The problem with the education system in America (this has nothing to do with BDSM)

[Marquis]

Allow me to rant for a bit while I get over my day.

I teach at a public high school in a lower-middle class neighborhood. It's not in the Projects with a heavy gang influence or anything like that, but it has a retention rate and reading level that make it one of the worst schools in Florida, which is tough to do in a state run by a Bush.

Since I have started working here, I have been continually frustrated by my work. While I strongly believe there are no bad kids, only bad parents; my classroom is really getting out of control and I'm running out of ideas on how to handle things. Today I had to break up a fight between a boy and a girl, and in general I spend much more of my time as a disciplinarian than as an educator.

Tardiness and attendance are not issues at my school. Kids not doing their homework or chewing gum in class are not issues. My students routinely come to class drunk or stoned. They show up whenever they want and leave whenever they feel. They have no fear, and rightfully so, because we have no way of disciplining them. The worst thing we can do is expel them and most of them don't want to be there anyway. They laugh when you hand them a detention and calls to parents are more likely to get you cursed out than do any good.

I have a student who has been to jail 3 times. What the fuck does he care to learn about the Byzantine empire or the fall of Rome? I feel like an asshole trying to teach it to him.

I am the fourth teacher these students have had this year, and on my first day I promised them I would not leave them like the other teachers did, and I am a man of my word. But I double majored at Georgetown University, I don't need to be making less than a McDonald's manager to be a bouncer and a babysitter.

So who do I blame? I blame the system. The system that tries to squeeze every kind of student into the same college prepatory classes. The system that sticks a 22 year old man with no education training like me in front of 35 kids who are 18 and 19, and expect me to be able to command respect without any way to discipline them.

 

[tealsphynx]

I'm not sure if I have a response that would be any help (that's one of my problems...always trying to "make things better"). I agree the system needs to be reworked. I had a teacher that chose the "If you can't beat them, join them" policy. He would throw parties at his house and get stoned with the students. He, of course, was everyone's favorite teacher...mine was the strict old, old fashioned english teacher who had no problems assigning her own detention if the principal was too nice to give it. She believed in writing sentences over and over, in VERY legible handwriting, and if she felt one or two the sentences weren't clear enough she'd make you redo all of them. I was always one of the students who had the potential for the AP and College credited highschool courses offered, I just never applied it. I went to a small highschool and was too smart for the average kids, but not as over achieving as the "smart" kids (the ones who lived in their text books, which in my opinion was not an acceptable way to spend friday and saturday nights.) We had attendence problems...mostly because the school policy on attendence had too many loopholes if you looked for them...I knew one guy in my graduating class then came to class a total of 8 days all year, and still graduated without being on the Independent Study program. Parents are too soft too. Mine were really strict about school. If my sister or I got In-Home suspended we didn't get to spend the days in front of the TV. My school didn't allow make-up work for school days missed due to suspension..that didn't mean my mom didn't make homework assignments for us that were due the day we went back to school. For most kids suspension has become a week long vacation. I worry about the near future knowing what the schools are allowing to graduate....

 

[CutieMouse]

*****

 

[Aeroil]

hmm, I've been in bad classes before marquis but yours sounds pretty bad, I do remember once someone came to a class two years ago stoned, our teacher caught him right off the bat and he was sent to rehab for a week and suspended. I think these kids are just arrogant idiots who need to be taught some humility. However, the doing that can prove to be a bit difficult. Personally I think they need beatings lol, but I doubt you'd be able to remain a teacher for long if you were to do that. I don't know what you can do Marquis, perhaps get a job up here in Canada after the year's end...... just please stay away from my school lol .

 

[Marquis]

hmm, I've been in bad classes before marquis but yours sounds pretty bad, I do remember once someone came to a class two years ago stoned, our teacher caught him right off the bat and he was sent to rehab for a week and suspended. I think these kids are just arrogant idiots who need to be taught some humility. However, the doing that can prove to be a bit difficult. Personally I think they need beatings lol, but I doubt you'd be able to remain a teacher for long if you were to do that. I don't know what you can do Marquis, perhaps get a job up here in Canada after the year's end...... just please stay away from my school lol .

Are you old enough to be using Lit?

I must admit, I've had my doubts in the past.

 

[silver_inari]

Allow me to rant for a bit while I get over my day.


So who do I blame? I blame the system. The system that tries to squeeze every kind of student into the same college prepatory classes. The system that sticks a 22 year old man with no education training like me in front of 35 kids who are 18 and 19, and expect me to be able to command respect without any way to discipline them.

I have friends and family who are teachers, and also those who have retired from the field. I have the utmost respect for those who work as a teacher. Often times the lack of support from the parents and from the administration amazes me.

Too large classes, children who have nothing expected of them from their parents and who I think place no expectations on themselves. I have trouble identifying with that as I come from a typical middle class background and there was the expectation that I would do well in school and I would continue into university. The job you are doing is difficult, there is no way around that one.

I don't have too much to say beyond I understand where you are coming from, having a friend who worked as a teacher in a poor school. He got a death threat against him from a student who had been arrested for bringing a gun to school. *sighs* Vent as much as you like, we'll listen.

 

[Aeroil]

Are you old enough to be using Lit?

I must admit, I've had my doubts in the past.

*scoffs* of course I am marquis, I'm in my final year of high school, do the math.

 

[Marquis]

1) You are only now introducing the basic premise of your argument, you sound more like a freshman
2) I, like many students, graduated at 17
3) I'm a Dom and you're a sub


Math is what I do.

 

[Aeroil]

hahaha, your title is missing the necessary M and E on the end in order to get my compliance by default I'm afraid. *ahem* but if you must know I had some emotional problems as a kid when my parents split and was held back a year, meanie.
Lol, and yes I was bluffing, I was hoping you wouldn't do the math

 

[redelicious]

I've taught in schools like that. It's so hard to reach kids when you don't have the support of their parents or your own administrators (my tendency is to blame parents, but often times they are a product of the very same schools as their kids.). So you send up being part councilor, social worker, law enforcement officer, etc., etc. Teaching comes somewhere after all that. If you're lucky you'll have a student or two who are receptive to what you are trying to do.

I so respect the fact that you are sticking by your word to them. I bet a few of them do too, even if they haven't said so.

 

[Xelebes]

I don't see how a greater intimacy with the students (that is, smaller class sizes) will help anyone who does not want to have his mentors include a teacher and neither do the parents. While I am not certain how the system works there or what the community is like there but I know I have been in really small classes in a well-funded school but me and my sisters all failed to get a high school diploma, even having strict parents and stricter rules. If the school was in this city, I am pretty sure they would all have dropped out by now and started doing menial work. My personal opinion of our education system is still jaded after the last few years in high school.

 

[redelicious]

I don't see how a greater intimacy with the students (that is, smaller class sizes) will help anyone who does not want to have his mentors include a teacher and neither do the parents.

It's a class management issue, unless you are talking about students with special needs who need individualized instruction.

 

[Iriadne]

While I can't offer advice that would be acceptable in a public school, I can suggest a few coping strategies for you. (I taught highschool chemistry. Screwing off there can get people badly hurt.) First, focus on the good things. I would hope that there's at least one kid in your class that wants to be there. Second, most of the kids don't have an attitude with you. They have an attitude with the teacher. In my experience, students see most teachers as being a sort of non-human. We're not a person of our own as much as we are a representation of the system. Third, "To:Sir, With Love." in either book or video form. While I've yet to have this happen in one of my classrooms it, being a true story, does let me hold out hope on days when I could otherwise quite happily commit either murder or suicide.
::compassion::
~I
P.S. I'm always open to a good history debate... My period is Medieval through Elizabethan Europe but I've got a good bit of Latin and the attendant classical training.

 

[Marquis]

A lot of these kids just don't get the attention they need at home and will do anything to get it at school.

 

[redelicious]

A lot of these kids just don't get the attention they need at home and will do anything to get it at school.

A lot of them don't get anything they need from home and look to school to provide it. I'm willing to bet a few of them actually dread vacations. It's a sad situation.

 

[Marquis]

While I can't offer advice that would be acceptable in a public school, I can suggest a few coping strategies for you. (I taught highschool chemistry. Screwing off there can get people badly hurt.) First, focus on the good things. I would hope that there's at least one kid in your class that wants to be there. Second, most of the kids don't have an attitude with you. They have an attitude with the teacher. In my experience, students see most teachers as being a sort of non-human. We're not a person of our own as much as we are a representation of the system. Third, "To:Sir, With Love." in either book or video form. While I've yet to have this happen in one of my classrooms it, being a true story, does let me hold out hope on days when I could otherwise quite happily commit either murder or suicide.
::compassion::
~I
P.S. I'm always open to a good history debate... My period is Medieval through Elizabethan Europe but I've got a good bit of Latin and the attendant classical training.

Thanks for the advice. I'm afraid I'm not all that much of a history buff, I got into this job as an interim substitute after quitting my job as a math teacher.

 

[Marquis]

A lot of them don't get anything they need from home and look to school to provide it. I'm willing to bet a few of them actually dread vacations. It's a sad situation.

My kids come to school matching from their hats (which are not allowed, yet ubiquitous) to their socks, but with no books, paper, pens or pencils.

 

[CutieMouse]

*****

 

[Marquis]

You origionally taught math? *shudder* You are a sadist.

That was more likely my masochistic streak making an early appearance.

Trying to teach a kid that can't multiply fractions how to derive the quadratic equation is pure torture.

 

[Xelebes]

A lot of them don't get anything they need from home and look to school to provide it. I'm willing to bet a few of them actually dread vacations. It's a sad situation.

I used to dread going on vacations, but that is another very uncomfortable story to tell.

 

[tealsphynx]

That was more likely my masochistic streak making an early appearance.

Trying to teach a kid that can't multiply fractions how to derive the quadratic equation is pure torture.

I had a math teacher that tought us the quadratic equasion to the tune of the Notre Dame Victory March....I had also previously come from a school that used that tune as their touch-down tune (self-declared band geek here)....now I can't get either out of my head...when I hear the tune I hear the equasion and vice versa.

 

[Xelebes]

My teacher taught us to memorise the quadratic equation to "Pop goes the weasel".

 

[AngelicAssassin]

The worst thing we can do is expel them and most of them don't want to be there anyway.

Then do it, and document to the ceiling every case you propose to prevent an administrative overturn. If they want to flip burgers for the rest of their lives let them. If they wish to bitch & moan about how the system fucked them over, make their asses bleed. You may produce, by weeding out the trash, a learning environment for the borderline cases that realize you mean business.

As for the "parents" that can't get their own shit straight, much less that of a child, forget them too. A time once existed that parents, no matter how bad their lives, strove to give their kids a life better than their own. By your description, you've run into a few that care for little but themselves. Again, forget them, and the offspring they produce with the same lack of common sense.

Before i hear the counter for "they don't know any better," the responsibility for a child learning doesn't lie within the community, the schools, the system, nor anyone/thing else. We also don't bear the responsibility to teach an egg/sperm donor parenting skills. Once the reality that life doesn't owe anyone a damn thing gut punches the kids a few times, the smart ones will finish a GED and get on with their lives. The rest will find out that jobs they might have basic skills to accomplish go to the folks that bother to show up for work, and you can't get unemployment unless you achieve employment to start.

 

[Caitlynne]

That was more likely my masochistic streak making an early appearance.

Trying to teach a kid that can't multiply fractions how to derive the quadratic equation is pure torture.

*shudders* at the memory of learning quadratic equations.

I can't even imagine the torture of teaching it to students who can't multiply fractions. It was hard enough (to learn) for those of us who knew Algebra. I still have nightmares and I was a pretty good math student. You truly have my sympathies.

~ cait

 

[John Doe]

Allow me to rant for a bit while I get over my day.

I teach at a public high school in a lower-middle class neighborhood. It's not in the Projects with a heavy gang influence or anything like that, but it has a retention rate and reading level that make it one of the worst schools in Florida, which is tough to do in a state run by a Bush.

Since I have started working here, I have been continually frustrated by my work. While I strongly believe there are no bad kids, only bad parents; my classroom is really getting out of control and I'm running out of ideas on how to handle things. Today I had to break up a fight between a boy and a girl, and in general I spend much more of my time as a disciplinarian than as an educator.

Tardiness and attendance are not issues at my school. Kids not doing their homework or chewing gum in class are not issues. My students routinely come to class drunk or stoned. They show up whenever they want and leave whenever they feel. They have no fear, and rightfully so, because we have no way of disciplining them. The worst thing we can do is expel them and most of them don't want to be there anyway. They laugh when you hand them a detention and calls to parents are more likely to get you cursed out than do any good.

I have a student who has been to jail 3 times. What the fuck does he care to learn about the Byzantine empire or the fall of Rome? I feel like an asshole trying to teach it to him.

I am the fourth teacher these students have had this year, and on my first day I promised them I would not leave them like the other teachers did, and I am a man of my word. But I double majored at Georgetown University, I don't need to be making less than a McDonald's manager to be a bouncer and a babysitter.

So who do I blame? I blame the system. The system that tries to squeeze every kind of student into the same college prepatory classes. The system that sticks a 22 year old man with no education training like me in front of 35 kids who are 18 and 19, and expect me to be able to command respect without any way to discipline them.

I'm not sure what you're getting at, but discipline can be enforced without so much as laying a single finger on someone. Drill instructors do it routinely.