Media Concerns
I usually follow the daily news by reading nydailynews.com. This online news website covers health, education, parenthood, lots of crime, sports, politics (social policy) and also world news. I particularly notice a ton of articles on social policy. There are endless stories about healthcare, tax laws, changes in the education system and gun control laws. Education and gun control are pretty popular lately because of the Newton shooting that occurred on December 14, 2012. This tragedy left many families mourning and angry over gun laws. The entire nation came together to support the families affected by the Newton shooting. Today, there continues to be an outpouring of communities pushing for stricter gun laws. Parents all over the United States have been forced to take a different approach as what they share with children about guns. Just recently an article talked about a Sandy Hook student’s dad expressing his thoughts toward teachers being armed with guns to protect students (nydailynew.com).
From a life span perspective, I definitely feel this incident has changed parent and child relationships. Parents are still grieving and their surviving kids are being affected and left to work through their own emotions. Parents are withdrawn and unable to be strong initiators and managers in their surviving kid’s lives. Our textbook talks about a young child’s mind and being able to process, explain, think, understand and predict. This shooting will have a lasting effect on surviving students and siblings feeling safe at school and trusting teachers.
I found the concerns I read to focus on different categories under subtopics. For example the nydailynews.com lists sports, education, health, crime, politics, world news etc as topics and under each topic there are several sometimes, more than a dozen stories. Education always has a place in the news and it can cover shootings at schools, dropout rates, test scores, sex in classrooms, closing of schools, hiring and firing of teachers, teachers sexual relationships with students, sportsmanship etc. I read dozens of stories under education about crime, test scores, principal and teachers being investigated and parents active or inactive role in their kid’s performance at school. There is a story about the transformation of John McDonogh high school. This story reflects a lifespan perspective. This high school has a new principal who dedicated his life’s mission to helping transform McDonogh. The school had a 54% drop out rate before changes were put into place. Much of the population consists of 19-21 yr olds. Many of the kids are violent, angry and feel unloved. The attendance rate is now 80%. Principal Thompson started to use a combined approach in this school. His approach implemented higher quality academic program as well as programs to focus on kids’ emotions, thoughts, and understanding of education and personal relationships. Thompson stated “clearly parents are not managers” in this setting. Our textbook talks about how parents can play important roles by monitoring children’s behavior, managing children’s opportunities and how these practices positively affects kids grades. It is evident that parents are not involved in these kids daily routine or decision making. Many of the parents work 2-3 jobs and others just don’t care anymore. The socioemotional development of these kids is stunted and they display aggression. The kids show aggression toward their teachers and toward each other (fighting, flipping desks, bullying and exchanging hurtful words). (nydailynews.com, The Essentials of Life-span Development)
President Obama is another popular topic in the news daily. There are stories about his leadership skills, personal life, budget cuts, tax cuts, gun control, gun laws, health reform etc. I personally believe you either tune in or tune