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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI ran across this video. Teachers in inner city schools go through hell.
This a teacher in Green Bay giving a resignation speech at a school board meeting.
Watch "Award winning teacher Kerstin Westcott's resignation speech in Green Bay School" on YouTube
This why there are police at some schools. How does our society deal with these issues?
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)Just heartbreaking, I feel like there are not enough words to cover all the awful in the world nowadays.
My son is in the 10th grade, and some of the stories he tells me are so bad, I find them hard to believe. He wouldn't lie, I just think, how have things got this bad?
AJT
(5,240 posts)What kind of future do any of these kids have, and what kind of adults are they making?
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)of the same teachers, the downward spiral in just the past 5 years is downright alarming. I don't know how this can be helped and unfortunately the future is looking bleak.
AJT
(5,240 posts)but what about kids with bad home lives? What about children who have a parent or parents working 2 jobs so no one is home? Who reads to these children and helps them with their homework?
This why there are police at some schools. How does our society deal with these issues?
There were two police officers on patrol at my high school every day .... in the early 70 s.
AJT
(5,240 posts)That was the early 70s also.
Were there a lot of problems at your school?
Fights, drugs, mostly.
albacore
(2,387 posts)Paradise. Not every day, but generally a paradise.
Kids went to college... 86% of them.
They had hope... and I'm in touch with enough of them to know that many of them fulfilled those hopes.
Frankly... I was GOOD! ...but I was in a good place.
I could not have taught under the conditions she taught in for as long as that young woman did. I already did Marine boot camp when I was young... I couldn't do that again.
There needs to be an education revolution in the US. Valuing education, valuing learning, valuing teachers. But DUers know that already.
I have NO idea how that revolution even begins. Anti-intellectualism runs deep in this country, and trump has enshrined that anti-intellectualism. The Evangelicals want schools to be LESS, not more.
I'm all for the US stepping back from being a global empire to being a country that is concerned more about its citizens than controlling more of the world, but even that isn't enough to undo the damage that has been done in this country by the Right and their religious base.
I hope this young woman is able to deal with the trauma she has faced. I'm very discouraged, and this video doesn't give me much hope.
demtenjeep
(31,997 posts)most people would wad up in a ball after just one week in my classroom and I have "tamed" them. We have made great progress since September, but still it is not great anymore.
I have 5 or less years to retirement so I am still trying to do my best.
Most days I feel like a failure
3Hotdogs
(12,210 posts)Jersey City
AJT
(5,240 posts)It is so depressing to think that most of the children born into that environment are just born doomed. Children born to live a life of poverty and violence......and their children and on and on. They are born beautiful babies, and they become angry and hopeless.
MurrayDelph
(5,281 posts)A year later, my replacement was hit in the library by a stay gang bullet
Skittles
(152,967 posts)it was very nice.......what the hell has happened?
AJT
(5,240 posts)We have kids bring raised in 2nd, 3rd, 4th generations of violence, drugs and poverty. They know nothing else, and have no hope for anything else.
Look who was the Governor during the 5 previous years that she referenced. Republican policies, and Republican budget cuts. They hurt families, tearing them apart, and that hurt reaches down to the kids who lash out at school.
spin
(17,493 posts)There was good discipline. At the worst the classrooms turned a little rowdy if the teacher left the room for some reason. There were supposedly a few kids who simply wouldnt comply with the rules and we heard they were moved to another special school for delinquent kids. I never knew anyone who was so I am not sure this special school even existed.
Few girls got pregnant but this time was before the sexual revolution and birth control pills. I never heard of drug use in our school although the neighboring school system in a small city might have had some kids who used marijuana. In my school some kids smoked cigarettes but that was about it.
There were a few fights and some bullies. I broke one bullys nose and never had any serious problems after that. I received no discipline for doing so as he had started the fight by slapping me. The school brass obviously felt a student had the right to defend himself if attacked. Fist fights happened but boys didnt fight dirty no kicking or punching while your opponent was down.
Boys carried pocket knives while at school but I dont remember anybody ever being stabbed or a knife pulled during an argument I heard a rumor that a guy once sexually molested a girl in a stairwell but that might have been an exaggeration.
We actually got what by todays standards might be considered an excellent high school education including a good background in world and American history and civics. Few students dropped out but no one was passed through if the teachers felt they were not ready for the next grade.
I am not saying we were perfect little angels by any means. I tended to be a little rebellious and somewhat of a pain for my teachers. I later learned to see the teachers viewpoint better when I spent some time in the Air Force as an electronics instructor. Of course we had excellent discipline in the Air Force for students who stepped too far out of line. They just were punished by spending some time pealing potatoes on KP duty. I never had to do more than threaten a student with that to resolve a problem.
albacore
(2,387 posts)I said in an earlier post on this thread that I have NO idea about what to do to improve education in America.
On second thought .. I do.
Let's pretend that the problems with education are a National Security issue, an pour money into it like it was ... oh...say... the F-35.
Parents poor? Pour the money on them. Parents on drugs? Rehab for all! Run-down schools? Build new ones. Shortage of teachers? Not if the job paid $100K up. Hungry kids acting out? NOT a problem. We have food. Shrinks in every school. Small... maybe tiny classes. Tailored classes... to fit the needs and special abilities of the students.
Any other ideas? Money is no object.
I'm not guaranteeing it would work, but why don't we give it a try...say, 30 or 40 years, maybe, and see what happens?
AJT
(5,240 posts)demtenjeep
(31,997 posts)yell at them all the way to school
Students that are autistic? ODD, HTED
what about the ones that do not have a place to sleep so they move nightly or sleep in cars?
What do we do to the children that shit their pants when they don't get their way?
What about the eloper and teacher's have no recourse because daddy is a lawyer
dsc
(52,130 posts)by giving the parents money your third point shouldn't be an issue. He says have psychologists and small classes which should take care of two. I doubt five is a problem at that school. That leaves one and four. In terms of one, take the kids out of the house and don't give them back until the parents prove they are fit. Four, those kids have to go to a place that can deal with them, which isn't public school.
albacore
(2,387 posts)I said: "Parents poor? Pour the money on them. Parents on drugs? Rehab for all!"
The not-so-subtle of my post was that if we find a problem, we throw money at it. When it's for the "Defense" department.
Litigious parents? School districts can hire lawyers, too. Behavioral problems ARE remedial. With enough trained staff. Maybe not curable, but...
Homeless school kids? With enough money, we could - if we actually wanted to - help that. NOTHING is being done now in most districts.
I repeat... let's pretend it's the F-35, and throw money at it until it works better. And give it 30-40 years as a fair trial.
What we're doing now simply isn't working.
hunter
(38,264 posts)When my wife was accepted to graduate school in another state I was overwhelmingly relieved to be moving on from my job as a science teacher in an overcrowded, underfunded, urban school.
Substitute teachers would leave our school in tears and never come back.
I remember one day my class was exceptionally quiet. For a moment I patted myself on the back thinking I was doing a great job, but then I realized they were listening to a riot in the class next door. Then I heard glass shatter. I stepped outside and all the kids next door were running away. Some kid had thrown a desk at the windows. The substitute teacher, a big guy, was just sitting at his desk in shock.
I sent two of my kids to the office to fetch help. This was before cell phones and the ancient intercom system was unreliable. You always sent the kids in pairs, otherwise they were likely to wander off, go to the bathroom, check their lockers, etc., instead of going directly to the office, even if someone was bleeding.
My wife's sister has been a teacher in similar situations more than thirty years now. She's some kind of superhero.
dsc
(52,130 posts)did nothing for months after her speech. BTW these videos are two and a half years old now but that Superintendent is still leading those schools, I just checked. They did institute a turn around, which I will link an article about below. I will say what she is describing is worse than anything I have seen or heard of in my district, my district has some schools which have been determined to be among the worst in the state. We have systematic segregation in my district which has gone on for years and was made worse by permitting open enrollment allowing those with some means in the poor school to flee making it poorer. This is why, unless we fix k 12 in this country in terms of permitting schools such as these to exist, free college will be a wealth transfer program from the poor to the middle and upper classes. Honestly this school should have been either disbanded or the lines totally redrawn to change the mix of students in that school. Failing that, stable leadership should have been provided and immediately.
https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2019/09/03/green-bay-school-district-continues-turnaround-efforts-washington-middle-school-this-year-consultant/2122301001/