Bad Kids in Class [Palm Beach teachers: 'We leave teaching because of kids' bad behavior.']

The Palm Beach Post ^ | April 14, 2002 | S. Colavecchio and K. Miller

[3catsanadog]

Suspension - big deal. Kids think it's a vacation. Both parents working - let's throw a party at home or spend the day at the mall.

Do kids stay after school anymore to clean the blackboards when they misbehave? Or has this punishment been reconsidered as being abusive?

[Carry_Okie]

The State educational bureaucracy operates at the beck and call of the teachers' unions. The administrators are largely former teachers. The state has told those kids that they are in charge. The kids are fed a steady diet of boredom, frustration, and guilt precisley as directed by NEA standards (the NEA adopted the UN global curriculum). If the parents do anything beyond finger wagging to harm their child's self-esteem or enforce discipline, the child is to complain to the teacher. Once they complain the teachers must report it. State child protective NAZIS come for visit. Both child and parent quickly learn who is in charge.

Then the State and the teachers blames the parents? Who do they think that they are kidding?

The State, the TV, and every other media institution informs the children that they have RIGHT to sexual freedom. They pay fat consulting fees to GLSEN for demonstrations, plays, and other twaddle. The kids are bathed in non-stop violence and sexuality. Those kids become abusive poverty-stricken parents and the whole thing starts over and the State gets all the welfare cases it could ever want. Budgets go up. Program Adminstrators are hired. Special certificates are allottes for special educational credentials with higher pay. We pay more for education now, in constant dollars, than ever. Media mavens waggle their tongues solemnly, "It's the parent's fault," "We don't have the funding."

Yeah, right. Nobody but a moron would teach such kids and that is much of what we get. When the unions got the State to take the power from parents: to control the curriculum, fire teachers, and discipline their kids, they earned ACCOUNTABILITY for the destruction we have seen. It's their own damn fault. If they don't like it they can stick it or give the power back to parents.

[Carry_Okie]

My 9-year old could pass the GED now. Homeschool.

[AppyPappy]

You don't know the difference between a paddling and "beating children". Clearly, there is reasoning with you.

[AppyPappy]

There is NO reasoning with you.

[chriservative]

You don't know the difference between a paddling and "beating children". Clearly, there is reasoning with you.

Yes Pappy, as you yourself admit, there IS reasoning with me. On the contrary, there is NO REASONING with you. Once again you skirt the issues and leave absolutely no room for discussion (and if it was you who had my post pulled, which it probably was, as censorship is your MO . . . pretty lame). May you forever be cursed with bum-wheel shopping carts!!!

[Dan from Michigan]

Should I call Vince McMahon and schedule a tables, ladders, and chairs match between both of you?? LOL.

[AppyPappy]

How about finding another house to haunt. You are clearly just looking for a fight and I don't have the time to babysit you.

[philetus]

Twice you mentioned "beating children" in reference to school paddling.
Obvously you know NOTHING about paddling.

I was a rebelous kid in school and as a result, I recieved a few paddlings.
They were laughable in terms of physical punishment.

Now, later when my dad got home from work and learned about it, that was a different story.
I got whipped and it wasn`t laughable.My dad whipped me because he LOVED me and wanted me to grow up and be something other than a thug.
I know, as sure as the sun rises, if my dad hadn`t taught me respect, I would be dead or in prison now.

Teachers paddled kids because they cared about them getting an education. Nobody bacame a teacher "for the money"!

[ikanakattara]

Thank heaven that the children of color aren't singled out as being among the worst. Surely, bad behavior isn't limited to them.

No, it's not, and thank you for pointing it out. Unfortunately, there are demographic correlations when a school system "tips" from one where learning occurs to one where chaos reigns. Nor can the demographics be ignored: why is it that Asian students in supposed "failing schools" still wind up winning honors? Why is it that Asian students even from "poor school districts" trump white students as a whole on standardized tests? Personally I believe it's a matter of culture, not race, but in either case it IS an observation that needs to be explained.

[ladylurker]

I liken the public schools here as cattle farms. Round them up in the morning, pen them in for the day and let them back out to wander the meadows at night. All that is missing is the cattle prod to keep the strays in line.

"You simply can't put this all on teachers," said University of Virginia professor Robert Pianta, who specializes in classroom management and student behavior.

True. I did find some good teachers at these schools, but they were few and far between. Their hands are tied for the most part. They do have a boss you know. You may think it is the parents, but it's not, it's the administration. I've also found that those teachers interested in pleasing their boss, don't want any help with the classroom. The teachers that are interested in doing what's best for the children, jump up and down for joy when a parent offers assistance.

My youngest son had a teacher (5th grade science) that constantly lectured the poor kids with the plight of the rain forest, day in and day out. My guess is that his religion was environmentalism. My son would come home and monitor my garbage tossing habits. Recycle, Recycle, don't use paper plates, paper towels, we need to save the rain forest, it will be the end of us all if we don't save the forest. He would set on the floor and cut open the little circles of the plastic 6 pack soda can holders. The rings can get caught on fish, manatees, pelicans, etc. I'd tell him that I never throw my garbage into the ocean, I pay for it to be delivered to the local dump. He still insisted on cutting them up.

Sometimes, the problem lies in the parents, who can be as ill behaved as the students, Pianta said. "I think every principal has had the experience when a child gets in trouble, we call the parents and they just come in and scream at us," said Terry Costa, principal of Christa McAuliffe Middle in suburban Boynton Beach. "I can't imagine my parents ever doing that. Years ago, I think there was a respect that entire families, our society, instilled for teachers."

I've found that those parents with unruly children are and can be even worse than the child. They yell, throw fits, usually in the presence of their children, aimed at getting the administration to cave and the adminstration usually does whatever it takes to placate the parent. Now what did that child just learn at that moment? Do you think he'll try it the next day on his teacher? In essence, all a parent has to do is go into the principals office and throw a big hissy fit and they get what they want, just like a spoiled rotten little child.

That reminds me of a complaint my uncle was voicing to me one day. He is a city councilman and was complaining about his fellow council members. They had all agreed, before the public meeting to vote one way on a particular proposal before the city. During the meeting two people (members of the public) stood up in opposition of the proposal. All of his fellow council members flipped their vote and he was the only one that voted as originally agreed upon.

I think the major problem is that nobody has a backbone these days. People cave everywhere. From the manager at the local department store with an irate customer, to school administrations and irate parents, to elected officials and irate constituents. Principles, morals, responsibility are all up for redefining, like "is".

Maybe teachers need to gather together and start yelling and throwing temper tantrums in the principals office everyday? :-)

[summer]

Maybe teachers need to gather together and start yelling and throwing temper tantrums in the principals office everyday? :-)

LOL....thanks for a great read. Yes, I suppose teachers could do what you suggest, above. Or, they could quit. And, that's what they often do.

[summer]

why is it that Asian students in supposed "failing schools" still wind up winning honors? Why is it that Asian students even from "poor school districts" trump white students as a whole on standardized tests? Personally I believe it's a matter of culture, not race, but in either case it IS an observation that needs to be explained.

In Asian families, education is highly valued. The Asian student gets that message early on, and everyday, from the parents -- BOTH of them.

[chriservative]

Twice you mentioned "beating children" in reference to school paddling. Obvously you know NOTHING about paddling. I was a rebelous kid in school and as a result, I recieved a few paddlings. They were laughable in terms of physical punishment. Now, later when my dad got home from work and learned about it, that was a different story. I got whipped and it wasn`t laughable.

Perhaps I don't know anything about "school paddling" since fortunately, it was outlawed by the time I was in school, but to me, any physical discipline directed at a young child is physically/psychologically harmful. You might have been a thug at age 16, but were you a thug at age 4, 5? Besides some very extreme cases, what could a 4 or 5 year old child ever do to warrant a beating, no matter how laughable one may think it is? And just because your dad happened to be really abusive towards you doesn't take away from the fact that the paddlings were abusive too. Please excuse the hyperbole, but if person A cut off my finger and Person B Cut off my arm, does that make what person A did acceptable just because Person B's crime was far more egregious?

But you're taking my comments out of context. I was making the point to Appy Pappy (who is a member of onemilliondads.com - a pro-censorship faction of the AFA that aims to get shows which they deem "offensive" removed from the air) that he was being a hypocrite. He blamed television shows for violent tendencies in children and aimed to have shows cancelled to protect his children from violence, yet at the same time, was a proponant of corporal punishment. I argued that his efforts were misdirected. Before he went on a crusade to censor television shows, perhaps he should stop beating his kids. Perhaps that's where their violent tendencies were originating from. Its just like Tipper Gore and the PMRC. God forbid the little children hear some four letter words in a song! That would be the end of the world . . . but its okay to KILL THEM while they're still in the womb.

My other point was that for someone who wanted to protect his children from all the evils of the world, the fact that he was willing to put the right to beat or paddle or whatever you want to call it back in the hands of non-family entities was highly negligent. Everyday on FR there is a new story about a teacher that breeches parental trust or does something completely out there with his/her pupils. If we reintroduced the right to physically discipline children, the floodgates would really open and the children would only get hurt more in the end.

My dad whipped me because he LOVED me and wanted me to grow up and be something other than a thug. I know, as sure as the sun rises, if my dad hadn`t taught me respect, I would be dead or in prison now.

No offense, but I think the whole "my dad whipped me cause he loved me" comment is sick and reeks of Stockholm Syndrome, but hey, if it worked for you, then good. But I doubt its because of your dad. Its because of your character. What about the good kids who are beaten and grow up to become thugs BECAUSE of the abuse and not the contrary? It been proven that kids who are beaten as children are a gazillion times more likely to be abusive themselves when they are older, have anger management issues, etc. than kids who are not. An astonishing percentage of criminals in this country were beaten as children. Abusive behavior is learned. Its not innate. There are better ways to discipline your children than beat them.

[frmrda]

Yes, I did see that on O'Reilly. For once Gloria Allred is on the right side of things (Proving the point that a stopped clock is right twice a day).

What that case goes to show is that how good/poor a school (private or public) is dependent largely upon the attitude from the top. The principal in that case (as in my wife's Catholic School experience) allowed the school to become a free for all. The teachers got no support and the kids got the message that harassing teachers and acting like animals was permitted.

However, in my wife's current school (and the private schools you speak of), such activity is not permitted by the principal and punishment is severe. I don't care if its the richest or poorest district, if the teachers and kids know the principal will tolerate no bad behavior, the school will run well.

[frmrda]

Absolutely correct. The real problem though is parents who think that private schools will automatically make their kid behave better. My wife saw that in Catholic school. The parents thought that the school would do its job for them, which was not the case. If the kid has no guidance or a good example at home, he's going to act like a jerk at school. Private schools are not an anathema for lazy parents.

[summer]

Re your post #96 - You're right. And, that's why some private school will tell a parent, point-blank, that if their kid has already been kicked out of the public school system, the private school will NOT enroll the student. Other private schools are different. It all depends.

There was recently a longterm study done, and reported over the weekend in USA Today, about the benefits of small class size -- and, the study found the benefit was minimal. What had much greater impact was the environment of the entire school, regardless of whether the school was large or small, public or private, or located in an urban, rural or suburb. The environment of the school had a greater influence on the student's behavior, conduct and achievement than the size of the class in every case. Meaning: Does the school tolerate the students' misbehavior?

People would be surprised to find out that in some schools, the teachers are told by the administrators NOT to ever send a kid to the office, period. The teacher alone is supposed to deal with every incident. And, frankly, that can take a lot of time away from teaching.

[summer]

Re your comments in post #95 - again, you are right, in terms of economics of the schools, as is really doesn't matter with respect to how a school chooses to handle misconduct. There are schools nationwide, where the students' misbehavior is not tolerated at all, and these schools -- in the lowest economic areas, with poor, minority students -- are outperforming their wealthy countrerparts:

School Defies the Odds and Offers a Lesson [High poverty, minority schools: top performers]

[2Jedismom]

In Asian families, education is highly valued. The Asian student gets that message early on,

Isn't it considered embarrassing to be uneducated in the Asian community?

I know that from the time when my children knew how to behave out in public (and I'm talking a year old at the youngest), it was impressed upon them not to embarrass themselves or our family. Bad public behavior is considered an embarrassment to our entire family. Because of this, my boys are delights to take out in public. Polite and discreet and cheerful. We talk and discuss things without even considering a discipline problem.

I had a woman in Walmart ask me once if my boys always behaved so well...a complete stranger! She startled me and I said "Oh, yes!" Then she told me that she hates to bring her kids out in public! Can you believe it?

[moyden]

Funny, the educrats keep telling us that they can raise children better than the parents.

Every educrat is a sniveling thug.