Are kids more bratty now, or are teachers less effective?

[Darth Wong]

One thing I've noticed in my kid's public school is that the older teachers are consistently much better at controlling the kids than the younger ones. So this leads to the question: when teachers complain about how kids are so much worse today, how much of that is due to their own skills or lack thereof? After all, when a 30 year old teacher complains that kids are much worse today than they were 30 years ago, how would he know? And why are the older ones able to control them better?

I suppose one can point to extreme cases such as metal detectors and youth gang violence in the hallways for really bad inner-city schools, but that's a bit of a rhetorical dodge; teachers have the same complaints even when they live in wealthy suburbs.

I'm reminded of the ADHD problem; 30 years ago a teacher probably would have just declared that the kid was hyperactive and tried to manage the situation. Now the teacher considers it a medical issue and tries to force the parent to "fix" the kid so he won't require extra attention.

[Admiral Valdemar]

My old English teacher wanted to bring back the cane. That'd sort them out, a good 100 lashings before first period was over and infront of the other classmates would set an example.

Soon, the rebel insurgents of the school will witness and tremble before the power commanded by their peers.

On a less sinister note, I'd have to say that society is somewhat decayed compared to even that of the '50s. My parents can't seem to understand how bad some kids can be at school. I mean, bullying and the like have existed for all time. But kids with knives, drugs and in some cases, whole crowds of kids beating up another one to death, well, that's a new development it seems.

To be honest, it could just be these city schools, but even my school years which are not a million years away seemed far more civil than that of what I hear now.

[SirNitram]

Some of Column A, some of Column B. Learning Disorders being over-diagnosed has definately made more teachers lazy, but the growing cultural opposition to intellectualism has definately made schoolwork less important in many people's eyes.

[Robert Walper]

I'd say it's a combination of parenting issues (lack of proper discipline) and whining on part of the teachers. Plus, I think in alot of cases teachers can't do anything if they wanted to. You get chewed out nowadays for even rasising your voice to a kid, because it's psychologically "damaging".

[Admiral Valdemar]

I think the ever decreasing powers of teachers along with the increasing use of litigation has lead partly to what we have now. The film One Eight Seven is an extreme example (and it was LA), but you never saw that stuff happening to the extent that films were suddenly viable back a few decades.

[Drooling Iguana]

One thing I've noticed in my kid's public school is that the older teachers are consistently much better at controlling the kids than the younger ones.

Experience also undoubtably plays a major role.

[Darth Wong]

One thing I've noticed in my kid's public school is that the older teachers are consistently much better at controlling the kids than the younger ones.

Experience also undoubtably plays a major role.

It's more than that. The younger teachers also complain more than the older ones, and are far more likely to try and push medication on you.

[Durandal]

Fear of lawsuits is something to consider, as well. It doesn't take very much to get a teacher fired these days. All it takes is one parent with money threatening litigation to get a teacher fired to avoid a costly legal battle for the school. So younger teachers tend to tread very lightly on what disciplinary actions they invoke.

[Alyeska]

Having taught classes and having to deal with problem students, I lay the blame squarely on teachers AND parents who do not discipline their children effectively. When I have a student that refuses to accept my authority and I am left standing there with a dumbfounded look on my face after the student refuses to leave class when I ordered him, there is little else I can do. You don't use physical punishment against kids, especialy not high schoolers (though that would have been SOOO satisfying to smack that punk). When teachers and parents fail to properly discipline children, and actively cave in to their bad behaivor, it sets up a bad situation for those of us who have to deal with the problem child and ard handicapped in our position because they don't respect authority.

[Durandal]

Having taught classes and having to deal with problem students, I lay the blame squarely on teachers AND parents who do not discipline their children effectively. When I have a student that refuses to accept my authority and I am left standing there with a dumbfounded look on my face after the student refuses to leave class when I ordered him, there is little else I can do. You don't use physical punishment against kids, especialy not high schoolers (though that would have been SOOO satisfying to smack that punk). When teachers and parents fail to properly discipline children, and actively cave in to their bad behaivor, it sets up a bad situation for those of us who have to deal with the problem child and ard handicapped in our position because they don't respect authority.

You forgot to threaten the student with adding the incident to his Permanent Record.

[Alyeska]

The kid was a fucking prick. He imediately questioned my authority the moment class started. He demanded to know why I could dictate control over the radio. Claimed he didn't know I was the substitute. When I was reading a news article on the computer he demanded to know what I was doing and said he would tell his teacher and get me fired. Kept stating I couldn't do anything to him because I wasn't a real teacher. I told him to apologize or spend lunch detention with me. He acted all innocent and asked me what he had done wrong that he had to apologize for. He repeated this and I told him last chance. Still refused to apologize. I told him to stop what he was doing and follow me to the main office. He ignored me for three minutes before finaly stopping. Kept raving how he would tell his teacher about this and get me fired. I escort the little fuck to the office and write a dicipline referral. The fuck is suspended for the rest of the day and the next day for the incident.

When I end up having this kid in another class a few weeks later he says he can't handle it. I tell him to sit down and shutup. I also comment that I still have a job with the school. He skips class the next day. I talk with one of his teachers and it turns out he is an insubordinate asshole much of the time. Some teachers let him walk all over them. His parents obviously don't know jack how to discipline their kid.

I wanted to smack that kid so bad for questioning my authority like that.

I've also had a jock threaten to kick my ass. I wanted to put him on the floor for that comment, but instead I called the office and the vice principle (former college wrestler who maintained his size for the most part) came and yanked the kid out of class and suspended him for the whole week (this was a tuesday or wednesday).

[Darth Wong]

I think alot of it comes from the self-esteem and 'tolerance' bullshit, too. "Its not his fault he's that way. We have to respect his upbringing."

Well, they do teach a lot more of that in teacher's college now.

And the fucktard parents who go nuts on the school for the smallest things, thinking their children are perfect and would never do anything wrong, so they never take any displinary action at home.

How common are these parents, relative to teachers' claims?

Teachers are trained to give in to avoid confrontation because the school fears the parents, so the crazy/stupid parents are the ones really at fault.

With all due respect, that's bullshit. Teachers routinely accuse parents to their face of not doing a good job with their own kids. And even if you point out that another teacher in the same school has no problem with the same kid, the teacher will continue in his insistence that you are the one with the problem.

In few other jobs (except for the US President) can you be a useless lazy buck-passing fuckwit and not get fired.

[Perinquus]

It's a combination of issues. Lack of parental discipline at home is part of it. I think teachers today, in addition to being less experienced, also received, when they were going through postgrad education school, a lot more touchy-feely that focuses a lot less on discipline and a lot more on not hurting the poor little darlings' self esteem. And I also think that the current laws, both civil and criminal, which say THOU SHALT NOT LAY HANDS ON A JUVENILE FOR ANY REASON, EVER!!!

I'm not just talking about corporal punishment here. Though for the life of me I can't understand the objections to it. Generations of kids were raised with it, and turned out just fine. But a few decades ago, if a teacher told an unruly student to leave the classroom, and go to the principal's office, and the student defied him and said "make me!" Well, it would most likely never have happened in the first place, but if it did, the teacher would walk over to the offending brat, jerk his bones up out of the chair, and frogmarch him down to the principal's office to receive disciplinary action (for that level of defiance, almost certainly a suspension). And the fact that that would have happened, and teachers and students both knew that's how it would go down, meant it almost never did happen. And after this level of discipline throughout the years of elementary school, by the time the students reached high school, and were grown enough to be a potential physical threat to a teacher, discipline had become so thoroughly ingrained that they simply were not inclined to defy a teacher's authority. I hate to use words like indocrinated, but that is essentially what happened. Students were indoctrinated with a respect for a teacher's authority.

Today, however, a teacher who laid hands on a student, not to strike him, but simply to take him by the arm and drag him down to the office would lose his job, face criminal charges for assaulting a minor, and very possibly be sued by the parents. So instead of learning respect for a teacher's authority, they learn that there's nothing you can do to them. If some student pushes you to the point where you tell him to leave the room, and he refuses to go, then the whole class gets to see that you are now powerless to back up your order. It makes the teachers look weak, and inculcates a disrespect for teachers' authority. Let this happen in elementary school, and by the time the kids are in high school they will be uncontrollable.

[Darth Wong]

Perinquus, could you explain, then, why some teachers can still maintain control of the classroom despite being restricted by these rules? Magic? Telepathy? Voodoo? I see schools where some teachers can do it while others can't, and the ones who can't still blame the parents.

Also, it's noteworthy that a lot of teachers have hopelessly unrealistic ideas of what constitutes a behavioural problem. I saw one teacher who would discipline kindergarten kids for "speaking out of turn", for fuck's sake.

[Alyeska]

I'm not just talking about corporal punishment here. Though for the life of me I can't understand the objections to it. Generations of kids were raised with it, and turned out just fine.

You hit my kid, and I hit you ten times over. Do you understand that? NO ONE but the parent of a child has ANY right to physicaly punish the child.

Today, however, a teacher who laid hands on a student, not to strike him, but simply to take him by the arm and drag him down to the office would lose his job, face criminal charges for assaulting a minor, and very possibly be sued by the parents. So instead of learning respect for a teacher's authority, they learn that there's nothing you can do to them. If some student pushes you to the point where you tell him to leave the room, and he refuses to go, then the whole class gets to see that you are now powerless to back up your order. It makes the teachers look weak, and inculcates a disrespect for teachers' authority. Let this happen in elementary school, and by the time the kids are in high school they will be uncontrollable.

Had I been able to drag that punk out of my class, I would gladly have done it. This I agree on.

[Pick]

There's good kids and bad kids as well as good teachers and bad ones. In general, I've felt my older teachers were better, but I can't say that as a complete rule since also some of the older ones have been terrible and some of my younger ones exceptional. I do think the older teachers are generally much more concerned with control, which can be exceedingly important. Also the experience doesn't hurt.

On the note of kids, however, I really do think that they're worse brats now. I am not entirely sure why, but... I mean... a lot of the kids are just assholes.

[Alyeska]

Perinquus, could you explain, then, why some teachers can still maintain control of the classroom despite being restricted by these rules? Magic? Telepathy? Voodoo? I see schools where some teachers can do it while others can't, and the ones who can't still blame the parents.

Also, it's noteworthy that a lot of teachers have hopelessly unrealistic ideas of what constitutes a behavioural problem. I saw one teacher who would discipline kindergarten kids for "speaking out of turn", for fuck's sake.

It depends on the teacher and how the class is diciplined. Substitute teachers are far more likely to face crap from students and have a harder time diciplining the students. It also depends on the students that the particular teacher has.

[Darth Wong]

On the note of kids, however, I really do think that they're worse brats now. I am not entirely sure why, but... I mean... a lot of the kids are just assholes.

And that wasn't true before? Corporal punishment was outlawed in the school system in Canada before I went through grade school more than 25 years ago, and you still have people saying that the lack of corporal punishment is making kids worse now than they were 25 years ago. That's nothing but reactionary thinking; if a kid is behaving really badly you can just suspend him. Goodbye, good riddance. There's still no excuse for constantly whinging that you can't control the kids and expecting half of your parents to start medicating them.

[Edi]

How common are these parents, relative to teachers' claims?

Depends on the teacher making the claim. Incompetent teachers are more likely to try to pass the buck to parents in an attempt to absolve themselves, but there are enough of this kind of parents (in varying degrees of severity) to significantly contribute to the problem.

The surest sign of incompetent parents is that when a teacher gives the kids detention or other punishment or sends a note to the parents because the kid has not done homework or is causing trouble in class, or does something else, they start whining that their little angel would never do such a thing. I had my nose cartilage bashed and cracked by such a problem kid in seventh grade and despite the fucking x-rays that showed it his mom denied that her kid would do what he did.

So, less than the teachers are complaining about but enough to cause problems.

With all due respect, that's bullshit. Teachers routinely accuse parents to their face of not doing a good job with their own kids. And even if you point out that another teacher in the same school has no problem with the same kid, the teacher will continue in his insistence that you are the one with the problem.

That's a sure sign of the kind of incompetents I refer to above. I know you hate the "appeal to mom and dad", but I'll use one anyhow, so bear with me. My mom has been a language teacher (primarily English, Swedish to a lesser extent) for over thirty years all told, and she has had no qualms talking about some of her experiences. She has usually never had trouble maintaining order in her class, because she has made it clear that there will be consequences for disruption. According to her, most parents are not very big problems once they also hear her side of the story, but then there are the completely unreasonable whackjobs who won't listen and won't hear, and it's without exception the kids from these families that cause the biggest problems, partly because their behavior encourages the other kids to behave badly as well. Remove the troublemaker and the class usually quiets down a lot. There are usually one or two of these trouble families per class level even for relatively small schools, never mind large ones. Of course, she has also seen enough to know that direct accusatory confrontation has to be the absolute last resort, becasue it just makes any kind of rational discussion harder.

In few other jobs (except for the US President) can you be a useless lazy buck-passing fuckwit and not get fired.

My mom would probably agree with that sentiment, given some of the idiots at her workplace...

Edi

[White Haven]

Okay, I'm speaking from a 20-year-old's perspective here, so I just got outta high school. Yeah, there was BS...but I have to relate one particular story that seems to go against a lot of what's been said here. Football coach and history teacher named Lancaster worked at my high school, and on more than one occasion physically hauled students out of his classroom when they were pushing things with him. I've seen pictures of him in 1980s yearbooks, so he's hardly new, and to my knowledge he's still there, almost three years after I graduated. In other words...well, I don't really see the whole 'teachers get fired for laying a hand on a student' bit, not at all. Now, same school, there was a teacher who clubbed the bejesus out of a student with a chair, but that's an entirely different story.

From a student's perspective, the only times I really bucked at a teacher was when they were going on about demanding respect. That's well and good, but when a horrible teacher who also has a horrible attitude problem is telling me to respect him/her, a little voice inside me asks 'why the hell should I?' Now, I had enough control to avoid actually SAYING that, fortunately...

[Illuminatus Primus]

Fear of lawsuits is something to consider, as well. It doesn't take very much to get a teacher fired these days. All it takes is one parent with money threatening litigation to get a teacher fired to avoid a costly legal battle for the school. So younger teachers tend to tread very lightly on what disciplinary actions they invoke.

Did you go to the same nation's high schools as I? The unions make it nigh-impossible to fire teachers unless they do something really stupid and openly insult or threaten a student or sexually harass one. Hell in my school an inappropriate sexual relationship was caught up and delayed in the bureaucratic murass so long that the guy killed himself due to family problems before he even once got any sort of disciplinary action taken. And for incompetence? Forget it.

Doesn't help the unions help fix salaries to seniority, preventing the schools from rewarding better educated teachers.

[brianeyci]

Maybe it has to do with respect. For some unknown reason(s), certain teachers are respected and certain teachers are not, this is fresh in my memory. I will never understand this type of mindset, but it exists and definitely certain teachers with a certain way of talking, speaking or teaching are not "respected" by students.

How did teachers dress thirty years ago?

How do they dress now?

High school was just a couple years ago for me, I remembered the teachers who wore ties having the most "respect". Then again, that might not be universal. My physics teacher wore a different colour golf shirt depending on the day -- red for tests, when he expected half the class to fail lol. And he was the one with the PhD and respected.

Brian

[Mayabird]

Having only been around twenty years (and the first couple were nothing but eating, sleeping, pooping, and learning basic motor skills), I can't really comment on what kids were like back in the day. However, I did notice a general difference between older (not coach) teachers and younger (not coach) teachers. (I have to leave out coaches because most of them I'd seen have been stupid and assholish without regards to age). The older ones seemed to have degrees in their actual subject material (math, English) and then became teachers. The younger ones more often got education degrees. The teacher with a math degree didn't have her head filled with silly theories about teaching while not knowing jack shit about any actual material, unlike the education majors. They bullshit their way through material they obviously don't know while implimenting crap ideas ("let's all sit in little groups with one smart person per three morons so the smart students can teach the morons!" That's YOUR fucking job, not mine!).

I'm not saying that's everything, but from what I've seen degrees in education lower the actual education done.

[Jalinth]

And that wasn't true before? Corporal punishment was outlawed in the school system in Canada before I went through grade school more than 25 years ago, and you still have people saying that the lack of corporal punishment is making kids worse now than they were 25 years ago. That's nothing but reactionary thinking; if a kid is behaving really badly you can just suspend him. Goodbye, good riddance. There's still no excuse for constantly whinging that you can't control the kids and expecting half of your parents to start medicating them.

Kids now are more aware of their "rights" - as in, all rights without any associated responsibilities. It makes teachers and principle's lives difficult. I remember being assigned to garbage pick-up the first year or two of elementary school for various things (mostly fights) - very effective since it was damn boring and killed your recess. I doubt that such discipline policies are now legit. You don't need corporal punishment, but schools do need discipline tools other than suspension/'expulsion - garbage pick-up and similar duties are a good one - nothing nasty, but not pleasant. Leads young kids to the concept of - do wrong and face the consequences.


Other issues are integration - where real problem cases (note - I'm meaning definite mental, physical or behaviourial issues, not your simple hyperactive kids) are integrated into the classroom rather than being separated into special ed classes (who have extremely small classes with teachers who are specialists in dealing with these children). Regular teacher neither have the training or the time to effectively handle these kids and still provide quality education/direction to their class.

Teachers colleges also seem to be doing a very good job at removing backbone from teachers. Many of the new ones (according to my mother who saw a number of student teachers during her last 10 years of teaching) are very "wishy washy" and have been inculcated with the belief that all kids are "happy/smiling kids who will be extremely eager to learn" ie: a total fable. You can make kids eager, but need to work at it. You also need to understand how to handle a class where you have one or two incorrigibles - those who will not willing do a damn thing.

Teachers need back-up from vps and principles for discipline (elementary schools - secondary are very different). These position are the back-up where the kid can't behave. Promotions for these positions are getting more "paper" oriented rather than talent. So often they are unable/unwilling to support teachers appropriately - leading to teachers deciding "why bother" and cave into the kids.

[brianeyci]

I'm not saying that's everything, but from what I've seen degrees in education lower the actual education done.

I don't know where your teachers came from, but here they need a 4 year university degree to get into teacher's college (1 year), and you need to have taught at least two full credits at post-secondary level in a subject to teach it which almost guarantees that the person has a university degree.

Brian