Through the Eyes of a Believer: Education Today: Difficulties and Solutions

By John Calvert

This book not only tells about the hardships and tributes of the life of John Calvert but also gives an in-depth view of the educational system today from the eyes of a man who has been involved with it almost fifty years. It includes concerns and complaints from many people in several states in the country, who have seen issues in the system as well and voice their views and hope to be heard. It takes every position in the schoolfrom student, parent, all the way to principal, teacher, and superintendentand holds them accountable for what is happening in the schools today, giving them a new perspective of what the public really thinks and lets them know what is being said about them.

One of the most important things that this book does is give a brilliant example of how schools should be run by providing the plans and activities that have actually worked for years! This includes copies of letters given to students and parents, the discipline policies that work, and the in-school suspension handbook that John and others have lived by to make their schools successful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496938756

Book preview

Introduction

This book was written by John E. Calvert, Jr. with the help of his wife, Mary York Calvert, their daughter Alicia Calvert Clinton, and was compiled, edited, and typed by their friend, Jennifer Edwards. John worked in the public school system for forty-seven years as a teacher, a coach, as well as a principal. His experience in the school was in K-12 and consisted of students located both in the states of North and South Carolina. His main goal of this book is to get everyone that is involved with the school system to understand the issues that are going on, be able to identify the problems, and want to become part of the solution.

Mary Calvert worked for forty-nine years in the public school system in North and South Carolina, as a teacher in the elementary and middle schools. She also served as the Director of the Handicapped programs in North and South Carolina for eighteen years and served as a counselor for an additional year, as well.

Alicia Calvert Clinton served as a teacher specializing in early education for sixteen years and is currently teaching four year olds in an elementary school located in the state of North Carolina. She is the daughter of John and Mary Calvert and the mother of the Calvert’s dear grandson, York Clinton, who has been a big informant in this book as well since he has been in the school system for years and is still currently attending college.

Jennifer Edwards is a General Manager of a restaurant, a professional typist for resumes and books, and a Mary Kay beauty consultant. She has a degree in Business Administration and has studied Early Childhood education as well.

As you can see through this quick introduction we have all been involved in every type of job in the public school system. We are all very concerned about all of the problems that we know, see, hear, and read about in every state in the United States of America. We see what they are, why they are there, how they are there, where they are, when they are, and how much they interfere with schools teaching their students properly. With the number of years we have been working in the school system we are asked everyday by someone what is wrong with the schools and many have expressed how much they would appreciate for us to write a book about our opinions and professional advice to let everyone know the truth based on what we have discovered over the years.

After collecting all of the information we could find and use to support our beliefs we decided to write this book. In this book we decided we needed to write it starting with the school board members, superintendents, principals, teachers and other school employees, students, and parents. This book will be about everyone we have working in the public schools. We feel that this book could help you all understand and see all of the things happening as well as who, why, and what about everyone mentioned in the book is affected. The book also contains what everyone we have spoken with over the years is asking and what their opinions and concerns are as well. We are doing this in hopes that it will wake everyone up and get them involved in doing their part in helping and stop complaining and just blaming everyone else for other’s problems.

Our beliefs are simple. We believe that everyone falls into one of two categories. Either they are responsible for causing the problems or they are trying to help solve them. We pray that this book will help you realize who you are, either a problem or part of the solution and encourage you to act quickly to start solving the problems.

This book covers everyone and the positions they have in the school. It contains information about the school board members, superintendents, principals, teachers, other school personnel, students, and parents. In the book you will find listed the main concerns and complaints from everyone listed in the book and their thoughts about everyone with a list of the most important and serious problems with the thoughts about what needs to be done to start the healing process in correcting the issues.

We have written in the book a school discipline plan for schools that has already been tested and proven to be successful in helping solve most of the schools discipline problems and improves behavior, respect, listening, following directions, and improving achievements. We believe that if the policy is followed to the letter and everyone is held accountable and required to follow it as well as the schools laws that this policy will work.

We have written many suggestions about every group discussed in the book. We have tried to be thorough and give you a true look at the problems. The things discussed are based on what we know and from what we have heard from the people we have spoken with in our travels in North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, and Tennessee.

You may reach John and Mary at [phone] and Jennifer Edwards at [phone]. To email questions about the book or for more information you may also contact us at [e-mail].

Chapter One

What we are all about

calvert%201.jpg

This book is written by the four people previously mentioned whom are all concerned about the problems in the public schools in the United States of America. We have written this book since we have been asked time and time again about what we think the major problems are and through researching the problems for the last six years by talking to so many people involved in the public school systems in some way or another. The people involved that we are speaking of include the school board members, superintendents, principals, teachers, students, and parents.

To truly find out their thoughts without telling them our opinion on the matter, we have decided to do what we think will be helpful to the many school associates and help them try to eliminate some of the problems in their schools. The surveys were done by talking and taking the history of people face to face and spending so much time detailing information with people involved in the schools. With all of our combined education and personal experience in the school systems, we know what it takes to be involved with schools, why you have to be so involved, and what they consist of. We also know what does and does not work, and what it takes to be successful in doing their job to educate children, teachers, and parents.

Between the four of us who are involved in writing this book, we have over a hundred and fifty years of experience working with the education system and also with dealing with everyone involved in it. We have been blessed to have the privilege of working with the thousands of different individuals and we were able to succeed in everything that we were assigned to do. We have been involved in every type of problem found in the schools and the experiences we dealt with were sometimes very hard and trying. Especially trying to deal with people and solving school problems that happened so often. We believe that we have a few suggestions and solutions to solve these problems so the schools can succeed. What you will find in this book are the major problems, why they exist, who causes them, when they appear, where they happen, and corrections for them to stop happening as well as simples steps for prevention.

I, John Calvert, have worked in the public schools in North Carolina and South Carolina for forty-seven years as a teacher, a coach, an assistant principal, a principal, and the teacher responsible for the I.S.S (in school suspension) class in an elementary school grades K-5. During these years that we have been speaking and surveying many individuals, we have heard many opinions from school board members, substitutes, principals, teachers, students and parents. Many of these people kept asking me why I did not write a book about the problems we had been discussing, get it published, and make it available to all the people involved in the schools including employees, students, and parents to be able to read and study to try to figure out what part they played in the problems and what they were doing to help correct them.

During the eight years that I conducted the survey in several states, I made every effort to make sure that I gave all the people I spoke with a chance to express their feelings and to give their opinions about the problems, who caused them, and what they felt needed to be done to correct them. I found one thing that was consistent with all the people I spoke with was that everyone could tell what the problems were and who they felt were responsible for the cause of the problem. And they all had an opinion on what needed to be done to solve the problems. It was also very interesting that very few of the people admitted that they were indeed part of the problem and didn’t want to accept any part of the blame.

In writing this