Current Events > Real Talk - Teachers are often tasked with being parental now...

(+) Yeah! (+)

I wanted to just kinda gripe and complain about my chosen profession and how different it feels compared with how I felt the professional was like when I was a student.

Teachers are often times being tasked with more parental type shit now as opposed to teaching subjects. I'm a substitute teacher, so my experiences might have more to do with being a sub versus being a teacher, but regular everyday teachers tend to backup my feelings.

More students than ever now are plain flat out belligerent. We have no avenue to really discipline students. Where I teach we can't even flunk children until Grade 10. Unless there is evidence of mental disability of some capacity, we are not allowed to flunk a child. Or rather, if a parent decides they want their kid to move on to the next grade despite a 35% in the class, they move on.

This is a fact that is VERY well known by students now. There is no discipline in terms of failing grades. This, in turn, leads kids who would normally be "scared" into working harder by failing grades into just causing disturbances. For those of you who weren't the best students, if you knew regardless of what you got done or how you did, you'd still be passed onto the next grade... what would you do in class?

We also often times can't hold them after class. Again, as a sub I'm limited anyways, but so many kids get picked up after school by their parents, and if their parents don't want their kid staying after, we legally have no recourse. So, if you have a kid who is an asshole in class, and their parent comes in and is like, "Nah, we're gonna jet", you can't hold them after class.

This has led a lot of my time in classrooms just trying to teach students general manners and trying to stop them from being little shits. This is probably more of a societal shift and lots of people being parents who shouldn't be parents, but hell my wife (who is also a sub) got spat on by a Grade 6 student. She reported it to the principal, and while the principal tried to suspend the child, the parents were like, "We both work, the kid is going to school". The kid got in-school suspension.

This is so different from when I went to grade school. We could be held back, we could fail, and I was made to miss a golf practice for being late to class too often. There were consequences to actions that were not indicative of good behaviour in a school. I spend so much time putting out fires that I get much less time to teach an actual subject, and students who really need the help (as they are being passed along instead of being forced to learn the subject material) or those who really want to learn are being neglected, because our classroom sizes are usually at least 25+. I had a Grade 8 class with 35 students in it. At the BEST of times that is difficult to deal with, at the worst of times it is impossible and I'm just glad nobody leaves the classroom with injuries or in tears.

I'm sure once it is my own classroom SOME of these issues will be resolved and I will have more ability to affect these things, but DAMN.
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WhinyZach posted...

VoightKent posted...

let me guess; you're from America lol

he's canadian, but same shit.

you're a sub teacher, when the cats away, the mouse will play.

Yeah, I just hate the No-Zero policy. In what realm of reality after school do you not get punished for doing literally no work? You come to work anywhere, from McDonalds to a law firm, and you don't get your work done on time as dictated by your boss? You get demoted, lost wages, or fired.

How is a no-zero policy helping students prepare for the real world? The negative consequences are all over the place. I did my practicum in a Grade 10 class that is specifically designed to help students "catch up" after the no-zero/no-fail policy passed them along.

28 students in Grade 10 who could not read past the Grade 5 level.
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This is more of a school issue, but if a school refused to let a student who failed every test move on to the next grade, the most that could happen is it would be taken to the courts - where the school would win every time.
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Also doesn't help that a lot of kids these days have mental health issues, autism, etc
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Damn_Underscore posted...

This is more of a school issue, but if a school refused to let a student who failed every test move on to the next grade, the most that could happen is it would be taken to the courts - where the school would win every time.

And especially under the US's lack of "loser must pay the winner's legal fees" system, do you really think schools are going to bother going through that kind of legal battle instead of just being like "okay whatever, your brat can move up a grade"?
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Where do you live that doesn't allow you to flunk students until 10th grade? What happens if a kid just doesn't do any work before then
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HylianFox posted...

Also doesn't help that a lot of kids these days have mental health issues, autism, etc

Yeah, and in my neck of the woods, we don't have enough funds to get enough EA's in the classroom to help. Also, if parents don't want their child labeled as having mental health issues, they don't have to take them to be evaluated.

Happens a lot with kids we suspect are suffering from FAS, but the parents don't want to take them to be tested and see proof of some... poor decision making on their part.
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Genocet_10-325 posted...

Where do you live that doesn't allow you to flunk students until 10th grade? What happens if a kid just doesn't do any work before then

It's called a No-Zero Policy, and it is actually fairly prevalent in a lot of areas. The idea (to REALLY put it simply) is that a lack of evidence on something doesn't mean a zero. Marking something a zero that was not complete is assuming they know nothing about the subject, thus it is unfairly evaluating.

It would be like asking someone to prove they know algebra, but they never provide evidence one way or the other. You can't just assume zero.

EDIT - This is supported by the idea that not handing in assignments is a "behavioural issue", not one of showing whether or not the student understands the material. Therefore, you are assigning scholastic merit to a behavioural issue, not their actual scholastic achievement.

So, the idea behind all this is that you have to basically get ways for students to hand in their shit, otherwise they simply get an "incomplete", and you change how their marks are weighed onto other things. For example, if they don't get ANY assignments in, you just weigh their marks towards tests they were in class for.

Combine this with the fact that parents wishes supercede a schools in regards to whether or not a kid should move on to the next grade...
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The teachers I know in Japan are the most overworked underpaid people I have met in a country of overworked underpaid people. They often spend their days off meeting students anyway, despite working 6 days a week, averaging at least 10 hours a day.
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So its like shrodingers 0?

Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

Genocet_10-325 posted...

Where do you live that doesn't allow you to flunk students until 10th grade? What happens if a kid just doesn't do any work before then

It's called a No-Zero Policy, and it is actually fairly prevalent in a lot of areas. The idea (to REALLY put it simply) is that a lack of evidence on something doesn't mean a zero. Marking something a zero that was not complete is assuming they know nothing about the subject, thus it is unfairly evaluating.

It would be like asking someone to prove they know algebra, but they never provide evidence one way or the other. You can't just assume zero.

EDIT - This is supported by the idea that not handing in assignments is a "behavioural issue", not one of showing whether or not the student understands the material. Therefore, you are assigning scholastic merit to a behavioural issue, not their actual scholastic achievement.

So, the idea behind all this is that you have to basically get ways for students to hand in their shit, otherwise they simply get an "incomplete", and you change how their marks are weighed onto other things. For example, if they don't get ANY assignments in, you just weigh their marks towards tests they were in class for.

Combine this with the fact that parents wishes supercede a schools in regards to whether or not a kid should move on to the next grade...

What if they take a test and get literally every answer wrong?
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Captain_Qwark posted...

Teach 5th grade. Can confirm.

Lots of parents don't teach basic social/enotional skills and then it negatively effects our classes so we end up teaching them.

20% of the 5th grade at my school is on the autism spectrum too. It's a lot of extra work.

DarkTransient posted...

Damn_Underscore posted...

This is more of a school issue, but if a school refused to let a student who failed every test move on to the next grade, the most that could happen is it would be taken to the courts - where the school would win every time.

And especially under the US's lack of "loser must pay the winner's legal fees" system, do you really think schools are going to bother going through that kind of legal battle instead of just being like "okay whatever, your brat can move up a grade"?

It's not really that so much as it is schools are rated on graduation %. I know dozens of teachers that were FORCED by their admin to change grades so that students pass.

In another province, 2 teachers were fired (High School, not grade school) because they gave 0's to students who didn't hand stuff in. It was against school policy, and the teachers were like, "I'm not going to reward students for doing nothing, no!"

It was funny because they filed suit against the school and the School Boards were like, "Why would they be fired? This is stupid and we hate this policy!". Both teachers got their job back if they wanted it.
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@Genocet_10-325

It would likely be seen as a failure on the teachers' end of things. To be fair, most students should never fail EVERYTHING without a learning disability of some kind... but often times there isn't enough money in the public system to be able to help everyone, and in the case of FAS at least, if a parent doesn't want to get them tested, we can't treat them like they have it, regardless of general aptitude tests.
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It's the same in the US (at least where I've talked to teachers about it). Students just keep moving through the system no matter how badly they're doing. When they get to the real world, they can't cope with responsibility.
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