Kids beat up teacher while class watches

[Hope6]

As the mother of a 21 month-old baby, i also find sending my child to school a very scary prospect, i have been seriously considering home schooling him, if i hear many more horror stories from schools and i probably will!

[Accountable]

My students have several strikes against them, being inner-city, poor, neighborhoods overrun with gangs & drugs. Then stack emotional dsabilities, psychoses on top, sometimes with a little mental retardation or a learning disability, just to keep it interesting. I spend most of my day focused on empathy, structure, work ethics, etc. When someone goes off, it's different than the general ed (the "normal") kids. Their rage is greater, but unfocused. I have infinite patience with a kid when he's like that. By talking softly and calmly, I've gained a reputation for never having to resort to the self-defense or restraint tactics I've been taught.



The general ed. kids are different. The anger and violence is focused, purposeful. Sometimes there's no anger at all, but businesslike action. Violence has been woven into the colloquial etiquette here. If someone shows disrespect, you must fight them - and their friends, if necessary. Not doing so shows weakness and opens you up to attack from all sides. When I discuss these things and try to understand, I'm met with the same look I recognize from my time in Asia when I asked why people remove their shoes when they enter a house. It's the way it is - the way it should be. Why would we want it any other way?



I'm a foreigner in my native land.

[Accountable]

rjwould;837402 wrote: Nice post!



And it goes to the heart of the issue IMO.



We as adults don't take no sh!t from anybody when we are disrespected, especially from our kids, do we? They're re emulating us. We say "throw the book at them", they say "I'll kick your ass". And we think we are the bigger, better and smarter person because we don't get violent ourselves. No, we use the muscle of the law.
I don't think you have the first clue what I'm talking about. The place I'm talking about is like nowhere I've ever been. There is no Us in this equation, unless you grew up in that type of neighborhood.



But don't let me stop your flaggelation.

[koan]

I've never lived in a ghetto. I've never gone to school at a time where they teach you to hide under your desk and below window height from gunmen as standard safety protocol. I didn't grow up in a time when essential food items became so expensive people started rioting to overthrow governments.

Our whole world is falling apart. Do we think our children can't read? Do we think they don't know what world we are handing over to them? Are we not teaching them violence and hate every time another "this isn't an official war" takes place?

Who is failing whom?

[yaaarrrgg]

It's interesting how attitudes towards education have changed in some ways, although stayed the same as well. I remember talking to my grandparents (who grew up in the great depression) ...

My grandfather dropped out of school at an early age to work (after his father was killed in a bridge construction). He never learned to read until he was an adult, although is one of the sharpest people I know. He worked as a carpenter, and even built the house he still lives in. I wouldn't have a clue how to do that.

The idea that you need an formal education to survive is somewhat of a modern idea... and it's an odd one at that. How on Earth did people survive up to this point, when the supposed necessary tool for their survival was only implemented (in current form) within the last hundred years?

Has it been the case that after twelve years of mandatory formal education, people have come to be trained (or institutionalized?) into thinking that it's the only possible route to a decent livelihood? It's like if you don't follow the path that everyone else does, you are somehow a bad person.

[Patsy Warnick]

Accountable

Great post

You've mentioned all the frustration - anger - severe tempers in students.

Where in (your opinion) do you think all this anger - rage is stemming from ?

RED

Great thread

Patsy

[CARLA]

Beating a Teacher sensless while the rest of the class watches is WRONG by any standards. This child should be taken out of school immediately. If we don't gain control of our young people soon there will be more of this each and every day.

Sorry kids should not be allowed to run the schools, the play grounds, the lunch rooms or any part of the campus. If it means having guards in classes till the shape up or ship out so be it. We can't let this continue or we will never see the end of it.

How dare they even imply that this was the teachers fault. What is wrong with us in todays world have we become so numb that we don't even know right from wrong when it beats us in the face in a classroom.

If we don't start protecting our Teacher and the rest of the staff in our schools our children will have NO TEACHERS AT ALL. I sure as hell wouldn't want to teach in today classrooms to violent, dangerous and out of control. But lets keep telling ourselves it's the other guys problem and little Suzie, or Johnny is just having a bad day.

No student should be allowed to advance into a Teacher face ever. If our children are to afraid to stand up and help then we have failed them and oursleves in every aspect of respect for another HUMAN BEING. :-5:-5

[Patsy Warnick]

Carla

I so agree with you..

What do you think makes or allows kids to fear nothing - absolute no respect..??

Where does this attitude come from?

Patsy

[CARLA]

Patsy, I can only speak from my experience as a Soccer coach for many years seeing the worst in adults and kids. I can say that most of it comes for the ADULTS around them always. Monkey see Monkey do they have exposure to way to many things that we never saw till we were adults and we are seeing them acted out daily.

Violence is on TV, in the papers, on the Internet at your finger tips you can watch a beating on YOUTUBE when ever you wish. Just to much for young minds to absorb correctly and we are see that big time now.

We have to get back to basics respect your elders, speak when your spoken to, say yes sir, yes mam, thank you, please, and wait your turn in lines. If you don't get your way all the time your will learn patience and how to earn what you want.

[QUOTE]What do you think makes or allows kids to fear nothing - absolute no respect..??

Where does this attitude come from?

Patsy[/QUOTE]

[mrsK]

CARLA;837427 wrote: Patsy I can only speak from my experience as a Soccer coach for many years seeing the worst in adults and kids. I can say that most of it comes for the ADULTS around them always. Monkey see Monkey do they have exposure to way to many things that we never saw till we were adults and we are seeing them acted out daily.

Violence is on TV, in the papers, on the Internet at your finger tips you can watch a beating on YOUTUBE when ever you wish. Just to much for young minds to absorb correctly and we are see that big time now.

We have to get back to basics respect your elders, speak when your spoken to, say yes sir, yes mam, thank you, please, and wait your turn in lines. If you don't get your way all the time your will learn patience and how to earn what you want.


I agree once again. Good post Carla.

I see anger in kids everyday.

Then I look at how the parents are/react when they come into school for interviews.

I know where some of the anger is coming from.

It's coming from the parents.

How can kids be expected to be calm & know how to treat others with respect if they have no role models like their parents teaching them respect & good manners etc?



We need to let our kids be kids not push them into growing up to fast.

[RedGlitter]

RJ has a point, although you have to weed through the chaff to find it. How about this: we stop treating kids like kids and start treating them like people. This means we abolish physical discipline because if we want them not to be abusive, we must not be abusive to them. You can't punish a kid for getting physical on someone when it's what you've taught them through old and foolish methods. However this doesn't mean we mollycoddle the kids either. It means if you get caught shoving marbles up your brother's nose, you might get hit. And for sure if you assault a teacher, that teacher has every right, kid or not, to wail on you in return. Teach and SHOW that respect goes BOTH ways. Change those crappy methods of discipline, change what we teach in schools, get kids involved in something outside of themselves. If they're mentally angry get them assessed and if drugs help, so be it. There's no shame in that. But stop all this finger pointing. We've been doing it at least since I was a kid and it still isn't working. Popping the kid in the head or waylaying his butt is stupid and not the proper answer and assuaging him isn't either. We may not like the way RJ puts his stuff across, but if you look closely you will find a nugget of truth in what he's saying. To say this girl in the OP isn't at fault is absurd. Of course she is. But find out why she is. Then act. There is something wrong with that whole damn class. How many ways is it wrong?

-Failing to step in when a person needed help

-Failing to prevent assault on a woman

-filming it with their damned phones

We still have that "don't wanna get involved" mentality and it's rubbed off. I'm guessing these kids live in a place where camraderie among neighbors is unheard of. When you get involved in your community, it's hard not to develop a sense of neighborhood. For lack of a better word. I think there's something wrong when we try to explain this stuff away.

[Patsy Warnick]

Carla

I so agree with you

This particular story turns my stomach

As far as I'm concerned - everyone in that room - at that scene is Guilty

Guilty of assault. to observe this and do nothing.. then film this assault.??

And then to add fuel - these Brats have wealthy parents - schools won't press issues - always comes down to money..

Well - in the GOOD 'OLE DAY'S when we didn't have wealthy parents -

We had RESPECT

Patsy

[koan]

In my hometown, the people who seem to own multiple homes are the trades people. The best of the trades people apprenticed.

[Santanico]

RedGlitter;837432 wrote: RJ has a point, although you have to weed through the chaff to find it. How about this: we stop treating kids like kids and start treating them like people. This means we abolish physical discipline because if we want them not to be abusive, we must not be abusive to them. You can't punish a kid for getting physical on someone when it's what you've taught them through old and foolish methods. However this doesn't mean we mollycoddle the kids either. It means if you get caught shoving marbles up your brother's nose, you might get hit. And for sure if you assault a teacher, that teacher has every right, kid or not, to wail on you in return. Teach and SHOW that respect goes BOTH ways. Change those crappy methods of discipline, change what we teach in schools, get kids involved in something outside of themselves. If they're mentally angry get them assessed and if drugs help, so be it. There's no shame in that. But stop all this finger pointing. We've been doing it at least since I was a kid and it still isn't working. Popping the kid in the head or waylaying his butt is stupid and not the proper answer and assuaging him isn't either. We may not like the way RJ puts his stuff across, but if you look closely you will find a nugget of truth in what he's saying. To say this girl in the OP isn't at fault is absurd. Of course she is. But find out why she is. Then act. There is something wrong with that whole damn class. How many ways is it wrong?

-Failing to step in when a person needed help

-Failing to prevent assault on a woman

-filming it with their damned phones

We still have that "don't wanna get involved" mentality and it's rubbed off. I'm guessing these kids live in a place where camraderie among neighbors is unheard of. When you get involved in your community, it's hard not to develop a sense of neighborhood. For lack of a better word. I think there's something wrong when we try to explain this stuff away.


Great post. I think you hit the nail on the head with people developing a sense of community - no-one talks to their neighbours anymore. I've had freinds who have been robbed in broad daylight because a moving van showed up & started carting things away, and because none of the neighbours knew her, they didn't know she wasn't moving, so nobody called the police.

And as for treating children like people - what kind of drugs are you on?! Children aren't people, they're something to be feared & reviled!! :p (j/k)

I think the main reason kids don't show respect is because they aren't shown respect. If you talk to your kids honestly about how things are, they will know they can come to you when they have problems. I have a 14 year old boy who is one of the most well-mannered, polite, mature kids I've ever met, and my friends with older boys keep saying "Just wait" Well, I'm waiting. His father and I have always treated him like a person, spoken to him honestly about things and not gone off tap at him when he's told us he's done the wrong thing, just discussed it with him to see if we can all find a way to make sure it doesn't happen again. And I tell you now, I doubt there's much he's done that we don't know about.

Give children a sense of pride in themselves and they won't want to beat up their teachers!

[koan]

JAB;837419 wrote: So it's all society's fault and parents are completly blameless?


Last time I checked parents belonged to society.

[Accountable]

rjwould;837412 wrote: Should have expected as much...You have no idea where I've been..
Okay ..... enlighten us, please.

[Accountable]

Patsy Warnick;837422 wrote: Accountable

Great post

You've mentioned all the frustration - anger - severe tempers in students.



Where in (your opinion) do you think all this anger - rage is stemming from ?



RED

Great thread



Patsy
With my kids the anger & rage primarily comes from chemical imbalances in the brain. I just try to give rules and structure until the synapses connect in the frontal lobe, which enables them to have more self-control.



For the general ed. kids: my point was that much of the violence is without anger, and seldom any rage at all. It's become part of the culture. It's etiquette! So many of the neighborhood leaders have been to prison that the prison culture has intermixed. Sure I'm talking about the extremes, but it's the extremes that are doing all the violence.

[koan]

My daughter told a counselor once that she felt safe. He was so impressed. He said that feeling safe was one of the most important things a child needed growing up and so few people even knew that "safe" was an important feeling let alone had that sense.

How do we help kids feel safe? A lot of people think giving a kid a good life means either making sure they have everything they want or know they can get everything they want but that is translated into the latest video games or a new pair of shoes. How many kids feel safe just as a general feeling?

There will never be a time when all kids can be raised on a Dr Spock program and the world will become a better place. Humans have no manuals. There may come a time again when people realise that they have to use their own common sense instead of buying the latest yuppie manual on how to be perfect and following a 12 step program for success.

I don't see any progress being made by threatening kids with old style corporeal punishment if they don't start pleasing us again. Our problem is the generation old enough to buy weapons if we annoy them enough.

[koan]

I don't think kids are meant to be "pliable" and well "trained".

Schools are not factories. Schools should help kids discover where their interests and talents are. If we use them like the meat grinder that Pink Floyd characterized in The Wall we end up with meat heads. I think every child enters the world with something unique and valuable. They only lose their shine when we ignore them or cover them in slime.

School is not the answer it is the means.

Getting a good education is not in itself meaningful. The education needs to be related to what interests the child and what they feel they want to do with their lives. I grew up in a time when being a doctor or lawyer was the ideal educational result. The cream of the crop. I personally have little use for doctors or lawyers in my day to day life and have never had either profession on my wish list of romantic partner.

There is nothing disreputable about being a plummer, an artist, a landscaper... and there is no reason why a person needs a university degree to live a good life. We have, however, reached a point where it's hard to even get a volunteer job unless you're enrolled in a university program. That's outrageous.

Not to pick on teachers with this example, here's a comparison between "then and now":

My mother became a teacher when all that was needed was a highschool diploma and a year of teachers college. She loves children. She didn't get paid much. She became a teacher because that's what she loved to do. Some teachers still teach for that reason but many do not. Now, to become a teacher you need a bachelor degree from a university and a year of teachers college. Getting into the teachers college is extremely difficult because of the waiting list. The waiting list is full of people who want to be teachers because of the work day hours and the summer vacation. They get paid quite well. By the time I graduated from highschool nobody I can think of was choosing their career based on what they loved to do. They were choosing it based on employment rates and salary.

People were graduating from university with general BAs and not being able to find work. More and more people started choosing Colleges and trade school for the placement rates. Funding was cut for school grants so only the wealthy could afford to take extended degrees without scholarships. The media and reality shows seem to have turned wealth into a gamblers game. Kids get hooked on the idea that the best career is to be discovered as a musical talent or an actor or to be the one willing to eat maggots.

[CARLA]

Exactly Jester School is a means to learn many thing but violence is not some thing they should be learning and that is what is happening.

Back to basic doesn't mean teacher are the ruler slamming witches of the past. But RESPECT must be put back into our schools on all levels Teachers, Students, Staff and property the schools is on.

As Koan said SAFETY is a must in schools for our kids. They don't feel safe or able to stand up against the bad element that rule some of the campuses across our Nation. Until they do we won't gain any ground at all. :-5:-5

[QUOTE]Kids must, be able to learn in schools, and we must give them the tools in order to succeed as parents, part of that is making sure that when a teacher gives a request as simple as do your homework, that it is done when the assignments due, barring any unusual circumtances like a death in the family.

Im not advocating we make our kids doormats to be trambled underfoot by an authoritarian teacher. But, nor do I want my kids argueing back with a teacher that is an authoritarian out of control, I want them to come tell me, thier higher authority, and I'll deal with the teachers. Thats my part of the job, protecting them and placing them under the authorities I trust to do the job.[/QUOTE]

[Bryn Mawr]

yaaarrrgg;837415 wrote: It's interesting how attitudes towards education have changed in some ways, although stayed the same as well. I remember talking to my grandparents (who grew up in the great depression) ...

My grandfather dropped out of school at an early age to work (after his father was killed in a bridge construction). He never learned to read until he was an adult, although is one of the sharpest people I know. He worked as a carpenter, and even built the house he still lives in. I wouldn't have a clue how to do that.

The idea that you need an formal education to survive is somewhat of a modern idea... and it's an odd one at that. How on Earth did people survive up to this point, when the supposed necessary tool for their survival was only implemented (in current form) within the last hundred years?

Has it been the case that after twelve years of mandatory formal education, people have come to be trained (or institutionalized?) into thinking that it's the only possible route to a decent livelihood? It's like if you don't follow the path that everyone else does, you are somehow a bad person.


A hundred years ago jobs consisted of manual labour or writing records into books. Even where jobs required training such as engineering, the level of technology was such that a suck it and see approach could get you by and you could learn on the job.

We exist now in a technological age. To get meaningful (high paid) work you have to be computer literate, numerate and able to communicate effectively.

It is not that without education you are a bad person, more that you do require an education to survive in the modern world.

[Bryn Mawr]

Jester;838121 wrote: True, and well said, but its not an all time truth, there are exceptions. I dont have much more than a basic highschool education, I guess it shows, but by all worldy accounts I am a highly successful person. I worked manual labor mostly all my life, I learned the technical skills needed, but do not have a formal degree. The thing is that for the most part opportunities abound, one just needs to learn how to market themselves and fill the niche.

And as a point of dicsussion, my work is very meaningful to me, the ethics of a job well done, some extra polish and making my customers satisfied as they pay me for honest work is a huge success in my book, despite the fact that I clean grease, or secure a public lobby, or make a production line less unjurious and more productive to the workers.

I have said before here and other places that we do need to encourage trades/labor education and artisian type technical skills as options for our school system. To be perfectly honest, I learned more about real life in industrial arts (woodworking, electrical and welding/metalwork) than I learned in math or english, both are necessary for some kids. I'm not talking about technical skills, Im talking about problem solving, creativity, and good old fashioned failure and rebuilding. Those are valuable skills in which can only be learned by hands on experince for some kids.

But we cant really get there, to that point of teaching if a teacher is still correcting basic behavior in a few of the students at the higschool level, its too distracting to the other kids, yet a teacher cant very well put up with it either because it ignores the problems.


An honest day's work for an honest day's pay and doing a job that you are proud of go a long way in my book - if you're not satisfied with the job you've done then how can you expect your employer to be?

I totally agree about the vocational training - one of the worst things Maggie did was stopping apprenticeships. There is a need for the trades and that is the best way of training those suited to them.

Having said that, the number of trade and manual jobs is going down - we are moving from a manufacturing base to a service industry base and we're reliant on skilled workers. At the end of the day, the up and coming countries can always undercut us as their labour costs are less - and there will always be up and coming countries.

The only way we'll compete is by having more skilful, a better trained, workforce or by dropping our labour costs to match theirs.

[koan]

I think apprenticeship programs are the absolute best way to deal with reducing highschool dropouts and the insane costs of education. If kids had the option of entering apprenticeship programs instead of attending classes that they can't tolerate we might see a more productive society emerge. I also think we need to give louder praise to the value of good tradespeople.

I don't care what someone does for a living I just think they need to do it well.

[Bryn Mawr]

Jester;838222 wrote: Well then... I think we all agree for the most part in those last few posts, the question now is how do we change it because that isnt happening and tradeschools are built by the unions (at least in the US) I have my own personal problems with the unions here which is a total aside, but we still cant get the tradeschools back in full swing and part of the problem is that technical schools are mostly privatized and very small and very costly, or they are devised in labor unions... even the skills I learned in industrial arts wasnt sufficient to go out and get a job even in a trade union.

And we still hav'nt dealt with the behavior problems that exists now. Granted some of the problems decrease when we give out hope to the kids, but isolated problems like this girl/incident will continue to exist.


The problem over here is that, in an attempt to reduce the headline unemployment rate (we count those actively (cough) seeking work rather than the number in work), the government have been trying to "encourage" young adults to stay in full time education and then pass into further education and have removed the tax breaks and payments that encouraged firms to take on apprentices. This made it uneconomic for the companies to run training schools themselves and the Technical Colleges and Polytechnics have been pushed into becoming Universities offering academic qualifications rather than vocational training.

It has started to improve over the last couple of years as the problem has become too obvious to ignore but it's too little, too late - the link has been broken and, in many cases, the last of the apprentice trained workers who would have trained the next generation have already retired.

[Patsy Warnick]

Jester

You mentioned UNIONS - they're weak, and very few left worth interest.

There are more " Right to Work States" with very low pay for wages.

I suppose Teamsters would be the strongest Union overall.

Patsy