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Forum: JHS CLOSING

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Can the CLOSING be STOPPED?

Created on: 12/08/09 07:12 AM Views: 898 Replies: 2
Larry Schnitt
Class Of '60

Joined: 04/09/09
Posts: 40

View Profile 		Can the CLOSING be STOPPED?
Posted Tuesday, December 8, 2009 02:12 AM

 

I was asked by one of our fellow grads whether or not we could do anything to STOP the Jamaica High School closing.  Below is my answer to her, and I would love to hear some of YOUR opinions as well!  ........

Probably not much can be done but I understand there is a group starting up to TRY.  The question is, who's at fault when the graduation statistics fall below 50%.  Bad students?  Bad teachers?  Bad gene pool?  I could continue but then I might be characterized as a racist or a bigot which I am most definately not.  Just remember that from a 90 percent WHITE school, it is now mostly Black and Hispanic, with low incomes.  The Oriental and Jewish Students on the opposite side of Union Turnpike now go to other schools.  When we attended Jamaica High we also had minorities including the Jewish population of the school.  We also had Blacks and Hispanics, and Oriental.  The difference being that we all had a different work ethic that we brought to school, which came down from our parents, and our need to please them.
 
Of course PARENTS must take a good part of the blame also, as well as the DRUG culture that developed in the late 80's and the beginning of the 90's and continues to get worse.  Maybe it is also a feeling of futility that many of these students feel with no fathers around and mothers who are on welfare or working at jobs for minimum wages, and keep producing children.  Many of these kids today don't even know who their fathers are.  So you see, there is no QUICK FIX to our social problems of the twenty first century.  Remember, our Moms were home for us when we returned from school.  Very few worked no matter how much the man of the house made.  Schooling to them was of major importance for their kids, and they kept tabs on the friends we kept.  Our Dads worked their asses off to make sure our lives turned out better then theirs.  One final thing, that is RESPECT!  We had respect for our teachers, and whether the teacher was right or wrong our parents usually sided with the teacher, and it was a dismal day for us if  our parents were called to school because of our grades or behavior.
 
One positive thing comes out of all of this and that is that the Jamaica High School edifice will remain standing long after we are all gone,  as it was declared an HISTORIC LANDMARK of New York last year! 
 
 

 
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Barry-Lee Coyne
Class Of '59

Joined: 01/15/10
Posts: 65

View Profile 		Begging for Elusive Solutions...
Posted Saturday, April 10, 2010 12:02 PM

Well expressed and articulated insights on the elusive solutions to be presented.

It has been well documented that "class values" can seldem be imported to another social class, and thus it is the family--or fragments thereof--that constutute that very first teaching environment.   No human being can suddenly reverse in ten months that total sum of 15 years or more of personal trauma and alienation.

If it were my shot to call, I'd install social workers/guidance counselors probably from Grade1 upward, to help track and remedy the progress and regress of each pupil as they move from those embryonic stages of child development.  I'd be inclined to conduct conference calls with parents of troubled youths having similar issues.

By the time they reach HS level, the impairment may be too ddeply ingrained for us to realistically formulate a so-called solution.  Advanced teens are far less malleable.

That's my synopsis of what is needed--by osmosis.

~Barry-Lee Coyne -- Retired MSW Counselor
 
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Barry-Lee Coyne
Class Of '59

Joined: 01/15/10
Posts: 65

View Profile 		Begging for Elusive Solutions...
Posted Saturday, April 10, 2010 12:02 PM

Well expressed and articulated insights on the elusive solutions to be presented.

It has been well documented that "class values" can seldem be imported to another social class, and thus it is the family--or fragments thereof--that constutute that very first teaching environment.   No human being can suddenly reverse in ten months that total sum of 15 years or more of personal trauma and alienation.

If it were my shot to call, I'd install social workers/guidance counselors probably from Grade1 upward, to help track and remedy the progress and regress of each pupil as they move from those embryonic stages of child development.  I'd be inclined to conduct conference calls with parents of troubled youths having similar issues.

By the time they reach HS level, the impairment may be too ddeply ingrained for us to realistically formulate a so-called solution.  Advanced teens are far less malleable.

That's my synopsis of what is needed--by osmosis.

~Barry-Lee Coyne -- Retired MSW Counselor
 
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