Quelques
autres "rubriques", parmi beaucoup d'autres, toujours d'actualité
:
les rapports
parents-profs, la maternelle
à 2 ans, l'ennui
à l'école, les punitions
collectives, le téléphone
portable,
l'état des
toilettes,
le créationnisme...
AMERICAN
WAY OF LIFE
BRITISH WAY OF LIFE Le "modèle" anglo-saxon, libéral ... et blairo-socialiste... |
États-Unis
"Leçons" de Columbine : une autre pédagogie ? Faute de crédits pour le tout-sécuritaire, les écoles américaines sur le point de rédécouvrir la pédagogie ? Le 20 avril 1999, deux adolescents tuaient douze élèves et un enseignant dans leur lycée de Columbine (Colorado). Le budget alloué par les Etats à la sécurité des écoles (détecteurs de métaux, caméras, systèmes d’alerte, formations spécialisées pour les officiers…) avait été alors considérablement augmenté. Dix ans plus tard - "crise" oblige - le financement fédéral
pour la sécurité scolaire a chuté d’un tiers (de 145
millions de dollars).
La réduction des budgets alloués par l’Etat fédéral
et les Etats confédérés implique donc une nouvelle
approche de la sécurité à l’école.
Ainsi, plutôt que de continuer à investir dans des caméras de surveillance et innombrables systèmes de sécurité, ils préconisent de miser ... sur l’instauration de liens de confiance durables et stables entre élèves et adultes. Et notamment par plus de "présence" des adultes dans
les écoles !
The Safety Lessons of Columbine, Re-Examined Ten Years After the High School Shooting, Funding for Campus Security Fades, but Simpler, Low-Cost Measures Gain Favor The carnage at Columbine High on April 20, 1999, prompted a swift and aggressive response around the U.S. Hundreds of millions of dollars flooded into schools after two seniors stalked the halls of Columbine in trench coats, killing 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide in the school library. The money -- federal, state and local -- bought metal detectors, security
cameras and elaborate emergency-response plans. It put 6,300 police officers
on campuses and trained students to handle bullying and manage anger.
See details on government funding and schools' safety efforts. Ten years later, the money is drying up. The primary pot of federal grants has been cut by a third, a loss of $145 million. The Justice Department has scrapped the cops in schools program, once budgeted at $180 million a year. States are slashing spending, too, or allowing districts to buy textbooks with funds once set aside for security measures. Money is so tight that the Colorado district that includes Columbine High, which reopened four months after the shootings, has canceled its annual violence-prevention convention. Miami can afford to send just half as many students as it used to through anger-management training. Many educators and security consultants find the cutbacks frightening. But others wonder whether progress is being measured by the wrong yardstick. Even as they clamor for more money, an alarming number of schools admit to ignoring inexpensive, common-sense safeguards. Federal funding for school crisis planning has been cut by 25% in recent years, a loss of nearly $10 million. But what good is a pricey plan, some officials ask, when close to 40% of administrators admit they aren't adequately training their own staff on emergency procedures? Some anti-bullying and conflict-resolution workshops are based on solid research. But as those programs fall victim to funding shortfalls, some educators are asking whether they might be able to take up the slack not by spending more money, but by reforming school culture to nurture closer bonds between students and adults. "A lot of stuff costs money, but I'm getting a little tired of that excuse," said John Weicker, security director for the public schools in Fort Wayne, Ind. "If everyone swept their own doorstep -- took care of what they need to take care of -- we'd get an awful lot done." The federal government has actually boosted spending on what might be considered the "softer" components of safe schools. Grants for mental health and counseling, for instance, have soared from $20 million the year after Columbine to nearly $58 million today. That doesn't begin to make up for the cuts in other school-safety programs, officials say. But they say they are spending smarter. "A lot of what we learned coming out of Columbine didn't [require] large sums of money," said William Modzeleski, who runs the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. "School safety is more than cameras, metal detectors and police officers." Some point out that the money poured into security after Columbine didn't prevent the murders at Santana High School in Santee, Calif., at Red Lake High School in Red Lake, Minn., and at West Nickel Mines Amish School in Lancaster County, Pa., among others. But some officials say such incidents could be reduced by stoking awareness and ratcheting down the everyday brawls and taunts that disrupt education at some schools. In a recent survey of 445 educators conducted by the American Association of School Administrators, nearly 80% of respondents called school-safety funds "stretched" or "inadequate." Yet many also said they left quick, inexpensive fixes undone. More than 15% reported that their school entrances are neither locked nor monitored. A third confessed to propping open doors, giving intruders easy access. One in five didn't equip recess and field-trip monitors with walkie-talkies to report suspicious sightings or brewing conflicts. And 29% either had no safety committee or indicated doubts about its effectiveness. Such committees are intended to bring together parents, teachers and local law enforcement at regular intervals. "Many, many districts still have the Mayberry mentality -- we're nice and quiet" and it won't happen here, said Paul Timm, president of consulting firm RETA Security. Schools hold regular fire drills because they are mandated by law. They work; no student has died in a school fire for decades. But Mr. Timm says far too few schools hold lock-down drills, or run tabletop simulations of a crisis with police and paramedics. Immediately after Columbine, schools made a strong push to establish closer bonds among kids and between students and teachers. Initiatives were as simple as requiring everyone to wear name badges, or as involved as training custodians, lunchroom staff, secretaries -- any adult on campus -- to mentor students and offer a sympathetic ear. But educators say that such efforts have faded, replaced by a new emphasis on standardized tests and heavy pressure to boost academic achievement. The strain is exacerbated by larger class sizes, which make it harder for teachers to get to know their students well. A recent survey by the American Association of School Administrators found 44% of districts are packing more children into classes. "We pushed educators to get those numbers up, get those numbers up" -- and that left less time "for caring about each other and being involved in kids' lives," said Bill Bond, a school safety specialist with the National Association of Secondary School Principals. Mr. Bond was the principal at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky., on Dec. 1, 1997, when a student opened fire on a morning prayer circle, killing three girls. In response, Mr. Bond assigned each teacher several students to mentor and set aside three 25-minute periods a week to build those relationships. That program is still going, but other priorities have squeezed the mentor meetings to once or twice a month. The school's current principal, Russ Tilford, says he values the mentor program, but also relies on other, less time-consuming ways to build a sense of community. The school maintains a practice, started after the shooting, of posting three teachers at every entrance in the morning. Officially, they are there to check backpacks -- but really it's more of a welcome-to-school greeting, Mr. Tilford said. This year, he also started a kindness club promoted by the parent of a girl killed at Columbine; members write down acts of kindness they see on campus and turn those notes into paper chains that festoon the halls. Other principals have found their own approaches to maintaining a safe environment on the cheap. In Round Rock, Texas, just outside Austin, middle-school principal Barbara Paris rustles up corporate sponsors to fund after-school activities, which let kids bond with adult advisers over shared hobbies. Nearly 30% of schools nationally are cutting extracurricular activities to save money, but Ms. Paris refuses. "Whatever you can do to connect a kid to the school is important," Ms. Paris said, "whether it's chess club or a robotics club." Tommie McCarter, the principal of impoverished Westwood High School in Memphis, Tenn., also recruits local sponsors to buy pizza and host skating parties to reward students for good behavior. But Ms. McCarter said her best inspiration was to order teachers to stand in the hallways between classes, instead of taking a break at their desks. The adult presence has transformed the school, Ms. McCarter said. She now breaks up perhaps four or five fights a year, instead of one a day. The district gave Westwood High a metal detector a few years back, and it is in daily use at the entrance. But Ms. Carter is far more enamored of her low-tech approach: "Being visible," she said. "And that's no cost."
|
l'école
autrement : des écoles, collèges et lycées
différents
|
Présentation
| SOMMAIRE
|
| Le
nouveau sirop-typhon : déplacements de populations ? chèque-éducation
? ou non-scolarisation ? |
| Pluralisme
scolaire et "éducation alternative" | Jaune
devant, marron derrière : du PQ pour le Q.I. |
| Le
lycée "expérimental" de Saint-Nazaire |
Le
collège-lycée "expérimental" de Caen-Hérouville|
| L'heure
de la... It's time for ... Re-creation | Freinet
dans (?) le système "éducatif" (?) |
| Changer
l'école | Des
écoles différentes ? Oui, mais ... pas trop !|
L'école
Vitruve |
| Colloque
Freinet à ... Londres | Des
écoles publiques "expérimentales" |
| 68
- 98 : les 30 P-l-eureuses | Et
l'horreur éducative ?