This a bizarre but true story, told by veteran education reporter Bob Braun about the superintendent of a Néw Jersey school district.
The superintendent, in a display of machismo, wrote a letter to his staff including this hope:
““I desperately hope my children are bullied at least once a year through their K-12 experience….”
“He begins his note by conceding the PARCC tests are difficult—“not for the faint of heart” he says, not terribly originally. But, so what?
“What’s wrong with hard? What’s wrong with some failure? Is adversity to be scrubbed from the adolescent experience altogether?”
Read the whole story. Do you want your children to be bullied at least once a year? Why not daily? That would toughen them up.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m sure Governor Christie will applaud him!
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Christie probably sent him “The Administrators Guide to Bullying”.
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Someone should *pants* that guy while giving him a *swirly* in the boys’ locker room.
Jerk!!
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Thanks for introducing me to this Pulitzer-Prize winning writer who is clearly well informed on public education.
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I have been saying in many posts that attitudes like this superintendent’s are what will turn this country into the Hunger Games. Adversity based on a lack of democracy and based on injustice is unacceptable.
It’s one thing to challenge children and stretch them cognitively; it is another thing to not offer true supports, such as small group instruction, great libraries, art, music, one-one-one tutoring, timelines of development and achievement in which one size should not fit all, etc.
The overclass wants all of the wonderful results without any of the expenditures to get the goals met. It’s a set of challenging goals with a challenged fiscal attitude. You cannot stuff a gun with egg salad and expect to fire away bullets . . .
You know, it’s interesting because a friend of mine who I have deep respect for raves about certain schools in Peru, and I actually checked them out. They are indeed amazing facilities: beautiful, light filled, spacious, small ratio of children and adults, you name it.
But the minute she states that they are private schools (which cost about $12,000 American dollars a year), I ask her to tell me no more. What’s good for the overclass should be good for everyone.
Just ask Finland . . . .
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Absolutely agree with you.
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He should take the PARCC tests and publicly post his score.
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He should be turned in to Child Protective Services. Parents are turned in for a lot less than the abuse being heaped by the wrong-headed people who are leading this assault on American public school students.
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Childhood? Bah humbug!
Welcome to the 21st Century Industrial Revolution complete with child laborers for the educational factories.
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What a lowlife….Any parent who has suffered with their child through a bullying incident would never ever say such a cruel thing. I feel sorry for his family and his school district.
As far as the new developmentally inappropriate common core and the PARCC monster,
my students have suffered with much less instruction this year. I have actually filed away many excellent activities that I’ve done every year for the past 20 years at my current grade level because the PARCC has greedily devoured my instructional time. To think that PARCC is promoting college and career readiness…what a joke…Year after year of PARCC along with these developmentally inappropriate common core objectives, our U.S. students will be the farthest behind that they have ever been. All teachers, principals, and many parents already know this.
I can’t believe this is happening. I’m in “Twilight Zone.” Everyone, except the ones profiting from this, can see the damage that is being done to our kids, our schools, and our teachers. Thank goodness that parents and local boards are beginning to fight back. As a teacher right in the middle of this big, sad mess, I am thankful for these parents and local boards of education. After having a winter filled with PARCC testing, I only had five weeks to squeeze in the rest of a horribly hard new curriculum. Sadly, I am again required to let the PARCC monster loose this coming Thursday for the next four weeks. The PARCC monster just cannot chew up enough instructional time. It just has to get MORE.
It never can get enough.
Anyone knows that giving much harder concepts to students with much less instructional time is not a recipe for success. We must all keep fighting the fight!
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I would send this guy to the dentist real quick.
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Only if it can be done as it was in “Marathon Man” . . . . .
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Or Little Shop of Horrors.
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“Respect: It’s Worth Sharing”
Says the sign above the new supe Gerard Jellig as he goes about his first day of business.
http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2014/07/new_superintendent_of_schools_jellig_begins_work_in_south_brunswick.html
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My daughter was bullied for nearly a year in 8th grade by a group of girls she had been friends with since kindergarten. At the time, we didn’t call it bullying, but I deeply regret that I did not recognize it as such when my daughter was crying after school many days. Even 4 years later, the effects linger. She even switched schools for her senior year, to make a fresh start. The superintendent in your news story may be talking about teasing, which is something we’ve all occasionally endured. But bullying is something else altogether and can be quite damaging and life-altering.
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I’m with you. This bozo superintendent is clueless.
My son on the Spectrum was tormented constantly in school. Sometimes by the future residents of Hotel Incarceration, sometimes by supposively “good” kids who got the glowing accolades in the local paper. It started with a parochial teacher locking him in a closet. If not for a few saints as teachers, administrators, Special Ed, and scout leaders, I would be convinced humans have not evolved past primates. For my daughter, a few of the little darlings at her school would text her obscene photos and went as far as “swatting” her with a false police report. Of course, the parents were unaware. Or maybe they were and thought like this guy.
We changed schools.
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Why is it that so many still buy into these tests? A Long Island mother, interviewed on a NY metropolitan news station told a reporter that opting out sends kids the wrong message, that you can’t opt out when life doesn’t go your way. What would MLK, Rosa Parks, the suffragettes, and our founding fathers (just to mention a few) say to her?
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I would guess life has likely gone her way many times. And she walked up hill to school both ways.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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Time for this bozo to step down.
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OMG…what a moron.
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Every child out there will get knocks why on earth wish it on them. Do you remember your childhood as totally pain free? Of course not, but the purpose of childhood is a little softer cushion so you can learn and grow. Kids like it or not, when very young, are somewhat fragile. They need guidance, they need support, love and a certain protective bubble so they can prepare for the world and learn who they are and what they want from life. Most importantly as they don’t get a good grade, or they don’t understand a subject, or they can’t win at sports, . and they experience failure, rejection and fear that they have a soft place to fall. If not home then a teacher with a heart. God help us all if that is taken away, it has saved many a child and without it it’s just hard to imagine what will happen to these kids. Life is hard enough, kids need love and lots of it, hugs, validation, caring hearts, listening adults, and plenty of time to make mistakes without censure as they grow. Common core is just a torture machine, not a growth machine.
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Oh my mind! How young, how smart, how good looking, how brave, how childish, how arrogant, and how successful, SB Sup Gerard Jellig is!
Please all conscientious educators who were Sup GJ’s teachers in his time, must forgive yourselves because all of you missed to instill compassion in young GJ’s mind in his youth.
We must put ourselves in his shoes in order to understand how NYS Governor CUOMO, ex- DC Chancellor RHEE, current SS Charter owner MOSKOWITZ and this SB Sup JELLIG become puppets for foreign corporations and US corrupted corporations.
It took 200 + years for America to surpass all glorious, dominant ancient countries worldwide like Greek, China, India, French, Spain, England, Italy…in terms of American Spirit of Liberty, multicultural democracy and compassionate care.
However, in this 21st century, these young, arrogant leaders with multicultural background and with corrupted mind-set will bring America back to 18th century, the industrial slavery with harassment, intimidation and bullying (HIB) under the intent and design by the control of puppet-masters.
I cannot imagine how sadden and regret their parents, grand-parents and ancestors could express in words because of their thoughtlessness! Back2basic
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I have read the full text of the email, (thank you Bob Braun), and it seems to me this man has horribly chosen his words and needs to explain himself. My experience suggests he knows the idiocy of SGPs and may be a good district leader. However, wanting to see children push themselves beyond their expectations, to struggle and work hard to overcome misunderstandings and bad habits of thought and to learn from desirable difficulties is not the same as hoping for failure and bullying!
Without an explanation I would be ballistic if my progeny were in South Brunswick.
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So he hopes his own children are bullied.
And I’ll just bet he’s the sort who comes to the rescue of the bullies when someone retaliates. You know “to keep things from getting out of hand”.
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So, another adult who cannot put himself in a child’s place, even his own. Yes, from the perspective of a military type this sounds like toughening up a kid when actually it will make him weak unless he is already extremely confident and resourceful. He also does not sound as though he understands the difference between valid and difficult.
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