We've had enough, it's time to raise your own kids, teachers say

The Nanny State will have to stop telling us how to raise them then. The NEA and the Dept of Ed. needs to get out of our homes.

reply to post by wutz4tom


Not at all. It should be the parents responsibility to drive a childs education out of the classroom. Unfortuantly a lot of kids/students only get the support they need and/or want in the classroom.

The sad part is we trust these teachers to develop the minds of the next generation and don't pay them with that in mind. We focus on paying teachers better and it would have a direct correlation to graduation rates, better society, less incarcerations and a host of other things that would better our world.

Hopefully things will change, but I doubt that will happen.

Are we to believe that ALL parents f'd up at the same time completely independently? or could it be that they too have been victims, just like todays kids?

reply to post by Nishnaabe


No amount of money thrown at this problem will work (whether it is giving all teachers a 100,000 dollar salary, or not). The only money that will help is money being put into updating 20 year old text books, making sure the kids have all the materials they need to succeed, etc. All of us educators got into this field knowing that we wouldn't be making a lot of money. We wanted to make a difference (and still do). Now, all we can do is hope that we don't get cut at the next board meeting due to budget concerns, or hope that some parent doesn't come in and threaten us for failing their underachieving student. The solution is to dismantle the DoE, and give the education back to the states. The next is parental education. If they don't have a high school diploma, make them get one. If their kid is failing, intervene and find out why. Do some digging, and get SS involved if needed. If it's a bad teacher, fire them. If it's bad parenting, get them into parenting classes to help them out. It's really that simple. It is the top brass that makes our jobs more difficult.

I honestly think that charter schools and a reemergence of trade schools would do some good for this society. Not everybody is going to be a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist (which is what the current administration wants out of all of this country's youth.). The country needs laborers and skilled tradesmen too, and in some cases, those people make more money in the long term than teachers. Not all kids are going to excel at math and science, but if you give them an engine and a few days, they can strip it and rebuild it better than before. My step-cousin can do that. It's amazing what he can do. He wasn't a book smart kid, but he can provide a valuable service that people will always need.

Money isn't the main issue, bureaucracy is.

-TS

I often feel like I'm the only disciplined child left out there. Okay, one of the few. My friends (most of them) were certainly disciplined.

I'm constantly surrounded by kids that think it's okay yell and burp and even fart in the middle of class. I had to punch this girl twice within the three hellish years of middle school I had with her because her parents never told her it was wrong to corner people who are different and call them "devil", "witch", etc. she actually had the audacity to shout "BURN THE WITCH!!!" at me across the room in our 5th period. Nobody took action. Not the teacher, not the principals, and certainly not the parents. Hell, my mother even blew it off my entire time being bullied by saying "just ignore them."

Parents just don't want to step up in general. They're too "busy" with work and other things to raise, discipline, and defend their own children. Then they have the nerve to scoff at people who appear to be raising their children "wrong." I'm all for bringing spanking back into schools. Parents won't do it anymore. Students will obey if you threaten with physical punishment rather than a detention that gets you suspended if you don't attend it. Oohh a day off, I feel ashamed.

Idiots.

I learned more on ATS than I ever did at school. History class is a total joke, they didn't even touch upon the forced sterilization/eugenics movement in the USA, that Hitler took and made his own. Is that not a huge part of US history????

I graduated around 3 years ago.

I hated being stuck somewhere with strangers trying to tell me what to do as if they were my parents. But I guess that's why the principles knew my name

Then maybe the D.O.E should stop acting like they own our children.

My mother, aunt, uncle, and now my wife are all teachers. From my perspective each school has different problems. The inner city school that I attended and the same district that my mother subs in has high poverty and consequently has terrible behavior issues and a 50% drop out rate.
I am getting my PhD, but the majority of my highschool is on food stamps or working blue collar jobs. 10 years ago when I graduated, my teachers spent 30-50% of each class "disciplining" students. This was mostly the kid acting up to the point where the teacher is just about to throw them out of the class. Then that kid shuts up and their friend takes over. It was a big game to them. And why not? They know that the teachers can't do anything to them, their parents don't care, and half of them knew that they weren't going to finish high school anyway. These kids certainly weren't book smart, but they knew how to game the system all day long to get what they wanted.


My aunt and uncle teach in upper class suburbs where the students are fairly well behaved. The main problem at these schools are the restraints put on the teachers by having to teach for standardized testing. These are the districts where the parents think that their kid sh**s rainbows. Even if everybody else knows a kid is a f***up, the state and the kids parents demand that he be able to pass his tests. Guess what? Not everybody has the kind of intelligence to do well in the narrow "education" that is presented in schools today. On the opposite end of the spectrum are kids like I was. I was way too smart and saw through the BS I was being taught in school. Math, Chem, Bio, English were all pieces of cake and boring. I could care less about Soc St, Econ, History because I could see it for the propaganda that it was. The end result was toking and underachieving in high school. Now I'm getting a PhD in molecular biology...


Finally, my wife has just started teaching after finishing her teaching degree. There are a few problems here. First, her class mates are all sub-par. They are like the rejects from other college majors. These people are still getting super wasted several days a week and pulling C's in classes that cover subject matter they should've learned in high school. Most of the are barely passing their subject area tests, which means that they are barely qualified to teach in their selected area. If you ask me they're underqualified, but I don't make the standards. I think the generation of kids graduating from the failing public schools are the ones that have been starting into teaching the last several years. My wife is brilliant and she is as distressed as I am. We are seriously looking into homeschooling, or seeing if she can get a job at a private school where we can enroll our kids.
We live outside of a large city, so she has subbed and taken temporary positions while she is looking for a permanent position. She has been in inner city, suburb, and country schools. She likes the country schools with smaller class sizes and more involved parents the best. As far as public schools go, they seem to be the best.



So, don't paint this issue with one broad stroke. People with political agendas are trying to simplify the issue with an intent on influencing the rest of us, so don't buy into it.

I also agree with others that a big contributor to the problems we have now is the corporate mentality. The demise of single income families has had a profound impact on our society. The true cost of the new social order is starting to show everywhere, and the education system is not immune.

This brings me to charter schools. I'm conflicted. On one hand, it may free up teachers to develop more engaging curriculum and encourage critical thinking as opposed to mind numbing memorization and repetition. Unfortunately I see potential for a dark side of charter schools as well.

What happens when corporations completely own schools and they start to lobby to get the regulations changed? Can you imagine McDonald's High? How about GlaxoSmithKline High? What will the education and administration be like in those types of schools? Maybe we should try to fix the system we have instead of opening the door for corporations to insinuate themselves into education even more than they already have.

Get rid of the DOE and give the education system back to the States.

what the teachers dont know is that the Khazar/ illuminati banker overlords want to destroy the family unit so the kids look to the authority for guidance. A broken home is a potential poor, uneducated, family who pumps out soldier babies like caged rabbits. It's perfect NWO dogma. Teachers teach badly after getting fed up, parents can't cope, kids join army just to get out of town. Perfect. All steps taking us closer to the grand day when we nuke each other for their better control of our population. Then the state will teach all survivors "history" and "ethics" and "religion" or the lack there of.

As a parent, it is your job to see to it that your child has the discipline to do his or her best in the classroom. Kids these days are, as a rule, rude, disrespectful and do not value learning. You can blame their parents for that. How many times have I seen news stories in which somebody's brat acted completely insane at school, but as soon as discipline was enforced, the parents sue and get upset.

Kids know that all they have to do is call the cops and say they were hit or beaten, so they get violent with the teachers. It has become a zoo. My daughter had a friend who was like that, so my kid decided to threaten me with calling the cops and saying she was beaten when I tried to discipline her for sneaking out late at night and then not coming home until 3 in the morning. I handed her the phone and told her to go ahead and call, give them the address, but make sure they bring an ambulance, because there was going to be a teenager with a whooped butt when they got there.

She also went through the "I hate you, you're not nice" phase, to which I would respond, "I'm not your friend, I'm your mother, and it is my responsibility to see that you turn out to be a decent human being and not just another leeching drain on society. Go ahead and hate me, it will not change my mind."

We even had to glue her windows shut to keep her from sneaking out with her party buddies. Boy did she hate us then, LOL.

Long story short, she is independent and hard-working at 19 years old. She is disciplined, pays her bills, and is a contributing member of society.

If I would have let the schools take over this important part of growing up, she would have been an inmate in the local prison by now. You can parent your child so much more effectively than somebody who has to deal with 100 or more kids per day.

reply to post by Avalessa


Thank you for sharing what goes on inside the schools from a students point of view.

The first schools were all Bible based- that's what made America great. Book of proverbs is a good start for all but the whole meal is Jesus and still is , and will be forever!
shalom
y

I don't know what these teachers expect, giving kids five hours of homework every night and more on the weekends, and then they tell the parents they should spend more time parenting their kids!? There has got to be a better way.

I say the parents should band together and tell the teachers that they are fed up and are done spending their precious home time doing the teachers job by teaching the kids at home...

Damn nobody wants to do their jobs anymore. What happened to taking pride in your work?

It should be easy right? Gameboy, ipad, training wheels, helmit, elbow and knee pads what else does a kid need these days???

reply to post by JibbyJedi


Home schooled children are not in a social environment and are not influenced by their peers. Children educated in a public setting are subjected to numerous influences from children with good and poor parenting. Peer pressure to fit in and not stand out as a "nerd", or to act like a "thug" is rampant in public schools. The parent has more options to discipline their child at home than a school teacher has in a class room.

Teachers in inner city schools spend on average 50% percent or more of their time disciplining disruptive students in the classroom. The teacher is now competing with cell phones in the classroom and other small electronic devices for attention.

The education system does need to be revamped, but blaming it on teachers is an easy way of avoiding the real problems causing the decline of education in America. Don't compare private schools with public schools. Private schools don't have to abide by the same disciplinary procedures as public schools. Education isn't a manufacturing facility where you have full control of creating the final product. To learn and be competent, the child must be motivated to learn, accept constructive criticism, and understand the importance of being attentive and following directions.

Like the saying goes..."You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink."

reply to post by Quauhtli


Well, you will also get parents who complain that their kids never have homework or not enough. I don't give homework to my students because they have time to do their assignments in my lab. I also like to be able to help student out with solving problems their having a tough time with instead of them just guessing the answer and not realizing what they did wrong.

I was always against the idea of homework. Let the kid be a kid and enjoy his childhood years. Having said that, some homework is necessary to help students develop research skills, learning to work independently and problem solve. All those skills are needed in today's workplace and if they plan on going onto college. 5 hours of homework is ridiculous in my opinion. Yet some districts or schools set standards on how much homework teacher's must assign their students. Teachers have guidelines that the administration expects them to follow.

reply to post by Avalessa


You sound very honest and mature for your age. I understand completely because I see it on a daily basis. Most parents don't realize just how many undisciplined, rude, disrespectful and disruptive students teachers face everyday in the classroom.

It sounds like your the perfect example of a student any teacher would have a pleasure having in class.
You have a good head on your shoulders, don't let anyone change how you feel. Understanding the importance of education and acting positive and respectful is the key to success.

Look Education hasn't kept pace with Technology. Kids these days are techno heads. This might be a very unpopular comment to make but it has to be said. With Technology, Teachers aren't really needed in the classroom at all! A person standing at the front of a classroom teaching lessons from books!! another outdated concept , it's almost prehistoric when you think about it. Like something out of the Victorian era.

A laptop, the lessons on a DVD disc and make it interactive so the kids can't go the next step until they've completed the first lesson successful via a hand console pushing buttons. Self paced learning that kids can take personal responsibility for. That is the way to go. Kids who are engaged in what they are doing , don't need constant watching or supervision after a certain age.

The Education system hasn't kept up with the advancement in Technology outside of the classroom that kids are exposed to at home and in society. So of course there are going to be discipline issues because you've got kids who cannot see the point of this archaic institution , who are trapped into it for 12 years of their lives , minimum, while their outside world is totally different.

Blaming the parents for the undisciplined conduct of kids is one angle of it but if you look at the whole picture and how we are technologically evolving....If the Education system doesn't keep up, it's going become even more irrelevant as time goes on. With the frustration and boredom levels of students increasing. IMO

A lot of what I had to say has been said already, but better.

I do want to add however, this issue isnt strictly an american problem.
I grew up in small town remote Canada, our school disrict was run by the province (state for you southerners). The same issues that are affecting the US are here to. Its not all the government, I would agree a lot of it has to do with how our entire economy is set up.

I graduated about 7 years ago, and I can see a huge difference in what it was like then, and what its like now for my brother in his senior year. We were never allowed our walkmans or discmans in class, nobody had a cell phone, and the ones that did had them taken away. The teachers werent all amazing, but you sat there and had to learn anyways. And when school was done you went outside. In the real world, with no gadgets and no video cameras. Just you and what you could think up to cause trouble.

Im old enough to remember researching in the library with real books, and young enough to remember the early years of the internet. Back then I could see things start to develop, and its a little scary to see a lot of them happen now.
I used to joke to people about how scary it would be when these people around us started to run the world, I dont joke anymore because its here.

I dont know if it can be fixed, I hope that its not to late.

I am proud to say that I graduated before Facebook.
I mourn for the kids of today that have no idea what theyve missed.

Originally posted by bluemirage5
reply to post by wutz4tom

 

The problem with today's teachers is they all think every child should be on Ritalin because the standard of a proper decent education has left many schools. Kids are getting bored because teachers are not stimulating their student's thought processes. Kids need to think for themselves, not told how to think. Half of the teachers are doing such a crappy job while the other half well deserve a pay rise. Teachers training colleges now need to set the standards alot higher and get back to basics.

The amount of homework kids are getting these days is appauling due to lack of proper teaching skills.

As for the parents, it's a cross between so many who are from non-English speaking backgrounds v both parents having to work long hours due to the high cost of living in this country v parents who just don't give a crap.

The whole system stinks.

Ok your entire response is ridiculous, and let me tell you why.

A) most teachers think ADD is crap. ADHD is real, but not as many kids have it as parents would like to believe.

B) in almost every single school district, there is a pre-planned schedule of lessons and assignments. For all the major subjects, teachers have little to no say over what and how to teach. Only art and.music teachers have any freedom. This is due to no child left behind.

C) parents do not set boundaries. Yes I know this doesn't apply to all, but especially in urban areas, this is true. This can be due to parnts working too much just to get by, or being bad parents. The point is teachers aren't trained to raise kids. They are trained to educate them. You learn respect and discipline at home and use it at school, not the other way around.

D) administrators care only about test scores for funding.. Again due to no child left behind.

Raising children is not the sole responsibility of a parent, or a administrator, or a teacher. It's all of the above, and the 'village' or society as a whole given our very connected Internet age. however it all starts at home with the parents because if they drop the ball, then no one else really has a chance with the child.

This is all from experience. I have a masters in education and used to be an inner city math teacher. I don't teach anymore because I couldn't stand the system anymore and how unfair it is to teachers and students.