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Post by psoccer on Dec 29, 2019 17:44:25 GMT
I have been teaching 5th grade for almost 20 years. I don't feel it is the children, as much as the parents, that have changed. In the beginning, if I had a student that was disruptive, I would first try to fix it in my room, then I would go to a prior teacher and see if they had the same issues, and what worked, and as the last resort I would call the parent and have a conversation. We would work together to come up with an solution. Now, if there is an issue with a student and I call a parent, it is usually a very defensive phone call, "not my child, this has never happened before (ha, I talked to other teachers and same issues), he must not like you,...and on and on so that we don't have a resolution. I may only talk to one parent a year about a behavioral problem, but it is no longer a team effort but their child's behavior is my fault.
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paigepea
Drama Llama
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Jun 26, 2014 4:28:55 GMT
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Post by paigepea on Dec 29, 2019 18:39:32 GMT
Behavior charts, checks on the board, etc. are strongly discouraged around here because they're ineffective, do tend to cause anxiety in some students, and can even be considered a violation of privacy. I am surprised anyone still uses those. Seems like public shaming to me, and as you say they are not effective. I totally remember those kinds of “strategies “ being used when I was in elementary school, in the 70’s and 80’s. Last year, my dd’s second language teacher used quizlet. The kids would do homework lessons on line on quizlet. Some homework involved games that practiced words learned, etc. Dd did it on her own and I thought nothing of it until she came to me one day and said she felt badly for some kids who didn’t do well in the games. Turns out the kids were ranked on the quizlet program. Some kids couldn’t do well on the games so we’re ranked at the bottom but really, someone needs to be at the bottom - it doesn’t matter if they’re all A students. So it was all dumb. The teacher wouldn’t change the program and dd continued to feel bad for the kids who were consistently at the bottom - surprise these were the same kids who acted out in this class and disliked it. Who ever thought that was a good way to encourage and inspire kids? |
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paigepea
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Posts: 5,609
Location: BC, Canada
Jun 26, 2014 4:28:55 GMT
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Post by paigepea on Dec 29, 2019 18:46:45 GMT
I am surprised anyone still uses those. Seems like public shaming to me, and as you say they are not effective. I totally remember those kinds of “strategies “ being used when I was in elementary school, in the 70’s and 80’s. The current crisis in teaching as I see it is that teachers cannot really punish students for anything, and punishments are ineffective anyway, but new teachers are also dumped into a classroom without any real understanding of how to establish and reinforce classroom routines and procedures, build relationships with students, write and pace a lesson effectively to minimize students checking out and acting up, and manage problem behavior before it gets out of control. These are things you learn through experience, not in a classroom and not in your whopping one semester of student teaching. In addition to changing how school is structured, we also need to change how teachers become teachers. There needs to be some kind of intern/apprenticeship requirement where you don't get a classroom of your own until you've worked under an experienced teacher for at least a couple of years. No one throws a new surgeon into the OR right out of medical school and says, "this patient is yours - good luck," but that's exactly what we do to new teachers. And so they end up overwhelmed and frustrated and try everything under the sun to get their classroom to run calmly, including old strategies like behavior charts. And then half of them give up and leave the profession within five years, and we scratch our heads and wonder why. In today’s world I think schools are scared of punishing. Our school expelled a student in October after years of problems and many issues. By December the mom was on the news saying how poorly her dd was treated and of course it’s all lies but the school can’t counter in public because it’s all confidential. It’s amazing how quickly news outlets will put stories without evidence into TV and in print. Such and such principal was in the news for taking pizza away from kids - there was a big backstory but the dad of one kid went straight to social media and everyone hates the principal. There is no control. |
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Post by 950nancy on Dec 29, 2019 19:14:33 GMT
I have been teaching 5th grade for almost 20 years. I don't feel it is the children, as much as the parents, that have changed. In the beginning, if I had a student that was disruptive, I would first try to fix it in my room, then I would go to a prior teacher and see if they had the same issues, and what worked, and as the last resort I would call the parent and have a conversation. We would work together to come up with an solution. Now, if there is an issue with a student and I call a parent, it is usually a very defensive phone call, "not my child, this has never happened before (ha, I talked to other teachers and same issues), he must not like you,...and on and on so that we don't have a resolution. I may only talk to one parent a year about a behavioral problem, but it is no longer a team effort but their child's behavior is my fault. I taught fifth grade for 28 years and this is exactly how I saw things with parents reactions. I had one grandparent come unglued over what she perceived was me hating her grandchild because he brought in only one box of kleenexes. Thankfully that got fixed and the kid was really a great person, but man, sometimes people just have to step back and calmly talk to the other adult and see if the situation was really the way the child perceived it to be. |
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pyccku
Pearl Clutcher
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Post by pyccku on Dec 29, 2019 20:10:20 GMT
There are some changes but I don't think it affects all kids equally.
The "top tier" kids who have been successful in the past continue to be successful. I have lots of students who work their butts off. They know how to manage time, prioritize, and aren't on their phones 24/7.
The "bottom tier" kids who had trouble being successful in school continue to struggle, but sometime they are able to get more help than kids in the past.
Where I see a big difference is in the "middle tier" kids - the ones who muddle along, get mostly C's with a few B's and D's mixed in, and end up graduating but not really having any big goals other than to have a job and a family some day. They may go to community college, or maybe not. These are the kids that I see getting sucked into a pit with the phones and distractions. They don't know how to put them away. They want to be entertained at all times, and the phone allows that. They may not stand out in school, but online they can feel good about winning a game or making a meme that gets passed around, whatever. These kids aren't getting C's anymore because they are too distracted - they are getting D's with a few C's and some F's mixed in. Their parents may or many not really expect much from them, don't know how to get them to care, or maybe they were middle kids themselves - so they don't always care if the kids end up following the same path.
The problem is that the middle group is a LOT of kids. While they aren't disruptive (because they are on their phones, not acting out in class), it's not good for us to have such a HUGE group of kids who aren't going anywhere and don't know how to prepare themselves for success. Some of them have potential, but instead of putting in the effort to get good at something, they are fine just being entertained in their downtime. Of course when they are adults, they won't really have anything to show for all of the hours put in on fortnite or surviv.io or COD - but they won't have anything to show for the other things they did either. They may or may not graduate on time, they probably won't go on to post-secondary, and if they do, they probably won't be prepared for it.
Unfo
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pyccku
Pearl Clutcher
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Post by pyccku on Dec 29, 2019 20:19:37 GMT
The current crisis in teaching as I see it is that teachers cannot really punish students for anything, and punishments are ineffective anyway, but new teachers are also dumped into a classroom without any real understanding of how to establish and reinforce classroom routines and procedures, build relationships with students, write and pace a lesson effectively to minimize students checking out and acting up, and manage problem behavior before it gets out of control. These are things you learn through experience, not in a classroom and not in your whopping one semester of student teaching. One thing that I have seen in my 25 years is that the teaching assignments are not always the most sensible. The teachers with tenure and experience get to pick their courses and they generally want the honors kids, the AP courses. They don't pick the inclusion 9th grade course. Who gets those? Yep, the teachers with the least experience. New teachers need support, and throwing them in a classroom with 15 different IEPs and hormonally-challenged 14-yr olds isn't the best way to do it. I think you are touching the core of the problem. I work at a small, out in the boonies, school. Every class has at least one student with extremely disruptive behavior. Hitting, biting, throwing furniture, cursing, hell bent on hurting someone kind of behavior. Many classes have two or more kids with these heavy issues. At the same time, class sizes grow while funds are being cut. Often, the teacher is alone in the classroom. It's not just kids. I was at the dog park today and two dogs started fighting. The one just would not let go of the other. The owner of the dog being attacked (which was the larger dog) finally got his dog away from the attacker and left the park. The other dog/owner stayed at the park. As I was leaving the park, the owner of the one that was attacked was talking to another person who was coming in. He was telling him that he didn't get why the owner of the aggressive dog was staying - wouldn't you be worried that your dog might hurt another dog, if it's already causing trouble? Maybe it was just that day, or that particular dog, or whatever...but why wouldn't you leave the park to allow the dog to cool down a bit? But obviously the owner of the aggressive dog saw nothing wrong with her dog hanging out in the park, even if it meant other dogs were in danger and other people felt they had to leave. Nobody wants to accept that their little angel might be causing trouble and perhaps needs to find a better placement. |
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Post by dewryce on Dec 31, 2019 20:27:20 GMT
Totally. I have been teaching for over 20 years. I am not super old, so I don’t think that I am just cranky and over it either. I have fellow teachers tell me that I am extremely patient and I still love teaching and being around kids, so I don’t think it is due to burnout. Kids are just less focused, as are their parents. I know we have discussed this before, but parents are so involved with their phones at pick up and drop off that they barely acknowledge their kids. They are always in a hurry to get from school to place B. At sports practice, kids museums, and restaurants I see parents on their phones and not paying a bit of attention to their kids, at restaurants and grocery stores I see kids on tablets and phones. They talk about how they watch shows in the car. I didn’t grow up like that at all, and neither did anyone else teaching. This is the first generation that will never know what it was like to not have internet, phones and computers they can carry around with them. It is absolutely not a change for the better. People in general are less engaged with each other.We just got back from Las Vegas and he number of tables with entire families on their phones, even at fine dining restaurants, was astounding. There was only one place we did not witness this, out of the 5 tables the only indescreet phone usage was a woman taking tons of photos and selfies. At least she had her flash off. |
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