Educators topic

[sanantoniosooner]

This has stirred up a lot of discussion down here lately (http://community.woai.com/blogs/beamer/archive/2007/04/30/1576979.aspx)


As of late I’ve been concerned and more than a little upset with the media coverage on schools and school personnel. From Oprah across to National and Local news, all I hear is how bad we are, or how cruddy and rundown school districts had allowed their schools to become. It’s no wonder the general public has no faith in all of us anymore. You put public doubt in all of us, not the very, very few that haven’t qualified for their positions....

I never, and I mean never hear any reports of a students or their parents accountability in schools. They’re allowed to complain about us in your reports, and they, like you, always put the blame on the schools.

I bet, in fact know, that if you checked, you would find a huge amount of a districts money is used in repairing and replacing damaged or stolen property done by students. Hardly ever does that student, or parent of the student, reimburse the school district to replace or repair the property. They owe it, but there is no actual accountability.

There should be monetary accountability, and sometimes there is, but for the most part, the public and governmental agencies don’t seem to want that. If school districts recouped those millions of dollars each year, districts could build more schools and provide students with technologies or whatever else they needed to purchase. Hey, there might even be more money for teacher salaries.

But of course, that isn’t the case. Moreover, unless the crime is a felony, students receive little or no punishment other than in school suspension, suspension, or maybe alternative school. Most students consider ISS a joke, suspension a vacation, and alternative school doesn’t receive much weight either. What should happen is no different than if they committed the crime away from the school. Handcuffs, a heavy fine, and/or jail time would deter a lot of misbehavior, including violence. But the public and the politicians, who need those public votes, won’t allow that to happen.

Again, students and their parents have dodged true accountability, but can you imagine how things would change for the better if they were. Also because of this lack of accountability, and the school districts hands being tied by fear of lawsuits for doing the right thing, student’s behavior in class and hallways has become ridiculous.

Teachers have become scared to do their job. I have been threatened to be killed this year by a student and threatened of serious physical assault this year by another. This occurred in front of a class full of other students on both occasions. Because of the way the system is controlled, little to nothing happened to those students.

That is flat out crazy. It’s hard to teach thirty students when ten to fifteen of them are not doing what they are supposed to be doing. God forbid you break up a fight, which we are actually required to do by law. If a student gets hurt, or claims to have been hurt by the teacher trying to do the right thing, who do you think is going to get the worst end of the deal? It won’t be the student.

I could keep going, but I wouldn’t ask you to read ten pages of stuff. Here’s the bottom line. I would just like to see you guys give us more credit. We at least deserve a pat on the back and some good press. There are always going to be bad people in all professions regardless of how careful an employer is. Parents of students want the schools and teachers of those schools to not only educate their kids, but teach them decent moral behavior as well. Isn’t how to act in public the parent’s job? A great number don’t want to be bothered with anything having to do with school. They, like their children, don’t want to be held accountable for anything. We on the other hand try to do our job, and in many cases, the parent’s job as well. I guarantee we are accountable for what we are supposed to do without the privilege of even getting any gray area. You, the public, and the politicians have made sure of that...

.... This has been a tough year and I am (just one of many) thinking about moving on. I would love to find a school that has "students". Seeing kids think, dream, and have desire to explore is what this is all about. That's the reward I get anyway. They're just not here anymore. Truly, almost all I see now are kids that focus on themselves and only have a desire for what happens in the moment. I can't get them to think, and I thought that came to us human beings naturally. Hmmmmmm..."

There are a lot of follow up comments in the link. My wife found this. I'm completing my Math degree with Teaching certification and she's scared to death I'm going to not enjoy my job once I get it.

I'm just interested in some other perspectives. I know what I get taught in my classes, but I also know that the real world varies greatly. I know older teachers usually have a pretty negative feel for the direction schools are headed.

I know the testing is a huge issue. Teachers get full blame for the performance of the students even when home situations aren't conducive to a positive outcome. I know that teachers are often stuck with teaching how to pass the test more than just teaching the material.

There's a lot of quality comments in the link, and a few idiots that got set straight. What has been your experience and what is your outlook?

[picasso]

teachers don't always get full blame but they have to be held accountable.

parents are a big issue. I saw this first hand a few years ago.

[Hamhock]

What has been your experience and what is your outlook?


my experience is that the best person(s) to teach my children is their mother and I.

:pop:

[critical_phil]

....I'm completing my Math degree with Teaching certification and she's scared to death I'm going to not enjoy my job once I get it.

i can tell you the experience of my older brother. he never wanted to do anything except teach and coach at the high school level. he was very passionate about it.

that lasted about three years. in his words, he was sick of busting his *** for 10% participation.

he quit. he went on to graduate school and now teaches at tennessee-chattanooga. if someone doesn't want to be in class or participate in assignments, they don't pass - then the university lets them do a little purgatory at the community college. the student then has to prove they really want it. that's a far cry from what goes on in our jr highs/high schools.

[sanantoniosooner]

my experience is that the best person(s) to teach my children is their mother and I.

:pop:
That's fine, but I'm interested in the opinions of people who teach in public settings. Home schooling is a related but separate topic.

[SoonerProphet]

Compared to where I taught in the past, my gig now is a dream and wouldn't change it for anything else.

[Ash]

Many of my wife's family are teachers in both public and private schools.

Like all jobs, there are some frustrating aspects and some jobs simply suck. But they all find it very fulfilling and for the most part enjoyable. My brother in law prefers teaching elementary kids because, according to him, most of them are still eager to learn and there's fewer attitude problems than at later ages.

It also varies according to the situation, but it's hard to generalize. My mother in law taught head start for years, and forged friendships with students and parents that have lasted to this day.

[NormanPride]

Watch out for the Special Education farce. Kids who are too low to participate in normal classes still have to be there because they're "performing to their capacity". Sorry little Suzy can't read in the 4th grade, but she's doing the best she can so just stick with it. They used to hold kids back until they passed things, but that's not acceptable anymore. So instead, you get kids in high school that don't know how to do long division, or what basic sentence structure is. And we wonder why our test scores are falling.

[Hamhock]

That's fine, but I'm interested in the opinions of people who teach in public settings. Home schooling is a related but separate topic.


sorry. i thought the topic was educating children and the status of public education.

[sanantoniosooner]

sorry. i thought the topic was educating children and the status of public education.
You were wrong.

Apology accepted.

BTW...the other topic is a good one. Start a thread and I'll participate in it. I think it's pretty clear that I stated I'm studying to become a teacher, and I asked for teachers opinions about teaching, that I was focusing on the issue from a perspective of a public school teacher. That tends to limit the home schooling perspective a bit.

This is not about what parents think are wrong with the system so they can teach their own kids. This is about what people within the system think about it.

I hope you can understand the difference in the information I am interested in.

[Hamhock]

I hope you can understand the difference in the information I am interested in.


i think i can, but my public school education does limit my reading comprehension ;)

[yermom]

Watch out for the Special Education farce. Kids who are too low to participate in normal classes still have to be there because they're "performing to their capacity". Sorry little Suzy can't read in the 4th grade, but she's doing the best she can so just stick with it. They used to hold kids back until they passed things, but that's not acceptable anymore. So instead, you get kids in high school that don't know how to do long division, or what basic sentence structure is. And we wonder why our test scores are falling.

that makes me sad...

why even have grades or a diploma at that point?

i liked the idea of taking a test to graduate...

[sanantoniosooner]

i can tell you the experience of my older brother. he never wanted to do anything except teach and coach at the high school level. he was very passionate about it.

that lasted about three years. in his words, he was sick of busting his *** for 10% participation.

he quit. he went on to graduate school and now teaches at tennessee-chattanooga. if someone doesn't want to be in class or participate in assignments, they don't pass - then the university lets them do a little purgatory at the community college. the student then has to prove they really want it. that's a far cry from what goes on in our jr highs/high schools.
It's something I may consider pursuing.

Another thing is that I am minoring in Nor-profit Organizational Management. I may very well look to teach in a private school were I can put that degree into use also. Teachers at private schools make less, but they tend to be much happier with their job.

[BajaOklahoma]

You'd better start with issues in elementary school.
Starting with attendance.
Getting to school on time - a late student disrupts the learning of the entire and requires that teacher "catch" the student up. Multiply that by 2 or 3 kids.
Feed them a good breakfast every morning so they come to the clinic with a stomach ache due to hunger. A good breakfst is not a doughnut, pancakes, waffles, a breakfast bar or cookies/candy. Seriously.
Don't send them to school sick - it is against the state laws for kids to come to school if they have had the followIng in the last 24 hours:
a fever (100.4 or greater), must be less than that without medication
diarrhea (yes, parents have excuses for why their kid has it)
vomiting
undiagnosed rash
Don't keep them home for every sniff or headache. Some kids have them daily, whether they are at school or not.
Going to bed late due to a game, play competition or whatever is not an excuse to miss or be late.
Don't pick your kid up late from school or tutoring. Not only do the staff have kids waiting on them, your child feels forgotten or abandoned.
School is your child's job. Help them succeed.

Want to hear more?

[sanantoniosooner]

Baja, that's a good word for parents.

I'm looking for a little different stuff though.

[sanantoniosooner]

bump for a few more teachers opinions.

[StoopTroup]

I'm giving to the Oklahoma Educators Fund today.

Oklahoma Educators Fund (http://www.lottery.ok.gov/)

[Okla-homey]

I'm giving to the Oklahoma Educators Fund today.

Oklahoma Educators Fund (http://www.lottery.ok.gov/)

Don't forget, per the compact with Oklahoma tribes, the "educators fund" gets 6% of the net take from a lot of tribal casino gaming too.

Gamble for the kids!:D

[OCUDad]

Normally I would worry about letting you influence our nation's youth, but knowing they won't listen to you anyway kind of makes it a non-issue.

[Soonrboy]

The parents who get upset with me are the ones who I have told need to step up their parenting. One was mad because I suspended her boy for flipping off his teacher. She wanted to know why I couldn't keep him at school and make him clean bathrooms and ****. My response was, why can't you make him do that at home when he is suspended? She replied that a suspension was just a vacation for kids.

She got up and left after I said, It's a vacation if the parents allow it to be a vacation.

Many more instances of this. It seems the buck keeps getting passed around...the colleges blame the high schools, the high schools blame the middleschools, and the middle schools blame the elementary schools. Then the elementary schools blame the parents.

[sanantoniosooner]

Do you notice any cultural differences in the way parents relate?

I'm not suggesting some cultures don't care about their kids education, but that they might react or handle situations differently because of their cultural background.

[Soonrboy]

The parents I have the most trouble with, honestly, are the whites who are stuck in the hispanic neighborhood. Some may term them "poor white trash".

The Hispanic parents for the most part, are very supportive of the school and the discipline policies. They are not involved in the school as much as I want, but if we have to call them to come up, they are there as soon as they can. They will also take care of their child at home. Discipline wise, I would rather work in a high Hispanic school, in the elementary years.

[sanantoniosooner]

My understanding is that Hispanics tend to be more standoffish, but that isn't because they don't care. It's because culturally the tend to respect the teaching position and just expect the teacher will do what's right for the student without interfering.

Is that consistent with your experience?

[the_ouskull]

I'm assuming that THIS is the thread in which I'm supposed to be posting.

Cool.

First of all, with Hispanic students, they're usually standoffish, especially if they're younger, due to a perceived inferiority complex involving their ability, or, often, INability to effectively completely communicate their thoughts. They often don't understand instructions 100%, but, rather than ask, they just remain silent. This, obviously, affects performance. In addition, if their parents are first-generation, they're going to tend to be a bit distrustful of authority... especially if their parents are illegals, or only on work visas, or whatever... The fact that I speak conversational Spanish, albeit slowly, really helps me in this area.

As for my opinions on Education in general, they are as follows: (listed as they pop into my head)

- Too much emphasis is placed on experience over potential with teachers. Ditto with administrators.

- Crap like "Social Promotion" is ridiculous. If a kid flunks, then a kid needs to repeat that grade. If they have trouble fitting in, or whatever, then maybe they'll try harder in the future. If their parents have a problem with it, then maybe they should try to help their kid, and take an interest in their schoolwork PROactively instead of REactively, instead of blame the schools for their child's poor performance. The sad thing is, especially in lower-social-class and minority neighborhoods, many of the parents are unable to help their kids with schoolwork, and, even worse, because of their own academic failings, they don't put an emphasis on schoolwork for their children. This creates a Culture of Hopelessness in which, eventually, kids just stop trying as soon as they realize that they're going to have to work at something, because they feel like it's better to save your time and effort if, eventually, you're just going to fail anyway. They're not pushed at home, they're not pushed socially, and they're not able to push themselves because they don't see any tangible results that come from such a push.

- IEP's. If a student is at the "above special ed, but below regular coursework" point, that is fine. However, at no point, should a student be made aware of this. I've seen a handful of students that KNEW that they were being given special consideration absolutely milk it for all it's worth. Kids, contrary to their test results, aren't stupid. If you give them a chance to screw around, they're going to take it.

- Accountability. This works both ways. In addition to the students being accountable for their grades in terms of, "do the work or be held back," then the teachers who aren't teaching, and ensuring mastery before moving on, of basic skills, should also be held accountable, and should have their lesson plans be held accountable. I teach freshman English and had kids, even the so-called "good" or "smart" kids, who, every single time in their first, pre-teaching, round of papers, were failing to put periods at the end of sentences. They were using the personal pronoun, "I," and writing it lowercase. They were using absolutely no punctuation. (One kid turned in an entire page, no paragraphs, no sentences, not even any commas... it was just a big block of psuedo-related words...) Their, They're, There was a pipe dream. To, Too, and Two was a pipe dream. Kids were asking me how to spell words like "met," (seriously) and "doubt." It was 100% VERY painfully obvious to me that no teacher before me had held them accountable ENOUGH for the work they were doing and the stuff that they were supposed to be learning. Then, when they come in with NO knowledge of the fundamental areas of English, and, obviously, don't do well on their standardized testing, I'M the one that gets blamed?

If they take the practice EOI test halfway through their freshman year, and they, across the board, do VERY poorly on them, how, exactly, is that something to be held against their FRESHMAN teacher, and not their junior high English teachers? I don't know either.

- The "Good Ol' Boy" network. Without divulging TOO much information, I work at a school where one of the teachers is ONLY qualified to teach Drivers Ed. They also happens to be a coach. They will be gainfully employed next year. I, on the other hand, am certified in three different subjects and will only improve as a teacher, will also be qualified to coach, and, am younger and cost less to keep around. I will not be gainfully employed, at least not here. There are a number of reasons why, but none of them directly relate to my performance. I could have done a number of things better, but considering I was a first-year teacher with no prior teaching experience, including student teaching, due to my being a part of the alternative certificaion program, I think I did quite well. I also was able to reach previously unreachable kids, which, to me, should be more important than the administrators make it.

The culture starts with the "high risk" kids. If you can make THEM care about school, then everybody will care that much more. You just can't sacrifice anybody's education for the sake of trying to drag kids that aren't performing. kicking and screaming, into the next grade. If kids aren't doing the work then, 1) they need to be in separate classes, and 2) they need to be held accountable. If this means failure, then so be it. But, if they keep failing, do they keep being held back, or do they get removed from public education altogether? I vote the latter, but what alternatives are out there? Should every child have the right to a public education? Yes, absolutely. However, like many other privledges, if it is abused, or squandered, then I think that it should be withdrawn. Let it be up to their parents, if their parents can't convince them to at least TRY in school. Which leads me to my last point... (That's called a transition, kids...)

- Parents. If parents don't make their kids care about school, then kids are going to look for reasons NOT to care about school instead of looking for reasons TO care about school. It really IS that simple. If parents aren't making their kids go to school, aren't checking to see that they DID go to school, aren't holding them accountable for NOT going, and, even worse, calling in sick for them, just because their kid ASKS them to, then how are teachers ever going to be able to control those same children? EVERYTHING starts at home.

Parents... Even if you do not have an education, you have GOT to understand the importance of your child receiving one, AND trying to do something with it. Then, once you understand this, you have GOT to make them understand it. I think that more school districts should hold "deadbeat parents" legally accountable for their children's actions and their performance. This would make for better schools, better people, and a better world. Amen.

[Steps Down From Soapbox To A Thunderous Round Of Crickets]

the_ouskull

[Soonrboy]

We need a newcomer school in my district. Make it mandatory for all the students go there who are first/second year out of another country. (Not just Hispanics). This would free up so much time for the regular classroom teacher for students to have one or two years under their belt before they are expected to perform as well as kids who have lived here all their lives.

As far as parents, I'd be embarrassed as heck if my kid was being out performed by someone who had only been speaking English for a little over 2 years, but it happens all the time. Especially in areas of reading and spelling and writing.