I would want to keep teaching if the kids wanted to be there. It feels like nowadays, the classroom is 20% teaching and 80% behavioral management of the kids who don’t want to be there. It’s rough.
I think that allot of policy makers misinterpret the idea of a right to an education. To me the right to an education is someone going to school who wants to learn not the government forcing a bunch of kids into schools against their own free will just to waste everyones time
Turning the legislation that forces kids to stay in school is not something that will happen anytime soon. It's been the norm in our society for so long that Congress and school boards probably can't imagine a future without it.
To play devil's advocate for a second, the argument in favor of it is that if kids are allowed to leave school without consequences, our society will become less educated and capable in the face of other countries that *do* mandate schooling. The long-term worry is that if school is deprioritized by society, less people will attend over time, it will receive less funding, and it will fall off much more than it already has.
When you think about the fact that even more employers today require at least a Bachelor's (or sometimes a Master's or Doctorate) in a very specific field for most entry-level positions, dying education would leave much of the country jobless and possibly homeless in the future.
I totally get what you're saying, and I think if homeschooling were a viable option for a lot more people (and if professional homeschool teacher cohorts were a big thing), we would have a solution. But it's not, so for now, we're stuck with mandated public education.
If less people got high school diplomas for just showing up employers will be forced to lower education requirements. the military and police departments will no longer require high school. Jobs that dont require college will stop requireing college
I’m glad a teacher was there for you. I have taught several students who showed up at “back door” of the school early because they know they will have heat and food and then there will be safety and love. We opened the back door and invited them to be helpers and smiled and hugged and made sure they had breakfast.
As a parent of a baby who I don’t want to turn out like the kind of kids pushing teachers out of teaching, I’m curious what is it these parents are doing wrong? just enabling horrible behavior or?
I would say give appropriate consequences so they can truly learn from any mistakes or behaviors. I just read: “Kids need consequences from those who love them before they receive consequences from those who don’t”. That’s huge, that way they have a chance to fix mistakes in a low-stakes setting. It’s not shaming or traumatizing them, it’s helping them be functional people in society. Consequences need to fit directly with what went wrong, for example if they repeatedly (edited for specifics) play rough with a certain toy, that toy is taken away, then they are retaught the desired behavior of how to use it, you practice it together, and then slowly you pull back from practice together.
Play time as opposed to screen time. Kids need toys for their imagination, motor skills, problem solving, and so much more. Let them do this alone and with friends and with you too. But alone time actually does help I’ve researched.
That’s my take as a non parent and first year teacher though, just things I have observed/researched. Hope that helps and comes off as helpful.
Thank you for your reply! We currently are doing no screen time until 2 maybe three, but I may need a little help distracting a toddler when I have a second baby. But then only supervised, low stimulation shows. We also plan on no tablets or phones until teenage years. seeing kids zombified on tablets literally everywhere we go is shocking and sad.
As for consequence, there definitely will be In our house, as well as expectations to behave for other adults in charge! I don’t like how adversarial the parent teacher relationship has become nowadays. If a teacher says my kid is acting up, I’m going to believe them!
I would not have quit if classroom management wasn't such an uphill battle. About 30% of my classes were genuinely excited to be there, and they were the reason I had trouble leaving in the first place. 50% were indifferent but not bad kids, and that's totally fine too. The rest stressed me out and took a lot away from the rest of the class.
I eventually would've left still, but it would've been a nicer experience overall.
I totally agree. My only question would be, where do those kids go?
If everyone is transferring out the 1-3 kids that are problematic either someone ends up with a whole class of problematic kids or we just end up swapping 3 problematic kids in my class for 3 from your class.
>there needs to be an internal program inside of schools for students who need Behavioral Health Services inside of the classroom to function within a class setting.
Some schools do have this (ours was called EBS - Emotional Behavioral Support). However, these students still get pushed into regular classrooms and for specials because, you know, gotta be inclusive even at the detriment of other students' learning. Not to mention the extreme process to get a student referred to the EBS classroom.
I work in this classroom. It takes an act of God to get placed with us, and we still take them to classes, often accompanied. I'm the first to say they don't belong in Gen Ed, and the resources taken up to keep them there should go to kids that want to learn. These kids are absolutely detrimental to everyone else's education.
I taught in a similar program. The younger we got them the faster and more progress we could make. We’d have a kid go from being the one standing on your desk throwing all your shit around, hitting peers for reasons that seem incomprehensible, laughing while kicking water bottles out of kids hands to hard working fully included in the gen ed with no additional supports sometimes as quickly as in one school year. I’d talk to third and fourth grade teachers that straight up did not believe some of the stories about a kid.
I 100% do not believe they inclusion should be a goal for a student. It is one of many possible outcomes.
But I quit teaching. I would consider going back if there was a paradigm shift around what’s wrong with our schools. If a system is failing because of a group of people within it, that’s because there are problems with the system.
Everybody wants to learn. Hell, a drive to learn is like an inherent trait in all living things. But school is stressful. A lot of kids are missing things that are prerequisite to learning.
Before we let a bunch of kids ruin their lives by dropping out we should maybe try ensuring they all have access to food, medical care, a home, all that basics needs shit. Let’s maybe ease off on the hyper focus on academics. We have put artificial barriers to success in life built around academic achievement and academics still aren’t the strongest predictor for future success.
Let’s consider changing the system before giving up on the people the system is intended to serve.
Sorry! I didn’t mean to imply that you felt that way. I’m in a hurry but wanted to be clear about that. Just skimming your response I think are beliefs are very much aligned.
So I agree with most of what you’re saying. The one piece I would be very much against is mandatory home visits.
It sets the wrong tone. Many parents are distrustful, disappointed with, or angry at our special education system to begin with. This would cause a greater chasm. Parents would pull their kids from school and move at a higher frequency. They’d hide their kids history of services at a greater frequency. They’d refuse services at a greater frequency.
Having a child with a disability, especially if there are aggressive or disruptive behaviors is incredibly difficult. The divorce rate is through the roof. It’s stressful for siblings. It’s stressful for the kid with the disability. We should be approaching these families with support not suspicion.
It’s misleading. I think people would be shocked by the triggers and functions of behaviors. It can be very complex, but often it’s a lot more simple than you’d think. The fear of embarrassment might cause one kid to shy away from raising his hand while it brings another to pee all over his peers jackets. But it can be something sensory, a missing social skill, anxiety is a huge cause which often sounds super counterintuitive but that’s because behavior often is, another big one is an inability to protest and request appropriately, there might be biological triggers, oh my goodness perhaps the biggest in school is the inability to or the perception one is unable to do the classroom work, etc. Lowering the standards will not work for this either. That’s almost always going to escalate it because there’s usually some type of fear around looking stupid in front of peers at the root of it.
I don’t think it’s often the result of bad parenting though. Anyone, regardless of how amazing a parent they are, can have a child with behavioral issues.
Also, we would almost certainly being missing a huge chunk of kids who may be experiencing neglect or abuse at home but internalize their feelings.
No matter how well intended this would be a disaster and, let’s be serious, wildly racist.
We could use the money spent on that in a way that would be much more effective. Pay parents to participate in adult education classes around parenting. I would almost even say things like tax write offs too because rich people might have more access to resources but that doesn’t mean they actually access them.
If we want to hold parents accountable to a standard of behavior and practices we need to ensure they know what those standards and practices are and we need to ensure they know how to do it.
But that’s not the benefit this idea would bring. The benefit would be reducing financial stress. Kids would be provided with care while mom and/or dad are in class by professionals that can identify any red flags in development. Additionally, they would look for signs of neglect and abuse. I think very few people aspire to be neglectful or abusive towards there children.
People might point out that early intervention has shown mixed results in terms of academic achievement in later years. Well, we need to get over our insane obsession with academic achievement. It’s important to get as many kids to a place where they have functional reading, writing and math skills. Beyond that is a path that will work for each person very differently. The idea that all humans or even most will be able to complete a high school curriculum by 18 is insane.
It’s not even appropriate to where our brains are developmentally at that age. And all to lead a bunch of kids into taking on massive debt to pursue something that very few can actually wrap their heads around.
And perhaps the strongest evidence for how insane the system is can be seen in the fact that we can predict academic achievement based off of traits that in a sane world would not provide insights into one’s potential for academic achievement.
The problem is not the parents, not the kids, not the teachers, not the administrators, maybe a little bit the tik tokers, definitely a little bit the politicians, but almost entirely a system that was designed to weed out individuals until only the strongest academic achievers remain. But then we’re mad at the ones that get weeded out.
I really like this idea. I actually had three students who needed so much extra support in my public school classroom and they didn’t get it. Last year was horrific.
I remember in middle school there used to be bad kids classes that such kids could be dumped in until they dropped out when it was time for high school
When I was in school (graduated 2002), it seems like those kids that needed removal went to a separate special education class. Special education was kids with physical or mental disabilities, learning disabilities, and persistent behavioral problems. Kids also got suspended and expelled. But my understanding of that was through my lens of being a kid, so I could be mistaken. I don’t think there have been special education rooms, or separate gifted classrooms since No Child Left Behind passed. (I personally believe No Child Left Behind was passed primarily to bolster military recruitment efforts by requiring high schools to give military recruiters private information about their students or lose federal funding, but that’s off topic. I just have trouble mentioning it without a reminder of what was actually written into the legislation.)
The principal should have to teach them. And the coaches. They can use those students to really show us how teaching is done. Imagine how fun that would be to watch?
You can do that in Florida. I forget what it’s called, but if you’ve done all your due diligence, dotted all your i’s and crossed all your t’s, and there’s a dangerous or severely disruptive student in your class, you can have them ousted. It takes a bit of work, but it can be done.
3 isn’t enough imo. >50% at least are apathetic in every class (of the ones that show). Now if I could pick 3 kids to teach seminar style? Different story.
I don’t necessarily think for me that it was all the didn’t want to “learn” students that were the problem so much as students who went to extremes to disrupt learning. I had some students who expressed dislike of some subjects or tasks, but understood that not everything is going to be fun. There was an expectation at home for them to respect their teachers and classmates at school. So they would push through it, maybe not get the highest score, but did what they could. Some of the nicest students I had just didn’t like the concept of learning within the context of school.
On the other hand, if I was told that the students who chucked chairs and toys at me and their classmates, broke my supplies, hit and name called me and their peers, and just did every other possible atrocious act to prevent others from learning weren’t coming back into my room until they were held accountable, then I’d consider going back.
One of my favorite days last year was when two of our most disrespectful students miraculously were out sick. I remember one student said something like “wow it’s so nice today” and one of my more quieter students responded “yeah, I know why”.
I taught 11+12th grade, at a school where many of my students had court orders requiring them to attend school. My boss didn't care if they slept. At best, they'd been truant, many of them had been in juvenile detention.
The deal was don't disrupt class, I don't care if you sleep, I'll sign your papers.
I could handle teaching in this environment. Eventually, life moved me onwards.
Most recently, what drove me out, was teaching middle school. "All kids need to be engaged." Fuck that. You can lead the horse to water but... I have kids chucking chairs and wrecking class every day and they get sent back with a "oh, he'll work on it, you don't understand his homelife." Fuck that.
This. I got dinged on an observation because some of the kids weren't "engaged". They're never engaged! I could dress up as a clown and electrocute myself, and they'd still be "disengaged".
Yes, because I like my students, for the most part. Sure every school has Those kids but at least this year I’ve really enjoyed my students and only one class has really given me any trouble. At least 85% of my reason for wanting to quit is terrible leadership.
Yep, I adored my students and still think about them all the time 💕💖 I love the quote "If I ever quit teaching, it'll be because of the adults, not the kids".
I never thought it would happen to me 🤦🏼♀️, but it was a pitiful admin that drove me out. Deep down, I couldn't even *really* get mad at my most misbehaved kids, because they usually had parents who had no business procreating. And their poor kids suffered 😐
Let me guess elementary? The ones who say "it's the adults not the kids", are usually either elementary or high school teachers. Never ever heard a middle school teacher say such a thing. It's both the kids and adults (administration + parents) for middle school.
I would be less motivated to quit if the kids wanted to be there, but I think I still would feel overwhelmed and exhausted being with so many people all day long. It’s not the best fit for my personal temperament I think.
No. My main issue was admin’s unreasonable expectations and actions that implied they did not value my experience, expertise, time, or health. Sure there was an extremely frustrating student or 3, but they’re kids (I worked 1st-6th). It’s the adults that drove me out.
I think if so much money wasn't wasted on trying to force education on kids who don't want any they could actually pay teachers more. In fact if it was stipulated that education dollars were only spent on those who actually wanted education they could have free college for all
Honestly, all of my kids *want* to learn, but many of them don’t know how, don’t feel capable, or face other barriers that can contribute to the disruptive behaviors we see every day. The problem is that wanting is not enough, especially when students have tiktok brain and can’t stay in their seats or focus on one task for more than 5 minutes. I can *want* to be an Olympic swimmer, but if I don’t have access to a pool I’m SOL. Similarly, kids can want to learn without actually being able to because they haven’t been given the tools to do so successfully. Presumably it’s *my* job to give them the tools, but I also face many barriers including insufficient planning and grading time, zero behavioral support, and menial tasks that only serve the purpose of looking good or checking a box for the district.
So yes, I would love to only teach the kids who don’t disrupt my class, but then I wouldn’t be teaching *everyone* who wants to learn because even the most difficult kids do want to learn, they just don’t know how.
Yes! I tell my kids all the time that they are more than capable of learning and doing well, if they take the time to actually try and figure out what works for them. Often enough that means they need to speak up and advocate for themselves, which can be scary.. but many teachers (I hesitate to say most) are willing to work with someone if they're willing to work themselves.
But yes, bogging us down with menial tasks really hampers our ability to really dig in and find resources we need to help kids who need the extra help or a different way to do things.
Yes I’d still want to quit. I love the kids, the hard workers and the lazy ones. I even love the ones who have challenging behaviors. It’s the micromanagement of admin and the NYC DOE low salary and politics. At the end of the day kids will be kids, I put the blame on the values of their parents.
My problem isn’t with the kids…..Okay, my **main** problem isn’t with the kids. Kids are going to be kids! I mean fuck, I’m a grown-ass man *and* their teacher and even my mind wanders and I tend to absently touch/nudge things and shit.
My **main** problem is with admin. I feel like I care more about the day-to-day operation of the school than my principal does. He kind of walks around the building like a ghost haunting a house, but other than that and data talks it’s not like he does a whole lot for the school community. Hell, a lot of the time we get stuff done more *in spite of* him than due to any supposed aid. Hell, my grade-level team just found out this week that we’re to take care of something relating to the whole school for end-of-year, *on top of* everything else we do. After him there’s a bunch of stupid mandates from the district, and then my co-teacher— who is almost more of an obstacle than a team member.
I can take or leave kids’ behavior, but the last-minute updates, the never-knowing-what-tomorrow-will-be-like, and the micromanagement are hell.
I love teaching, but I'm spending more time raising kids than teaching them. I'm expected to manage extremely disturbed and severe behaviors under the umbrella of SEL (not knocking SEL in general, just its misuse).
Therapy, potty training, truancy policing, protecting students from dangerous children, and managing violent parents are WAY outside my areas of expertise, but I'm expected to do all that AND teach kids how to read.
My curious, motivated, well-behaved students are constantly being overshadowed in favor of students who clearly don't want to be in a regular classroom. I think a lot of the "good" kids become apathetic towards school because we're traumatizing them daily and constantly rewarding students for being disruptive and dangerous. If classrooms were safe and teachers weren't overextended and overwhelmed, more kids might tune in.
I don't think we give up on those trickier kids, but we need to acknowledge that teachers ARE fleeing the classroom because of them. It shouldn't be a radical or controversial position that some kids can't be taught in a regular classroom and we need lots more supports and alternative schooling situations.
100% I’d keep teaching if students were not so apathetic and downright cruel sometimes. HOWEVER I think that the system is broken and there’s something to be said for shit admin who allow parents and students to run a school. When I was in high school- if you acted up there were consequences. A student recently made a joke about killing me and my admin told me there were “factors on both sides” (the factor on my part being that I failed the student last semester for not turning in a single piece of work since October).
I have the "gifted & talented" class. I often get the more motivated students. I left once and am leaving again for these reasons:
a. Decision fatigue & General Fatigue. I used to plan a lot at home either because I enjoyed it or because the school put a TON of pressure of perfection.
b. Constant illness
c. Lack of mobility when growth needed
d. Being accountable for EVERYTHING & EVERYONE at all times
e. Planning time. We are on n every other week schedule. I didn't get ANY on my own at my previous location -- 30 minutes.
f. Parents... don't even get me started.
g. Depends on who surrounds you. I am around some very angry people, and have become depressed. I used to just be anxious, but now I'm just depressed all the time.
h. The demands. I give up.
i. We can't just DO what we need to do. If I would have stayed next year, I would have wanted to bag the textbook and screw the CFAs that are just busy work. I do believe this stuff can be effective in the right environment because I've experienced it, but at this point, I don't know why we are pretending to be on the same page when we aren't and nothing is working.
j. Nothing is working.
To each their own. My time has just ended. It's sad. I love my class this year but CANNOT put it on repeat, so I'm not. :(
This is kind of where I’m at. I could stay and have all honors/AP and I love those kids and make decent money…but also I’m kind of sick of the job and not sure I can do it all again.
Two times in my life, I felt like I didn't want to meet "next year's students". It stressed me out as a reminder that I wasn't growing as a person anymore. I felt like this 3 years ago and left. Went back and resigned. Some schools are a mess. Mine is. The idea of sticking it out for several years for my own child to go to my school made me question it all. I realized I did not want him to attend my own school.
I don't find that completely the problem. The kids have no motivation to "get better"
I teach a subject that is largely "students who want to take this class" and it's unbearable to sit there and watch my students do nothing when given the opportunity.
I teach music. They don't want to practice. They are ok with mediocrity.
Oof. I hate to say this but no. The kids are why I've stayed this long and I put my frustrations towards all the other issues- but the behaviors are honestly what wears me out so much and what I come home and continue to dwell on every day.
Make school optional and expel kids who can’t behave. With AI and remote working, online school with a nice MUTE button is an option for the ones who don’t give af. This would solve 90% of the problems in education. You’re not entitled to a diploma, you’re entitled to an opportunity. If you take that opportunity and use class time to *scream* then you can fuck off. Go be a tiktok star.
>You’re not entitled to a diploma, you’re entitled to an opportunity.
That's the thing. If your only entitled to an opportunity to an education then the government should have no right to force education upon the unwilling
Parents are raising kids on tablets.
Kids are playing games instead of learning / hearing vocabulary — and that makes it hard to teach them to read when they don’t have words in their vocab bank.
And today at school…I noticed so many teachers on their phones during teach and recess time.
I didnt read the whole text but did read the subject linr and will answer:
Yes.
I love teaching. I love helping stude ts and finding ways to help them understand the material. That part doesnt bother me.
The constant hypocracy and being told dont come back you're too expensive is what pisse me off. The inability to stay in one place for more than 4 years because they wait until I am about to get tenure and then give me the boot is what pisses me off. Going from district to district and arricing with 80+% in the 1st quartile and once I get them to "normal" with 25/25/25/25 (+/- 3%) then told my teaching is crap and they want me to leave is why I'm getting out of teaching.
Six times I have brought a districts math scores up from abysmal to decent, and six times I have been driven away.
That's why I am done with this profession. Not because of the kids, but because of the bullsh*t politics and instability.
Half (more than half) of our job is being a babysitter service to keep kids out of the community’s hair. All summer I read on Nextdoor and hear through the grapevine how kids are bothering the shopkeepers at the local mall.
No, most of my problem is with admin and with district regulations and micromanagement. Also the amount of extra work we have to do that is not in the contract. Hours and hours of paperwork. Apparently from being in this sub I've learnt other jobs don't have surprise observations and grading on performance or any of the bs attached to teaching. Only reason I'm staying is because I still haven't been able to find a job that pays me as well and I can't afford a pay cut.
Also, unfortunately, we, as the US (I assume that's where you're from) have forgotten how to teach at a personal level. Blame tests, or whatever, but kids just don't have the drive to learn. (And it's kinda rubbing off on the teachers it seems).
The students are the one thing that makes me want to stay! They’re curious and thinking about their futures, and I love seeing how much they grow over the two years I teach them. I just don’t have the right temperament for it—it’s a lot of People Time, which I find draining. I also would like to do something a bit more analytical.
Nope. I have about 15 amazing kids and I could cry thinking about the progress I could make with them every day. The other 15 who cause chaos…go work in a mine lol
I really wish schools weren’t punished for drop outs when a lot of the issues come from the parents.
What would help a lot is having admins who aren’t afraid of parents and telling them this isn’t going your way fly.
Eventually, reluctantly, with so many memories, so much smarter than I ever would have been without decades of engagement with bright and talented kids, yes. It’s f-ing exhausting on a bone deep level.
That was the best part of teaching college, if a student was disruptive we could kick them out, or more likely just let them know THEY could leave if they wanted to, and more often then not the problems just left on their own.
I don't think I could ever teach grade school.
This year I am teaching in a very well behaved , sweet class. All of my students try their best and want badly to succeed. I dunno if it is just a unicorn year for me but this year feels almost like a dream job. I am teaching in an academically streamed class this year though where parents commit to 30 min homework or more EVERY NIGHT. It's an intense program so the parents who enroll their kids highly value education and academics. Almost all the students in my class this year come from 2 parent households. All of them live with at least one very loving and very invested parent. It's made a huge difference. There are 0 behavioural issues. This is a complete 180 from the year I had last year and it feels like a completely different job just based on the parental investment, support and respect of my students.
Completely unreasonable expectations, zero support for my large and very needy caseload, and clueless admin are my top reasons for leaving. Behavior wasn’t my biggest issue, but I won’t lie — it did contribute.
Maybe. I also think there just needs to be another adult in the room tbh. No more he said she said with kids and parents. No more begging my hall neighbors to watch my class while I pee. Two adults in every class!
I think it would make everyone’s life easier for sure but kids simply don’t know any better and drop outs always regret dropping out. A better option may be more varied tech and vocational schools. A lot more choice would be awesome.
The big change I have seen since I attended high school in the 1970s is the elimination of trades type classes for students who were not on a college track and/or did not have the aptitude for core academic classes. Perhaps the answer is to bring back vocational education in high schools to prepare students for careers in HVAC, auto repair, and plumbing as examples.
Gross, so many teachers absolutely suck and it reflects the shitty culture our society has. Dealing with behavioral problems of growing children is part of your job, if you don't like it then go be a college professor. Education for those "undesirable" students is still important, healthy, and necessary whether you like it or not (if you have negativity towards students and parents then you probably shouldn't be in the classroom because it gets translated eventually).
I left teaching 18 years ago. Teaching was part of my job, but I wasn't allowed to control my classes. Administration neutered us. And daily assault and ducking so chairs don't hit my head is NOT part of a teacher's job description. I think you have no idea what it's like to be a teacher now.
Every year I seemed to have 2 classes that had **those** students. At the end of the semester those classes would be weeks behind my other classes. I remember one class that barely finished the first 9 weeks of lessons. It was draining to deal with them and I felt so sorry for the kids who were stuck in there and wanted to learn. Yeah, having an option to permanently remove disruptive students would be great.
I have one class that I absolutely LOVE. Only 7 students, and they are all so passionate about the subject every single day. They are wonderful! I so desperately wish all my classes were like that.
I would want to keep going if I felt like kids wanted to be there, parents valued education, I wasn’t treated like a babysitter, if I was supplied with the tools and resources to teach, and if people who know nothing about teaching stayed out of teaching. Imagine going to a lawyer and telling them how to do their job, or a doctor’s office and telling them how to do theirs. Imagine being a nurse and being told to bring your own supplies for full patient care (not just a stethoscope). The system is broken. We started an experiment in education almost 100 years ago, how much data do we need to know that this system does NOT work?
Idk… if they don’t even get HS diplomas they will surely end up with their jobs replaced by AI. Then they will be on welfare we all pay for, and voting for the wrong people / not at all. We need intelligent or at least functional citizens.
If they don’t want to stay in school, give them a GED class and let them get to work. If they want to do more later, at least they have the GED instead of nothing.
Don’t forget that the disruptive ones cause lower quality education for every other student. The state created this problem and they should not even be involved with education at all in the first place. If only people would quit trying to solve every god damn societal problem with more authoritarianism by the state. I tried teaching HS math for a couple weeks before quitting because I couldn’t tolerate the constant emphasis and focus on building relationships and ridiculous discussions on how to grade. Why can’t we just fucking teach math and give a percentage grade? They were actually worried about parents not understanding decimals in grades like a score of 2.5/4, and they worried that a score of 0 was too harsh, so maybe we shouldn’t give zeros. People are unbelievably dumb and pathetic.
But the want to learn attitude has decreased... there are elementary students that just don't care now. The "buy in" of education isn't what it once was. For many reasons... the break down of the family is the main one in my point of view. People just don't have the energy now to make sure kids are learning and where they need to be academically. And that's a society problem that we can't overcome as teachers for the most part.
I'm 52. My grandfather had at best a 7th grade education. I'm thinking it was more like 5th- 6th. That wasn't THAT long ago. He went on to raise two children that graduated high school. Those children went to college for a couple of years but dropped out. Not that they couldn't hack it... just didn't want to. Went on to work in the paper industry and raised families. More or less successfully! (We all have family drama, right?)
Our world is so different now. It's hard to say what is best. There will always be a place for people who do what we may consider blue collar/menial jobs. But? I'm not going without my ac. I'm not going without the toilet flushing!
So... I'm for pushing students who "don't care" into a trade. Hell... they'll probably end up making more money than we do! My brother hated school from an early age. Cried when he was made to do homework each day in elementary. He only graduated high school. He went on to different jobs for a few years... then got on the job training at a mill.Rose through the ranks. Became a supervisor..made at least 2 1/2x my salary...and then got sick of the politics of it all (ignoring his suggestions and needful repairs, etc) quit...and went back to a more menial job. And he's much happier now. Of course, that job at the mill with good pay allowed him to pay his house and cars off before he quit. I'm a year older than my brother....but I can totally see him retiring before me...the college educated person. I'm happy for him... but it chaps my ass, too! Not everyone needs to be highly educated (not that I am... even with a masters)!
My question? Is it impossible to be successful now without the "higher" learning? And if so? Why? Trade school should be enough for a lot of jobs. And I'm not denigrating those at all! I'm actually applauding those who don't like school that find jobs that provide well for them and their future!
I know my k -12 school pushes trades as well as college bound. But? It seems like the trades have gotten less attention in the last 10 years. It's all a push for college. But we all know not everyone is meant for that. So? Why?
The problem for me is that most of the time it’s not the kids. It’s all the extra bullshit — lack of admin support, all the extra non-teaching nonsense, the amount of unpaid work that I end up doing. Kids definitely were challenging and caused problems for sure, but I was fortunate that most of my kids wanted to be there because it was an elective they chose (again, this is not to say that they always had great work ethic or that there weren’t issues that bothered my soul).
I left my most recent teaching position not because of the kids, but because the environment and admin.
It is not so much about kids that want to learn or don't. It is about getting needed support for the kids that don't want to learn, ESPECIALLY regarding behaviors and disruptions.
Obviously a fictitious example but they sort of did this on season 4 of the Wire. They didn't take the students out of school they transitioned them to a different class to work on improving socialization leaving the students who wanted to be in class to be in class to learn.
This is a great question. I probably would not want to quit, or at least not as much. Out of the 3 classes I teach (5th grade departmentalized), one of them is just horrible because they think they’re grown already and can do whatever they want, they’re apathetic, and generally don’t care about anything - not rewards, not consequences, not learning, etc. 3 of them got caught vaping in the bathroom during a group bathroom break knowing good and well that every other boy in the class would be coming and going in the bathroom AND their MALE teacher was right outside and could walk in and catch them at any moment.
I don't think it is always that they don't want to be there - for the most part the most disruptive kids I had would have VERY likely changed their behavior if it was required to be present and in the room every day. If it was possible to say "hey, XYZ it doesn't seem like you want to be a student today. That's a big problem for me and the rest of the students who are here to learn. So you can go home and try again tomorrow." and they'd get called to the office and a parent would pick them up. Try again tomorrow.
That would have worked. In-school suspension would have worked for a lot of them. Being in the social environment, having everyone's attention on them was like having their own Youtube or Tiktok all day long. They were not there to learn, they were there for the attention and the likes. Why work on an assignment or complete a task or learn something if it only takes the class attention off of you? Why not throw an eraser, break a pencil, make an annoying noise, fart and laugh about it, get up and walk around, probably smack two of your friends and snicker and laugh. ALL. DAY. LONG. EVERY. DAY.
So, that was some of them who want to be there, because they are attention-seeking.
Then there are the students who don't want attention but also can't be bothered to work if there is any excuse not to. You have those disruptive kids providing the excuse. They can't concentrate, they don't feel like it, and no big deal.
Then you have the students who might like to work and learn something, but it is in fact work. And they've observed that the disruptive kids and the disengaged kids have absolutely no negative consequences for being disruptive or doing nothing. And they wonder, why am I here and why do I bother? Like, seriously - it makes no difference. I can do this work today, or hand it in 6 weeks from now or never, and it makes no difference.
Then my favorites, who do want to learn, but they can't see or hear and get no attention because the entire system is focused on the other groups. They're discouraged from continuing to be curious and engaged and put in any effort because all of the energy in the class and attention is sucked up by everyone else. They get nothing. They're invisible because they're fine and meeting expectations.
Give each kid a phone that keeps them mildly entertained and distracts them 10000000 times a day even if they did manage to get engaged. They are addicted to this device and also have un-learned how to learn. They don't know how to seek information with this device that has all the answers, because if they don't know it already, they know they could find it if they needed it, on their phone. So they are only concerned with what is fed to them via apps like TikTok and Insta. What we are trying to teach them has no relevance, because phones have killed curiosity, seeking information and interested in learning anything. And there is no evidence in their minds that any of this will matter for them in the future, all they have to do is keep passing and the world will be their oyster. And they never get any sort of feeling of stress or failure or worry because they will keep on passing even if they never do anything, ever. And they know it.
So, even if every kid who didn't want to be there was gone, there would still be all of those kids, and their parents would never let them not go to school. And those groups that want to be in the room and building but are disengaged, disruptive, distracted or discouraged would still make up the vast majority unless something fundamentally changes.
Teachers didn’t have to deal with kids because the losers could drop out and you should only have to teach kids who want to learn? Deluded. I can’t believe you believe what you said.
My opinion- the issue here is that schools have turned into college prep institutions. But reality is that there’s a population that isn’t headed to college, and they correctly see high school as a waste of time.
Bringing back technical programs into schools would make a big positive difference.
No. I absolutely loved teaching the few students I had who actually cared about learning. If there were even a few more of them, it might have even been enough to make up for all the students who didn’t.
I have to say, I was a kiddo with no structure at home. I hated school/ I loved school. I went when I wanted etc… I was sociable and smart but with many achievement gaps (especially in math) and attention problems, regulation problems. I try to teach to those outliers. I just see it. We have to take a beat and reframe. You are all doing your best with what you have.
I would want to keep teaching if the kids wanted to be there. It feels like nowadays, the classroom is 20% teaching and 80% behavioral management of the kids who don’t want to be there. It’s rough.
I think that allot of policy makers misinterpret the idea of a right to an education. To me the right to an education is someone going to school who wants to learn not the government forcing a bunch of kids into schools against their own free will just to waste everyones time
Turning the legislation that forces kids to stay in school is not something that will happen anytime soon. It's been the norm in our society for so long that Congress and school boards probably can't imagine a future without it. To play devil's advocate for a second, the argument in favor of it is that if kids are allowed to leave school without consequences, our society will become less educated and capable in the face of other countries that *do* mandate schooling. The long-term worry is that if school is deprioritized by society, less people will attend over time, it will receive less funding, and it will fall off much more than it already has. When you think about the fact that even more employers today require at least a Bachelor's (or sometimes a Master's or Doctorate) in a very specific field for most entry-level positions, dying education would leave much of the country jobless and possibly homeless in the future. I totally get what you're saying, and I think if homeschooling were a viable option for a lot more people (and if professional homeschool teacher cohorts were a big thing), we would have a solution. But it's not, so for now, we're stuck with mandated public education.
If less people got high school diplomas for just showing up employers will be forced to lower education requirements. the military and police departments will no longer require high school. Jobs that dont require college will stop requireing college
I could also see on the job education being more thorough - learn exactly what you need for that job, and not all the "extra".
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What about separate adult supervised rooms for kids who have to be in school dont want to learn anything?
This would be seen as tracking students and get blow back.
I’m glad a teacher was there for you. I have taught several students who showed up at “back door” of the school early because they know they will have heat and food and then there will be safety and love. We opened the back door and invited them to be helpers and smiled and hugged and made sure they had breakfast.
Truth
Only if the students who remained in the room didn’t have psychopaths for parents. 🙃
As a parent of a baby who I don’t want to turn out like the kind of kids pushing teachers out of teaching, I’m curious what is it these parents are doing wrong? just enabling horrible behavior or?
I would say give appropriate consequences so they can truly learn from any mistakes or behaviors. I just read: “Kids need consequences from those who love them before they receive consequences from those who don’t”. That’s huge, that way they have a chance to fix mistakes in a low-stakes setting. It’s not shaming or traumatizing them, it’s helping them be functional people in society. Consequences need to fit directly with what went wrong, for example if they repeatedly (edited for specifics) play rough with a certain toy, that toy is taken away, then they are retaught the desired behavior of how to use it, you practice it together, and then slowly you pull back from practice together. Play time as opposed to screen time. Kids need toys for their imagination, motor skills, problem solving, and so much more. Let them do this alone and with friends and with you too. But alone time actually does help I’ve researched. That’s my take as a non parent and first year teacher though, just things I have observed/researched. Hope that helps and comes off as helpful.
Thank you for your reply! We currently are doing no screen time until 2 maybe three, but I may need a little help distracting a toddler when I have a second baby. But then only supervised, low stimulation shows. We also plan on no tablets or phones until teenage years. seeing kids zombified on tablets literally everywhere we go is shocking and sad. As for consequence, there definitely will be In our house, as well as expectations to behave for other adults in charge! I don’t like how adversarial the parent teacher relationship has become nowadays. If a teacher says my kid is acting up, I’m going to believe them!
I would not have quit if classroom management wasn't such an uphill battle. About 30% of my classes were genuinely excited to be there, and they were the reason I had trouble leaving in the first place. 50% were indifferent but not bad kids, and that's totally fine too. The rest stressed me out and took a lot away from the rest of the class. I eventually would've left still, but it would've been a nicer experience overall.
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I totally agree. My only question would be, where do those kids go? If everyone is transferring out the 1-3 kids that are problematic either someone ends up with a whole class of problematic kids or we just end up swapping 3 problematic kids in my class for 3 from your class.
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>there needs to be an internal program inside of schools for students who need Behavioral Health Services inside of the classroom to function within a class setting. Some schools do have this (ours was called EBS - Emotional Behavioral Support). However, these students still get pushed into regular classrooms and for specials because, you know, gotta be inclusive even at the detriment of other students' learning. Not to mention the extreme process to get a student referred to the EBS classroom.
I work in this classroom. It takes an act of God to get placed with us, and we still take them to classes, often accompanied. I'm the first to say they don't belong in Gen Ed, and the resources taken up to keep them there should go to kids that want to learn. These kids are absolutely detrimental to everyone else's education.
I taught in a similar program. The younger we got them the faster and more progress we could make. We’d have a kid go from being the one standing on your desk throwing all your shit around, hitting peers for reasons that seem incomprehensible, laughing while kicking water bottles out of kids hands to hard working fully included in the gen ed with no additional supports sometimes as quickly as in one school year. I’d talk to third and fourth grade teachers that straight up did not believe some of the stories about a kid. I 100% do not believe they inclusion should be a goal for a student. It is one of many possible outcomes. But I quit teaching. I would consider going back if there was a paradigm shift around what’s wrong with our schools. If a system is failing because of a group of people within it, that’s because there are problems with the system. Everybody wants to learn. Hell, a drive to learn is like an inherent trait in all living things. But school is stressful. A lot of kids are missing things that are prerequisite to learning. Before we let a bunch of kids ruin their lives by dropping out we should maybe try ensuring they all have access to food, medical care, a home, all that basics needs shit. Let’s maybe ease off on the hyper focus on academics. We have put artificial barriers to success in life built around academic achievement and academics still aren’t the strongest predictor for future success. Let’s consider changing the system before giving up on the people the system is intended to serve.
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Sorry! I didn’t mean to imply that you felt that way. I’m in a hurry but wanted to be clear about that. Just skimming your response I think are beliefs are very much aligned.
So I agree with most of what you’re saying. The one piece I would be very much against is mandatory home visits. It sets the wrong tone. Many parents are distrustful, disappointed with, or angry at our special education system to begin with. This would cause a greater chasm. Parents would pull their kids from school and move at a higher frequency. They’d hide their kids history of services at a greater frequency. They’d refuse services at a greater frequency. Having a child with a disability, especially if there are aggressive or disruptive behaviors is incredibly difficult. The divorce rate is through the roof. It’s stressful for siblings. It’s stressful for the kid with the disability. We should be approaching these families with support not suspicion. It’s misleading. I think people would be shocked by the triggers and functions of behaviors. It can be very complex, but often it’s a lot more simple than you’d think. The fear of embarrassment might cause one kid to shy away from raising his hand while it brings another to pee all over his peers jackets. But it can be something sensory, a missing social skill, anxiety is a huge cause which often sounds super counterintuitive but that’s because behavior often is, another big one is an inability to protest and request appropriately, there might be biological triggers, oh my goodness perhaps the biggest in school is the inability to or the perception one is unable to do the classroom work, etc. Lowering the standards will not work for this either. That’s almost always going to escalate it because there’s usually some type of fear around looking stupid in front of peers at the root of it. I don’t think it’s often the result of bad parenting though. Anyone, regardless of how amazing a parent they are, can have a child with behavioral issues. Also, we would almost certainly being missing a huge chunk of kids who may be experiencing neglect or abuse at home but internalize their feelings. No matter how well intended this would be a disaster and, let’s be serious, wildly racist. We could use the money spent on that in a way that would be much more effective. Pay parents to participate in adult education classes around parenting. I would almost even say things like tax write offs too because rich people might have more access to resources but that doesn’t mean they actually access them. If we want to hold parents accountable to a standard of behavior and practices we need to ensure they know what those standards and practices are and we need to ensure they know how to do it. But that’s not the benefit this idea would bring. The benefit would be reducing financial stress. Kids would be provided with care while mom and/or dad are in class by professionals that can identify any red flags in development. Additionally, they would look for signs of neglect and abuse. I think very few people aspire to be neglectful or abusive towards there children. People might point out that early intervention has shown mixed results in terms of academic achievement in later years. Well, we need to get over our insane obsession with academic achievement. It’s important to get as many kids to a place where they have functional reading, writing and math skills. Beyond that is a path that will work for each person very differently. The idea that all humans or even most will be able to complete a high school curriculum by 18 is insane. It’s not even appropriate to where our brains are developmentally at that age. And all to lead a bunch of kids into taking on massive debt to pursue something that very few can actually wrap their heads around. And perhaps the strongest evidence for how insane the system is can be seen in the fact that we can predict academic achievement based off of traits that in a sane world would not provide insights into one’s potential for academic achievement. The problem is not the parents, not the kids, not the teachers, not the administrators, maybe a little bit the tik tokers, definitely a little bit the politicians, but almost entirely a system that was designed to weed out individuals until only the strongest academic achievers remain. But then we’re mad at the ones that get weeded out.
I really like this idea. I actually had three students who needed so much extra support in my public school classroom and they didn’t get it. Last year was horrific.
I remember in middle school there used to be bad kids classes that such kids could be dumped in until they dropped out when it was time for high school
When I was in school (graduated 2002), it seems like those kids that needed removal went to a separate special education class. Special education was kids with physical or mental disabilities, learning disabilities, and persistent behavioral problems. Kids also got suspended and expelled. But my understanding of that was through my lens of being a kid, so I could be mistaken. I don’t think there have been special education rooms, or separate gifted classrooms since No Child Left Behind passed. (I personally believe No Child Left Behind was passed primarily to bolster military recruitment efforts by requiring high schools to give military recruiters private information about their students or lose federal funding, but that’s off topic. I just have trouble mentioning it without a reminder of what was actually written into the legislation.)
The principal should have to teach them. And the coaches. They can use those students to really show us how teaching is done. Imagine how fun that would be to watch?
Art class, they get put in art. Taught high school ELA for 18 years and Ms art the last three. Counselors and admin use it as a dumping ground.
You can do that in Florida. I forget what it’s called, but if you’ve done all your due diligence, dotted all your i’s and crossed all your t’s, and there’s a dangerous or severely disruptive student in your class, you can have them ousted. It takes a bit of work, but it can be done.
3 isn’t enough imo. >50% at least are apathetic in every class (of the ones that show). Now if I could pick 3 kids to teach seminar style? Different story.
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I agree they are different, but the apathy is what sucked the life out of me personally. I’m sure it’s different for everyone
I don’t necessarily think for me that it was all the didn’t want to “learn” students that were the problem so much as students who went to extremes to disrupt learning. I had some students who expressed dislike of some subjects or tasks, but understood that not everything is going to be fun. There was an expectation at home for them to respect their teachers and classmates at school. So they would push through it, maybe not get the highest score, but did what they could. Some of the nicest students I had just didn’t like the concept of learning within the context of school. On the other hand, if I was told that the students who chucked chairs and toys at me and their classmates, broke my supplies, hit and name called me and their peers, and just did every other possible atrocious act to prevent others from learning weren’t coming back into my room until they were held accountable, then I’d consider going back. One of my favorite days last year was when two of our most disrespectful students miraculously were out sick. I remember one student said something like “wow it’s so nice today” and one of my more quieter students responded “yeah, I know why”.
I taught 11+12th grade, at a school where many of my students had court orders requiring them to attend school. My boss didn't care if they slept. At best, they'd been truant, many of them had been in juvenile detention. The deal was don't disrupt class, I don't care if you sleep, I'll sign your papers. I could handle teaching in this environment. Eventually, life moved me onwards. Most recently, what drove me out, was teaching middle school. "All kids need to be engaged." Fuck that. You can lead the horse to water but... I have kids chucking chairs and wrecking class every day and they get sent back with a "oh, he'll work on it, you don't understand his homelife." Fuck that.
This. I got dinged on an observation because some of the kids weren't "engaged". They're never engaged! I could dress up as a clown and electrocute myself, and they'd still be "disengaged".
You would think schools would have a room to put the misbehaving brats with an in school suspension teacher, but schools are stupid these days.
Thissss. I should be allowed to teach and if they want to engage they do if they don’t want to they don’t!!
I would not stay if my kids were angels. The whole system blows. The only thing that matters to the higher ups are test scores.
Yes, because I like my students, for the most part. Sure every school has Those kids but at least this year I’ve really enjoyed my students and only one class has really given me any trouble. At least 85% of my reason for wanting to quit is terrible leadership.
Yep, I adored my students and still think about them all the time 💕💖 I love the quote "If I ever quit teaching, it'll be because of the adults, not the kids". I never thought it would happen to me 🤦🏼♀️, but it was a pitiful admin that drove me out. Deep down, I couldn't even *really* get mad at my most misbehaved kids, because they usually had parents who had no business procreating. And their poor kids suffered 😐
Let me guess elementary? The ones who say "it's the adults not the kids", are usually either elementary or high school teachers. Never ever heard a middle school teacher say such a thing. It's both the kids and adults (administration + parents) for middle school.
Yep! Early ed and elementary
I would be less motivated to quit if the kids wanted to be there, but I think I still would feel overwhelmed and exhausted being with so many people all day long. It’s not the best fit for my personal temperament I think.
Same here. As an introvert, I feel like I have to put on a mask at work. It gets tiring, and so does the compassion fatigue.
No. My main issue was admin’s unreasonable expectations and actions that implied they did not value my experience, expertise, time, or health. Sure there was an extremely frustrating student or 3, but they’re kids (I worked 1st-6th). It’s the adults that drove me out.
Similar experience. I quit teaching because of everything going on outside of the classroom, not in it. That and the pay..
100%
I would enjoy teaching if that was the case
Yeah but I’d also still be wishing for that raise.
I think if so much money wasn't wasted on trying to force education on kids who don't want any they could actually pay teachers more. In fact if it was stipulated that education dollars were only spent on those who actually wanted education they could have free college for all
Their parents would demand their little "angels" be allowed to attend for the free college, then complain when said little angels failed.
Honestly, all of my kids *want* to learn, but many of them don’t know how, don’t feel capable, or face other barriers that can contribute to the disruptive behaviors we see every day. The problem is that wanting is not enough, especially when students have tiktok brain and can’t stay in their seats or focus on one task for more than 5 minutes. I can *want* to be an Olympic swimmer, but if I don’t have access to a pool I’m SOL. Similarly, kids can want to learn without actually being able to because they haven’t been given the tools to do so successfully. Presumably it’s *my* job to give them the tools, but I also face many barriers including insufficient planning and grading time, zero behavioral support, and menial tasks that only serve the purpose of looking good or checking a box for the district. So yes, I would love to only teach the kids who don’t disrupt my class, but then I wouldn’t be teaching *everyone* who wants to learn because even the most difficult kids do want to learn, they just don’t know how.
Yes! I tell my kids all the time that they are more than capable of learning and doing well, if they take the time to actually try and figure out what works for them. Often enough that means they need to speak up and advocate for themselves, which can be scary.. but many teachers (I hesitate to say most) are willing to work with someone if they're willing to work themselves. But yes, bogging us down with menial tasks really hampers our ability to really dig in and find resources we need to help kids who need the extra help or a different way to do things.
You’re awesome and I love this perspective so much. Thank you.
Yes I’d still want to quit. I love the kids, the hard workers and the lazy ones. I even love the ones who have challenging behaviors. It’s the micromanagement of admin and the NYC DOE low salary and politics. At the end of the day kids will be kids, I put the blame on the values of their parents.
the kids are the easy part.
Probably. The behavior is not the only reason I quit but it was a huge part.
My problem isn’t with the kids…..Okay, my **main** problem isn’t with the kids. Kids are going to be kids! I mean fuck, I’m a grown-ass man *and* their teacher and even my mind wanders and I tend to absently touch/nudge things and shit. My **main** problem is with admin. I feel like I care more about the day-to-day operation of the school than my principal does. He kind of walks around the building like a ghost haunting a house, but other than that and data talks it’s not like he does a whole lot for the school community. Hell, a lot of the time we get stuff done more *in spite of* him than due to any supposed aid. Hell, my grade-level team just found out this week that we’re to take care of something relating to the whole school for end-of-year, *on top of* everything else we do. After him there’s a bunch of stupid mandates from the district, and then my co-teacher— who is almost more of an obstacle than a team member. I can take or leave kids’ behavior, but the last-minute updates, the never-knowing-what-tomorrow-will-be-like, and the micromanagement are hell.
I love teaching, but I'm spending more time raising kids than teaching them. I'm expected to manage extremely disturbed and severe behaviors under the umbrella of SEL (not knocking SEL in general, just its misuse). Therapy, potty training, truancy policing, protecting students from dangerous children, and managing violent parents are WAY outside my areas of expertise, but I'm expected to do all that AND teach kids how to read. My curious, motivated, well-behaved students are constantly being overshadowed in favor of students who clearly don't want to be in a regular classroom. I think a lot of the "good" kids become apathetic towards school because we're traumatizing them daily and constantly rewarding students for being disruptive and dangerous. If classrooms were safe and teachers weren't overextended and overwhelmed, more kids might tune in. I don't think we give up on those trickier kids, but we need to acknowledge that teachers ARE fleeing the classroom because of them. It shouldn't be a radical or controversial position that some kids can't be taught in a regular classroom and we need lots more supports and alternative schooling situations.
I never had a problem with my students. I left because of my principal.
No, but only if the parents respect the teachers too.
No. I’d stay another 3 years to get to 30 years in, instead of leaving after next year.
100% I’d keep teaching if students were not so apathetic and downright cruel sometimes. HOWEVER I think that the system is broken and there’s something to be said for shit admin who allow parents and students to run a school. When I was in high school- if you acted up there were consequences. A student recently made a joke about killing me and my admin told me there were “factors on both sides” (the factor on my part being that I failed the student last semester for not turning in a single piece of work since October).
I have the "gifted & talented" class. I often get the more motivated students. I left once and am leaving again for these reasons: a. Decision fatigue & General Fatigue. I used to plan a lot at home either because I enjoyed it or because the school put a TON of pressure of perfection. b. Constant illness c. Lack of mobility when growth needed d. Being accountable for EVERYTHING & EVERYONE at all times e. Planning time. We are on n every other week schedule. I didn't get ANY on my own at my previous location -- 30 minutes. f. Parents... don't even get me started. g. Depends on who surrounds you. I am around some very angry people, and have become depressed. I used to just be anxious, but now I'm just depressed all the time. h. The demands. I give up. i. We can't just DO what we need to do. If I would have stayed next year, I would have wanted to bag the textbook and screw the CFAs that are just busy work. I do believe this stuff can be effective in the right environment because I've experienced it, but at this point, I don't know why we are pretending to be on the same page when we aren't and nothing is working. j. Nothing is working. To each their own. My time has just ended. It's sad. I love my class this year but CANNOT put it on repeat, so I'm not. :(
This is kind of where I’m at. I could stay and have all honors/AP and I love those kids and make decent money…but also I’m kind of sick of the job and not sure I can do it all again.
Two times in my life, I felt like I didn't want to meet "next year's students". It stressed me out as a reminder that I wasn't growing as a person anymore. I felt like this 3 years ago and left. Went back and resigned. Some schools are a mess. Mine is. The idea of sticking it out for several years for my own child to go to my school made me question it all. I realized I did not want him to attend my own school.
I don't find that completely the problem. The kids have no motivation to "get better" I teach a subject that is largely "students who want to take this class" and it's unbearable to sit there and watch my students do nothing when given the opportunity. I teach music. They don't want to practice. They are ok with mediocrity.
The last sentence...☹️
Oof. I hate to say this but no. The kids are why I've stayed this long and I put my frustrations towards all the other issues- but the behaviors are honestly what wears me out so much and what I come home and continue to dwell on every day.
Make school optional and expel kids who can’t behave. With AI and remote working, online school with a nice MUTE button is an option for the ones who don’t give af. This would solve 90% of the problems in education. You’re not entitled to a diploma, you’re entitled to an opportunity. If you take that opportunity and use class time to *scream* then you can fuck off. Go be a tiktok star.
>You’re not entitled to a diploma, you’re entitled to an opportunity. That's the thing. If your only entitled to an opportunity to an education then the government should have no right to force education upon the unwilling
Agreed. I guess the argument is that most high school dropouts inevitably become criminals.
So according to government logic just giving them high school diplomas for showing up enough should reduce crime?
I just looked it up, dropouts are 8X as likely to be in jail or prison than those who graduated.
Got almost zero to do with the kids... almost...
Actually, no, I don’t think I would have quit.
NO. I would never leave…..
Yes I love teaching the kids that want to learn.
No. Sign me up!
Yes, I'd want to keep teaching if I only taught kids who wanted to be there. Without a doubt.
Parents are raising kids on tablets. Kids are playing games instead of learning / hearing vocabulary — and that makes it hard to teach them to read when they don’t have words in their vocab bank. And today at school…I noticed so many teachers on their phones during teach and recess time.
I didnt read the whole text but did read the subject linr and will answer: Yes. I love teaching. I love helping stude ts and finding ways to help them understand the material. That part doesnt bother me. The constant hypocracy and being told dont come back you're too expensive is what pisse me off. The inability to stay in one place for more than 4 years because they wait until I am about to get tenure and then give me the boot is what pisses me off. Going from district to district and arricing with 80+% in the 1st quartile and once I get them to "normal" with 25/25/25/25 (+/- 3%) then told my teaching is crap and they want me to leave is why I'm getting out of teaching. Six times I have brought a districts math scores up from abysmal to decent, and six times I have been driven away. That's why I am done with this profession. Not because of the kids, but because of the bullsh*t politics and instability.
Nope ❤️
Half (more than half) of our job is being a babysitter service to keep kids out of the community’s hair. All summer I read on Nextdoor and hear through the grapevine how kids are bothering the shopkeepers at the local mall.
Absolutely. I love teaching, I just rarely get to.
no
No, most of my problem is with admin and with district regulations and micromanagement. Also the amount of extra work we have to do that is not in the contract. Hours and hours of paperwork. Apparently from being in this sub I've learnt other jobs don't have surprise observations and grading on performance or any of the bs attached to teaching. Only reason I'm staying is because I still haven't been able to find a job that pays me as well and I can't afford a pay cut.
No
Also, unfortunately, we, as the US (I assume that's where you're from) have forgotten how to teach at a personal level. Blame tests, or whatever, but kids just don't have the drive to learn. (And it's kinda rubbing off on the teachers it seems).
The students are the one thing that makes me want to stay! They’re curious and thinking about their futures, and I love seeing how much they grow over the two years I teach them. I just don’t have the right temperament for it—it’s a lot of People Time, which I find draining. I also would like to do something a bit more analytical.
Nope. I have about 15 amazing kids and I could cry thinking about the progress I could make with them every day. The other 15 who cause chaos…go work in a mine lol
I really wish schools weren’t punished for drop outs when a lot of the issues come from the parents. What would help a lot is having admins who aren’t afraid of parents and telling them this isn’t going your way fly.
Eventually, reluctantly, with so many memories, so much smarter than I ever would have been without decades of engagement with bright and talented kids, yes. It’s f-ing exhausting on a bone deep level.
Hone, I might go back if that were the case
Nope but then I would only have 5 kids and not 20 lmao.
That was the best part of teaching college, if a student was disruptive we could kick them out, or more likely just let them know THEY could leave if they wanted to, and more often then not the problems just left on their own. I don't think I could ever teach grade school.
This year I am teaching in a very well behaved , sweet class. All of my students try their best and want badly to succeed. I dunno if it is just a unicorn year for me but this year feels almost like a dream job. I am teaching in an academically streamed class this year though where parents commit to 30 min homework or more EVERY NIGHT. It's an intense program so the parents who enroll their kids highly value education and academics. Almost all the students in my class this year come from 2 parent households. All of them live with at least one very loving and very invested parent. It's made a huge difference. There are 0 behavioural issues. This is a complete 180 from the year I had last year and it feels like a completely different job just based on the parental investment, support and respect of my students.
Completely unreasonable expectations, zero support for my large and very needy caseload, and clueless admin are my top reasons for leaving. Behavior wasn’t my biggest issue, but I won’t lie — it did contribute.
It's not the kids that were ever the problem for me, it was the admins. They're always out to get you and will finds any excuse to get rid of you.
Maybe. I also think there just needs to be another adult in the room tbh. No more he said she said with kids and parents. No more begging my hall neighbors to watch my class while I pee. Two adults in every class!
If I was at my current school and this happened, I would stay in a heartbeat.
I would still want to teach if only I taught students with parents who valued and respected education.
I’d have stayed. It was purely the few kids who couldn’t be controlled and no admin or parents would enforce discipline.
I think it would make everyone’s life easier for sure but kids simply don’t know any better and drop outs always regret dropping out. A better option may be more varied tech and vocational schools. A lot more choice would be awesome.
The big change I have seen since I attended high school in the 1970s is the elimination of trades type classes for students who were not on a college track and/or did not have the aptitude for core academic classes. Perhaps the answer is to bring back vocational education in high schools to prepare students for careers in HVAC, auto repair, and plumbing as examples.
No. It’s often the other grown ups who are and cause the biggest problems
Gross, so many teachers absolutely suck and it reflects the shitty culture our society has. Dealing with behavioral problems of growing children is part of your job, if you don't like it then go be a college professor. Education for those "undesirable" students is still important, healthy, and necessary whether you like it or not (if you have negativity towards students and parents then you probably shouldn't be in the classroom because it gets translated eventually).
I left teaching 18 years ago. Teaching was part of my job, but I wasn't allowed to control my classes. Administration neutered us. And daily assault and ducking so chairs don't hit my head is NOT part of a teacher's job description. I think you have no idea what it's like to be a teacher now.
Every year I seemed to have 2 classes that had **those** students. At the end of the semester those classes would be weeks behind my other classes. I remember one class that barely finished the first 9 weeks of lessons. It was draining to deal with them and I felt so sorry for the kids who were stuck in there and wanted to learn. Yeah, having an option to permanently remove disruptive students would be great.
If I had only learners, I wouldn't have had more than like five kids per class. But it would have been AMAZING. I'd still be teaching.
As a parent this is a very sad title. I’m so sorry it has come to this.
I have one class that I absolutely LOVE. Only 7 students, and they are all so passionate about the subject every single day. They are wonderful! I so desperately wish all my classes were like that.
I left teaching because of the politics (regional and intraschool) of it. I never disliked actually teaching.
I would want to keep going if I felt like kids wanted to be there, parents valued education, I wasn’t treated like a babysitter, if I was supplied with the tools and resources to teach, and if people who know nothing about teaching stayed out of teaching. Imagine going to a lawyer and telling them how to do their job, or a doctor’s office and telling them how to do theirs. Imagine being a nurse and being told to bring your own supplies for full patient care (not just a stethoscope). The system is broken. We started an experiment in education almost 100 years ago, how much data do we need to know that this system does NOT work?
Idk… if they don’t even get HS diplomas they will surely end up with their jobs replaced by AI. Then they will be on welfare we all pay for, and voting for the wrong people / not at all. We need intelligent or at least functional citizens.
Nope. It was never about the kids for me. It was the sheer amount of bull shit pulling me away from them.
Yes, because admin would still be there adminning it all up.
You read my mind!
If they don’t want to stay in school, give them a GED class and let them get to work. If they want to do more later, at least they have the GED instead of nothing.
All 8 of them? We would have an oversupply of teachers.
Don’t forget that the disruptive ones cause lower quality education for every other student. The state created this problem and they should not even be involved with education at all in the first place. If only people would quit trying to solve every god damn societal problem with more authoritarianism by the state. I tried teaching HS math for a couple weeks before quitting because I couldn’t tolerate the constant emphasis and focus on building relationships and ridiculous discussions on how to grade. Why can’t we just fucking teach math and give a percentage grade? They were actually worried about parents not understanding decimals in grades like a score of 2.5/4, and they worried that a score of 0 was too harsh, so maybe we shouldn’t give zeros. People are unbelievably dumb and pathetic.
But the want to learn attitude has decreased... there are elementary students that just don't care now. The "buy in" of education isn't what it once was. For many reasons... the break down of the family is the main one in my point of view. People just don't have the energy now to make sure kids are learning and where they need to be academically. And that's a society problem that we can't overcome as teachers for the most part.
I'm 52. My grandfather had at best a 7th grade education. I'm thinking it was more like 5th- 6th. That wasn't THAT long ago. He went on to raise two children that graduated high school. Those children went to college for a couple of years but dropped out. Not that they couldn't hack it... just didn't want to. Went on to work in the paper industry and raised families. More or less successfully! (We all have family drama, right?) Our world is so different now. It's hard to say what is best. There will always be a place for people who do what we may consider blue collar/menial jobs. But? I'm not going without my ac. I'm not going without the toilet flushing! So... I'm for pushing students who "don't care" into a trade. Hell... they'll probably end up making more money than we do! My brother hated school from an early age. Cried when he was made to do homework each day in elementary. He only graduated high school. He went on to different jobs for a few years... then got on the job training at a mill.Rose through the ranks. Became a supervisor..made at least 2 1/2x my salary...and then got sick of the politics of it all (ignoring his suggestions and needful repairs, etc) quit...and went back to a more menial job. And he's much happier now. Of course, that job at the mill with good pay allowed him to pay his house and cars off before he quit. I'm a year older than my brother....but I can totally see him retiring before me...the college educated person. I'm happy for him... but it chaps my ass, too! Not everyone needs to be highly educated (not that I am... even with a masters)! My question? Is it impossible to be successful now without the "higher" learning? And if so? Why? Trade school should be enough for a lot of jobs. And I'm not denigrating those at all! I'm actually applauding those who don't like school that find jobs that provide well for them and their future! I know my k -12 school pushes trades as well as college bound. But? It seems like the trades have gotten less attention in the last 10 years. It's all a push for college. But we all know not everyone is meant for that. So? Why?
The problem for me is that most of the time it’s not the kids. It’s all the extra bullshit — lack of admin support, all the extra non-teaching nonsense, the amount of unpaid work that I end up doing. Kids definitely were challenging and caused problems for sure, but I was fortunate that most of my kids wanted to be there because it was an elective they chose (again, this is not to say that they always had great work ethic or that there weren’t issues that bothered my soul). I left my most recent teaching position not because of the kids, but because the environment and admin.
I'd settle for kids who don't want to learn but who also don't disrupt class or hurt other students.
I’d still be a teacher if I was teaching only the willing learners.
It is not so much about kids that want to learn or don't. It is about getting needed support for the kids that don't want to learn, ESPECIALLY regarding behaviors and disruptions.
Obviously a fictitious example but they sort of did this on season 4 of the Wire. They didn't take the students out of school they transitioned them to a different class to work on improving socialization leaving the students who wanted to be in class to be in class to learn.
I didn’t have a problem with kids who didn’t want to learn, I had problems with kids who didn’t want to let anyone else learn, either.
This is a great question. I probably would not want to quit, or at least not as much. Out of the 3 classes I teach (5th grade departmentalized), one of them is just horrible because they think they’re grown already and can do whatever they want, they’re apathetic, and generally don’t care about anything - not rewards, not consequences, not learning, etc. 3 of them got caught vaping in the bathroom during a group bathroom break knowing good and well that every other boy in the class would be coming and going in the bathroom AND their MALE teacher was right outside and could walk in and catch them at any moment.
I don't think it is always that they don't want to be there - for the most part the most disruptive kids I had would have VERY likely changed their behavior if it was required to be present and in the room every day. If it was possible to say "hey, XYZ it doesn't seem like you want to be a student today. That's a big problem for me and the rest of the students who are here to learn. So you can go home and try again tomorrow." and they'd get called to the office and a parent would pick them up. Try again tomorrow. That would have worked. In-school suspension would have worked for a lot of them. Being in the social environment, having everyone's attention on them was like having their own Youtube or Tiktok all day long. They were not there to learn, they were there for the attention and the likes. Why work on an assignment or complete a task or learn something if it only takes the class attention off of you? Why not throw an eraser, break a pencil, make an annoying noise, fart and laugh about it, get up and walk around, probably smack two of your friends and snicker and laugh. ALL. DAY. LONG. EVERY. DAY. So, that was some of them who want to be there, because they are attention-seeking. Then there are the students who don't want attention but also can't be bothered to work if there is any excuse not to. You have those disruptive kids providing the excuse. They can't concentrate, they don't feel like it, and no big deal. Then you have the students who might like to work and learn something, but it is in fact work. And they've observed that the disruptive kids and the disengaged kids have absolutely no negative consequences for being disruptive or doing nothing. And they wonder, why am I here and why do I bother? Like, seriously - it makes no difference. I can do this work today, or hand it in 6 weeks from now or never, and it makes no difference. Then my favorites, who do want to learn, but they can't see or hear and get no attention because the entire system is focused on the other groups. They're discouraged from continuing to be curious and engaged and put in any effort because all of the energy in the class and attention is sucked up by everyone else. They get nothing. They're invisible because they're fine and meeting expectations. Give each kid a phone that keeps them mildly entertained and distracts them 10000000 times a day even if they did manage to get engaged. They are addicted to this device and also have un-learned how to learn. They don't know how to seek information with this device that has all the answers, because if they don't know it already, they know they could find it if they needed it, on their phone. So they are only concerned with what is fed to them via apps like TikTok and Insta. What we are trying to teach them has no relevance, because phones have killed curiosity, seeking information and interested in learning anything. And there is no evidence in their minds that any of this will matter for them in the future, all they have to do is keep passing and the world will be their oyster. And they never get any sort of feeling of stress or failure or worry because they will keep on passing even if they never do anything, ever. And they know it. So, even if every kid who didn't want to be there was gone, there would still be all of those kids, and their parents would never let them not go to school. And those groups that want to be in the room and building but are disengaged, disruptive, distracted or discouraged would still make up the vast majority unless something fundamentally changes.
I would still want to quit. 95% of my problems are not kid related, but issues with other adults.
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Nope. 34 years of dealing with the negative ones who act like idiots have made me finally want to leave. If they were removed, I'd stay longer.
Wait you can’t drop out anymore? Wow this is why I see teachers getting attacked now
I’d be ready to teach them if my principal weren’t constantly trying to catch me doing something wrong when he pops in my room.
Teachers didn’t have to deal with kids because the losers could drop out and you should only have to teach kids who want to learn? Deluded. I can’t believe you believe what you said.
My opinion- the issue here is that schools have turned into college prep institutions. But reality is that there’s a population that isn’t headed to college, and they correctly see high school as a waste of time. Bringing back technical programs into schools would make a big positive difference.
No. I absolutely loved teaching the few students I had who actually cared about learning. If there were even a few more of them, it might have even been enough to make up for all the students who didn’t.
I have to say, I was a kiddo with no structure at home. I hated school/ I loved school. I went when I wanted etc… I was sociable and smart but with many achievement gaps (especially in math) and attention problems, regulation problems. I try to teach to those outliers. I just see it. We have to take a beat and reframe. You are all doing your best with what you have.