Topic: Letter from the teacher

[754]

Retro rockets sounds well schooled.. even knows how to use the word eh, properly...
 And that not common enough on this forum, eh

[Retro Rocket]

Retro rockets sounds well schooled.. even knows how to use the word eh, properly...
 And that not common enough on this forum, eh

 

Mick

[Ecosse]

http://www.thecartelmovie.com/

awesome ed. thanks.

my sis is a teacher (who btw does not favor the teacher's union) and i think she would agree with some of the things mentioned here. but part of the problem is that the kids today are raised by absentee parents who are raising little @ssholes. some of the stuff kids get away with would have been unthinkable when i was in school.

edit: remember this?

[demon78]

Yes, Jesus, Ecosse some of things kids say now to their teachers would have caused children not to sit down for a week or so in my day and then the real pain would have started when they got home. But was the system better then, no I don't think so, case in point I got thrown out of school for leading a student uprising when in fact what I was saying was the teacher that caused the problem was an idiot that couldn't teach water to find it's own level. He got fired at the end of the year, didn't do me any good, by that time I was learning how not to annoy the corporal.
Bill the demon.

[Ecosse]

demon, you instigator you.   

there's always gonna be bad examples and, as time goes on, deficiencies of one kind are exchanged for new ones. but overall i have to believe schools were generally better, as far as what was taught, and the level of parent involvement 20 to 50 years ago vs. now must have been no worse.

when i was in school things like penmanship and critical thinking were still emphasized but not as much as when my grandmother was in school. today, kids aren't taught that stuff hardly at all. we were taught to be familiar with a calculator but i understand at least some schools rely on them exclusively nowadays.

granted, today's schools tend to be better (more understanding) overall for kids with special learning needs. my mom has dyslexia and went through hell in grade school. geez, if you were left handed back then you went through hell!

today we have system that, at best, is institutionally resistant to innovation if it threatens the status quo, and many parents are raising self absorbed little s#its to attend these crappy schools. with a "me first" society is it any wonder the places of learning suffer?

don't get me wrong as i believe there are some fine schools and teachers but there's a systemic problem that needs fixin'.

[Inigo Montoya]

you gotta remember though, a lot of this really got kicked into gear with No child left behind. Test scores are valued above all else. Also, cost of living IS more these days than even 20 years ago. I work 2 jobs and the wife works 1. And we are not in the minority anymore. What are parents supposed to do when both have to work, and for many both have full time jobs. You cant just tell people they have to spend more time with their kids and such. It is easy to say but unless you are in the same boat, you don't have any idea. What are parents supposed to do when kids are done at 3 from school and a parent has at least 2 more hours left? Daycare? Just one more expense and it is VERY expensive. Also many daycares will only go to 12 years of age, just in time for the kids to get in with a bad group and there is no one to see it.

It is not like years back when many of you were parents or kids and there was always a parent home. Times are not like that anymore. Yes SOME people may have gotten themselves in that bot but many of us are frugal and have the basics and STILL have to work 2 jobs. And unless wages go up sharply(yeah right) or the cost of living goes down(just as unlikely), this will not change. I will say a HUGE time when this changed was in the 80s.

So before some of you go and spout some opinion, just remember, times are different and we didn't make them different.
I would rather have my wife or myself home for my kids, at least with me working TWO jobs, she only needs a part time one.

[Retro Rocket]

My 10 year old son was sent home from school for giving his teacher the Nazi salute, this was not seen by his teacher but one of the admin staff walking past his class. When he got home and told me what had happened i asked him to show me a Nazi salute, he looked at me like a deer in the headlights and said " whats a Nazi.  I took him back to school and fronted the principal and had him ask my boy the same question, kinda made the principal look like an idiot, my son was excused and sent back to class. Some of the people running our schools are just plain stupid little self important people with their one chance to push their authority on these poor kids, just because they can.....My boy was top of his class, this didn't even factor into the principals equation and this was the 3rd time he had been in trouble for no reason at all, he lost all respect for authority at school and it took him right up until his last year of school to get back to good marks. I wonder how many kids just turn of education because of trivial rubbish like that.?

Mick

[Inigo Montoya]

A lot retro, a lot.

[tramp]

i'd pat my kid on the head
but you do have to respect teachers a little
calling her a liar was going too far

[72 yellow]

demon, you instigator you.   

there's always gonna be bad examples and, as time goes on, deficiencies of one kind are exchanged for new ones. but overall i have to believe schools were generally better, as far as what was taught, and the level of parent involvement 20 to 50 years ago vs. now must have been no worse.

when i was in school things like penmanship and critical thinking were still emphasized but not as much as when my grandmother was in school. today, kids aren't taught that stuff hardly at all. we were taught to be familiar with a calculator but i understand at least some schools rely on them exclusively nowadays.

granted, today's schools tend to be better (more understanding) overall for kids with special learning needs. my mom has dyslexia and went through hell in grade school. geez, if you were left handed back then you went through hell!

today we have system that, at best, is institutionally resistant to innovation if it threatens the status quo, and many parents are raising self absorbed little s#its to attend these crappy schools. with a "me first" society is it any wonder the places of learning suffer?

don't get me wrong as i believe there are some fine schools and teachers but there's a systemic problem that needs fixin'.

Ask me about being left handed going to school in the 50's.  Only a couple of left handed desks in the school.  They even tried to "break" me of writing with the wrong hand.  Only intervention by my mom put a stop to it.

[demon78]

Yes I also went to school during the anti left hand movement and had dyslexia, the school essentially said that I was a tard, so my mother sat down with me before bed time and trained me out of it I remember that time as an extremely painful time in my life and I think that it took about 6 months to brainwash me into accepting what you normals see as the meaning of letters and words but it happened, as I got older I started to be able to swap letters with in a word for nonsensical meanings, to keep me amused in the principals office and for some reason I could speed read. As far as the left hand thing went that ended after my mother read an article some where about L/H people being just as bright as right handers, she then "Buttonholed" the principal and had words with him, it changed overnight, she was a very formidable woman and yes I wish I could have been there for that conversation. LOL. And you know that I would hate to be a teacher now days, going up on assault charges because one of the little dears got too pushy.
The pendulum always seems to swing to far, I wonder when it'll reach a happy medium.
Bill the demon.

[cb750k7]

http://emailsfromcrazypeople.com/2009/07/29/old-school-anger/

[Blasbo]

There are good teachers and bad teachers, good kids and bad kids, good parents and bad parents, they are all just people. You have to be involved in what they are teaching the kids. My 6th grade daughter told me Boxing Day is when you box up your Christmas decorations. I told it was when you boxed up stuff to give to the less fortunate. She told me that was what her teacher said. I told her that the teacher was wrong.

[Raul CB750K1]

When I was at school, one of my teachers also committed a pretty obvious mistake, and I couldn't help but to ridicule him telling him in front of everybody where he was wrong. Obviously he insisted he wasn't.

Next day I took with me evidence of him being wrong, and when I pointed it out, he admitted he was wrong. I had low marks for the rest of the semester.

I did learn my lessons:

1. If you need to correct somebody, try to do it privately.
2. It is pointless trying to win an argument against somebody who has power over you. Specially when the argument is absolutely inane.
3. Lower marks as a prize for ridiculing your teacher is way too high a price.



I think it was Ben Franklin who said something in the line of "winning discussions is pointless, because even when you can get victory sometimes, you never get any good will".


My point? Teachers may be not the brightest of them all, but it doesn't take a genius to educate a youngster. It is a blend of knowledge, psychology, maturity, and strong personality. I can forgive a blunder here and there, as long as the teacher helps my kids to become persons of worth. Regarding the letter that originated this thread, we don't know the forms the kid used to address the teacher about her mistake. The point maybe was "the kid was right, but even then I deemed appropiate to give him a lesson". It is not about my mistake, but about teaching the kid a lesson about how to deal with being right.


I have delivered training for some time -to adults-, and sometimes I have told mistakes, if only for not being thinking on what I was talking about. When somebody pointed a mistake out, I had a line that helped me to get out of the situation with my pride untouched: "yeah, that's right. I already knew it, I just wanted to know who of you were paying attention. Good job dude, now what were the rest of you thinking about?"


That used to work, along with a big smile all over my face.

[74cb750]

When looking at schools before making a move to New Hampshire/Vermont we found that the principal of a school can set the tone.

One New Hampshire school we visited: walking by the classroom we witnessed an 11 year old haul off and drop a round house to the side of her face. The Teacher left the classroom cying n the hallway. The 'student' we later learned was not expelled because he was a special needs person. Right! We didn't move to this town.

One Vermont middle school/high school we visited: students between classes actually lying atop one another. Uhhh....a little out of line I thought. Principal said the students were just relaxing. Looked more like they were having sex with their clothes on.

My point is this: you have some teachers whom really try but aren't allowed to do the common sense things, like enforce appropriate behavior and punishment if the principal/school board are not behind the teachers.