Thread: Why Don't Teenagers Respect Teachers Any More? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
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This is a much discussed topic, but I heard a new take on it today. Chatting with a colleague over lunch he put forward the line that mobile phones were partly to blame. I told him that sounded barmy, but then he explained. His line was that there was a time when pupils might become interested in teachers, and even go on to become friends with them, after they'd left school. These days pupils live in a increasingly peer-enclosed bubble, where adults of any kind get written off as irrelevant.
Is that plausible? And does anyone else have new views on this old topic?
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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There may have been a time when pupils would remain on good terms with teachers after leaving school, but it ended long before mobile phones came into being.
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on
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Personally, I think it all started back with Pink Floyd. ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
There may have been a time when pupils would remain on good terms with teachers after leaving school, but it ended long before mobile phones came into being.
I'm not sure about that. It seems to me it was still perfectly possible until roughly the turn of the century - which is approximately when mobiles became common among teenagers.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
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If a link to a SFW quote in a Hell Thread is permitted Socrates on youth shows this lack of respect is traditional. To the extent there is a decline I'd look at other factors first; Larger classes, heavier schedules for both teachers and students, longer commutes and a great deal of testing cut the opportunities for socialization that may have previously existed. As Marvin pointed out, it predates cell phones e.g. the song "The Telephone Hour" from Bye Bye Birdie. Before that the penny dreadful cheap novel probably took away from social time spent with teachers.
Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on
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I thought of a song from Bye Bye Birdie as well, although mine was "Kids." (Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way? What's the matter with kids today?).
I think that teenagers + cell phones can = trouble. And I can see how having a mobile device in class could lead to texting with friend across the school in lieu of passing notes. But I'd agree that the "any more" in the thread title looks to the past with rose colored glasses.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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Thinking about my own teenagers: the teachers they respect (and they do) are the ones that can: teach the subject with authority and passion; set high but realistic targets for advancement; mark homework within a few days of it being handed in; maintains good classroom discipline; is approachable out of lessons to answer queries.
I don't think that there's any expectation that my two become actual friends with their teachers, because that's not the relationship that's occurred to them. But being able to be friendly with teachers is a good thing, as it allows a bit of wiggle-room if either pupil or teacher is having an off-day.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
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A question first asked in Ancient Egypt - or rather first asked in writing, I'm sure they worried about the same things long before that.
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
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Is it Egypt or Sumer? I have Noah Kramer's "History Begins at Sumer" which of course is biased in their direction.
I don't think its worse. It may in fact be better. Is there any data?
Posted by art dunce (# 9258) on
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I have two teens. One off to college and one starting high school. They respect teachers who are truly intelligent, honest, not condescending and fair. They like open dialogue and vigorous debate, They can sniff out incompetency. They hate smarmy skirt peeping creeps, burned out lifers, under educated fakers, control freaks and teachers who require adulation, are on power trips and those who are so jaded they continually undermine the educational process.
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on
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I think that interpersonal relationships in general have taken a hit. It's not just teachers.
Also, I think that kids are just a lot busier these days than they used to be, and so they don't have the time to cultivate real relationships. Same goes for their parents, I suspect.
Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on
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Coming into contact as I do with disabled students about to leave school, I date this phenomenon to the point at which various organizations began "empowering" parents to take issue with just about everything schools and teachers do in relation to their kids.
Not that schools or teachers invariably get things right; by no means. But the percentage of fairly nutty (and very vocal) parents with equally loopy notions about how their kids should be handled in school settings is pretty high. I feel for these folks; they're often still struggling to cope with the catastrophic news they received at the child's birth some 20 years before.
But when kids are exposed to steady streams of parental trash-talking of their teachers, their curricula, and their schooling, it's got to be hard for said kids to maintain a respectful attitude.
Posted by ProgenitorDope (# 16648) on
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I admit I don't have much experience here, but could it have anything to do with community breakdown?
Like teens aren't so much not making friends with teachers because they're teachers but rather because teens are not making friends with elders in general as much as they used to?
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
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More than half of school pupils go on to university now, right? Which means that half of the pupils are moving away for 3 or 4 years immediately after school, and then getting a job in some other location rather than moving back home, so they aren't available to make friends with teachers.
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on
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"You C***!"
Words I recall being shouted, with impunity, at the teacher by a girl who sat behind me in middle-school language arts class. She was mad because he was gonna seat her away from her friend or something.
That was around 1982, long before cell phones. As I mentioned on another thread recently, any wailing about the breakdown of discipline in school needs to factor in the rise of compulsory education. Kids likely didn't respect theur teachers any more 100 years ago than they do now. The difference being, 100 years ago they weren't being forced to spend the bulk of their day interacting with them. (Well, not after elementary anyway).
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
The difference being, 100 years ago they weren't being forced to spend the bulk of their day interacting with them. (Well, not after elementary anyway).
Very important. 100 years ago school lasted about 5 hours tops-- if that-- and was NEVER available in the summer. At least in the US.
Modern society has this paradoxical situation where kids spend the most of the day with a non-parent caregiver, but yanked away from them every year to be placed with new ones. The relationships built between student and teacher are not respected by society-- either functionally or legislatively. Schools are treated like factories churning out a product rather than the community hubs that they actually are.
Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
But when kids are exposed to steady streams of parental trash-talking of their teachers, their curricula, and their schooling, it's got to be hard for said kids to maintain a respectful attitude.
This. Every child will have teachers they don't like. Part of growing up is to be pushed to learn how to deal with people you don't like. I remember my dad telling me that I should learn what I could from a hated teacher and ignore the teacher's disdain for girls doing physics. I felt a huge sense of triumph at the end of the year when that teacher had to award 1st, 2nd and 3rd to the three girls in the class.
Too many kids "hate" teachers based on much more superficial matters than my example - they might dress badly, or have strict rules about uniform. When parents back the child over the teacher, as seems to happen more and more, teachers are put in a very hard place.
I think we forget that universal access to education is a recent privilege. I'm reminded of a young female refugee student from Iran listening to one of her NZ classmates ranting against a particular teacher. The refugee girl started ranting right back - about how wonderful it was to be allowed to go to school at all.
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
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Are schools not different in different places? Ratios of kids to teachers. What sort of supports teachers and children have. Who runs the schools, local board or dept of education.
I certainly felt that school and teachers were better than when I went. Teachers can't beat the kids today. Kids don't swear at teachers and get away with it. Racism, sexism and homophobia are much less. Drug and alcohol use about the same. Academic standards are higher. But less art, music and less physical activity. That is the story here.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Very important. 100 years ago school lasted about 5 hours tops-- if that-- and was NEVER available in the summer. At least in the US.
Modern society has this paradoxical situation where kids spend the most of the day with a non-parent caregiver, but yanked away from them every year to be placed with new ones.
Given that "100 year ago" was about the peak of child labor in the U.S., I think you've got an overly rosy notion of how much time children spent with their parents back then. Does a twelve hour shift in the mines or the glassworks count as "spend[ing] the most of the day with a non-parent caregiver"?
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
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Where did I say anything about rosiness? The topic of my post was the shift in the time spent with a teacher, and the corresponding shift in expectations of the teacher.
I am saying we demand more of teachers-- rightly so, if we want kids to have full access to education, and not be a labor force-- but we have not had a similar shift in allowing them the societal resources to do the job we now expect them to do.
[ 05. April 2014, 04:57: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
Posted by Amos (# 44) on
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Some teenagers respect some teachers.
That's not quite the same as wanting to be friends with them after they leave school.
Some teachers remain in touch with some students long after they've left school. This has always been the case. In my experience, even when the student and the teacher are both past retirement age, even when the student is a Nobel prize winner or whatever, their relationship is that of student and teacher.
Otherwise, all the important and good points made elsewhere on this thread, and the thought that cell phones should not be allowed to be turned on in the classroom.
Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on
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Most children respect most teachers. However ...
Roles have reversed. Time was when teachers always knew best and were beyond criticism by parents, children, inspectors the lot. Trouble is - and you can tell this by the % of teachers ever dismissed (not quite zero but almost) - school was a protected bubble for the incompetent and downright disturbed. Now, people (in the UK) are wising up that authority doesn't always equal being right and also recognising that education isn't free: we pay for it.
If a teacher is useless, people want him/her out to ensure their children get the best education. If we've paid for something we want to question and in today's world where authority has to be earned not given or expected, we won't just take teachers word for it (or the Police or church whatever). We will question as baby boomer adults because that's what teachers taught US to do: no surprise that our children do so too.
If the church and/or police aren't respected, why should we respect school? Schools are now reaping the whirlwind of a wider cultural issue as well as their past reluctance to engage with feedback from pupils and parents. It used to be Father knows best par excellence. As for children and teachers being friends - isn't that all rather creepy, given the power dynamic?
Incidentally, the Floyds "Another Brick in the wall" is based on their own school experiences. The teacher with the moustache in the video is based on a teacher at the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys' (now known as Hills Road Sixth Form College]: he was still there a few years later when I was at the same school. Same mannerisms, the lot.
[ 05. April 2014, 06:38: Message edited by: ExclamationMark ]
Posted by balaam (# 4543) on
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No-one is looking at the larger picture — people will get away with anything they are allowed to get away with, and push the boundaries to see if they can get away with a little more. This is true with school children just as it is true with adults in commerce and industry.
The pushing boundaries bit is likely to be stronger in adolescents than in adults, but this is not a new phenomenon, and neither is it confined to people of school age.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by ProgenitorDope:
I admit I don't have much experience here, but could it have anything to do with community breakdown?
Like teens aren't so much not making friends with teachers because they're teachers but rather because teens are not making friends with elders in general as much as they used to?
In as much as that is a current phenomenon, I would blame it on panic-mongering scare stories about paedophiles. You can't tell kids not to trust any adult they don't already know and also expect them to form good relationships with adults they meet, be they teachers or anyone else.
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
These days pupils live in a increasingly peer-enclosed bubble, where adults of any kind get written off as irrelevant.
Is that plausible? And does anyone else have new views on this old topic?
I've been thinking that for a while. I've been attributing this partly to the way modern family life seems to give some children far more independence and less of the traditional sense of family life, so they're less used to being in contact with older people and inevitably the emotional focus will shift to the peer group. And loyalty to that can be incredibly strong.
I do notice this with some of the younger people I know. Those who are used to spending time with older people are usually the easiest to talk to and who tend to have a range of friends of various ages. Others can seem at a loss with anyone outside their own peer group, find it visibly difficult to bridge the gap and struggle to sustain a conversation where they have no problem talking to one of their peer group.
As for mobile phones, it's not uncommon to see a group of young people sitting in silence, all engrossed in their phones. Real communication has become one step removed and in some way, texting is almost a computer game, punctuated by the "reward" sound of the alert of an incoming text, the quick click of the keys, the limit on characters you can use - and crucially the ability to edit before you press Send. There are no such constraints on real speech, and you can't edit it.
So yes, I think your colleague has a point, because I think technology used irresponsibly can increasingly, and insidiously, separate us from the real world. The older generation who didn't grow up with this amount of technology do notice the difference, but today's generation growing up with phones, iPads and so on, haven't known it any other way and take it for granted.
[ 05. April 2014, 06:54: Message edited by: Ariel ]
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
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quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
As for children and teachers being friends - isn't that all rather creepy, given the power dynamic?
For the record, I agree. While I think the teacher- student relationship can include natural human elements of basic connection and affection, it is a specific relationship with a specific set of boundaries and obligations. Kids have more than enough peers to be their friends-- they need the adults their lives to be adults.
Having said that-- Heck, I see kids occasionally whose diapers I once changed, and who now are dating. It is a privilege to have watched them grow. While I don't have the same place in their lives as a parent, it is nice when I feel some acknowledgement that I have had some place in their lives-- and by having that place, I have helped build up the community. That's all.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
No-one is looking at the larger picture — people will get away with anything they are allowed to get away with, and push the boundaries to see if they can get away with a little more. This is true with school children just as it is true with adults in commerce and industry.
The pushing boundaries bit is likely to be stronger in adolescents than in adults, but this is not a new phenomenon, and neither is it confined to people of school age.
This.
It's not a teacher's job to be friends with the children. Respect doesn't = friendship. Good teachers are still respected and listened to by children.
The children no longer sit in rows and learn by rote - so the job is much more demanding, of course, and takes a great deal of energy, passion and enthusiasm.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
So yes, I think your colleague has a point, because I think technology used irresponsibly can increasingly, and insidiously, separate us from the real world.
I'm sure much the same thing was said when television first came out. And radio before that. And probably books before that...
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
His line was that there was a time when pupils might become interested in teachers, and even go on to become friends with them, after they'd left school.
When would one actually come into contact with one's teachers after leaving school? It's not like there's lots of activities that teachers and students would both do, and unless you live in a village you're not likely to just happen to see each other in passing.
(FWIW I still meet my old English teacher occasionally because we are both bellringers, and some friends and I once bumped into our old maths teacher in the pub.)
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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Using mobile phones as a teaching aid
"I teach A-level business studies and economics and mobiles can be invaluable, I allow students to use them all the time. I set strict guidelines, phones only come out when I say, usually for group work when students need to research. If we have the access, why not use them? "
This was written in 2012 and phones have moved on apace since then.
In our Primary school every child has an ipad to use for researching topics etc. They plug in to a trolley at the back of the classroom on little shelves.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
<typocity>
[ 05. April 2014, 08:06: Message edited by: Boogie ]
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I'm sure much the same thing was said when television first came out. And radio before that. And probably books before that...
No, I doubt it. There was a time when a whole family would be listening to the radio or watching the same programme on television. Now the kids go off and watch television separately in their own rooms and don't really bother with the radio unless it's got pop music on.
And books have been around for a couple of thousand years without ill effects. You can lend them to people and read aloud from them as well as enjoy them by yourself (without the side-effects of glowing screens and RSI).
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I'm sure much the same thing was said when television first came out. And radio before that. And probably books before that...
No, I doubt it. There was a time when a whole family would be listening to the radio or watching the same programme on television. Now the kids go off and watch television separately in their own rooms and don't really bother with the radio unless it's got pop music on.
And books have been around for a couple of thousand years without ill effects. You can lend them to people and read aloud from them as well as enjoy them by yourself (without the side-effects of glowing screens and RSI).
I think this deserves a thread of its own. I have a great photo of us on holiday in Mexico recently. All five of us, round the breakfast table, on a gorgeous terrace with a sea view, each tapping away at a different device.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
That said, we had fabulous social times too - but that picture was certainly a sign of the times!
Posted by Zacchaeus (# 14454) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
So yes, I think your colleague has a point, because I think technology used irresponsibly can increasingly, and insidiously, separate us from the real world.
I'm sure much the same thing was said when television first came out. And radio before that. And probably books before that...
There is a line in Thomas HArdy's return of the native (1878). In which an old man blames some graffiti on education itself, if you never taught children to read and write then they couldn't graffiti...
Posted by QLib (# 43) on
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When I was a child (60s and early 70s) there were a few teachers I respected and many that I secretly despised - some not-so-secretly, like the geography teacher who told me there was no such country as Andorra. My parents backed me on that one, but they wouldn't have backed me up on any form of bad behaviour or cheek - so that's one change. There are lots of parents these days who will take up cudgels (sometimes almost literally) on behalf of their kids.
But i think the biggest change is that, despite all the cant about behaviour policies, teachers who have discipline problems meet the attitude that 'you must be doing something wrong' - and the favourite wrong thing is that lessons may be boring. This is just total crap. A lot of stuff in the school curriculum is fucking boring - or, at best, not the way any reasonable child would choose to spend a sunny day. And you can't even attempt something more interesting in the way of classroom activities unless you can trust the buggers to behave reasonably.
Yes, it may be true that work which is not appropriately pitched may cause behaviour problems but one of the downsides of mixed-ability teaching is that, unless you're both a genius and an administrative wizard, there are bound to at least occasionally be some parts of some lessons which are pitched too high or too low for someone in the room. The culture is that that's the teacher's fault - and the kids know it.
Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on
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People do....people things.
I'm a grandparent now, but respect for teachers became quite difficult when we were regularly facing:
* maths teacher (with accurate aim) who threw a blackboard duster at anyone who got a wrong answer,
* Headteacher having an affair with another teacher's wife,
* art teacher whose affairs resulted in at least three abortions and who went on to have an afair with a sixth former the instant she left school,
* a deputy who regularly pulled the hair of any child she disliked,
* continuous verbal bullying by a french teacher of anyone who could not grasp languages
* purvy behaviour from half of our PE teachers,
* a year head who thought nothing of trashing someone's characture in front of the entire year (and usually falsly)
I could go on and won't, butthat school was in no way unusual either.
Surfice it to say that respect is a two way street; show some and one might get some.
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on
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Modern technology is geared towards getting results as quickly as possible. It now seems unreasonable to have to wait for as long as 30 seconds for a webpage to load, an email to finish downloading, a print request to transmit, etc. There are time limits on a lot of things - electronic doors that close automatically, photocopiers that log you out if you don't immediately key in your request, vending machines and self-service terminals and so on - and the list is growing. We've come to expect instant responses as the default, and the younger generation growing up with technology have never known it any other way. Computer games especially predispose you to expect slick, colourful presentation, sound effects and a series of rewards. Is it any wonder if people are influenced to be short on patience, expect instant results without doing much work, and find memorizing facts and having to think things out for themselves (when they could be googling them) boring?
quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
There is a line in Thomas Hardy's return of the native (1878). In which an old man blames some graffiti on education itself, if you never taught children to read and write then they couldn't graffiti...
I was looking through a book of Victorian photos of London a few months ago. Street scenes with one wall in particular that caught my eye, covered in graffiti. There wasn't a single word amongst any of it. The drawings spoke for themselves.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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And yet - there is nothing my class like better than being read to. I read a novel to them at the end of every day, for at least half an hour.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
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I went to a school where only a very small proportion of pupils left at the statutory minimum leaving age. But even so it was noticeable how the relationship with the staff improved after that, once all pupils knew they'd made a conscious decision to stay on.
The us-and-them "jailers & captives" subtext disappeared.
Best wishes,
Russ
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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Nothing to do with mobiles, much to do with individualism, especially under Thatcher. Also something to do with geography. Also school management.
When I taught in Yorkshire, both parents and pupils 'respected' teachers, regardless of whether they are good or not.
Down South, I started to hear the phrase, 'Respect has to be earned.'
As a union rep., I became increasingly horrified when having to act as a teacher's 'friend' in various hearings where the teacher had been thumped by a pupil and the deputy head called in the parents of the perpetrators 'to hear both sides'. SMT no longer back up their staff for fear of losing parents.
I am still in touch with quite a lot of former pupils - mainly through Christmas cards and letters though some by email. It's a joy and a privilege but i suspect there is some truth in its having to be 'earned'.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
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Why does almost everyone posting here seem to think that teenagers went to the dogs a few years after they stopped being one themselves?
This is all a big recency illusion. Tinged with middle-aged jealousy (or fear) of youth.
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
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Did teachers in bygone centuries drop out or take early retirement because they couldn't or didn't want to deal with disrespectful pupils any more? Or is that just a modern thing?
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Did teachers in bygone centuries drop out or take early retirement because they couldn't or didn't want to deal with disrespectful pupils any more? Or is that just a modern thing?
It takes a great deal of energy to deal with 36 energetic pupils. I am 57 and only work two days a week. It's enough.
The amount of vigilance needed in teaching is that of air traffic controllers - and they get a break every half hour!
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on
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In bygone centuries (including the 20th) if a pupil misbehaved s/he would probably get a touch of the cane/a ruler across the hand. Most schoolchildren would have found the thought of this an adequate deterrent.
Society was also less individualistic and placed more emphasis on good manners and respect for older people/authority figures.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Why does almost everyone posting here seem to think that teenagers went to the dogs a few years after they stopped being one themselves?
This is all a big recency illusion. Tinged with middle-aged jealousy (or fear) of youth.
Well, I was only aged 5 when my mum met me after infants school and there was a woman who mused to stand outside the school gate and said that she'd 'get that Miss Brown and tell she that she better stop picking on my boy. I'll learn her.'
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
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I do recall reading in a footnote to a Brookmyre novel that one school in England stopped caning pupils when they found the students were competing to see who could get and withstand the most strokes. This broke the spirit of the authorities.
Since it's obvious that children have been not respecting their elders or the gods since Mesopotamia, I'm wondering if the periodic bringing up of the topic by those who remember better days is a marker of widespread pessimism about the future. Is this a mark of hard times when many people feel this way, or a personal stage as you go from hanging out with friends to yelling at the kids to get off your lawn?
Posted by Amos (# 44) on
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The latter, I think, and it's not universal. I've been surprised to discover that I like children and young people more as I get older. Couldn't stand them when I was one of them.
Just gone back to the OP. What did your colleague mean by the thought that students 'might become interested' in teachers? I know how that sentence would be heard by my former students!
[ 05. April 2014, 17:43: Message edited by: Amos ]
Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
In bygone centuries (including the 20th) if a pupil misbehaved s/he would probably get a touch of the cane/a ruler across the hand. Most schoolchildren would have found the thought of this an adequate deterrent.
Possibly a deterrent if it was based on fairness, provided you believe that assault of a minor is permissible and not abuse. A confrontation if it were unfair (wrong) or disproportionate.
How on earth teachers ever thought they would win pupils over by physical or emotional abuse is beyond me. Worst of all were the teachers who expected to be respected for administering group punishments for the misbehaviour of one: no the other pupils don't turn on the culprit, they turn against the system.
In any event, those of us taught in the progressive 60's and 70's were taught to question by teachers who were doing the same.
About 20% of my teachers were respected, 30% tolerated and 50& loathed. Many of the latter were awful and had they behaved like that in most workplaces they would've been summarily dismissed even then. All this in one of the UK's top performing grammer schools.
[ 05. April 2014, 18:28: Message edited by: ExclamationMark ]
Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on
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A teacher dragged my grandmother (born 1915) around the classroom by her plaits, she ran home crying and her step mother marched her back to the school and there dragged the teacher around the classroom by her hair!
She told me another story of a boy not admitting to stealing and the rest of the class refusing to tell on him - they were all caned on the hand. But in her case they did turn on the boy; they beat him up on the way home.
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on
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Exclamation Mark wrote:
quote:
Worst of all were the teachers who expected to be respected for administering group punishments for the misbehaviour of one: no the other pupils don't turn on the culprit, they turn against the system.
I dunno. The only time I can recall group-punishment was when an extra-recess had been granted by a student-teacher on her last day of work, and some kid used it as an opportunity to do something that the student-teacher didn't like, and we all got sent back inside.
As I recall, people were mildly chagrined at the kid, not the teacher.
And then of course, there's this, administered in order to stop a group punishment from continuing. Worked, as far as the short-term went.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ethne Alba:
People do....people things.
I'm a grandparent now, but respect for teachers became quite difficult when we were regularly facing:
* maths teacher (with accurate aim) who threw a blackboard duster at anyone who got a wrong answer,
* Headteacher having an affair with another teacher's wife,
* art teacher whose affairs resulted in at least three abortions and who went on to have an afair with a sixth former the instant she left school,
* a deputy who regularly pulled the hair of any child she disliked,
* continuous verbal bullying by a french teacher of anyone who could not grasp languages
* purvy behaviour from half of our PE teachers,
* a year head who thought nothing of trashing someone's characture in front of the entire year (and usually falsly)
I could go on and won't, butthat school was in no way unusual either.
Surfice it to say that respect is a two way street; show some and one might get some.
I can see why, if parents remember being treated like that, they might well fell antagonistic towards their child's teacher, due to a longstanding dislike of teachers in general. And you can see how the children would pick up on that attitude and use it to their advantage.
As for mobile phones, the last school where I worked insisted that the pupils left them in their lockers except for lunchtime. So they couldn't be used in lessons when they were supposed to be concentrating.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Did teachers in bygone centuries drop out or take early retirement because they couldn't or didn't want to deal with disrespectful pupils any more? Or is that just a modern thing?
For much of that "bygone era", schoolteaching was one of the very few respectable professions available to women who needed to support themselves or their families. So they didn't drop out simply because they had no other option. Today, thankfully, they do.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ethne Alba:
Surfice it to say that respect is a two way street; show some and one might get some.
This.
As an educator myself, I am shocked at the disrespect given to children and even more so teenagers by our so-called "youth obsessed" society. We may be youth-obsessed in the sense of a bunch of aging boomers trying to recapture their youth, but we certainly aren't youth-obsessed in any way that leads to meaningful investment in or respect for young people. I don't think the issue is particularly with teachers-- they just have to deal with the product of raising a bunch of kids who have never been treated with respect (and therefore don't know or care to return respect). Our society as a whole disrespects the young, stereotypes them in a thousand ways-- shallow, self-obsessed, "immature" (d'uh! They're young!), lazy, etc.-- then are surprised they don't turn around and treat us old fogies with respect.
[ 05. April 2014, 21:17: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on
:
Ethne wrote:
quote:
* art teacher whose affairs resulted in at least three abortions and who went on to have an afair with a sixth former the instant she left school
I had a teacher who was very much like that, with the addition of an eventual criminal record resulting from his liasons.
Thing is, though, this was the 70s, and the teacher styled himself as the epitome of the non-authoritarian, "cool dude" pedagogue. Swore in class, dissed the other teachers in front of students, encouraged students to call him by his first name, etc.
I am not in any way an authoritarian personality, but my experience with that guy led me to the conclusion that there needs to be fairly defined boundaries between teachers and students, as much for the safety of the student as for the smooth running of the class.
Problem is, I think it's pretty obvious that a lot of the teachers who go in for a more authoritarian approach do so not for the practical reasons I've outlined here, but simply because they get off on being the object of adulation and/or fear. Or, if they HAD originally made a rational calculation that education requires some degree of hierarchy, it everntally gets to the point where the power-trip becomes an end in itself.
[ 05. April 2014, 21:24: Message edited by: Stetson ]
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
Did teachers in bygone centuries drop out or take early retirement because they couldn't or didn't want to deal with disrespectful pupils any more? Or is that just a modern thing?
For much of that "bygone era", schoolteaching was one of the very few respectable professions available to women who needed to support themselves or their families. So they didn't drop out simply because they had no other option. Today, thankfully, they do.
Yes, this did cross my mind.
I did a PGCE and spent several years doing supply teaching. But the disrespect wore me down. I get on better with students once they hit 16.
Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on
:
“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”
(Attributed to Socrates by Plato)
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on
:
Sorry, missed the edit window. From my anedcote above...
quote:
Thing is, though, this was the 70s
Actually, it was the mid-80s, which may be important, in terms of how long the relative Age Of Aquarius had been in swing by the time of the teacher's transgressions.
[ 05. April 2014, 21:39: Message edited by: Stetson ]
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
The New York Times had an article recently about candy stores near schools. Since the schools no longer allow students to carry cell phones in school, the stores provide a checkroom service. The kids leave the phones before school and pick them up afterwards. Some stores charge a fee of fifty cents or a dollar, but the main reason the stores do it is to get the money from the extra purchases the children make while waiting to pick up their phones.
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on
:
@Palimpsest
Speaking as someone who teaches(albet informally), I'm a little suspicious of the animosity of some teachers toward cell-phones.
Now, yes, I'll be the first to admit that cell phones in class can be disruptive. However, I do wonder how many of the teachers rallying against them are doing so because they have sincerely concluded that cell phones disrupt class, and how many of them are just people like this guy.
[ 06. April 2014, 05:03: Message edited by: Stetson ]
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
@Stetson
To be honest, I can't quite figure out what is going on in the video of that teacher student brawl. It doesn't look good for the teacher.
There's currently a trend in policing to have police always have video cameras on them running while they are on patrol. I wonder if it's going to come to that for teachers as well.
Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:
A teacher dragged my grandmother (born 1915) around the classroom by her plaits, she ran home crying and her step mother marched her back to the school and there dragged the teacher around the classroom by her hair!
No plaits at my senior school but not far from where you live I saw boys dragged round the classroom by teachers in the 1970's. A dark stain on the school. It all suddenly stopped in the term before the school became a VIth Form College and the first girls were admitted.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
:
Back in the 60s, the word round the corridors of our all girl school was that one of the classes had stuffed a (quite inadequate) teacher in a cupboard. This was a four foot high cupboard. She was short, but not that short.
I'm not sure if this was true - there was suspiciously little response if so. But the very existence of the story shows the lack of respect.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
In about 1971 some past 6th-formers came back to the school in the summer holidays immediately after they had left, and wrote "CREEP AND THOU SHALT PROSPER" in 6-foot high letters in white paint on the (sloping) roof. The school authorities didn't manage to completely expunge it for months.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Ethne Alba:
Surfice it to say that respect is a two way street; show some and one might get some.
This.
Up to a point. There are plenty of people in that age group who have never been socialised properly - largely due to societal breakdown - and so therefore are unlikely to reciprocate respect, as the only currency they deal with is power and fear.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Ethne Alba:
Surfice it to say that respect is a two way street; show some and one might get some.
This.
Up to a point. There are plenty of people in that age group who have never been socialised properly - largely due to societal breakdown - and so therefore are unlikely to reciprocate respect, as the only currency they deal with is power and fear.
That seems like the very point we were making.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
That seems like the very point we were making.
I'm saying that 'respect is a two way street' doesn't work, unless you are talking about a much longer street that an immediate situation.
[codefix]
[ 07. April 2014, 11:08: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
:
I think that's a good point Chris. Unless I'm massively, rather than just mildly, self deluded I think I've always treated kids with respect, and that has made for generally harmonious relationships. These days I often find that kids demand respect from me, while treating me like dirt. Somehow that lack of equality gets me down.
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
This is a much discussed topic, but I heard a new take on it today. Chatting with a colleague over lunch he put forward the line that mobile phones were partly to blame. I told him that sounded barmy, but then he explained. His line was that there was a time when pupils might become interested in teachers, and even go on to become friends with them, after they'd left school. These days pupils live in a increasingly peer-enclosed bubble, where adults of any kind get written off as irrelevant.
Is that plausible? And does anyone else have new views on this old topic?
My view is that respect for authority is less precisely because respect for people is greater. We don't now give as much more respect to straight white upper class males as we once did - or to people in positions of authority. But ask poor women or poor people of colour about how much the respect they get has changed. In Britain we aren't overtly putting out signs saying "No dogs, blacks, or Irish" and we certainly aren't having one of our major political parties using as overt a slogan as "If you want a nigger for a neighbour vote Labour."
So yes, respect for authority has gone down. And doubly so with the internet. I prefer it this way.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
That seems like the very point we were making.
I'm saying that 'respect is a two way street' doesn't work, unless you are talking about a much longer street that an immediate situation.
[codefix]
Again, that seems consistent with what I said. The reason teens are disrespectful is because society in general is not respectful to them. You can't fix that overnight.
Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on
:
Just to clarify...the school of which i spoke in an earlier post about respect being a two way street, it was a grammar and boarding school. It was also as someone else has reminded us in the 70s. Another age. Another whole set of norms. And yes, we had the teachers dissing other teachers as well. Like Stetson, I also came out of this feeling that a neat and a tidy boundary between teachers and pupils is a very good thing indeed.
As far as my own experiences colouring the way that i might treat teacher's interactions with my own children~ I had worked in schools in between being a pupil and sending mine own to school. So those years taught me much ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
I may be mistaken, with the rosy hue of age and all that, but i don't think that i felt any antagonism towards towards my (many) children's (many) teachers. Compassion? Pity? Understanding? All those! I mean, i knew my kids, they could be tykes.
Neither have i a longstanding dislike of teachers in general. On the contrary I feel that that vast majority of teachers (In the UK anyway, can't speak for elsewhere) do a brilliant job, under what are often very trying circumstances, and should be paid considerably more than they currently recieve.
I was at That School for three years, that's three out of eleven years of schooling. I left to live away and attended college some distance from home for the two years that some are still in school for. So for the other ten years , my experience of teachers in education was generally neutral/ good. Hardly an attidude that would be expected to spawn a multitude of rioters in classrooms.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
To clarify my own position: I'm not suggesting that the disrespect problem lies at the feet of teachers-- or students. I'm suggesting that our culture in general is disrespectful and suspicious of teenagers, treating them like punks, potential felons, or clueless shallow idiots. So that even when they encounter a teacher or other adult who is kind and respectful, it's difficult to overcome the larger influence of years of experience.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
To clarify my own position: I'm not suggesting that the disrespect problem lies at the feet of teachers-- or students. I'm suggesting that our culture in general is disrespectful and suspicious of teenagers, treating them like punks, potential felons, or clueless shallow idiots. So that even when they encounter a teacher or other adult who is kind and respectful, it's difficult to overcome the larger influence of years of experience.
I think this is extremely relevant. My daughter is not even close to being a teenager yet, but I've noticed something related to this with her. I have a habit of explaining things to her to a degree that most adults don't. However, I have been scolded by more than one acquaintance for treating her above her age in terms of complexity of concepts I explained. (Mind, she clearly likes the way we talk to her and generally politely avoids any adult who she sees as talking-down to her.) That's partially about respect, but it's also about expectations. We as a society have such rigid expectations of what children want or care about. And teenagers are confusingly adults and children, so they can be hard to predict even before we as a society make it worse by confusing them with opinions about they should do and want that are sometimes dramatically different from what they really want or need to do!
Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on
:
Indeed
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
To clarify my own position: I'm not suggesting that the disrespect problem lies at the feet of teachers-- or students. I'm suggesting that our culture in general is disrespectful and suspicious of teenagers, treating them like punks, potential felons, or clueless shallow idiots. So that even when they encounter a teacher or other adult who is kind and respectful, it's difficult to overcome the larger influence of years of experience.
Yes. This. In a slightly different context, it was remarked recently on a FB thread that the very same people who will reminisce about how they used to play out as children all day and reappear for meals and had so much freedom etc. etc. are the first to complain about children riding bikes around or hanging around in the shopping precinct.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
To clarify my own position: I'm not suggesting that the disrespect problem lies at the feet of teachers-- or students. I'm suggesting that our culture in general is disrespectful and suspicious of teenagers, treating them like punks, potential felons, or clueless shallow idiots. So that even when they encounter a teacher or other adult who is kind and respectful, it's difficult to overcome the larger influence of years of experience.
Yes. This. In a slightly different context, it was remarked recently on a FB thread that the very same people who will reminisce about how they used to play out as children all day and reappear for meals and had so much freedom etc. etc. are the first to complain about children riding bikes around or hanging around in the shopping precinct.
As Tom Jones would put it, "It's not unusual".
My take on "respect" is that there is a general respect deficit and it has the same cause as the financial one - greed.
Too many people are in a desperate scramble for possessions and wealth that they will trample on others to get the last scrap of an advantage. When it appears to many teenagers that they will probably never achieve the level of prosperity their parents have, are you surprised they don't give "respect"?
It's as well to remember when looking at society's ills that there are many more older people now and far fewer young people. Isn't it worth asking where this "lack of respect" comes from?
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
In a slightly different context, it was remarked recently on a FB thread that the very same people who will reminisce about how they used to play out as children all day and reappear for meals and had so much freedom etc. etc. are the first to complain about children riding bikes around or hanging around in the shopping precinct.
That's not necessarily a contradiction - they're complaining about what the kids are getting up to while out of the house, not the fact that they're out of the house in the first place.
Posted by daisymay (# 1480) on
:
When I was teaching in various teenagers schools, they did love and respect me and sometimes now they are adults, they smile and talk to me when they see me (maybe when we are buying in shops).
Maybe they got pleased that they got to manage to get their necessaries, as I taught them well and busy. Does that not happen to teenagers nowadays?
Posted by Caissa (# 16710) on
:
I have taught teenagers in the Canadian school syastem and worked for 20 years in the university student services, ocassionaly teaching courses. On the whole, I have met with respect from them. The exceptions are the ones that stand out in my memory.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
To clarify my own position: I'm not suggesting that the disrespect problem lies at the feet of teachers-- or students. I'm suggesting that our culture in general is disrespectful and suspicious of teenagers, treating them like punks, potential felons, or clueless shallow idiots. So that even when they encounter a teacher or other adult who is kind and respectful, it's difficult to overcome the larger influence of years of experience.
Yes. This. In a slightly different context, it was remarked recently on a FB thread that the very same people who will reminisce about how they used to play out as children all day and reappear for meals and had so much freedom etc. etc. are the first to complain about children riding bikes around or hanging around in the shopping precinct.
As Tom Jones would put it, "It's not unusual".
My take on "respect" is that there is a general respect deficit and it has the same cause as the financial one - greed.
Too many people are in a desperate scramble for possessions and wealth that they will trample on others to get the last scrap of an advantage. When it appears to many teenagers that they will probably never achieve the level of prosperity their parents have, are you surprised they don't give "respect"?
I don't even think it has that much to do with prosperity per se. Our family took a huge hit financially with the recession. My husband has been out of work for 6 years now-- there was simply no way for our family budget to accommodate the loss of his income without it significantly affecting our two teenaged sons. I have been pleasantly surprised about how well they have understood that and the accommodations we've made. Sure, every now and then they'll reminisce about bygone days when we could afford to eat out at this or that restaurant or take this or that vacation. Generally my husband or I will just join them in that wistful complaint and then we sorta all four shake it off and figure out what we do want to do with whatever budget we have. That itself may be an example of the disrespect-- that we assume kids can't accept hard realities like a recession, when in fact, they can.
But I think it's definitely true (at least in the US) that the economic downturn has hit children & youth far harder than any other age group. In the US, someone under 18 is far likelier to be living in poverty than any other age group. It would seem to me that the majority of cuts to services have come to education, recreation, and other programs that disproportionately affect children and teens. Which means, if nothing else, that there is a huge disconnect between what we say ("we are all about investing in the youth", "we are a youth-obsessed culture") and the reality ("we are suspicious of youth and think they're probably dangerous", "we have worked hard for what we've got so if there are sacrifices to make, the young will make them"). That certainly doesn't help feelings of disrespect in general.
[ 07. April 2014, 19:47: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
In a slightly different context, it was remarked recently on a FB thread that the very same people who will reminisce about how they used to play out as children all day and reappear for meals and had so much freedom etc. etc. are the first to complain about children riding bikes around or hanging around in the shopping precinct.
That's not necessarily a contradiction - they're complaining about what the kids are getting up to while out of the house, not the fact that they're out of the house in the first place.
I disagree. I think it's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The kids who are hanging out in the mall or riding bikes are really not doing anything any different than what these oldsters (myself included) did when they were free to go play all day as children. But there's a default assumption that kids hanging out in the mall or riding bikes around town are "up to no good", even if there is no evidence to support it. Unsupervised teens gathering in clumps are automatically assumed to be a gang or punks unless they suddenly break out into a Glee Club dance number or something. It's the automatic suspicion (not unlike the experience of many African American males) that causes the feelings of disrespect. Or rather, it's not causing just a feeling of disrespect-- it IS disrespect. The end result being that even when youth are treated with respect, they have little experience to know how to appropriately respond.
[ 07. April 2014, 19:53: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on
:
Cliffdweller wrote:
quote:
Unsupervised teens gathering in clumps are automatically assumed to be a gang or punks unless they suddenly break out into a Glee Club dance number or something.
I vividly recall the moral panic surrounding video arcades in the mid-80s. Apparently, those were the places that were fueling youthful involvement with the drug trade, gangs, prostitution, etc. I guess those problems have all disappeared now that everyone is playing the games on their computers or cell phones.
Also, does anyone remember "latchkey kids", who were supposedly being dragged down to hell by having to spend a couple of extra hours unsupervised after school because both parents worked? I mean, I guess it IS easier to do dtugs or steal bicycles without one's parents around, but if a kid really has it in his head to do that, I think he'll figure out a way to fit it into his schedule, whether or not mom's home in time to make dinner every day.
[ 07. April 2014, 21:21: Message edited by: Stetson ]
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
In a slightly different context, it was remarked recently on a FB thread that the very same people who will reminisce about how they used to play out as children all day and reappear for meals and had so much freedom etc. etc. are the first to complain about children riding bikes around or hanging around in the shopping precinct.
That's not necessarily a contradiction - they're complaining about what the kids are getting up to while out of the house, not the fact that they're out of the house in the first place.
I disagree. I think it's a perfect example of what I'm talking about. The kids who are hanging out in the mall or riding bikes are really not doing anything any different than what these oldsters (myself included) did when they were free to go play all day as children. But there's a default assumption that kids hanging out in the mall or riding bikes around town are "up to no good", even if there is no evidence to support it. Unsupervised teens gathering in clumps are automatically assumed to be a gang or punks unless they suddenly break out into a Glee Club dance number or something. It's the automatic suspicion (not unlike the experience of many African American males) that causes the feelings of disrespect. Or rather, it's not causing just a feeling of disrespect-- it IS disrespect. The end result being that even when youth are treated with respect, they have little experience to know how to appropriately respond.
This. Hence the appearance on the market of devices intended to deter the young by emitting high a high pitched noise that most older adults can't here - presumably only "troublemaking" youth can hear it.
Can you imagine if someone put something on the market that claimed to deter black people because someone had found some frequency that more people of African descent could hear than Caucasian?
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Can you imagine if someone put something on the market that claimed to deter black people because someone had found some frequency that more people of African descent could hear than Caucasian?
Isn't there one already on the market? It could account for Black people being all but unknown, let alone under-represented, in many lines of work.
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
I'm sure I've seen a news item that had a shopping centre in the UK playing 'easy listening' records to deter teenagers???
As I recall they started out with Des O'Connor but had to change to someone else because trade was down for ALL age groups... ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
In downtown Seattle, one fast food place did not like the street kids, many of them black, hanging out in front of their store. They tried to solve the problem by playing Country Western music outside the store.
Posted by jrw (# 18045) on
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Didn't everyone used to leave school at 14? Surely that must make a difference. 14-16 year olds are more likely to cause problems in school than younger people, generally speaking.
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
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Indeed they did. My mother was a teacher at the time, and I remember her talking about how much more difficult the whole atmosphere in secondary schools became when the leaving age was raised.
Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
There may have been a time when pupils would remain on good terms with teachers after leaving school, but it ended long before mobile phones came into being.
Last time I attempted to teach teenagers, I ended up in hospital for several hours , having arrived via ambulance, with heart palpitations! As a supply teacher, I find them light-years more trouble than they're worth and more than my job is worth to ever attempt teaching them again!
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by jrw:
Didn't everyone used to leave school at 14? Surely that must make a difference. 14-16 year olds are more likely to cause problems in school than younger people, generally speaking.
Until 1947 the school leaving age in the UK was 14, when it was raised to 15. In September 1972 it was raised to 16. It was also the end of the traditional apprenticeship system, which often ran for seven years and that coincided with the then age of majority (adulthood) at 21.
I don't know if 14-16 year olds are more likely to cause problems but as they are usually bigger and stronger, some of the problems will be worse.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Indeed they did. My mother was a teacher at the time, and I remember her talking about how much more difficult the whole atmosphere in secondary schools became when the leaving age was raised.
So how much more difficult that it has been raised to 17 this year and 18 next year.
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on
:
I think one of the things that Summerhill got right was allowing students to attend or not attend class depending on their own personal interest in the subject matter.
I would estimate that I spent at least half my time in junior-high attending classes in which I learned nothing, either because I lacked the ability or interest to study properly(math, science) or because I was already reading about the subject outside of class, due to having an interest(Social Studies and Language Arts). I honestly would have been better off attending classes for an hour or two a day, and holding down some sort of job, either voluntary or paying, for the rest.
And on that subhect, I think child-labour gets a bad rap, at least when we start applying the concept to teenagers. I had a part-time job in junior-high, doing phone solicitation for some kinda quasi-charity outfit. It was only for one night a week, but it was the kind of thing I probably could have done for a few hours every day, with no detriment to my overall well-being.
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Indeed they did. My mother was a teacher at the time, and I remember her talking about how much more difficult the whole atmosphere in secondary schools became when the leaving age was raised.
So how much more difficult that it has been raised to 17 this year and 18 next year.
Absolutely. For myself, I've come to the same decision as Sir Kevin has - even though I used to love teaching and often recommended it as a career to classes I was teaching.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
And on that subhect, I think child-labour gets a bad rap, at least when we start applying the concept to teenagers. I had a part-time job in junior-high, doing phone solicitation for some kinda quasi-charity outfit. It was only for one night a week, but it was the kind of thing I probably could have done for a few hours every day, with no detriment to my overall well-being.
Really, apprenticeship is a good model for teaching in a lot of situations. Regulate it so the child is not exploited, apply some sort fo school credit system to the situation-- ALONG WITH appropriate wages-- and let teens find productive work. The fact of the matter is people perform better and achieve more when they see a point to what they are doing.
Why can't a student, for instance, get a volunteer or paid job at a zoo and have that apply to science requirements for graduation? Have a science teacher draw up a rubric and go to it!
Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on
:
When I was in school, students could get "working papers" from the school office that cleared them to work at the particular job they were applying for.
In my senior year, the big thing with the girls was working part-time evenings as operators at the telephone company. Their adventures were always the topic of interesting conversation.
Posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom (# 3434) on
:
Don't get me started on the abolition of the apprenticeship system! Its one of my pet rants.
Developmentally, apprenticeship works much better for many kids than sitting in school. In an apprenticeship, you start working around the age you have most energy and most likelihood of going off the rails. The 14-year-old apprentice was in the charge of older, experienced workers, who inducted them into the ways of work, a profession, and, gradually, becoming an adult. This works for everyone, as the adults get the benefit of the teen's energy and have someone to do all the shit jobs like cleaning things and, to take a random example from smithing, making nails, which is where you learn your basic skills.
By the time you're 21, you have skills, a profession, money, and the prospect of future employment (and in the old days, you'd probably be getting married and starting a family). Contrast that with a lot of our 21-year-olds who are drifting along with no hope or direction.
Worst thing our government ever did was take away the apprenticeship system. If you're an academic kid, well and good, but if you're not, you may be stuffed - many go through school with only failure to show for their teen years. This is wrong.
My granddad left school at 11 and was apprenticed to the Marist Brothers as a winemaker. By the time he was 19 he owned a winery (which his father held the license for, since he wasn't old enough). By the time he was in his 50s, he had won NZ's first international gold medal for a Bordeaux-style red wine. He sat on all kinds of public boards, including chairing the Education Board. He hated school, and kept my mum out of school until she was legally required to go at age 7. She loved school, and he was wise enough to recognise that there are different strokes for different folks and let her stay until she was 16. By the time I came along, an academic to the core, he was incredibly proud to attend my first graduation from uni.
He never had any further formal education, but he developed his literacy and number skills to a very high degree through his work, and, from being a grumpy boy who wouldn't say boo to a goose (according to his sole surviving sibling), became a gifted and popular raconteur.
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
:
You're right about apprenticeships. Young Zac, at our butcher's, was once apprentice butcher of the year; in the other years. he was apprentice of the year overall. It shows, and it shows in others who have done a proper apprenticeship with a good master tradesperson to guide them.
A low fee Anglican school in Sydney's western suburbs takes students on the basis that they are being trained for a trade. Academic studies take only part of the week, the remainder being taken by vocational training. There should be more schools like this.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
I spent 5 years teaching in an alternative education provision, teaching 14-16 year olds whose school placements had broken down for two or three days a week - English, maths, PSHE, plus ASDAN. The other days they were in work experience or at college taking a vocational course.
The last couple of years of that it was virtually impossible to organise work experience. In a recession apprenticeships and work experience placements dried up. Companies making employees redundant aren't allowed to take on apprentices or work experience students. Building sites cannot insure for anyone on site under the age of 16, so we couldn't place students with construction firms, which is all several of the students wanted to do. The college places dried up with changes in Government funding for further education colleges, so there were very few places available for these students to learn motor vehicle maintenance, floristry, child care or construction - and those tend to go to the more reliable, more willing to work with the school students, unsurprisingly. It costs the school £1500 odd a student to send them on these courses one day a week.
With the changes in the school leaving age, those work placements and college places are being pushed out to the 16-18 year olds still in education and we've got even less to offer the 14-16 year olds.
I currently work with a year 9 student (was 13, now 14). He knows because I've told him, but he doesn't believe it, he has to stay in education or training until 18. He's so anti-education that he's very difficult to get in at all at the moment, with four years more education to go. Although I've sourced a one day a week college course from September, the educational organisation I work for is not going to fund it unless his attendance improves. Where he lives, inner London, and his background I can see his future is going to include at least one prison sentence. It's just how soon.
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