in his book, Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart, that more efficient communication does not equate with better communication. He refers to research that suggests that learning more about other people does not lead to liking them more or even understanding them more. In fact, finding out the various ways that another person is different from one’s self-perception can lead to disliking that person. Simply put, people tend to focus on differences more than similarities and we dislike “the other” who is “different.”

Currently our online lives can overwhelm us with massive amounts of information which we filter through our existing biases. Another problematic issue is that folks are addicted to social media. Carr states it well: “We’re not being manipulated to act in opposition to our desires. We’re being given what we want in quantities so generous, we can’t resist gorging ourselves.”

Social media outlet algorithms find what we use regularly and then load us with similar topics. With the oncoming AI locomotive barreling down media tracks, who can escape this runaway train? AI offers virtual “companions.” Is this communication or manipulation?

A sidecar in social media is the “Influencer.” The definition of an Influencer is an individual who is able to generate interest in something by posting about it on social media. Initially an Influencer was a celebrity (think Elon Musk who was, or still is, an Influencer of the U.S. President), but today’s Influencers can be anyone with a large following on social media. This is enough content about communication perils.

Where are the communication pearls? Communication skills are key in relationships, careers, and world diplomacy. We simply must teach children effective communication and problem-solving skills. Early in my career I was part of a small group of psychologists teaching Myrna Shure and collaborator George Spivak’s Interpersonal Cognitive Problem Solving, later renamed I Can Problem Solve (ICPS). I worked with Myrna at Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital (Philadelphia) and her 8-week curriculum for students from preschool to 6th grade. ICPS engages both teachers and parents in training children on how to think and communicate with an understanding of alternatives. Much communication requires alternative problem-solving steps.

Who teaches adult versions of I Can Problem Solve?

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

403. Who are your social media Influencers? ‘

404. What communication skills do you use daily? 

Micro-aggression Stitches

Family Life, Susan Else, 2010, San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles

It is difficult to listen to the evening news in this pre-election season when one is bombarded with microaggressions, or outright aggressive threats, aimed at certain populations. Sexism that affects half of humanity, racism, ableism, ageism, and LGBTQ+ stereotyping cause everyday harm for many individuals. Targeted victims often incur deep wounds. It is easy to blame a few people when the real issues are buried within cultural caskets of prejudice layered with new soiling every century.

Psychology researcher Derald Wing Sue grew up in Portland, Oregon. He was not accepted in childhood as a Chinese American and often received cutting rude and crude discrimination. His later education led him to study institutional racism by way of Martin Luther King, Jr’s leadership. As coping siblings, two of Dr. Sue’s brothers also found their way to the field of psychology. Derald Wing Sue and his brother Stanley co-founded the Asian American Psychological Association.

With his brother David, Sue co-authored Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice. The adaptive approach to microaggression is what Sue terms “microintervention” — making the invisible visible, educating the perpetrator, disarming the microaggression, and seeking outside support. These goals need to be sewn into country-wide New Year’s Resolutions.

According to a 2023 survey by the Boys & Girls Club, 40% of school students (ages 9-18 across the U.S.) reported being bullied on school property; this represents a higher number than previous years. Of those bullied students, 55% said that they never told an adult about what happened. Cyberbullying is even more prominent with 82% of adolescents reporting offenses. These aggressive attacks can result in a student’s poor school attendance and performance, as well as an increased substance abuse risk and/or other mental health issues –  including suicide.

Violinist Tyler Clementi committed suicide in 2010 after cyberbullying. His Rutgers University roommate live-streamed Tyler and another male student in a sexual encounter shortly after Tyler’s freshman year began. No one deserves such treatment.

Bullying includes:

  • An aggressor with a sense of power (either real or perceived) and a targeted individual (who may be a victim in circumstances where no one even views the bullying behavior).

Bullying often includes:

  • Bystanders who either witness or hear about abusive behaviors but do not intervene or Upstanders who intervene (through interruption and reporting bullying) as well as offer support to targeted individuals.

Today we often hear the admonishment to “tone down the rhetoric.” This is like putting a butterfly band-aid on a large gaping wound. We need psychological stitches for those wounded by bullying.

Schools at every level must approach micro-and-macro aggression with ongoing system-wide approaches. Some teachers bully other teachers; they also require bullying prevention training. An anti-bullying program is available for free downloading through the Tyler Clementi Foundation’s #Day1 Campaign (to be administered on the first day of school or any time during the school year). https://tylerclementi.org/about/

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz 

337. What microaggressions do you encounter as an adult?

338. When have you acted as an Upstander?             

The Other Eclipse

Eclipse chasers traveled to find quality view spots for today’s solar eclipse. Our Sun, compared to average stars, is “young!” While this total eclipse lasts 4 minutes (plus seconds) on one day, what about young children who are eclipsed daily in their families and education?

April 6th -12th is Week of the Young Child, a National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) event, first celebrated in 1971. It is critical to acknowledge early childhood (birth-age 8) as foundational for each child’s sunny opportunities going forward. Young children lacking positive role models during their earliest years may encounter impeded progress in schooling and overall wellbeing. NAEYC shines a spotlight on quality classrooms, strong child advocacy and positive family dynamics.

With an educational focus on kids’ early years, what about all of us getting jazzed about activities for tots and tomorrow’s teens?

  • Make a dancing playlist for Music Monday. Create a new dance. Dance with joy!
  • Consider a new family dinner on Tasty Tuesday. Try new recipes with kids. Cooking is more fun with kitchen company.  
  • Work Together Wednesday has a collaborative goal for adults to contact elected leaders to express the need to invest in quality early childhood education.
  • Use creativity in art/craft activities on Artsy Thursday.
  • Plan to use #WOYC24 resources for Family Friday.(https://www.naeyc.org/events/woyc/overview)

My 30+ year book club meets today to discuss family and peer dynamics of two inner city youth who grew up in Baltimore with the same name – Wes Moore (The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates). One Wes became Governor of Maryland. Enroute to political leadership, Moore was a Rhodes Scholar, a successful entrepreneur in delivering education technology supporting college students, and an executive director of Robin Hood Foundation, a nonprofit fighting poverty in New York City. Much loved by his mother, his father died of an acute illness when Wes was only 3 years old.

The other Wes Moore also missed his father (due to alcoholism). Again, there was a loving mother, but she struggled when Pell Grant funding for her college education was not extended. This Wes was eclipsed by an older brother who became a drug dealer. Wes struggled to find an identity of his own. He made a fatal mistake of following his brother to a jewelry store robbery. Wes became incarcerated with a life sentence as his brother killed the police officer (a father of 5) who worked as a security guard at the jewelry store.

Navajo (Dine’) tradition casts the Sun as a father figure. When fathers are missing or overshadowed by their own issues, children require not just a village but a whole country traveling with them. Quality education and caretaking of our precious youth must become a nation-wide priority. How many more individuals might shine brightly if provided with a positive environment and quality education possibilities?

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

279. What family dynamics made a significant difference in your early years?

280. How might excellent educational systems become possibilities for all?