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<p>No, it doesn’t translate to the adult world. It only applies to children, and yes, it is the responsibility of the adult who has been entrusted with legal guardianship status of the children (which is what teachers are charged with under the law during school hours) to control their behavior.</p>
<p>As my mentor told me, you can’t control a student’s behavior, you can only control the consequences. A behavior is an action performed by a person - no one can control another persons actions. For instance, when a student of mine decided to stick his tongue out of his mouth for a whole period and try to talk that way, I could not have seen beforehand that this would happen and control it. However, I could convince the student to make a better behavioral choice by explaining that if he had a medical issue, he would have to go to the nurse. Otherwise, he would have to retract his tongue or go visit the administrator. </p>
<p>Honestly, I thought that by real teachers commenting here about what it was like, that those who have negative feelings about public school teachers would maybe see us in a more positive light, and maybe understand just a little about what it is like in a classroom every day. There has been some great dialogue, but too much negativity for me to want to continue. Good luck to all the teachers and parents out there.</p>
<p>I know there are good teachers who are respected by their students and manage to run orderly classrooms in which students rarely talk out of turn or stick out their tongues. I know it can be done, that is why I expect it to be done.</p>
<p>Today, my S’s English teacher told the class, “You are the worst class I have ever had.”</p>
<p>dheldreth: Thanks for your posts. You, EPTR and others here have been so gracious to this poster and others. But, you are right. It is not worth your time.</p>
<p>dheldreth,
The negative comments are coming from a select few. These are not, unfortunately new attitudes. You will never convince some people to think differently. I find it ironic, to be honest, that some of the same people who want to have more control over the teachers also want the teachers to control their children because we have legal guardianship status while their children are with us. Huh?
I think it is important to listen to some of these posts (such as those by performersmom). They give us insight into where the frustrations come from that produce such negative attitudes toward teachers. I don’t think all of the thoughts expressed are without merit, do you? Even as teachers, we see things that could be improved upon, don’t we? Teaching is a wonderful, fulfilling and yet exhausting profession for those of us who are doing it well (sorry if that sounds conceited but I get pretty good feedback). it is understandable that we get defensive. That defensiveness shuts down communication, though. I respect your decision to leave the thread but I think you have some great insight, intelligence and experience to share.</p>
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<p>Oh, honestly. So what? They’ll be okay. Maybe instead of going home and crying to mommy they should ask themselves why the teacher feels that way and fix it.</p>
<p>camathmom,
I only disrespect bad teachers. I’m quite confident that this is a mainstream attitude.</p>
<p>Thank you for remaining somewhat objective, EPTR.</p>
<p>Oops, I guess I spoke to soon.</p>
<p>My son didn’t come home and cry to me over the comment. He expressed his disgust at the inappropriateness of the comment. Don’t you see anything wrong with it?</p>
<p>And as a parent why are you not asking yourself what your child is doing to contribute to that climate in the classroom? If my child came home and told me that the teacher said that my reaction would be “Why? Why does she feel that are you the worst class? What are you all doing in that class to make this teacher feel this way?”</p>
<p>This is a perfect example of the disconnect that we teachers sometimes feel with the parents. Where is the support in this situation? Why is the teacher being criticized for telling it like it is to a group of adolescents? I believe in being blunt in class when it is called for. When a student is rude I say “that behavior is rude” This helps to give a context to that behavior for the child and for the rest of the class. The first time I said it my students were shocked! I don’t think most of them had ever heard the word before! I was happy toe help them expand their vocabulary.</p>
<p>I did ask my son, and he said he didn’t know why she thought they were the worst class. She didn’t tell them.</p>
<p>Actually, post #292 is an excellent representation of what happens when parents complain about a problem in a classroom, no matter how gently and respectfully they do it. The teacher, rather than behave like an engaged professional interested in ensuring that she has done her job satisfactorily, accuses the parent of being negative and critical. She convinces herself she has just been “attacked.” Next, her feelings hurt, she allows herself to disregard the parent’s comment and goes home. </p>
<p>dheldreth, if you are doing your job well, and you are a good teacher, why does what anyone is saying here threaten you? We aren’t talking about teachers like you.</p>
<p>And I agree with Tom1944 that administrators play a huge role in maintaining order and discipline. They need to be reasonable and fair, but firm. I think the fear of lawsuits is a problem, and one that has undermined that school’s authority to discipline. I’ve heard of principals caving in to a parent who pulls the race card or lawsuit threat, and that must be demoralizing for the teachers.</p>
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<p>First, I apologize for my sarcasm. i am trying really hard to hear both sides. And yes, I do understand and agree that her remark was somewhat inappropriate but…I assume these are older children, am I right? They are not as fragile as most parents think they are. Teachers are human beings with real feelings and frustrations. Yes, she should have expressed her feelings differently but don’t you think that sometimes, kids need to understand that teachers have limits, too? And again, was there any discussion with your son about the reason for his teacher’s outburst?</p>
<p>Bay,
I’m not buying that your son has no idea why the teacher would brand his class as the worst ever. Neither should you.</p>
<p>EPTR, there is a world of difference between “That behavior is rude” and “You are the worst class I’ve ever had.” One of them is helpful feedback, and the other is an unprofessional rant.</p>
<p>It’s understandable for teachers to get frustrated when students don’t behave well, either individually or collectively. But if a teacher can’t find a way to point to a specific behavior that is problematic, then at least they should try to express their feelings of frustration in “I” language rather than labeling a whole class as bad. What a way to turn students off.</p>
<p>Edited after reading all the posts written while I was writing mine… it’s not that the students are too fragile to handle a rant, it’s that the rant is inappropriate behavior on the part of a teacher in the classroom. I guess this seems so obvious to me that it’s hard to have to argue it. Could you imagine a principal holding a parent meeting and telling the parents they’re the worst parents he’s ever met? If that’s not okay, why should it be okay to treat kids that way?</p>
<p>Do you have any sons, EPTR? I have only one, and I am lucky if I get 10 words out of him in a day. He does tend to tell me about “big” things that happen to him, though, and he managed to bring this one up. I wouldn’t say that it bothered him all that much, after all this was the same teacher who told the class “You suck,” earlier in the year. I was probably more upset about it than he was because I do worry about him being discouraged about his academic abilities, and that is exactly what the teacher’s comment seemed to be conveying.</p>
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<p>Has this been your experience? I mean, we are communicating here openly about our feelings but I don’t know any teacher who would openly express such disdain for a parent in the face of a complaint. Not in an actual work situation! It is one thing to debate the issue on a board and quite another to accuse a parent of being negative and critical in a real situation.</p>
<p>No, I won’t argue that the comment was inappropriate. Of course it should have been expressed differently. I assumed that the comment was made in response to student behavior, not academic performance. Not that this would make it okay but a little more understandable on the part of a teacher who has been pushed to the edge of reason.</p>
<p>The “you suck” comment was inexcusable and should have been reported.</p>
<p>Calreader,
Of course there is a difference between calling a behavior rude and what this teacher said. My point was (maybe not well expressed) that teachers are real people and sometimes lose their cool. I don’t think it does any lasting damage for children who are behaving badly to see that it has driven their teacher to a point of frustration. Again, I was assuming the remark was due to behavior. If it was a critique of the students academic abilities, the teacher should be reported immediately (this combined with the “you suck” comment is enough of a pattern for me).</p>
<p>""The curriculum " is not up to a teacher in many cases though. " </p>
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<li>Sorry for kind of going off topic, but does anyone know how much control teachers have over things like textbooks, lesson plans, homework, tests, etc.? I’m thinking about possibly being a high school teacher, but I’ve heard stories about how teachers don’t have control over many of these things. I’m not sure if I’d want to deal with that. "</li>
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<p>-It does not help taking one sentence out of whole post and completely loose the meanning of the post. I gave specific example of physics being taught in 1 year which is not possible. Can individual teacher streach it over period of 3 years or better yet, 6 years? I do not think so. This is just one subject. The same goes for many, including parts of math. I also gave example of very good teacher (in private school) who realized that the only proper way to teach physics under this condition is to teach one part of it, so at least, kids will know something instead of nothing. And, yes, teachers have more control in private schools. We, parents have full control at home. We made sure that all math and science assignments were done with correct answers at home, no matter what effort it took, including, both of us (parents) reading class texbook and explaining material to our kid. This is after paying one of the highest real estate taxes in a country supporting public schools and paying for the most expensive non-religious private school in area and also after work and before driving a kid to vearious EC’s. </p>
<p>Yes, we have all rights to consider ourselves employers of both private and public teachers and demand a better job and better curriculum. This country deserves to be ahead, not behind (sorry, forget European countries, kids are behind in comparison to some in Africa, some immigrants from Africa are considering sending kids to go to school back home). The very top kids are struggling in science and engineering programs at college, more persistance ones survive, seeking help, hiring private tutors doing whatever it takes, but lots of others just fall out of their dreams to become doctors, engineers, scientists or even very good science/math teachers for that matters.</p>
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You see, good teachers don’t react like this to a complaint–partly because they don’t get a lot of complaints. Bad teachers, who do get a lot of complaints, react defensively.</p>
<p>I would also add that I find it fairly easy to believe that the behavior and intelligence of parents, students, and teachers have all deteriorated since the days of my youth, when giants walked the earth.</p>
<p>[The</a> Failure of American Schools - Magazine - The Atlantic](<a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/06/the-failure-of-american-schools/8497/1/]The”>The Failure of American Schools - The Atlantic)</p>
<p>There’s a great article by Joe Klein in Altantic Magazine, June 2011, about many of the issues we’re discussing. By the way, the article states that we are now taking our teachers from the academically bottom third of high schoolers entering college, so I don’t think I’ve been imagining the problems I’m seeing. This year, for example, I’ve had to forbid my D to ever write a formal essay that even remotely resembles the model provided by the teacher which was rife with grammatical errors, did not support the thesis statements, contained a run on sentence ending with three dots, and was filled with sappy, trite expressions. I also would not permit her to begin her summaries with the phrase “So basically” as directed by her teacher. </p>
<p>And yes, EPTR, several months ago the principal called to tell me that my D’s teacher (not the same one as above, by the way) felt I had “attacked” her. I wrote her an e-mail pointing out that allowing students to do extra credit assignments in the final 2 weeks of the marking period, whose total point value equaled the total number of points that could be earned normally throughout the whole semester, was a policy that was de-motivating to my D and no doubt to the other students who had studied and worked hard all semester to complete their work well and on time.</p>