What High School Has Become - From a High School Teacher

originally posted by: frostie
a reply to: Aazadan

Agreed with what youve said. Sure sure people are perfectly content with making less than 100K a year and thats fine. You do you and ill do me.

Which Is why I major in Business, not musical studies.

Everyone preaches do what you want to do and study what you want too, but thats unfortunately not practical.

I love your reality.

Wish it hadn't taken me a lifetime to know how right you are.

Hopefully, my grandson will benefit from my reality.

Dreaming is great - - if you have a way to apply it. You know, like Disney, or Steven Spielberg.

a reply to: frostie

Business studies is one of the most overproduced degrees in the US and it has one of the worst average payoffs unless you take it to an MBA level (especially if you take it to an MBA in Economics). I very much dislike business majors, it's a do nothing degree. It barely touches on fundamental math, reading, writing, and logic skills. It basically teaches a person how to be an administrator rather than a producer.

Lets take a sandwich shop business run by a business major.
Can they build or renovate the building? Nope, they pay someone else to do it.
Can they build their website and point of sale system? Nope, that's what the web designer is for.
Can they cook the food? That's what the chef is for.
Can they do the taxes? That's what the accountant is for.
Can you build a relational database to track product preferences? Nope, the computer guy did that
Can you build a logo? That was the artist.
Can you build an app so people can order from their phone? Nope, that was the computer guys from the marketing firm you hired.

Business majors are this decades liberal arts degree.

a reply to: Aazadan

Entrepreneurship.

Enough said.

The public education system serves the purpose of indoctrinating human beings with corporate institutional propaganda. It is training for obedient servants to memorize and regurgitate on command. Do as you are told or be punished. It does not function to create individuals capable of critical thought; quite the opposite.

a reply to: stdscf12
It goes beyond schools too right - because these dysfunctional kids turn into dysfunctional adults! All the time I see them in bars with friends, all on their phones. Kids dont learn how to interact anymore! They see people as commodities, not as souls. I think the State raising kids (dissolution of the family) was planned. Look at what Hitler and Aldous Huxley wrote - Lebensborn program and state raised kids. It's coming true!



a reply to: alsace
I was so close to disagreeing with privatisation, but your voucher concept is a fantastic idea! Definitely let the market decide which schools are good enough, remove the losers

a reply to: alsace
I was so close to disagreeing with privatisation, but your voucher concept is a fantastic idea! Definitely let the market decide which schools are good enough, remove the losers

Vouchers don't work because price won't remain equal. Schools have a limited number of seats, with that limited supply comes an increase in price if the demand to get into them rises enough. This creates a situation where despite the vouchers the poor go to the cheap bad schools and the wealthy go to the expensive good schools.

Greetings,

I agree with the vast majority of what you are saying, but I disagree with your some of your points here:

originally posted by: stdscf12
...
The Societal Epidemic – Classroom’s are filled with teenagers pumped full of ultra-violent video games, access to anything on the internet, and reality show superstars. Some of the biggest celebrities to my students are the Kardashians, Kanye West, Miley Cyrus, etc…Today’s teen’s music is full of sexual, violent, and vulgar ideas and language. I’m not saying movies, TV, and music haven’t always had these things in them, however, the volume, the availability, and the casualness of it, has never been greater.

We’ve allowed Hollywood to virtually skate-by scot-free. The more disturbing something is, the more popular it is. Check out which videos have the most views on YouTube. If someone is continually watching disturbing things, listening to disturbing things, and playing disturbing things, then what do you think the end product is going to be?

We wonder why are kids are becoming more violent and sexual, let’s look at the world we live in.
...

My friends and I all grew up in the 70's and 80's. We played violent video games. We played "violent" children's games like cops and robbers. We saw disturbing things. We knew where all the dirty magazines were hidden. We shot guns. We studied martial arts. We got into fights. Our Rock 'n Roll was just as lewd, violent, sexualized and filled with drug use as it is today. In some of our lives there was violence and death from outside sources.

Not a one of us turned into career criminals or violent psychopaths or sexual deviants. You are absolutely right that Hollywood and TV have some messed up values where it's okay to show a person blow to bloody bits but show boobs or anything too intimate and "that" is what's going to warp kids minds. It is definitely easier to find all this stuff now, than it was. It can definitely have an affect on people.

But this isn't at all about "Hollywood skating away scot-free". They make a product that people have a choice to consume. Just like alcohol and tobacco. This falls squarely on parents and the support group the parents and children have (it takes a village you know).

There was a guy in school who used to protect me before I went to study martial arts. I was a bully magnet, small for my age. He used to bully those kids back. In high school he eventually went to jail a number of times for his violent tendencies. He didn't really care for violent games or TV. He learned how to be violent from his father, who would get drunk and beat him and a mother who refused to do anything about it until it was too late and that had all be ingrained in his personality.

I have no doubt that the media can influence kids today, especially if they have mental/emotional issues or are entombed in some bleak and hopeless lifestyle. But it's like blaming alcohol, tobacco, crotch-less panties or guns for someone's poor choices because they weren't taught the right things out of the gate and didn't get the right support to cement those lessons in.

So, I disagree, I believe it to be less about that, overall and more about the parenting and family support during the years of growing up. I didn't come from a stellar family unit and I lost my parents early, but I learned from them the important thing that have served me well and made me at least a semi-responsible person for our world.

Schools will never push kids hard enough. Especially in the early grades. But with a little work a parent can get their kids to the top of the class in first grade. And they will likely never fall behind again.

Kids who are ahead in school also have the free time to pursue other interests. This often leads them to discovering their life's passion and adult career path.

And all this can be achieved by a parent spending a few hours a week during kindergarten, helping their kids learn to read and understand some of the basic concepts of math.

This doesn't mean you can't help a kid catch up later. But it's much easier to get them off on the right foot to begin with.

I've been on ATS for maybe 8 years. That'd put me in my freshman year of high school if not younger... I used to think that diversity is the key to growing and not repeating the past. The more we introduce ourselves to, the broader our knowledge and open mindedness becomes. But it seems that the "open mindedness" part gets muddled in with freedom of expression. Because today it seems that you are free to express whatever you want to, as long as it's 'nice', or 'agreeable', with everyone else. Big problem is that regardless of how different everyone is, the government is still trying to make them the same.

a reply to: Aazadan

And what do those bottom 50% do? They get jobs, live somewhere, have a family, some of them even retire. The bottom 50% as you put it is everyone who isn't earning an income over 50k or 100k for a couple.

Also, I should add that going to school and graduating doesn't make you not a failure. That piece of paper helps you get a job you would like to do, but degrees alone are worthless, I'm speaking from experience here as I've got a couple of them. I use one as a mousepad and another as a coaster. Being a failure isn't measured in what you know, it's measured in what you do with what you have to work with.

Our educational requirements for employment have always been more about control than about actual learning.

For years you had the skilled workers without formal educations, that wanted more for their children. So they sacrificed for their children, so they could be awarded that wonderful document that proved they were more than just a drone. It was celebrated when one of their own was able to show off that “High School Diploma”.

When it became commonplace and expected for every child to have a high school diploma, and no job paying a decent salary could be found without it; the next tool for weeding out job applicants became the College/University Degree. Now that everybody and his uncle have a college degree they have developed other means for the weeding out process.

You can’t blame employers. What are they to do when you have 10 jobs and over a thousand applicants? It is not now, nor has it ever been that a person with a formal education was necessarily the best person for the job available. It was just an easier and faster fix for getting the position filled. Even after being hired the individual has to be taught to do the job the way it is performed in the company where they are hired.

I think with knowledge being only a fingertip away from those that choose to seek it out, the most logical move in the industries, will be toward apprenticeship and vocational training. At least if you have a marketable skill, you will be able to put bread on the table, and if you are a true artisan, they will beat a path to your door.

Of course this will be a solution for the industries, but it will open a whole new can of worms for the rest of us.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

I agree with much of what you said. Beyond requiring degrees, I find it ridiculous that there are so many professions that require a license.

a reply to: eluryh22

is it because if you DONT have a license you have done a criminal act...?

There is no good reason not to have one.

originally posted by: stdscf12

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that these issues are important and we don’t want conformist robots walking around our school, however, our main priority is a safe and optimal learning environment.

I agree with what you wrote. The part of main priority is optimal learning is a joke tho. Removing Physical Education, recess and other active activities is not optimal for developing children tho. I use to have to sit against a wall during recess. Your kids are older so this might not apply. Cause i didnt do my homework how ever i passed every test i was given. Schools in general are not optimal for learning. Its a way to get kids to conform to what society needs More workers and people who follow but dont ask questions. Kids should be taught to say why. Instead they are shut down and told to repeat.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Flux8
A child with a learning disability, especially one that is known will almost certainly have an IEP. In today’s classroom, you cannot escape them as many have been mainstreamed and you are expected to strategize around them and for them.

What? In order for a child to get an IEP, the disability has to be known, and a learning disability is only one of many disabilities.

I don't understand exactly what you mean by mainstreaming disabilities, but as for "strategizing" around them and for them then yes, you do. Kids aren't cookie-cutter products made in a factory, baked on a conveyor belt oven, and packaged to be sold in a super Walmart somewhere; Or are they...

Do you really think there are actually very many teachers who aren’t unionized these days?

That's true, I did pop off there. But if the school keeps having the teacher/poster do different jobs, especially jobs which require professional training and license that they don't have, then they need to take it up with their rep and address the problem.

Part of the problem is the extreme demand for more and more administration. Those specialized professionals you are talking about suck up all the extra money that gets funneled into education and then there is not much left for the regular classroom.

I agree with you to a point, but I also see that happening through almost ALL professional fields/industries. Some unions in those fields/industries are fighting back and winning. Don't mistake me, unions can be another kind of devil, but that is the next level of recourse.

And I don't think a school district having a child psychologist, speech therapist, and audiologist is a waste of money. That's the part where trained professionals should be doing that job, and not the teacher, comes into play.

Gym coach to little Timmy: "Timmy, I know you have Tourette's and some hearing loss, but if you don't stop making those weird noises and disrupting the class then you're going to spend the rest of the day in the office. You leave me no choice. Do you hear me? I'm not going to repeat myself!"

OK, explain to me the point of mainstreaming children who either will not or cannot keep up.

Sure, if you can explain to me the point of mainstreaming children in the first place. More donuts in boxes?

It may make us feel better, but does it make them feel better? The child that struggles to achieve isn’t going to feel good when he or she constantly is aware that his or her peers are always ahead, and the child who is smarter isn’t going to feel good because he or she is always bored and feels that school is pointless. It’s frustrating for everyone. No one feels good about it and everyone winds up resenting everyone else. But the adults can feel good because they don’t feel like anyone is discriminated against.

Does it make us feel better? Sure. Does it make the child feel better? I would say sure for most (my child does). The child that struggles to achieve isn't going to feel good when s/he doesn't have the resources to achieve, and is punished for it and left by the wayside. Enter self-esteem and co-morbidity disorders, which turn into major uncorrectable problems when they reach adolescence to young adulthood (anti-social personality?), which can impact everyone's lives. Then enter the corporate prison system, after the damage has been done to society.

Besides, there are things for achieving and over-achieving students: Advanced placement, honors programs, etc, to make it more challenging. Why should those less mentally fortunate be pushed into the corner and left out?

And about those kids who feel school is pointless, that's probably because they're just kids. They'd rather be playing and hanging out than doing math equations and essays. Blame that on nature my friend.

And again, see the point about bureaucracy and administration sucking up funding. How often does this approach produce measurable results for families where parental involvement is already low to nonexistent? Parents can show up at meetings, but that does not guarantee follow through.

It's working out pretty well for our family, albeit a rocky first 2 years of acknowledging, implementing, and fine tuning. It does produce measurable results, however I'm not so sure of those with low parental involvement. That's why I asked the poster if they had a child on an IEP, because the parents are held accountable to their end of the contract. At least at my son's school we are. That's why I take a bit of offence for being put into a general category and marginalized.

If my child goes to school someday and I get called and find out my son is being rushed to the emergency room with head trauma and broken jaw because a bully beat his head into the table at lunch because another parent didn’t do their job … Is it enough for me to be involved in my child’s psychological life at that point? My son’s life is in real danger because another parent dropped the ball, and the odds are this kid has been throwing off danger signs all along, but because we can’t judge kids and can’t track them appropriately anymore … now my kid pays the price.

Well, I can't say anything about bullies (bullies can take the form of many different types, not just physical) but the first reason we began exploring what was going wrong for our son was that he was getting into fights and acting out aggressively when other students picked on him or his friends, among other things (becoming a bully??). Through a LONG process we found out he has ADHD and a hearing problem in one of his ears. He's on medication, seeing the district's psychologist, working with the speech therapist and audiologist, and his whole world has changed, measurably. I guess the school should have saved that money for more gym coaches and just put the dunce cap on him and sent him to the corner for the rest of his life. Damned underachiever, bringing everyone else down.

Unfortunately, our school system doesn't recognize ADHD as a disability. Just because the symptoms go away for a bit with medication doesn't mean it's not a disability (semantics), anymore than saying a kid with a busted leg in a cast is magically cured and can jog with the rest of the students in gym class. But we've done our part in "fixing" it.

Self-esteem is something you earn, not something that can be given to you. We live in the time of empty self-esteem where children are taught to feel great just because they breathe. The result is a self-absorbed, selfish generation who think they deserve it all just because … they are.

Self-esteem isn't just something you earn or something that can be given to you. There's lots of people with depression and bi-polar disorder who have earned that "self-esteem" but don't feel it, so this is categorically false. Self-esteem = self worth. Do you feel you are capable of doing your best most of the time? Do you feel like a contributing member of society and are part of that society? Have you learned how to fail and pick yourself up and continue, just as much as succeeded? (That's a much better lesson and representative of reality).

A parent’s responsibility is to raise their child, in all ways. If I ignored my teacher’s emails or calls, I wouldn’t be a very good parent. In fact, if something is up with my child, I freely email my teacher.

Good for you. Some people don't have internet because they can't even afford it (or a computer) working 2 jobs and juggling home life. Bad, BAD parents.

Busy or not, either my husband or myself always make time to deal with a teacher’s concerns. This is one of the things we agreed on before we had a child in the first place. We both knew when we did this, our child would come first, in every way, every day. We aren’t just bill payers, we’re also his guardians, and part of that is to make time when it needs to be made.

Again, good for you. Luckily, you have a significant other to help. Some don't. And, again, a parent's first responsibility is to the welfare, protection, and love for their children. Period. Everything else comes second. If those basic needs are not being met then it's all a wash. Some parents are over-taxed in work and responsibilities to worry about whether little Timmy didn't do so well on his grammar test last month. Sorry. That's reality for them.

Everyone's situation is different. Thank god the schools are at least realizing that and bringing resources (tax-payer $) to help. It's not just your tax dollars, it's all of our tax dollars. Therefore, shouldn't everyone (and their situations) be considered?

originally posted by: sunqueen30
Parents are afraid of their children because the letters CPS are shoved down our kid's throats from the moment they start kindergarten. American kids have turned into entitled brats who know they can have their parents punished if they felt pushed too far. I don't believe in abusing children, but how many rotten kids do we see that would benefit from a firm hand rather than a limp wrist?

This is spot on.

I have a 14yr old stepson who curses his mom on a regular basis,is disrespectful to his elders and beats on his 12 yr old brother almost daily. He gets in my face a lot because he knows I cannot touch him.

Just a couple days ago he punched his brother in the face and almost knocked him out.When I tried to force him into his room he came at me with a golf club.We called the police and they arrested him for harassment.

We wanted him to do community service to work off the fine,but the magistrate said he doesn't allow that and we have to pay the fine.

I'm at my wits end with this kid.We've tried counseling twice with him but it didn't work.

His grandparents poison this kids mind and get him what ever he wants and they constantly tell him he doesn't have to listen to me because I am not his father.Their punishment for his arrest?They took him to an auction and bought him a boat and motorcycle.

I'm sorry for unloading my grief in this thread,but sunqueens post is dead on in my eyes.CPS is spoiling these kids today.

a reply to: crazyeddie68

They bought a 14 year old a boat and a motorcycle? He can't even legally drive either one.

I remember growing up, one of my step sisters was a bit of a wild child, she still is but she learned some respect and discipline.

At one point she would slam her door, so my dad removed the door to her room. Then she started slamming other doors, eventually no room had a door. She would throw things, so she eventually had a room of no possessions to throw. Eventually she started getting involved in drugs, but since she didn't have much in the way of possessions she had nowhere to hide them so they were found fairly easily. Once that happened they sent her to a private all girls boarding school in the middle of nowhere. Not so much because they couldn't deal with her anymore but because sending her away forcibly cut her contact with all of her friends, media, and everything else that acted as a negative influence on her life.

originally posted by: Flux8
What? In order for a child to get an IEP, the disability has to be known, and a learning disability is only one of many disabilities.

I've got a disability myself so I can definitely relate to sometimes needing help with it. My thoughts on the matter though are that you can't expect the world to coddle you for a disability, it just means you need to work harder to get through it. It's nice to have the excuse sometimes of "I can't do this because of X" but in the real world that doesn't matter to employers, relationships, or anything else. What they care about is if you can do X, and how you go about doing so is up to you.

I know the schools don't go this route these days but if you have a disability (atleast a non learning one) it shouldn't be about coming to terms with things you can do, but rather in learning how to do those things anyways in a way that works for you.

If someone has ADHD for example they need to take a multifaceted approach. They need to learn that while sugar tastes good, they need to restrict it because it's not helping them. They need to learn how to stay focused on tasks, maybe that involves multitasking rather than doing things sequentially, they need to learn how to avoid distractions, and so on. I don't have ADHD and I'm not a psychologist so I can't give all the answers but my main point is that you can only expect so much out of society and out of medication, the individual still needs to find techniques that work for them.

Maybe if they get bored/distracted easily one of the ways that can help them is to make an outline of the overarching goal, as well as each sub category that can be checked off as things are done. This helps to break things into small increments which creates a feeling of progress and freshness with the material/task.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
For years you had the skilled workers without formal educations, that wanted more for their children. So they sacrificed for their children, so they could be awarded that wonderful document that proved they were more than just a drone. It was celebrated when one of their own was able to show off that “High School Diploma”.

When it became commonplace and expected for every child to have a high school diploma, and no job paying a decent salary could be found without it; the next tool for weeding out job applicants became the College/University Degree. Now that everybody and his uncle have a college degree they have developed other means for the weeding out process.

That's the nature of capitalism and technology. It creates a need for greater and greater skillsets which inevitably take longer to learn and require the exclusion of studying more general concepts, it's the same reason we have so few polymaths in the modern era.

a reply to: Aazadan

ADHD is a complex subject that many don't recognize, and may be the main underlying factor in many of these "troubled" kids, at least when it isn't recognized/diagnosed and acted on early enough in their development. There's 2 issues here, though: Executive functioning and hyperactivity (which includes sleeplessness). This has nothing to do with sugar, (although, at least in our experience, chocolate can exacerbate the problems).

A good article that lays it out in general.
www.understood.org... ssues

You made me laugh when you mentioned your step sister and the door removal thing. My wife's dad did the same to her when she was a rebellious teen! LOL

I know the schools don't go this route these days but if you have a disability (atleast a non learning one) it shouldn't be about coming to terms with things you can do, but rather in learning how to do those things anyways in a way that works for you.

Yes, it should be and is the crux of my argument. The system in the past didn't allow these kids to progress doing things in ways that work for the kids, but rather, things that works easier for them. Cookie-cutter style.

They need to learn how to stay focused on tasks, maybe that involves multitasking rather than doing things sequentially, they need to learn how to avoid distractions, and so on. I don't have ADHD and I'm not a psychologist so I can't give all the answers but my main point is that you can only expect so much out of society and out of medication, the individual still needs to find techniques that work for them.

Nothing you do will help a child with ADHD unless you get blood flow (hemoglobin, oxygen carriers) to those parts of the brain. Then learning can progress from where they left off, in traditional manner. Punishment, reward, cognitive/behavioral therapy will actually make it worse, resulting in co-morbidity disorders because they will never be able to achieve it. Like asking a quadriplegic to climb a rope... What? With their teeth? It's not rational. You have to address the root cause, not the symptoms.

And it is estimated at least 30% of our children in school have some form of ADHD/executive functioning disorders (girls being severely under-diagnosed because they don't show the hyperactive component that most over-shadowing boys with ADHD show. They are left by the way side because of more pressing physical issues they demand.