Yelling in school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Student behaviors and student respect for any adults in buildings are both horrific. The kids are out of control, do not care, and make it known. I’m surprised more teachers aren’t yelling. Raise better children, teach them respect, teach them to follow directions, follow rules… etc.

I’ve also noticed that respect goes both ways. The best classroom management I’ve witnessed is from the teachers who genuinely seem to like kids and engage with them age-appropriately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So … there is a culture of yelling at some schools. Watkins. LT. … schools that historically had a lot of lower income kids. You don’t see this at schools like Brent, SWS, etc.

This is one of the stupider posts I've read on here. Watkins gentrified long before Brent. More recently, Brent is far wealthier than Watkins, but "historically" it's the absolute opposite.

Watkins is barely gentrified. You clearly have no experience at the school if you’re going to dispute that there’s a culture of yelling at Watkins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Student behaviors and student respect for any adults in buildings are both horrific. The kids are out of control, do not care, and make it known. I’m surprised more teachers aren’t yelling. Raise better children, teach them respect, teach them to follow directions, follow rules… etc.

Translation: it’s ok to yell at poor kids, because some poor kids have bad behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Student behaviors and student respect for any adults in buildings are both horrific. The kids are out of control, do not care, and make it known. I’m surprised more teachers aren’t yelling. Raise better children, teach them respect, teach them to follow directions, follow rules… etc.

Translation: it’s ok to yell at poor kids, because some poor kids have bad behavior.

If that’s what you got out of PP’s post, maybe you can get in there and show us all how it’s done?
DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Student behaviors and student respect for any adults in buildings are both horrific. The kids are out of control, do not care, and make it known. I’m surprised more teachers aren’t yelling. Raise better children, teach them respect, teach them to follow directions, follow rules… etc.

Translation: it’s ok to yell at poor kids, because some poor kids have bad behavior.

If that’s what you got out of PP’s post, maybe you can get in there and show us all how it’s done?
DP

My kids are at a school where teachers don’t yell. Before that they were at a different school where teachers don’t yell. One DCPS. One charter. Clearly it’s possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Student behaviors and student respect for any adults in buildings are both horrific. The kids are out of control, do not care, and make it known. I’m surprised more teachers aren’t yelling. Raise better children, teach them respect, teach them to follow directions, follow rules… etc.

Translation: it’s ok to yell at poor kids, because some poor kids have bad behavior.

DP but I don't think that's what the PP is saying. I have a kid in a Title 1, high at risk school. The teachers really go out of their way to be kind to the kids. There are many incredibly nurturing, skilled educators there who work especially hard to give the at risk kids a structured, warm, safe environment.

But at a certain age (2nd/3rd seems to be where it crosses over) if you have a critical mass of kids with serious home issues in a classroom, you have very limited choices as a teacher. When the disruptive kids are making it impossible for you to spend any time at all teaching the kids who are actually there to learn, what do you do? Teachers cannot remove these kids from their classrooms for more than short periods of time. They have to deal with them.

Not excusing yelling, but in some cases it's an act of desperation. If a teacher is yelling regularly, they are probably contemplating quitting or moving to another school. Often teachers who are yelling are either young and don't have the self control to avoid it, or they are feeling so unsupported by administration and so burdened that they are running out of options even if they are experienced teachers with good training in classroom management.

A good teacher can handle 2, 3, 4, even 5 kids like this in a classroom. Some teachers are expected to handle 12-15. A dozen kids who won't sit in their seats, who won't work, who get violent if provoked. Can you imagine? Can you imagine if that was your work environment?

We need to get realistic about what it means to mainstream kids with serious issues in today's classrooms. This is one of the top reasons teachers leave the profession. Everyone gets mad when you suggest different environments for these kids but what is the other solution? And in a district like DC where there are many schools where fully half or more of the kids may be disruptive due to IEPs or other at risk factors, what do you think those mainstreamed classrooms are like?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So … there is a culture of yelling at some schools. Watkins. LT. … schools that historically had a lot of lower income kids. You don’t see this at schools like Brent, SWS, etc.

This is one of the stupider posts I've read on here. Watkins gentrified long before Brent. More recently, Brent is far wealthier than Watkins, but "historically" it's the absolute opposite.

Watkins is barely gentrified. You clearly have no experience at the school if you’re going to dispute that there’s a culture of yelling at Watkins.

If there’s a culture of yelling at Watkins, it’s not because historically it had a lot of lower income kids vs Brent. That’s just factually untrue historically. Watkins used to be far more gentrified than it is now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter says she doesn’t want to return to her in-bounds school this coming school year because “all the teachers yell.” Truth be told, I have noticed this myself but have never directly discussed it with her before. I appreciate the difficulty teachers must have with managing ES kids, but it does seem like the default for many is yelling: in the classroom, in the hallways, at recess, at pick-up.

Why is this? Is it the default at other elementary schools? (Ours is Ludlow). I’m not trying to disparage LT - it has a lot of good points, too - but I’m interested in others’ experiences. Thanks.

Substitute JUST ONE DAY. Then come back here and we will chat.

[Anonymous]

There are so many clueless, ignorant people, and the ignorance is exponentially compounding. Please, OP. Find another problem today. They aren't yelling, they have zero tools to teach impossibly disruptive students with no support. Yes, it's that bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All teachers yell at some point in their careers. Especially around this time of year. A teacher trying to get the attention of 20 or more kids has to use a voice of authority at times. It gets better with time, newer teachers yell more.

+1 at least teachers in schools with a good amount of need - and yes especially this time of year.

I agree that need can be a factor BUT higher performing schools with a lot of need do not have the kind of yelling that happens at school that are lower performing. I've worked at both. By higher performing, I mean higher growth of students and higher OSSE report card scores and charter board report scores. These schools, with 60% plus at-risk students, are higher performing because they typically have stronger systems, organized leaders and better teacher retention and better/longer relationships with kids an families. Better structure and support means there are less things frustrating adults and less yelling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter says she doesn’t want to return to her in-bounds school this coming school year because “all the teachers yell.” Truth be told, I have noticed this myself but have never directly discussed it with her before. I appreciate the difficulty teachers must have with managing ES kids, but it does seem like the default for many is yelling: in the classroom, in the hallways, at recess, at pick-up.

Why is this? Is it the default at other elementary schools? (Ours is Ludlow). I’m not trying to disparage LT - it has a lot of good points, too - but I’m interested in others’ experiences. Thanks.

Have you ever tried quietly saying something to large groups of active kids? How did that work for you? How did you get —and hold—the attention of the kids?

FWIW, I’ve spent many years working in elementary and middle schools. I have a very soft voice. I have had some feedback from kids that my very soft voice can, at times, be confusing/intimidating for them. It takes a lot of experience to quietly interact with large groups of kids.

I guess the question is is the teacher loudly talking and the noise a problem (a valid concern especially for young kids with sensory disorders but not necessarily a think every school with huge classes and bad acoustics can control) or are they telling specifically at students.

Because the second is definitely not normal and if teachers are often yelling at students directly (not just loudly talking for attention) then yes that's a problem.

I completely agree. I took “all the teachers yell” to mean teachers using loud teacher-voices to be clearly heard above the noise of a playground, a cafeteria, or an exuberant class of kids — not teachers yelling directly or even punitively AT the students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter says she doesn’t want to return to her in-bounds school this coming school year because “all the teachers yell.” Truth be told, I have noticed this myself but have never directly discussed it with her before. I appreciate the difficulty teachers must have with managing ES kids, but it does seem like the default for many is yelling: in the classroom, in the hallways, at recess, at pick-up.

Why is this? Is it the default at other elementary schools? (Ours is Ludlow). I’m not trying to disparage LT - it has a lot of good points, too - but I’m interested in others’ experiences. Thanks.

I have a lot of questions here.

1) How old is your daughter? I feel differently about a 4 year old saying this versus a 10 year old. Not that I dismiss it either way, but it means different things. Younger kids tend to view things that happened recently as permanent fixtures, older kids have a better sense of context. Some kids are more sensitive to negative events so even if it's occasional, it might impact them more or bother them more.

2) Why are the teachers yelling, and how? You say you have noticed this but... how? Are they yelling during pick-up/recess/in hallways to be heard? That is normal. Teachers sometimes have to be loud to be heard. Are they yelling indiscriminately at all kids or are they yelling at specific kids for specific behavior. Does the behavior merit yelling? Is the yelling worse than letting the behavior continue? And so on. I would be unbothered by seeing a teacher yell to stop a kid from getting out of the lunch line to wander off somewhere -- the teacher has to keep track of the kids and maybe that kid has a history of trying to sneak away during lunch. If the teacher was regularly just yelling at the whole class I'd be concerned. That's just weak classroom management.

Anyway, if you think you are going to find a public school in DC where the teachers never, ever yell for any reason, good luck. A lot of these schools have weak acoustics, sometimes you have to yell on the playground or during pickup to address a safety issue. If your kid is upset by the yelling, definitely investigate that and see if it's a school issue or something going on with your kid. I have a kid with a sensory disorder and raised voices at school are an issue for her (whether it's just a loud classroom or a kid yelling or a teacher raising their voice for any reason, even happily). But that's just an issue we as a family have to find solutions for to help her figure out how to navigate loud situations. I know she's gotten very upset when a teacher has yelled at school but I also have context to understand that the teachers are not just yelling at her all the time -- she's got a sensitivity that is making the normal noise at school more stressful for her, and the teachers at school have always worked with us (via IEP) to make sure she has the support she needs.

My experience in DCPS is that the kids are WAY more likely to be yelling than the teachers, and that most of the teachers have almost superhuman ability to deal with these kids who can be, frankly, a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter says she doesn’t want to return to her in-bounds school this coming school year because “all the teachers yell.” Truth be told, I have noticed this myself but have never directly discussed it with her before. I appreciate the difficulty teachers must have with managing ES kids, but it does seem like the default for many is yelling: in the classroom, in the hallways, at recess, at pick-up.

Why is this? Is it the default at other elementary schools? (Ours is Ludlow). I’m not trying to disparage LT - it has a lot of good points, too - but I’m interested in others’ experiences. Thanks.

Have you ever tried quietly saying something to large groups of active kids? How did that work for you? How did you get —and hold—the attention of the kids?

FWIW, I’ve spent many years working in elementary and middle schools. I have a very soft voice. I have had some feedback from kids that my very soft voice can, at times, be confusing/intimidating for them. It takes a lot of experience to quietly interact with large groups of kids.

I guess the question is is the teacher loudly talking and the noise a problem (a valid concern especially for young kids with sensory disorders but not necessarily a think every school with huge classes and bad acoustics can control) or are they telling specifically at students.

Because the second is definitely not normal and if teachers are often yelling at students directly (not just loudly talking for attention) then yes that's a problem.

I completely agree. I took “all the teachers yell” to mean teachers using loud teacher-voices to be clearly heard above the noise of a playground, a cafeteria, or an exuberant class of kids — not teachers yelling directly or even punitively AT the students.

Even if the kid is saying the teachers yell *at* kids, I'd follow up. My kid will say that her teacher "yelled at" a classmate over misbehavior, but I've chaperoned field trips and been in the classroom and seen this "yelling." It's not yelling. The teachers will scold a student for obvious misbehavior and the kids are sensitive to it because they like their teacher and really dislike receiving her disapproval. So it looks/feels like "yelling" to them. It's actually reflective of how much the look up to their teachers that being scolded or spoken to sharply can have such a strong impact on them.

A teacher who truly yells all the time, the kids will learn to ignore it entirely. If I noticed that a teacher was yelling and the kids were acting like ti was totally normal and not reacting at all, that would make me worry.

[Anonymous]

Schools that have a lot of students who get yelled at by their parents are more likely to have teachers who yell too. Because the yelling parents won't complain about yelling teachers, and because the kids have learned to respond to being yelled at.

[Anonymous]

As a pre-k teacher I totally understand it’s hard to get kids to quiet down sometimes. But it erodes relationships, one day I was just so upset I raised my voice and the kids all told me ‘Ms. X take a deep breath, you’re a little angry.’ I felt so guilty and apologized. I’m just glad they remembered all the breathing strategies I taught them for when they are upset.
I don’t think we should be chronically yelling at kids. It does impact them. You should tell your child to ask them to stop yelling and talk to the teacher if it continues.

As adults we do not like being yelled at, neither do kids. Is this normal at other schools? Well some, I have worked in 5 different ones and yelling happened in 3/5.

There is no excuse but unfortunately DC does not think it’s important to teach teachers how to manage stress like police, firefighters, etc. You may not think it’s necessary but just the other day I had a 5 year old slap me in the face. I mean it’s not as bad as HS by any means but the emotions of twenty+ 4-5 year olds can be a lot, plus parents, and paperwork.