About a month ago I ran into one of my good friends from High School who is a teacher. I believe he teaches third grade. I asked him how everything was going an how school was this year. He proceeded to tell me that this has been his most challenging year ever. Lost one of his students to a car accident and has two students who take up 90% of his time. One of the kids goes so far as to **** his pants on purpose when he gets into trouble. He said he really feels bad for the other kids in his class, who are smart and well behaved, because he has to waste so much time on these other students. Those other kids education, and futures, are suffering because of one or two horrible kids. The parents don't care about the kid either. Now that my son is in Kindergarten and my daughter will be starting in a couple of years, this really bothers me. I don't want my kid's education to suffer if they have a student or two like this in their class. Whats the solution to the situation? Kick the kid out of school? Let it continue and hope he gets better, all the while the other kid's suffer?
If he craps his pants, he should be in a special needs class. There he can get the added attention he needs.
I have always subscribed to the idea that we should get all the trouble kids separated from the kids that actually want to learn. Those trouble kids would need a class that is structured much differently to try and mitigate the issues surrounding them. Right now the school’s hands are tied because the parents don’t care. They need some type of tool to counter this so the entire school doesn’t suffer. At some point the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
I went to 12 years of private school. Not happening. I'm not looking for a personal solution for my family, I'm talking about the situation as a whole in schools across the country.
Good luck with that. With the liberal mind set we have today, those kids and many generations to come will continue to be coddled and not held accountable (their parents either) long after you and I are gone.
Problem kids like that should not be allowed to disrupt the standard classroom. If the parents do not care, then the school should make the parents care by not allowing the kid to enter the school until he/she can demonstrate that they can behave.
For the most part I feel a vast majority of teachers are there to teach and guide and enlighten young minds. But there are far to many teachers that are unionized that could careless because they can't be fired or disciplined themselves. I feel that is a serious problem aswell. I agree with Brad that there needs to be more separation between those kind of kids and the majority that want to learn. But unfortunately I feel this issue ( like so many others these days) would fall into the ,"we have be politically correct instead doing what's RIGHT", category. And that is a sad thing. IMO. Our society is shot to hell.
In this touchy feely PC society that isn't happening... Although it should be the case. 12 years of private school for me also. My wife an I are already exploring private school for our son. We have a few years before he attends any school so I am taking care of starting to secure the extra financing that I think may be needed. We are going to take a wait and see approach, we bought a house in what is considered an " excellent " school district...with the intent of him attending and benefiting from that... However we feel that at the first sign that it isn't the best option we are jumping him into a private school.
Sometimes that works and sometimes not. In second grade my daughter went to a private school, it was in a tight nit community. One student was an absolute terror, he had issues with his father passing away and his mother leaving him. He just needed help and was acting out. At one point they had to take entire class out of the room, he hit and bit a teacher. I told the nun either the trouble kid goes or my daughter goes and she has until end of the week to figure it out. Monday morning the kid should up, I went and got my daughter and we left. That night she called and the kid was being moved to a special needs class in another school. So we went back and her teacher hugged me the next morning and thanked me. Nobody wanted to take a stand, I simply did not care about offending anyone. My wife deals with this crap everyday, IMO the kids should be thrown out of school.
I love such hearsay remarks.. like that there are millions of teachers who don't do their job. What a bunch of crap. I mean.. get real.. in everything in life there will always be a small minority who don't do the proper work. Heck, that's why this discussion exists.. isn't it?? Parents who don't do their work. I'll enlighten you on some things in life.. there are cops who are corrupt.. but they're not in the majority or even many.. there are priests who molest.. and guess what.. they're not in the majority either.. or even close to many. It's a fact of life..so don't go pooling teachers as any different or thinking so many are worthless.. because that makes you part of the biggest problem in school systems today.. the parent who doesn't think to highly of the job they do.. which means you're combative to their approach before they even begin to teach your child. When I was a kid.. my dad let me and my brothers know that when we're home.. he's god.. and when we're at school the teachers are. You want better schools.. it starts with the parents. It starts with accountability.. and parents hold the vast majority of that. Projecting their own failures on the teachers doesn't get the job done. That's the problem with American schools. So stop making excuses based of hearsay.. you want better schools.. we need to back them and not the parents who let bad children in.. or bad mouth the teachers immediately based on past hearsay etc etc.
It's a tough deal. I also want my daughter to have a stress free learning environment, but the law states that every child should have access to the least restrictive learning environment. My nephew has down syndrome, but he is very high functioning and pretty darn smart for a kid his age w. DS. His mother is a POS, and he is being raised by his grand parents. They chose to enroll him in public school because they feel that is where he will have the best chance to learn. I don't know if I agree with that or not, I know there are some special schools here that deal specifically with children with disabilities and I have actually worked with them while I was in college. The problem is, he is much higher functioning than most of the children in that school and it might actually slow his progress if he spends his day with children that are less capable than he is. So at the public school, he has good days and bad days. He acts out and is an attention seeker. If he is not the center of attention, he tries to make himself the center of attention, good or bad. I'm sure he is disruptive and can be difficult to deal with, but as a special needs child the state provides a para that is supposed to be with him all day and help him. I still can't figure out how he gets into so much trouble having a one on one baby sitter all day long while in class, but he does. In the last week he has been suspended for a day, and then spent another day in "isolation" for improper behaviors. This is a second grade kid with downs syndrome. Do they really think suspending him and isolating him is actually going to help his behaviors? I think part of the problem is that teacher are to reactive, and not proactive enough. They know what kids will act out and what ones don't, they should be more proactive and do things the discourage the bad behavior before it happens. We can't segregate children based on behavior, so kids just have more energy than others and some will grow out of it. If we segregate them and put all the "bad" kids together, their behavior will likely get worse because they will not see the model students doing it the right way, they will only see other bad kids behaving badly.
I know there are scum in all aspects of life and professions and parents, for that matter. As I said the vast majority are NOT of that category. I never said millions or the majority of teachers are horrible. I was just stating that its wrong (IMO) that those teachers that are, bad and couldn't care any less about the job they're doing, can't be touched if they're tenured.
The not all teachers are bad argument...yadda yadda... No one said they all where bad, however there are enough bad ones to pollute the well. Come to the north east and look at what teachers contracts have done to the hurt our education system and you may have a little different take on it. I have first hand knowledge of some of the contracts, since my name was on many of them. To say they are and were obscene is an understatement. We all clamor for bad children to be held accountable, but children learn by examples that we set for them. They see their parents and their teachers coddled and they expect the same...and all to often thats what happens.
It is a touchy subject when talking about kids. We cannot just throw them away, especially when we are talking about kids as young as 8yo. At the same time I do not want them interacting with my kids, but a childs fate should not be sealed at such a young age. I do not have a solution, but giving up on them is certainly not the answer.(i sound like a damn liberal)
Mainstreaming special needs kids into normal calsses was always one of my wifes pet peeves. She said the schools cared more about the slow and disruptive kids than the smart ones. The ones who really wanted to learn were held back because of the special needs kids. But society doesn't want them to put in special classes any more because it's not politically correct. The dumming down of society continues in our schools. And then they wonder why our schools can't score well on standardized tests. I'm glad my daugther is out of school. It's only getting worse. Good luck Dan!!
I have a Masters Degree in education. I do not teach. More importantly I have two daughters (students) in the public school system. The first thing you need to realize is that your teacher-friend should not be pointing out circumstances that you have mentioned. These circumstances are traceable and your friend can be held liable. A teacher who complains, wines and gossips about little kids should not be teaching or should be retrained. You're right to be worried. What can you do? - Be involved. If you are not getting the results you want, stay on the teacher. Believe me, he or she wants you happy. If they fail you, go to administration. If they fail you and you are not happy with your kids education, then by all means move. Your kids education is worth the move. People move for a lot less.
You know Dan I don't think there's much we can do about It. No matter what there's always going to be scum whether It's In a class room or at work. Unfortunately It's a reality. If we do the right thing at home as parents all should (we hope) be ok. I remember some pukes while I went to school. All I could remember when seeing these kids was dad would kick my *** If I acted like that. Again to me It all starts at home.
