Posted on 06/09/2008 6:20:33 AM PDT by dawn53
I should have put the year I took up boxing on my resume.
It's sixth period, my first day teaching high school, and my regular Junior English class refuses to settle down. I give them a brief talk, amid the jostling and visiting (and the walking, and the love taps, and the food trading, and the vaulting over desks) about respect. I will respect them, I say, and they will respect me.
(Excerpt) Read more at tampabay.com ...
Think Blackboard Madrassa Jungle.
In many places, public schools are little more than warehouses. If the little darlings who don’t want to be there could be booted out permanently, things would improve greatly for the students that want to learn.
Maybe I'm a little harsh because I homeschool, and have dealt with the disrespect she was shown. I handled it a little differently, tho. “Hey, kid, here's a steamin’ pile of humiliation to go with your attitude. Like it? There's only so much I have to give, and then you're gone.” Out of about 17 kids, only two were “gone”.
I hope she takes the job at the private school, she's not tough enough for public. I do feel for her, tho.
This is liberalism at its worst. The breakdown of the family, welfare state dependence, racial pandering. It gets worse and worse.
I told a liberal friends of mine once . . “we lose the culture, we lose our country.” He normally has a response when we chat politically. This time he just stared straight ahead. I knew it had hit home.
There are public school teachers who still feel as this one does, but...
The enemy list is long:
parents who don’t give a rip
administrators who are as much help to teachers as democrats are to the war in Iraq
the kids themselves, who have jobs that are ridiculously simple, pay rather well, but go nowhere
ping
Kids aren’t quiet and orderly these days. I began teaching last semester at a local community college. The kids are bright enough but they can’t sit still. My students had ants in their pants and a bad self image which I think came from poor feedback from teachers because of their restlessness. It didn’t bother me because I raised a daughter whose teachers all thought she had ADHD. I basically ignored it unless it disrupted class too much to teach. I got along just fine in my class and I think they learned too.
I don't doubt that she has a hard job - BUT - the gist of this article goes back to a comment that I've made on many other teaching threads.
Working in the public schools was *not* this lady's first choice (she wanted to teach college). Frankly, judging by what she said about private schools, it sounds like public teaching is not her 2nd choice, either. How can kids - who generally don't want to be at school - expect to learn anything from teachers who don't want to be there either?
In a sane society, kids who are disruptive would NOT be in school. They would be made to work at menial jobs where they would be able to expend their excess energy and leave school for those who want to learn.
I agree. And she sounds spineless.
Plus she wrote: “As Benjamin sniggers...”, uh oh, they’re going to be waiting for her in the parking lot after school.
And it irks me that some have to pay for what all deserve.
Liberal theory has destroyed public education, but their only answer is more of the same.
Oh... you said a mouthful. It's the single most effective thing that could be done. Do that, and the entire battle is over.
” ..out of her depth in a wading pool”. Great line!
From the article in Pravda South (the real name of the St Pete Times):
“Melanie Hubbard, who has a doctorate in English from Columbia University, is a frequent contributor to Sunday Journal.”
The Poynter Institute owns the Times. Both are committed collectivists, whether mere Marxist, enviro-socialists, ad nauseam, is just a minor matter of political taxonomy.
That collectivist bias is why the collectivist elitism of unemployed products of John Dewey’s old academic territory such as Dr. Hubbard is regularly published in the Times.
The Times is, however, essential to successful fishermen. On what else can one clean so many fish for so little cost?
The above assumes that one buys the Sunday edition. Due to the general downsizing of dinosaur media everywhere, the week day edition is not a good value for the fisherman.
PS I grew up in Tampa, read both the St Pete Times and the Tampa Tribune, and both papers were business clients of the family business. Trust me, the Tampa Tribune IS better. Less socialist, too.
Unfortunately, that average would equal 4 kids kicked out of every class of 34 or so... teaching five classes, kicking out 20 students. If teachers were allowed to do so, it would make all the difference in the world. But we aren't allowed. I have had kids in my room with drugs, kids with weapons, kids who steal from the other kids. None of them were ever given more than one-day suspension and trash pick-up. When I went to the Dean to ask why, I was informed that legally, they can do no more, and when I pressed, suddenly, *I* was the problem.
It's like working in Hell's Zoo.
That’s what gets me about the public school gripers. If your high-end private shcools HAD to take all-comers, they’d be no better.
I find it odd that so many comments, here and in the newspaper responses, castigate the teacher! In my world, the teacher rules the classroom; not the students. These weren’t the worst of the high schoolers. They were the regulars...the average kids. If that is the average, we are in deep trouble.
Solution? for this teacher and any others disillusioned by such a classroom? Kick the bums out! Teach whoever stays quiet and respectful. If that’s no one, then read to yourself. Won’t make any difference to the “students” and you’ll sleep better.
I have a cousin that graduated valedictorian in the mid 80’s. She went on to Rice University. Between Rice and law school she did some teaching at the high school she went to. She was teaching remedial math classes during the year and during summer school. She refused to fail students because she knew their parents would beat them... and if they failed the system had failed them, not their own laziness and contempt for education and authority. She moved on... she’s a lawyer now, in Austin.
The woman who wrote the article probably doesn’t belong in a classroom. The problem is greater than just bad teachers. There are bad parents, bad students and bad administrators. Government and liberals have destroyed education.
The writer doesn’t explain what time these kids start school in the morning. Most high schools start at 7:30 a.m. Teenagers are not awake at that hour, and their fidgeting all day is a direct result of them trying to stay wake when they are exhausted. You cannot make a teenager go to sleep at 9:00 p.m. and so none of them are getting enough sleep. I am struggling with this with my 9th-grade son. It’s amazing to look at his report card and see how the grades improve as the day goes on. He was a straight-A math student until this year, when he had a geometry class that starts at 7:45 a.m. He is struggling to maintain a C average! His report card is filled with comments like “has trouble sitting still,” “need to focus,” etc. etc.
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