Started working at an elementary school last week. Shocked and sad. AMA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are there any statistics on how often this is happening in schools? Like is it once per week, or twice per day in every grade? My daughter is in 5th and I never hear anything like this happening. We're in a mid-size, high-SES/UPC public school. FCPS.

I'm a teacher and would love to know this. We are able to submit discipline referrals via our online system but we can't see what happens after that. Administrators do not like to have a high number of referrals so we're actively discouraged from submitting anything unless it's really serious. There's a lot of shaming at some schools and teachers are made to feel inadequate if they continuously refer students, even if it is egregious behavior. I suspect parents would be livid if they realized how often it's happening though.

ES teacher here and I avoid involving administrators for the reasons you mention.

This. Teachers get a "reputation" if they refer students to admin. Also, teachers get the better teaching assignments and better school assignments if they don't have a "reputation."

This really sucks. The public is the real employer of teachers, not the school admin. The school admin is only required to handle paperwork.

Teachers need to start bypassing admin somehow and reaching parents directly with their concerns and decisions. Perhaps anonymously through the media but ideally through lobbying government for the support that they need. Isn’t this what teachers unions should be doing?

Absolutely incorrect. But next time a cop pulls you over, be sure to tell them “I pay your salary!” Record it, so we can all watch how that goes for you.

Just because a cop would react poorly to that information doesn't mean it's false.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are there any statistics on how often this is happening in schools? Like is it once per week, or twice per day in every grade? My daughter is in 5th and I never hear anything like this happening. We're in a mid-size, high-SES/UPC public school. FCPS.

I'm a teacher and would love to know this. We are able to submit discipline referrals via our online system but we can't see what happens after that. Administrators do not like to have a high number of referrals so we're actively discouraged from submitting anything unless it's really serious. There's a lot of shaming at some schools and teachers are made to feel inadequate if they continuously refer students, even if it is egregious behavior. I suspect parents would be livid if they realized how often it's happening though.

ES teacher here and I avoid involving administrators for the reasons you mention.

This. Teachers get a "reputation" if they refer students to admin. Also, teachers get the better teaching assignments and better school assignments if they don't have a "reputation."

This really sucks. The public is the real employer of teachers, not the school admin. The school admin is only required to handle paperwork.

Teachers need to start bypassing admin somehow and reaching parents directly with their concerns and decisions. Perhaps anonymously through the media but ideally through lobbying government for the support that they need. Isn’t this what teachers unions should be doing?

Absolutely incorrect. But next time a cop pulls you over, be sure to tell them “I pay your salary!” Record it, so we can all watch how that goes for you.

Just because a cop would react poorly to that information doesn't mean it's false.

The public is not the 'real' employer of any of them. The public pay for their rights as citizens and they collectively vote on the kind of society they want to live in and agree to the processes of change afforded to them by their country (or work to change them). They do not hire/fire individual public service people so they are not their employers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are there any statistics on how often this is happening in schools? Like is it once per week, or twice per day in every grade? My daughter is in 5th and I never hear anything like this happening. We're in a mid-size, high-SES/UPC public school. FCPS.

I'm a teacher and would love to know this. We are able to submit discipline referrals via our online system but we can't see what happens after that. Administrators do not like to have a high number of referrals so we're actively discouraged from submitting anything unless it's really serious. There's a lot of shaming at some schools and teachers are made to feel inadequate if they continuously refer students, even if it is egregious behavior. I suspect parents would be livid if they realized how often it's happening though.

ES teacher here and I avoid involving administrators for the reasons you mention.

This. Teachers get a "reputation" if they refer students to admin. Also, teachers get the better teaching assignments and better school assignments if they don't have a "reputation."

This really sucks. The public is the real employer of teachers, not the school admin. The school admin is only required to handle paperwork.

Teachers need to start bypassing admin somehow and reaching parents directly with their concerns and decisions. Perhaps anonymously through the media but ideally through lobbying government for the support that they need. Isn’t this what teachers unions should be doing?

Absolutely incorrect. But next time a cop pulls you over, be sure to tell them “I pay your salary!” Record it, so we can all watch how that goes for you.

If the public doesn’t like what’s happening in a police department then of course things change. Haven’t you been watching the news over the past few years?

But anyway, your analogy isn’t right. It would be more like the public liking the police officers but hating the police administration who are basically stopping the police officers from doing their jobs. And if that happened then you can bet that the administration would be fired and we would get people that we like to replace them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Informal AMA thread. I am already shocked and saddened by the state of public elementary. This is in a wealthy suburb. There’s is a free lunch contingent but test scores are excellent and if you watch morning drop off it’s a lot of luxury vehicles.

I’m shocked at how we enroll and keep some kids who have academic and social needs we can’t possibly meet. Often a helper is assigned to one of these kids to try to keep the kid safe while 20 other 6 years old try to ignore yelling and crying and distraction to learn from their teacher. I’ve heard 7 year olds using language I’d feel guilty about even repeating! I’ve watched teacher be kicked and punched and slapped, again by 6 and 7 year olds! And the hot lunches shocked me. The other day I watched one kid eat the following for lunch: giant chocolate chip muffin, chocolate milk, sugary Dannon yogurt, low fat string cheese. This is a “balanced” meal provided by the school.

Maybe I am just out of touch, but I feel many typical parents would be surprised to hear what elementary school is like for their kids.

So true. I taught in one, had a student throw pencils across the room and jump up on the cubby area. It's crazy. I quit shortly thereafter. The sad and scary thing is, the admin often turned a blind eye and even worse try to throw you as THE FREAKING teacher under the bus for the actions of the kid. I was flabbergasted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers ARE talking about these issues. Just search “teachers quitting violence” and you’ll get pages of results.

Well it seems like those complaints are getting lost in the noise. I just read an article from CNN about teacher shortage and they listed several things but made it seem like the biggest issues were low salary and “ grappling with culture wars over what they can and cannot teach in the classroom”.

If you want violent and disruptive kids to be seen as the big issue that should be addressed immediately then you need to make that clear to the media.

WE don't have the time or the energy. Heres an idea how about the parents who want to kick and scream about "grooming" go to the media with actual true complaints that their child is in an unsafe environment that is not conducive to learning. Maybe parents could do that for us. Go make some noise about things actually happening. We are all tired of the stupidity and time wasted debating CRT. Teachers-especially SPED teacher are leaving in high numbers and this will continue due to a lack of support with behaviors and other ridiculous working conditions. Parents go complain about something real-THIS is it. Teachers are quitting-colleges are seeing a noticeable decline in students applying for their education programs.

If we did, we’d be called terrible things and have our reputations destroyed. Read this site and you will quickly learn that anyone questioning anything their teacher teaches in regard to gender/ identity or social justice issues is immediately branded a MAGA devotee or worse. My family had a pretty traumatic experience with a teacher but I am employed and would like to stay that way, so we did our best to address it as quietly as possible. No way is anyone in my shoes going to talk to the media. I wish we could have rational conversations about these very important topics but we can’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers ARE talking about these issues. Just search “teachers quitting violence” and you’ll get pages of results.

Well it seems like those complaints are getting lost in the noise. I just read an article from CNN about teacher shortage and they listed several things but made it seem like the biggest issues were low salary and “ grappling with culture wars over what they can and cannot teach in the classroom”.

If you want violent and disruptive kids to be seen as the big issue that should be addressed immediately then you need to make that clear to the media.

WE don't have the time or the energy. Heres an idea how about the parents who want to kick and scream about "grooming" go to the media with actual true complaints that their child is in an unsafe environment that is not conducive to learning. Maybe parents could do that for us. Go make some noise about things actually happening. We are all tired of the stupidity and time wasted debating CRT. Teachers-especially SPED teacher are leaving in high numbers and this will continue due to a lack of support with behaviors and other ridiculous working conditions. Parents go complain about something real-THIS is it. Teachers are quitting-colleges are seeing a noticeable decline in students applying for their education programs.

If we did, we’d be called terrible things and have our reputations destroyed. Read this site and you will quickly learn that anyone questioning anything their teacher teaches in regard to gender/ identity or social justice issues is immediately branded a MAGA devotee or worse. My family had a pretty traumatic experience with a teacher but I am employed and would like to stay that way, so we did our best to address it as quietly as possible. No way is anyone in my shoes going to talk to the media. I wish we could have rational conversations about these very important topics but we can’t.

I have yet to read a single specific example on this site that happened that I think is legitimate. All I hear is a lot of hearsay, potential issues, shared talking points. Of course real people can have problematic experiences with a particular teacher--but that is a particular example and they should handle it as an individual with the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers ARE talking about these issues. Just search “teachers quitting violence” and you’ll get pages of results.

Well it seems like those complaints are getting lost in the noise. I just read an article from CNN about teacher shortage and they listed several things but made it seem like the biggest issues were low salary and “ grappling with culture wars over what they can and cannot teach in the classroom”.

If you want violent and disruptive kids to be seen as the big issue that should be addressed immediately then you need to make that clear to the media.

WE don't have the time or the energy. Heres an idea how about the parents who want to kick and scream about "grooming" go to the media with actual true complaints that their child is in an unsafe environment that is not conducive to learning. Maybe parents could do that for us. Go make some noise about things actually happening. We are all tired of the stupidity and time wasted debating CRT. Teachers-especially SPED teacher are leaving in high numbers and this will continue due to a lack of support with behaviors and other ridiculous working conditions. Parents go complain about something real-THIS is it. Teachers are quitting-colleges are seeing a noticeable decline in students applying for their education programs.

If we did, we’d be called terrible things and have our reputations destroyed. Read this site and you will quickly learn that anyone questioning anything their teacher teaches in regard to gender/ identity or social justice issues is immediately branded a MAGA devotee or worse. My family had a pretty traumatic experience with a teacher but I am employed and would like to stay that way, so we did our best to address it as quietly as possible. No way is anyone in my shoes going to talk to the media. I wish we could have rational conversations about these very important topics but we can’t.

I have yet to read a single specific example on this site that happened that I think is legitimate. All I hear is a lot of hearsay, potential issues, shared talking points. Of course real people can have problematic experiences with a particular teacher--but that is a particular example and they should handle it as an individual with the school.

Honestly? You really think all the people commenting about horrible behavior in classrooms are just making it up?

Have you been to a store or museum or park or extracurricular activity lately? You don’t even need to spend time in classrooms to know that many kids are completely out of control and that no actual parenting is happening.