South Carolina High School Student Dragged From Class

[MrPots]

Originally Posted by Ike Bana

So it's fine for this kid to fuck up every other kid's class time because its the enforcement of school rules by the "authority?"

There was a time I would have agreed with you all the way friend. But I've had it with "the authorities".

What we have today is a bunch of little tinpot dictators. Tell me, what's to respect?

[Dondilion]

Originally Posted by MrPots

There was a time I would have agreed with you all the way friend. But I've had it with "the authorities".

What we have today is a bunch of little tinpot dictators. Tell me, what's to respect?

So we should have schools where the students do as they please, because people have "had it with the authorities".

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by Dondilion

So we should have schools where the students do as they please, because people have "had it with the authorities".

You and Ike seem to think that the only options are the polar extremes of complete anarchy and brutal suppression. Why do you think that?

[Boreas]

By the way, the young girl had just lost her mother and is in foster care. Under the circumstances, it's not hard to imagine that she.... um.... wasn't quite herself.

I find it almost impossible to believe that her teacher and the principal were unaware of this so their actions seem to have been very callous. Whether Fields knew is perhaps less likely.

[catswiththum]

I taught in Title I schools - had to call a resource officer at least once a day; had a lot of kids removed/arrested. Resource officer never tossed one around - just called another officer and they cuffed him/her and carted him/her off.

I quit teaching because the school district was lawsuit shy and polarized. Usually 3-5 kids in a given class that can not handle themselves - raise hell, run around the class, throw shit, and worse. They need to be permanently removed and receive specialized education, counseling, jail, or all three - not fair to the other kids to have their instructor spend 75% of class time disciplining 3 crazy kids. The process of removal took 4-6 months in the district - half a year ruined for the kids making an effort.

[Dondilion]

Originally Posted by catswiththum

I taught in Title I schools - had to call a resource officer at least once a day; had a lot of kids removed/arrested. Resource officer never tossed one around - just called another officer and they cuffed him/her and carted him/her off.

I quit teaching because the school district was lawsuit shy and polarized. Usually 3-5 kids in a given class that can not handle themselves - raise hell, run around the class, throw shit, and worse. They need to be permanently removed and receive specialized education, counseling, jail, or all three - not fair to the other kids to have their instructor spend 75% of class time disciplining 3 crazy kids. The process of removal took 4-6 months in the district - half a year ruined for the kids making an effort.

Much respect Cats!

[catswiththum]

Originally Posted by Dondilion

Much respect Cats!

I respect those poor souls still in the classroom trying to teach. I was over 40 when I started teaching - was going to be my "make a difference after retirement job."

I guess if I had been 21, ignorant, and fresh out of college I may have stuck it out - it has been my experience the more years you spend on the planet, the more accurate your BS meter becomes. After 5 years in the classroom, mine was pegged on high.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by MrPots

There was a time I would have agreed with you all the way friend. But I've had it with "the authorities".

What we have today is a bunch of little tinpot dictators. Tell me, what's to respect?

In a public school classroom setting, I have a much bigger problem with entitled pain in the ass "students" who think they can fuck up everybody else's learning experience because they don't have to keep their ass reasonably in line like everybody else.

[Ike Bana]

Originally Posted by catswiththum

I taught in Title I schools - had to call a resource officer at least once a day; had a lot of kids removed/arrested. Resource officer never tossed one around - just called another officer and they cuffed him/her and carted him/her off.

I quit teaching because the school district was lawsuit shy and polarized. Usually 3-5 kids in a given class that can not handle themselves - raise hell, run around the class, throw shit, and worse. They need to be permanently removed and receive specialized education, counseling, jail, or all three - not fair to the other kids to have their instructor spend 75% of class time disciplining 3 crazy kids. The process of removal took 4-6 months in the district - half a year ruined for the kids making an effort.

As I said before, the wife spent over 15 years in west side Chicago school classrooms. The teachers who had honed their classroom management skills typically didn't have to send a kid down to the principal's office more than once or twice a week. Why? Because the kids were scared shitless of the classroom teacher. Why? Because some of the teachers had the authorization to use corporal punishment from the parents...and every kid in the school knew it. Some used it, some didn't. But what the kids were most afraid of was looking like the fool in front of their classmates. The blonde could make a disruptive kid look the fool like nobody else. She was like a USMC drill instructor...using the rest of the platoon to enforce the guidelines, for instance...

Kid won't stop disrupting class...
Teacher, "Class...what do we call a student who wants to mess up class for everybody else?"
Class responds, loudly and in unison, "THEY'RE GARBAGE!!!!"
Teacher, "Class, where does garbage go?"
Class, even more loudly, "IN THE GARBAGE CAN!!!!!"

Kid stands in timeout (didn't call it timeout then though) in the garbage can in the corner by the door for the next 15 minutes, more often than not in tears. And then the kid gets razzed by the other kids for being "garbage" for the next 15 days or so. The latter being the most powerful part of the intervention. Nobody fucked with MS. "B".

Mean? You betcha, Margie. Effective? Absolutely. As a seasoned teacher who was retiring that year told the blonde during her first week as a green 20 year old teacher on the west side of Chicago, "Go after them starting the first day of the school year and do it ruthlessly because sweetie, it doesn't work trying to get tough a month down the road, but you can always ease up once they're in line."

Years after she left teaching, former students, some of whom were running their own classrooms by then, were still in contact with her. Most thanked her more than once for not putting up with a nanosecond of shit from any kids in her class who weren't there to learn.

And the half-dozen principals she worked for loved her, because it was so rare for her to dump a disruptive kid on them.

[catswiththum]

We need more teachers like her.

I've actually hired a few of the kids I previously taught, but my experience was different.

There was a serious disconnect and animosity between teachers and administration - terrible atmosphere - no cooperation to improve the situation for the kids.

3 months after I bailed the principal was fired, district superintendent quit, and another reshuffling began. I don't miss it.