Why Teachers Quit (theft, percentage, county, universities)
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The schools are an easy target. Parents pin all kids problems on the "school".
I have a druggie neighbor that blames the school for her kids learning issues. Yea - not the fact that they sell drugs and were raided by the SWAT. Nope - it is the schools fault!!
Thankfully they were taken away by CPS. And now she whines about that. Try being a decent parent.
I got out of teaching twenty years ago and would not wish it on my worst enemy. This was a middle school with 500 students. Some kids were well behaved when they got there but fell in with the undisciplined, unruly crowd after a while. Some of the mothers would bemoan the fact that they had raised their kid right and their kid didn't swear or talk back but they got that way after being in that school. I agreed with them. It was a terrible environment.
We were subjected to verbal abuse on a daily basis and there was nothing we could do. We weren't even allowed to say the word, "discipline"--we had to call it "classroom management" and even then, we weren't allowed to do very much. Just a few kids can ruin a class for everyone and no one learns anything.
They can throw all the money they want at schools but it won't do any good. The problems begin in the home with the kids who never heard the word No. Kids who were given everything, spoiled, got away with whatever they did. Poor parenting. Parents used to support the teacher and so did the principal. Not anymore. Now the unruly, out of control kid is the boss.
These kids should be removed from school and sent to reform school. It would give them some of the parenting they have missed and it would give the kids back at school a chance to actually get an education.
My daughter teaches part time at a day care center while attending college to become an elementary school teacher. The things she tells me that she has to put up with due to all of the Florida requirements is shocking. Her kids range from grade one to grade 5, and all of them are disrespectful brats that simply cannot fathom the concept of “NO”. I tell her that if she thinks it’s bad with these kids, what do you think it will be like when you get a job in the school system?
For many of the reasons you list and more, I have tried in vain to dissuade her from pursuing a career in education. She loves children, loves teaching, and has a real heart for the occupation. Sadly, in our county teachers pay ranks near the bottom in this state, and since we live in a mostly “senior” area, there is little support for educators here.
I went back to education after taking 10 years off to raise my kids. Wow, what a difference just 10 years has made it education. I have been back 4 years now. I thought I would work another 17 full years before retirement, but I am now rethinking that and plan to make it for 6 more years and then re-evaluate.
This is not the job I went into 30 years ago. It isn't even remotely close. Pay has stagnated and the work load has exponentially increased. And the parents.....whoah! Some of them get so bent out of shape about the smallest thing.
I went back to education after taking 10 years off to raise my kids. Wow, what a difference just 10 years has made it education. I have been back 4 years now. I thought I would work another 17 full years before retirement, but I am now rethinking that and plan to make it for 6 more years and then re-evaluate.
This is not the job I went into 30 years ago. It isn't even remotely close. Pay has stagnated and the work load has exponentially increased. And the parents.....whoah! Some of them get so bent out of shape about the smallest thing.
I know what you mean.
We had one father who literally jumped over the office's front counter and punched our vice principal in the face.
The same father once sat in his upstairs bedroom window and shot a beebee gun at students getting off the school bus.
This depresses me and I don't even have a dog in the fight: my 3 grandchildren will be home-schooled.
How did we get here? From what I see, it may be that schools would rather keep kids who shouldn't be there and don't want to be there because they get paid by the state for each kid they have enrolled. Doesn't matter if the kids are so disruptive that they make it impossible for the kids to learn and for the teachers to teach. When I lived in KS they got even more for kids on free lunches and kids with IEPs. The parents know that no matter what, their little darlings will be kept in the classroom.
And what's the answer? My taxes help fund the public schools so actually I DO have a dog in this fight. I'm strongly in favor of school vouchers but the opposition to them is so strong that right now the only kids who have access to school choice are the superstars and the children from more prosperous families that put a high priority on education. And when you ask parents who are home-schooling or shelling out for private school for more taxes to fund the public schools, they aren't interested. It just adds to the inequality.
This depresses me and I don't even have a dog in the fight: my 3 grandchildren will be home-schooled.
How did we get here? From what I see, it may be that schools would rather keep kids who shouldn't be there and don't want to be there because they get paid by the state for each kid they have enrolled. Doesn't matter if the kids are so disruptive that they make it impossible for the kids to learn and for the teachers to teach. When I lived in KS they got even more for kids on free lunches and kids with IEPs. The parents know that no matter what, their little darlings will be kept in the classroom.
And what's the answer? My taxes help fund the public schools so actually I DO have a dog in this fight. I'm strongly in favor of school vouchers but the opposition to them is so strong that right now the only kids who have access to school choice are the superstars and the children from more prosperous families that put a high priority on education. And when you ask parents who are home-schooling or shelling out for private school for more taxes to fund the public schools, they aren't interested. It just adds to the inequality.
All kids should be eligible for a free and public education. Not just the ones you like. And almost all citizens -- including the parents of special education students, ESL students, ad discipline problem students -- also pay school taxes.
There is no particular benefit to a school system which collects more money for every student in attendance, when they then have to spend more money for the challenging students.
All kids should be eligible for a free and public education. Not just the ones you like. And almost all citizens -- including the parents of special education students, ESL students, ad discipline problem students -- also pay school taxes.
There is no particular benefit to a school system which collects more money for every student in attendance, when they then have to spend more money for the challenging students.
Yeah that "more money from the state" is such a deal. Get $5000 and then spend $35000 providing services.
What I don't think people understand is that schools are discouraged, through a variety of means, from removing kids who are problematic. Discipline policies have been revamped, under threat of litigation, nationwide. Offenses have been downgraded to lesser consequences in order to keep kids in school.
That's why you're seeing more the "in my day that kid would have been expelled" situations. You can't expel for that any longer.
Is that a good thing? I don't know. I can think of a number of kids over the course of my career whose expulsion would have benefitted the entire school. The upside is that most of them were constructively removed when they were arrested and couldn't make bail, which is also changing.
Yeah that "more money from the state" is such a deal. Get $5000 and then spend $35000 providing services.
What I don't think people understand is that schools are discouraged, through a variety of means, from removing kids who are problematic. Discipline policies have been revamped, under threat of litigation, nationwide. Offenses have been downgraded to lesser consequences in order to keep kids in school.
That's why you're seeing more the "in my day that kid would have been expelled" situations. You can't expel for that any longer.
Is that a good thing? I don't know. I can think of a number of kids over the course of my career whose expulsion would have benefitted the entire school. The upside is that most of them were constructively removed when they were arrested and couldn't make bail, which is also changing.
I'll tell you something that I also found, though. You don't always know which students are going to go on to a "successful" life. I think back to my own childhood, and the three superstars in my school and class were Kathy, Louis, and Diane. They got so much attention and praise. They were the golden children. In adulthood, of those three golden children, Kathy became a prostitute, Louis became a used car salesman, and Diane actually became a successful business woman. One of our superstars in the middle school where I was principal went on to serve life in prison for murder. On the other hand, some students "find themselves" somewhere along the line in school and rise to heights we never imagined.
All kids should be eligible for a free and public education. Not just the ones you like. And almost all citizens -- including the parents of special education students, ESL students, ad discipline problem students -- also pay school taxes.
....
Why? Why should the small percentage who are trouble makers be allowed to disrupt the learning of the rest of the students? Why should the parents of those who demand special treatment be given more consideration than the vast majority of parents?
Recently myself and several others were asked to give presentations about our work to a magnet middle school. After a day there speaking to several classes, we compared notes. None of us would ever do it again. The inmates were running the asylum. Kids would get up, walk around, chat to one another, walk out of class, wander the halls dropping in and out of other classes, basically disrupting things all day long. The teacher in each class said NOTHING. Some of the kids wanted to listen and learn. And asked great questions. But they were unable to because of so much disruption going on.
I see a lot of people getting education degrees because they have no aptitude or desire to go into business, math, science, medical, or engineering fields, and trade schools don't appeal to them.
Since it's expected that a household nowadays has two working adults with college degrees, this leaves a lot of people pursuing education degrees because they remember being in school and looking up to some teacher when they were a kid. Teaching also looks really easy from a student's point of view. They imagine a group of obedient kids admiring them and hanging on their every word. They never had to deal with the "challenging" students when they were a student and never anticipated having to deal with them as an adult.
Many of these people have no business being in a classroom and it takes a couple of years for them to figure this out. Creating hours of interesting content on a daily basis and getting 30 kids to care about something that is not relevant to them is not a skill most people have. Most young adults have a hard time just managing themselves, so managing 30 unique individuals is not a skill most people have or have any idea how to develop.
Back in the "old days" it was probably very rare for a teacher to send a student down to the office, so when someone was sent, it was a major deal. Now, inept teachers send students down on a daily basis expecting the office to manage their classroom for them. The current victim mentality culture proliferates in inept teachers. Instead of taking responsibility for improving their management skills, it's easier to blame someone else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff
Recently myself and several others were asked to give presentations about our work to a magnet middle school. After a day there speaking to several classes, we compared notes. None of us would ever do it again. The inmates were running the asylum. Kids would get up, walk around, chat to one another, walk out of class, wander the halls dropping in and out of other classes, basically disrupting things all day long. The teacher in each class said NOTHING. Some of the kids wanted to listen and learn. And asked great questions. But they were unable to because of so much disruption going on.
I would say the norm is for middle school kids not to want to listen to a job presentation. Who'd want to do that rather than visiting with friends? I've been to big teacher conferences with multiple (typically 15-20) presentations going on at once. Teachers just get up and walk out in the first 5-10 minutes if they think the presentation is not interesting or boring. Sometimes they go to another presentation, sometimes they just hang out in the common areas talking. Adults do it too if they can get away with it.
I'd say it was partly on the teacher to prep these kids for this presentation and to enforce behavior standards. This should have been talked about right before the presentation, so the speaker knew what was expected. The teacher did nothing, so I don't see how this falls on the kids. The other part is on the presenter, who should have set the expectations for what they would like to see in a middle school audience during their presentation.
Instead of saying, maybe we should have some behavioral expectations going into these presentations and sit down with teachers to plan this out in advance, it's much easier to blame the kids, blame the teachers, and just say we are not doing it again.
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