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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Why Don't Teenagers Respect Teachers Any More?
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
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?
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
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.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Personally, I think it all started back with Pink Floyd. ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
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.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
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.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
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.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
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.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
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.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
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?
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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art dunce
Shipmate
# 9258
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Posted
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.
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Ego is not your amigo.
Posts: 1283 | From: in the studio | Registered: Apr 2005
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
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.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
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.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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ProgenitorDope
Apprentice
# 16648
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Posted
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?
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
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.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
"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).
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
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.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
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.
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
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.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Crśsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
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"?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
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 ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
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.
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
Posts: 7667 | From: Summerisle | Registered: May 2001
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
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 ]
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
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.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
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.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
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 ]
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
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.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
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.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
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...
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
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.)
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
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 ]
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
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).
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
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!
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Zacchaeus
Shipmate
# 14454
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Posted
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...
Posts: 1905 | From: the back of beyond | Registered: Jan 2009
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
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.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Ethne Alba
Shipmate
# 5804
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Posted
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.
Posts: 3126 | Registered: Apr 2004
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
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.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
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.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
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
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
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'.
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
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.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
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?
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
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!
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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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.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
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.'
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My Jewish-positive lectionary blog is at http://recognisingjewishrootsinthelectionary.wordpress.com/
My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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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?
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Amos
Shipmate
# 44
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Posted
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 ]
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At the end of the day we face our Maker alongside Jesus--ken
Posts: 7667 | From: Summerisle | Registered: May 2001
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
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 ]
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
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Posted
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.
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'I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.' Douglas Adams
Dog Activity Monitor
My shop
Posts: 2831 | From: Trumpington | Registered: Jan 2008
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
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.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
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.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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