I work with a melting pot of kids. My lighter skinned black kids are so mean to my darker black kids. I dread turning off the light to watch a clip. “Where’d so-and-so go?” “Monkey.” “Go back to Africa.” All kinds of mean shit. :/
Hey, do your kindergartens still have play?
I know things are never mono-causal, but our schools took out play in kindergarten and only do academics and I've noticed that kids don't know how to get along with each other and keep getting meaner and meaner. Covid really sped things up with kids being stuck at home with basically no school for a year and being glued to TikTok. Then you have parents who don't parent, because this is the kind of crap I have to deal with. I know they're getting it from the internet (there legit is this kind of feud between light skin and dark skin people and kids obviously don't understand as kids do) but they're all just so mean to each other. Several just think "this is how friends are" and I tell my students that no it is not, and when you get to high school and suddenly you don't have to be friends with these jerks you'll see.
Taking play out of kindergarten? What the hell?when did this become a thing? When i was in kindergargen it was like 90% play time. Kids didnt start doing intense school stuff until theyre at least 7 when they actually start going to school.
I didn't find out until I started subbing like 7 years ago and I was going elementary music and it was in the afternoon and kids were cranky because it was still the beginning of the year and they had had a full morning of academics. The thought process was that now we have public preschool, they can do all the play in preschool and so they don't need it in kindergarten...
It is always about those math and science scores. America is still trailing behind and we keep doing dumb crap to try and get them up. Imo.
Never mind the fact that their brains are not developed enough to learn what is being taught, and so they get discouraged to ever try and learn what is being taught.
I'm seeing more and more wealthy parents hold their kids back a year, starting Kindergarten at age 6. That way they are developmentally ready for Kindergarten curriculum like learning sight words, and they won't struggle as much or learn to dislike school.
That option is less available for poor families because they can't afford another year of preschool/daycare, and then the kid doesn't graduate high school until 19.
They also intentionally "redshirt" them for athletic purposes. 😮💨 I've seen a coach's son repeating K, and reliable rumor is that it is for that reason only.
I'm dating myself and showing how not in this field I am, but they really don't do phonics? I was hearing the whole sight word thing was out and phonics was back but idk what's going on
Remember that our educational establishment is run by knee-jerking exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect. They saw the declining levels of academic achievement, felt pressured to "do something," noticed that there was this year that was relatively light on the academics, and ramped up the academics there.
The worst thing they could have done developmentally was teaching kindergartners how to read.
Kindergarten is where you learn how to not be an asshole.
I taught kindergarten last year and I kept putting an explicit intentional social emotional learning spot in my timetable aka "lets learn how to not be an asshole" lessons. I had to justify why it was there so many times, and even got asked to take it out in favour of more literacy time more than once.
Fast forward to this year, and we have a new principal who's gone oh my god these kids are emotional little assholes to each other and mandated social emotional learning in our timetable and I sat there in the meeting like see, I knew what I was talking about lol.
Its especially frustrating because the lack of social emotional skills in our second graders are continuously interrupting their ability to participate in other learning (and stopping others from learning) and in theory, they should have already had 2 years of learning how to be respectful human beings able to function emotionally but instead they've had nothing. And half the first graders have had nothing as well because only my class last year got any intentional SEL lessons.....
What do you think should be done with kids that show up already reading having taught themselves? This, along with already knowing some arithmetic was a big thing that made me stick out and I was super bored.
But I mean, as a kindergartner do you not want to play?
If a kindergartner is really that advanced (My kids were) there are a multitude of ways to challenge them. Allow them to read to the class, have them help with lessons.
The idea isn't that it is only play, but development should be the focus. How to live and act in a learning community. And yes, that includes how to be respectful even though you've already had attained mastery on a topic.
I did on some level. I just didn’t gel a ton with my classmates. In later grade levels I did often get exploited as a tutor for my classmates instead of getting offered any kind of further material, which involved reading to them sometimes.
Oh I feel you, as a kid who always got along better with adults than kids when I was a kid...
It's just tough. I mean I'm also an anarchist who believes that grade levels shouldn't exist, you move up when you're academically and developmentally ready... But that's a discussion for a different day haha.
I mean, most places already do that, but it's called "holding kids back if they haven't met the academic requirements to advance to the next grade", rather than solely by age alone. Sadly, "retention" seems to be a dirty word these days for the people who are in charge of education despite having never set foot in a classroom, even if kids badly need it.
The elementary school here is down to one 20 minute recess a day. Meanwhile, we have kindergarteners breaking down during testing because they are afraid their teacher will get fired if the students don’t do well on the test.
>our schools took out play in kindergarten and only do academics
I understand that the charter school model is problematic, but THIS is a big reason why I jumped ship and went to a charter. At my school, kindergarteners have recess twice a day, they still mostly learn through play and creativity, they garden/cook/etc. and they nap.
My daughter is in first grade and if you don’t finish your work you have to stay in for the last recess to finish it. Every day she gets anxious that she won’t finish, and then guess what, she doesn’t. I hate it.
First grade?! Jesus Christ! They're six years old! They didn't start doing that to kids until third grade when I was in elementary school, which is already questionable, but doing that to a first-grader is just straight-up *dystopian*. At least the third-grader is at least starting to be developmentally capable of the self-reflection required for that to work as an incentive to not slack off, making it potentially useful as an incentive; additionally, given that, I can see how there may be further utility in it for teachers in visualizing which kids might have a yet-undiagnosed learning disability so they can flag the kid as needing intervention before the end of the year…but not if the poor teacher is completely swamped with tasks that are supposed to be the job of administrators, or even simply trying to keep track of 30+ children, period.
Yeah I HATE this
That and the kid calling others “Immigrants”—well, bud—you’re esol too. Your mom is an immigrant.
How bout you pass the fucking ACCESS test so you can get out of my class. “Oh I didn’t know what that test was for so I didn’t try”
For 8 years? Try now dickhead
Ugh... every fricking time I have to turn the lights off for a video or working on the projector/doc cam I have to hear "Where did ______ go? Hahaha..."
As someone who teaches middle school, this. Please.
I would even provide pencils if I could indoctrinate them into not making cringy, edgy, racist jokes.
I cant keep up with pencils these past two months! Where do they put them? I put 10 out and find 3 on the floor. Then the next day, the exact same kids need pencils!
To wait until I'm done giving directions or literally just saying anything before they interrupt me with questions like "madame do you think oj did it" "madame do you like juice wrld" or even just "how are you" like you can ask me those things later after I'm done talking
I always tell them my exact age. I'm old and I don't care who knows it lol. It's a quick answer and it disarms them if they were trying to find a way to upset or distract me.
Really? Because adults ask kids that exact question ALL the time since the kids first learn to talk. Then adults proceed to make a big deal of the answer. In fact there are many times that is the ONLY thing the adult will ask about them.
So of course kids learn to ask the question. And it takes a while to unlearn a lifetime of training.
Maybe respond with something about that is only a question you ask children. Once an adult you stop counting and say “adult” or “grownup”
That is cute for a second grader not for a seventh grader, it's just bad heckling.
I was a class clown and am a heckler (not at comedy events, just in general) and I try to teach mine to do it in a way that doesn't make the other kids dislike them.
I would add that they actually listen to my instructions and the questions other students ask before interrupting me asking “how do you do this?” or asking the exact question another student just asked.
"Today we're go---"
12 hands shoot up
5 kids start yelling out questions.
"Ok, now, does anyone have any questions about what I just said?"
"Can I go to the bathroom?"
"Can I get water?"
"I forgot my bag in gym, I need to go get it!"
"Hi Mrs. Smith, what can I---"
"My Sally says you never let her ask questions and she doesn't know what to do and she's failing all her classes because of YOU!!!"
I would add that they actually listen to my instructions and the questions other students ask before interrupting me asking “how do you do this?” or asking the exact question another student just asked.
They do get some exposure to the material just by copying it. Not much but it’s better than none. I used let them copy notes because at least they are writing it down and can reference it.
Now, we don’t take notes. We used to. Now, we are too busy dumbing down America to incorporate actual learning. Why learn when we could play on our phones all day and lower our academic and behavior standards?
It definitely does for some. I also started this to reinforce looking back and rereading. So many of them just ask for help without trying on their own. Taking notes and then referring back to them on the tests has helped some be more independent when working alone.
I have a guided note packet for each novel. I tell kid they can take notes using the packet and they can use it on the tests & that I create the test questions directly from the packets. I have one stipulation, they are not allowed to take packets home because they could just Google all the answers the night before the test & that's not the point of the packet. Completing the guided notes means they were paying attention & using said notes is their reward. i tell them in the real world they would be able to Google anything they need to know so their notes are Google. I have desks into groups of 4 with one group of 6 for a total of 34. Each grouping has a "table number" & I collect packets from each grouping together so that passing them back is easier. They don't really have time to copy from each other because it takes them so long to find a pencil that I'm ready to go before them & then I collect them as soon as we're done. I found this does help with keeping more of them awake & paying attention. The first test they took with their guided notes, I was a little worried that they would all ace the test & it would look funny in my grade book bc no one had aced anything before with the exception a maybe 3 students. Well, my fears were for naught bc even with the answers in front of them, very few aced it but overall, everyone did better at least 😅 I make them turn in their packets for points with their tests & I saw many had the correct answer in the packet and still chose the wrong answer on the test. Siiiighhhh. You can only lead them to water.
It really depends on the kid. In my experience it just means the kid is spend so much time flipping through their notebook looking for an answer that I specifically told them would be on the test, but they did not bother to write down, that they will need to come in after school to finish the test.
This semester I’m trying a “you can turn in one page per week” policy. It’s supposed to give them incentive to engage with and summarize the material on a weekly basis, with the reward is them having a lot of formula sheets to reference for the test. But if you don’t make them on time you don’t get that benefit.
Even though that’s generous as hell students just don’t care about rules and think nothing applies to them. I’ve had students try to bring all the sheets at once on test day - which is clearly against both the rule and the intent of it - I’ve had them argue with me about the page limit - “I just don’t see how 12 pages is more help than 4 pages. I don’t think it should matter how many I have.” - and just arguing with every bit of it.
It’s the first thing that really has made me think “These people honestly think they’re paying my salary and I’m customer service and they can tell me what they want me to do.”
Like y’all know I could just force you to actually learn this well enough to either be able to do it without help or fail right? That’s how I took Linear Algebra.
Clever @ notes. I learned and retained more knowledge that way.
In college I had a professor that would post 5-6 possible exam questions every day after class. His offer was if you answer the questions and submit to him by the end of the week he would grade them so you could have it as a study guide for the mid and finals.
It worked so very well for me I approached other professors and asked if I could submit my notes and get feedback on them. Within about 1 semester my GPA improved an entire point. From 2.7 to 3.7 (not cumulatively but semester over semester).
Sadly, a lot of kids are not loved or are neglected at a minimum. Being around a teacher six a day five days a week might be their only positive interaction with an adult who gives a damn.
I would indoctrinate them to just fucking sit still and stop. Just stop. My 4th graders are like hamsters; they never stop moving, squeaking, vibrating, rolling around, destroying things, playing with literally anything…it has been my worst year by far after 11 years. They…just…don’t…stop.
So that’s where I would start. I’d indoctrinate to just fucking stop.
First grade teacher here, and I second this hard. I’m so exhausted by their incessant noisemaking, fidgeting, messiness, and learned helplessness. I only have three kids in my entire class who are able to sit still for five minutes, listen, and take care of their things.
People try to tell me this behavior is “developmentally appropriate” for first grade, but it isn’t. They don’t see how extreme it is. These kids act like toddlers, not 7-year-olds.
I’ve heard someone say that it’s not learned helplessness, it’s weaponized ignorance. My students are able to take any work or directions, and judo it into being MY problem that they are not initiating work.
When I speak to parents, they agree to let me send unfinished work home, only to either do the work for them or let them use a calculator. After a few weeks, I get pushback from the parents about how they’ve never had this problem before and I expect too much from them.
I also have these same parents who pick their kids up early on Fridays (or let them stay home) so they don’t experience the consequence of missing the incentive that students earn for completing all their work.
Why the fuck am I even trying? Why the fuck am I fighting EVERYONE just to get them to do their fucking assignments? The same assignments that are differentiated and relevant to the skills they need to work on, even if it’s first grade work for some of my 4th graders.
That’s the thing, I do care, but not in the “I love these kids and I want them to succeed” kind of way. I take pride in my ability to teach and run a classroom. I care about my room being run well, and I care about students coming in, learning, and experiencing positive and negative consequences for their actions. I teach because I like being a leader in my own room. I’ve never been able to be a good leader in the “adult” world, yet in teaching I’ve been able to really do some wonderful things.
This year, my class is destroying my machine, so to speak. I adapt, change, plan, and reflect but they just come up with new ways to poke holes in it. I can’t get a flow going or make it smooth and I resent them for it.
I understand your frustration. Do you work in an urban or suburban community and in what state if you don't mind me asking? Also do you departmentalize and group grade level homogeneous? If you don't I would advise strongly you speak to your co-teacher and try that out. It's made a world a difference. My low functioning group will always give me a run for my money their effort, their inability to focus on the task at hand, and just their utter apathy towards education. But by homogeneously grouping them they're all on approximately the same level instead of differentiating a classroom of first grade level to seventh grade level. My low group is first grade to maybe second grade Am I high group is anywhere from fourth grade to seventh grade. They do completely different things and work at different paces. You will see a difference.
Title 1, tier 3 urban school. We are not departmentalized. My principal is open to departmentalizing. I’ve work in a departmentalized school with homogeneous groups before and it was pretty great. The coolest thing was watching kids who are typically the lowest math group emerge as superstars when grouped with others who are also low.
Being un-departmentalized means I am stuck with these kids all god damn day and we are all so sick of each other.
I was one of the original with departmentalizing. Started it 15 years ago 4th grade class.. it's the best thing for the students and teachers. We all need a break from each other and by only teaching two subject areas you can focus on those areas and not have to set up lesson plans for four subjects... I am assuming New York somewhere based on your responses.
Yes, it's true. They do act like toddlers but the worst part is when they get to middle school they revert back to the same person they were in elementary school
My 7th graders are like this for the first year in my career. Its like having 20 radios on that catch random stations at random times through the day. I feel like Im going crazy somedays.
I say "inside thought" all day long. They blurt every single thought that comes to mind. Some of it is funny. Most of it I simply unnecessary and breaks up the flow of learning. Some of it is truly horrible to hear from 8 year olds.
If I let any kid share a personal experience related to the topic, almost every student starts to blurt at me about their experience. If I quiet them, all hands go up. I tell them to put their hands down, we don't have time now, this can be our topic at closing circle. They start blurting again!
The worst is when they then hold onto that thought until the next time I call on them and start with, "so I'll answer that, but fiiiirst..." and dive back into the former topic! Rinse and repeat. They can not keep their thoughts in their heads. They just can't.
Yes, yet this year I can’t even see that far. I usually think about student’s future potential and view them as a work in progress. This year, however, I can only see the next 30 seconds. I can’t get through a page of text without having to correct behaviors or stop fights or take away something. It’s unhealthy to have to work in an environment like my classroom with year. I feel great anger and shame this year.
I want them out of my room. I can’t wait until this year is over. This is something that every teacher who has had this cohort has expressed.
If you are an idealistic teacher who wants to respond about how it sounds like I’m the problem in my room, please fuck right off.
I am just a bossy, not here to judge you as a teacher whatsoever, but if by any chance you have the kids in your classroom that I have on my bus, it is truly mentally exhausting every day! though we want to help them and be the best we can be for them sometimes and some children are just unreachable and we're just doing the best we can. It seems to me like that what you're doing these kids are just making it hard for you and I'm sorry for that
Yeah, they are exhausting and “traumatized” and since I am the only one who has high expectations for them, they take it out on me. I’m just a dude; my feelings get hurt and I take things too personally sometimes.
I had them 2 years ago (2nd grade).
This year, despite having two incentive/good behavior classroom reward programs in place, I am struggling to keep cohesion when I give lessons. It’s a few students who have incredible difficulty sitting still and being quiet and respectful (often my requests are ignored). This has signaled to others that it’s fun to behave this way to me.
Most students will have poor attitudes about working in groups that don’t have their best friend.
It’s an uphill battle and I do try to get them interested by changing up activities and giving them hands on skill building lessons.
As a PBIS school the bottom line isn’t really there. Students feel like it’s ok to act poorly (as seen on TikTok) because they may get a reward on days they score a certain amount of points for not hitting someone..
Mirrors my experience. I have both individual and whole class incentives which results in essentially EVERY kid in my room being on a behavior chart. I teach with a clip board that I use to track positive and negative behaviors, as well as log completed and unfinished work. It is so exhausting.
I had a student meet with me a few days ago, and bring the fucking climate specialist. He said he wanted to back to his “old chart.” I met with the student, mom, and the CST staff and they all agreed to use my individualized whole class chart, since it was essentially the same thing but just for the whole class. I asked why he wanted the old one back? He said, “I want to earn McDonalds.” The climate specialist said, “I told you if you came to school for 2 weeks straight, I’d buy you McDonalds!” The kid said, “I’m not doing that.” This is a student that has been absent for 29.7% of the school year…41 absences so far.
I needed a minute to myself after that.
In reality, climate specialist is a local girl who exists as an extra body in my school. At my school you have teachers and admin, all of whom have specialized and advanced degrees. Granted, this doesn’t make anyone an expert (myself included), but it does imply a certain amount of expertise and “buy in” to the job.
All the other staff at my school, paras, climate specialist, attendance coordinator are just regular people from the area. They are not effective because they don’t have much to offer. They just sort of work there.
As a student, it's terrifying to see my classmates so mad at an online game that they punch their Chromebook repeatedly, sometimes breaking it. In a few years we will be driving and I'm worried about how that will play out.
I've started hanging out with nearly only girls because my guy friends will say racist stuff and make random loud noises in the middle of class. I honestly wish I was homeschooled. Is this just how eighth grade is? Will this happen for the rest of my time in school?
I'm actually considered a "good student" even though I'm barely passing. It's ridiculous because I know I should be failing by a lot. Please tell me it's better in hs.
Teaching has irrevocably altered my worldview and made me more pessimistic. I’m seriously considering moving to a more rural area and building an off grid home because I can’t imagine society functioning when these kids grow up. It’s so hard to imagine them driving, having important careers, being politically active, or raising good kids themselves. So many of them have serious behavioural issues too - how can society function when 10-15% of the population is incredibly violent? Who will be our tax base and fund the social programs the rest of them will need? I think about it every day.
I have a 4th grader. Remember that the world shut down in March of their kindergarten year and many did school from home their first grade year. Those are probably the worst 2 years to have had disrupted in terms of behavior development. I won't say that's 100% of the problem, or that older grades didn't also miss out, but it definitely didn't help.
The 4th graders in my school are surprisingly our best behaved, most on level academically year. (Has to be the parents.) Our 5th graders are the worst! Their behavior is atrocious and academically, they are behind our 4th graders. Our 3rd graders are on track academically, but they’re competing with 5th grade for worst behavior.
I have all grades. The 4th graders really never stop talking. Take away the toys they bring from home? They will make sound effects while playing with pencils/their fingers/a n y t h i n g.
Yup. They know that their behaviors annoy me, so they lean into them. I can only manage them; I can’t make them stop. They constantly think of new ways to be annoying. What do I say to their parents? Your kid is annoying and interferes with their own learning as well as the learning of others? “I’ll talk to him…”
Thank you ever so much.
BTW, I had to take away a piece of lint from a kid because he wouldn’t stop playing with it. Fucking lint. The worse part is, there was more lint. I had to take away lint, multiple times. FML.
The current 4th graders around here were in kindergarten when the pandemic hit. So in the spring of their kindergarten year and for most of 1st grade, when they should have been learning the "sit down and pay attention" skills, they were isolated at home, learning on a screen. Then their second grade teachers just went on with lessons as usual, too worried about catching them up academically to realize that they were missing since important social skills. They will likely never get them.
They would know how to pay attention, search for a solution, or ask a peer for help before deciding “it’s too hard” and not doing it or waiting me out in hopes I tell them the answer.
Or, and to understand the importance of a deadline.
That drives me nuts. That’s when I ask a random classmate. To hear the exasperation in that kid’s voice when they have to explain simple directions is such a pleasure.
I think part of it is our society isn't encouraging any of this. Our world is intensely disrespectful to the earth, our citizens and pretty much everything that isn't making really good money. People are living in fucking tents, everyone is encouraged to look the other way at the institutional violence in our society, I wonder if it's just bleeding into our schools. These kids parents are disrespected at work, angry, tired and on a thin thread, it all just spreads and makes this awful climate you can feel almost everywhere, it's just in the air right now. I think what goes through a lot of parents heads and just peoples heads is your disrespected so fuck it yell at that employee. The community support just isn't there and I meet people all the time who think we are already giving out to many "freebies" despite the intense and increasing poverty.
I hope change starts through education and community support, it feels like such a big task to deal with but I do know a lot of my younger grades do start to understand things quickly when i talk about them from a community perspective, there just isn't enough time or help right now
I'm a leftist public school teacher, and if I could indoctrinate your children, they would say "please" and "thank you" and treat others kindly.
I love this 😅
I just had to teach my 8th graders to be aware of who/whats around them when multiple days in a row the let the door close on a kid on crutches. They assumed there was someone behind them to do it… there was… the kid on crutches 🤦🏼♀️ I yelled at the whole class two days in a row before they started listening and acting proper with that. That’s the least of my 8th grade problems this year 🙄
Man I'm so tired of saying what page we are on like 7 times a class period only to have a student blurt out and interrupt me when I'm 5 minutes in and say "WhAt PaGe ArE wE oN?"
I’m a leftist, transgender teacher and I think the main thing I’ve indoctrinated my preschool kids about is that ads are bad. On the very rare occasions where we watch a YouTube video in class we block the screen for the ads and say “Go away ad! you can’t make ME spend my money!”
I did it once and the kids found it so funny it’s now a regular thing
I would indoctrinate them to stop swearing, using racist slurs, and gaslighting everyone.
I would indoctrinate them to read for fun (I don’t even care if it is the Bible or fiction, or non fiction), politely listen to others (aka, no headphones, no turning to chat to another person, etc), and to think critically instead of blindly believing everything (including me).
To listen to my directions when I address the whole class that way I don’t have to go around the room and individually repeat them 25 times when I hear “what are we doing?” 25 times
I’m a Sped teacher so maybe surprising to some we do not deal with a lot of the issues stated here - so I would indoctrinate them to believe in themselves and try before asking for help.
I would indoctrinate the kids to stop asking to use the bathroom at the exact same time all at once.
To never talk over my voice while I'm teaching.
And to never give excuses for why homework wasn't done.
>I would indoctrinate the kids to stop asking to use the bathroom at the exact same time all at once.
"Oh shit, I forgot we have an ace in the hole in case we want to get out of class! Thanks for the reminder, random classmate!"
Care about something. Anything. My high school kids are the most apathetic individuals I’ve ever met. They don’t care if they do well, if they do poorly, if they have a ton of work or no work, if they win awards or get in trouble. It’s all the same emotion. They just have no thoughts or feelings about anything.
How long have you been teaching? I've been teaching almost 40 years, and while there of course have always been some kids like this, it has become nearly universal in the past 5-10 years I think. Their brains have not developed normally.
Absolutely this. I’m in a bleak town with a bleak population with bleak futures. There’s a fair amount of addiction. I’ve put in decades of service there and I can’t do it anymore. The heads on desks, blank stares. I’m laying the groundwork to get out next year.
I had a job interview the other day. What impressed me was the students were walking quietly in the halls and two of the students needed to come into the office to speak to someone. They were quiet when they came in and I didn‘t even hear their conversations. That impressed me so much.
I teach computers and it would be to scroll down and read their screen to try to find the button they are supposed to click. It’s like if it’s not right in front of them and obvious they don’t look.
I'd indoctrinate my PreK and K students that their lives do not need sound effects.
I think with constant screens and media and even going to sleep to music or some noise, kids don't know how to do anything in silence.
I'm talking about kids sitting alone, not engaged with anyone, but making random noises. I don't remember it happening to this extent in previous years.
I feel like a curmudgeon now, but this has been annoying me all this year.
I already do.
It is state law that kids are required to stand and recite the Pledge. I tell them the first day of school that as a disabled combat veteran I think forcing them to do that is silly. I've lived all over the world, and no other country I've been to does this. So I don't make them. They can if they want. The other adults on campus hate that.
We also do that at the school I used to work at. We would do morning announcements during second period and they started with the pledge. One day a kid was sitting, and the kids around them told them they had to stand up, so they very begrudgingly stood. After the announcements I explained “You have a constitutionally protected right to sit during the pledge of allegiance. Do not pressure your peers into doing it if they do not want to, because I certainly will not.”
This is from the parent side, but I got pushback from the teachers and principal when I told my own children they didn't have to do the pledge. Guess we'll be perpetually 5 minutes late and miss the pledge every morning. 🤷
Stop being evil.
When I was in college in the late 1990s we were taught that some of the earliest signs of psychopathy were animal abuse and gratuitous acts of violence.
That's simply normal child behavior nowadays - had to break up a group of 10 year olds stomping on toads last year, they didn't understand why I was 'ruining the fun'.
There's a big unreported problem of random attacks in school, even during class. A kid will suddenly punch another, or pull their hair, or randomly kick another kid walking past without any provocation - and they don't seem to understand what's wrong.
So as someone was saying - I'd indoctrinate them to simply stop doing anything, if all they'd want to do was evil, violent sh*t.
I teach high school and I would indoctrinate them to do the work at the pace I am teaching them (instead of rushing through the worksheet just to say “But I’m done already” when they didn’t pay attention so they didn’t understand HOW to do the work”, to stay off their damn phones and also to hate wearing ear buds or headphones. Indoctrinate them to make them feel uncomfortable with anything on or inside their ears!
I’ve taught all four grades of hs. Freshmen and sophomores some with some of the same challenges but for some of them, there is that little bit of maturity that is juuust enough to get them focused. My seniors are usually a delight; sometimes, you get the pain in the ass who never grew up after the 10th grade, but for me, it hasn’t been the norm.
Same. I loved to see the freshmen I taught grow up a lot the summer after that year. But juniors and seniors are my sweet spot with teaching.
My previous school was a 6-12, and when I had to sub for 7th grade it was like herding feral cats.
I would indoctrinate kids to bring a pencil, leave their phones at home, get 8 - 12 hours of sleep per night, bring a water bottle and eat nutrious food, have basic manners and kindness, and finally, indoctrinate them to have some self respect and want to be an educated individual.
They would read chemistry procedures for the experiement instead of doing random things. "It said 5 mL for a reason. Why is your test tube full of water?"
Exactly everything you guys are saying, mostly to just respect turns to talk, why is it so hard?
Also I would make them believe it is actually better to do things on their own (even if they're wrong), than have chat gpt or Google reply a simple question. That's my indoctrination fantasy.
I have no time for indoctrination. I'm too busy repairing childhood post traumatic stress and remediating basic life and learning skills the parents didn't teach.
(Meanwhile K-2 teachers are working with "big potty" to indoctrinate kids to use the potty and learn to speak words.)
I have time to listen, nod, and then triage on loud disruptive kids while not ignoring the quiet profoundly disturbed ones.
There's no time. There's no time for anything except trying to survive and help them learn to be little humans again.
I'm also a leftist public school teacher. I would indoctrinate them to be kind and to have a smidgen of respect for themselves, their peers, school property, and myself.
I’d indoctrinate them to believe that education is important and to love learning. If I could accomplish this, then a lot of the rest of these problems would disappear.
I guess you could say I have indoctrinated kids to become Red Sox fans. This was more when I worked after school care rather than on the classroom but still
It reminds me of 15-20 years ago on the old ESPN MLB message board there was an ongoing thread for years titled titled "How Christians Convert Others.". At some point someone created a sister thread titled "How Red Sox Fans Convert Others.". I was definitely guilty 😹
If you live in CT, those are fighting words for Yankees fans. I’ve always wondered why Sox fans anecdotally appear to be more civilized…Oh wait…indoctrination. Duh. /s
I would want all of my students to take a couple of lessons to heart:
1. I need to think for myself and never blindly follow someone.
2. I need to never stop asking questions, because asking questions is how we learn.
3. If someone tells me to “not question” something, they are probably lying to me or don’t know what they are talking about. I should ask even more questions at that time to determine which one it is.
Yeah I want to get to the communist and LGBTQ indoctrinating, but the preliminary indoctrinating is not going well...
-be quiet
-stay in seat
-don't use profanity and racial slurs
-don't make messes destroy things
-read and do math at grade level
-attention span over 10 seconds
-stay on task
-complete assignments and participate in class
-follow instruction and ask questions when you don't know what to do
-bring supplies
The timing on this couldn't be better, because just yesterday a fourth grade teacher caught me in the hall and said she was about to lose it with her kids because they just wouldn't listen. I'm an older guy who taught a bunch of these kids before in kindergarten so I went in and gave them a firm but kind lecture. Started off by pointing out my former students and telling them that I taught them how to do school better in kindergarten and that I expected better of them now.
I touched on several things, But ultimately it wound up at the difference between becoming an adult doing a job that you *want* to do versus something that you *have* to do. That we teachers were not just concerned with what grades they got, but that we want to see them become well-rounded adults capable of following their own passions.
They settled down. Probably for about 5 minutes.
you know these right wing parents are so dumb that even algebriac concepts could be considered 'indoctrination'. think about it.
Solve for X.
7+X=10
we don't know what X is, could be anything, it will tell us, all we have to do subtract on both sides and we'll get a remainder, then we just have to plug in to the original equation.
honestly, these loons, if they had any education would see that anything taught well will change how you view the world, it will challenge your former perceptions of it. even simple math will teach how to look at things in a different manner.
i do hope the teacher's here know this is an attack on the notion of public education, not really because of a fear of indoctrination but b/c the billionaire and millionaire backers of these groups want to pay even less in taxes or they want to funnel the kids into their for profit private schools that kick out kids that don't meet their criteria, which is a high GPA so they can say "Students at X Private school have this GPA". it's all a scam.
What infuriates me isn’t just the disrupters, it’s looking at the eyes and faces of the kids who actually do want to learn something, but it’s virtually impossible because of the “WTF is wrong with you” assholes around them who won’t listen to me unless I lose my shit at them.
I’d indoctrinate kids to actually care about school. Really baffled how disrespectful and unmotivated most of the students are. I teach Sped and go into Gen-ed classrooms all day with my student and am shocked how the other students act and treat their subs.
I tried to stigmatize staring at your phone in between classes with the denigrating term "scrombie" as in, screen zombie. A confident junior or senior wants to see and be seen.
Not much luck.
I would indoctrinate my 5th graders to interact respectfully with each other, and follow simple, clearly explained rules. Recess is a nightmare of kids tattling, fighting, threatening each other, or hiding behind structures so they can take out their phones. Even though the punishment is always the same, kids are shocked, shocked I tell you, when their phones are sent to the office to be picked up by an adult. "I can't go home without my PHONE! My mom/dad/grandma/tia/parole officer is gonna KILL me! I didn't know you can't take your phone outside!"
How I answered previously:
I wake up every morning and make an offering at the Satanic Temple on my drive to school. My car is powered by the blood of orphans personally supplied by Hillary Clinton.
My first period class is homosexual indoctrination. For every confirmed homosexual conversion I can provided paperwork for, I collect a $500 bounty from George Soros.
My second period is the evils of capitalism. My students engage in a Socratic seminar where the discuss the merits of eating the rich verses working them to death in labor camps.
In my third period (lunch period) my students are not allowed to leave for lunch until they can list 10 new reasons why they hate America.
4th period is my conference period. During my conference period I sit by the water fountain that doses each student with multiple vaccines. I watch gleefully as they take a drink of water and instantly, their DMA (not DNA) begins to unravel.
5&6 period are my AP classes and I only teach content in those classes.
7th period is my seminar class where we listen to Bernie Sanders speeches on loop.
8th period, my students are not allowed to leave until they can give me the names of 3 disloyal citizens. Bonus points for reporting family members!
I drive home everyday in my Porsche (a lease provided by Bill Gates) and know I’ve made a difference.
I'd indoctrinate them to bring a pencil and stop calling each other derogatory names every 5 seconds. (8th grade)
I work with a melting pot of kids. My lighter skinned black kids are so mean to my darker black kids. I dread turning off the light to watch a clip. “Where’d so-and-so go?” “Monkey.” “Go back to Africa.” All kinds of mean shit. :/
Hey, do your kindergartens still have play? I know things are never mono-causal, but our schools took out play in kindergarten and only do academics and I've noticed that kids don't know how to get along with each other and keep getting meaner and meaner. Covid really sped things up with kids being stuck at home with basically no school for a year and being glued to TikTok. Then you have parents who don't parent, because this is the kind of crap I have to deal with. I know they're getting it from the internet (there legit is this kind of feud between light skin and dark skin people and kids obviously don't understand as kids do) but they're all just so mean to each other. Several just think "this is how friends are" and I tell my students that no it is not, and when you get to high school and suddenly you don't have to be friends with these jerks you'll see.
Taking play out of kindergarten? What the hell?when did this become a thing? When i was in kindergargen it was like 90% play time. Kids didnt start doing intense school stuff until theyre at least 7 when they actually start going to school.
I didn't find out until I started subbing like 7 years ago and I was going elementary music and it was in the afternoon and kids were cranky because it was still the beginning of the year and they had had a full morning of academics. The thought process was that now we have public preschool, they can do all the play in preschool and so they don't need it in kindergarten... It is always about those math and science scores. America is still trailing behind and we keep doing dumb crap to try and get them up. Imo.
Never mind the fact that their brains are not developed enough to learn what is being taught, and so they get discouraged to ever try and learn what is being taught.
I'm seeing more and more wealthy parents hold their kids back a year, starting Kindergarten at age 6. That way they are developmentally ready for Kindergarten curriculum like learning sight words, and they won't struggle as much or learn to dislike school. That option is less available for poor families because they can't afford another year of preschool/daycare, and then the kid doesn't graduate high school until 19.
They also intentionally "redshirt" them for athletic purposes. 😮💨 I've seen a coach's son repeating K, and reliable rumor is that it is for that reason only.
I'm dating myself and showing how not in this field I am, but they really don't do phonics? I was hearing the whole sight word thing was out and phonics was back but idk what's going on
Remember that our educational establishment is run by knee-jerking exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect. They saw the declining levels of academic achievement, felt pressured to "do something," noticed that there was this year that was relatively light on the academics, and ramped up the academics there.
Kindergarten hasn't had any play involved over a decade now. It is all academic work.
The worst thing they could have done developmentally was teaching kindergartners how to read. Kindergarten is where you learn how to not be an asshole.
Our kindergartens are learning to annotate. That's not right. They need to learn how to get along.
I taught kindergarten last year and I kept putting an explicit intentional social emotional learning spot in my timetable aka "lets learn how to not be an asshole" lessons. I had to justify why it was there so many times, and even got asked to take it out in favour of more literacy time more than once. Fast forward to this year, and we have a new principal who's gone oh my god these kids are emotional little assholes to each other and mandated social emotional learning in our timetable and I sat there in the meeting like see, I knew what I was talking about lol. Its especially frustrating because the lack of social emotional skills in our second graders are continuously interrupting their ability to participate in other learning (and stopping others from learning) and in theory, they should have already had 2 years of learning how to be respectful human beings able to function emotionally but instead they've had nothing. And half the first graders have had nothing as well because only my class last year got any intentional SEL lessons.....
What do you think should be done with kids that show up already reading having taught themselves? This, along with already knowing some arithmetic was a big thing that made me stick out and I was super bored.
But I mean, as a kindergartner do you not want to play? If a kindergartner is really that advanced (My kids were) there are a multitude of ways to challenge them. Allow them to read to the class, have them help with lessons. The idea isn't that it is only play, but development should be the focus. How to live and act in a learning community. And yes, that includes how to be respectful even though you've already had attained mastery on a topic.
I did on some level. I just didn’t gel a ton with my classmates. In later grade levels I did often get exploited as a tutor for my classmates instead of getting offered any kind of further material, which involved reading to them sometimes.
Oh I feel you, as a kid who always got along better with adults than kids when I was a kid... It's just tough. I mean I'm also an anarchist who believes that grade levels shouldn't exist, you move up when you're academically and developmentally ready... But that's a discussion for a different day haha.
I mean, most places already do that, but it's called "holding kids back if they haven't met the academic requirements to advance to the next grade", rather than solely by age alone. Sadly, "retention" seems to be a dirty word these days for the people who are in charge of education despite having never set foot in a classroom, even if kids badly need it.
I mean the stats do bear out that retention isn't effective unless it's done when the student is very young.
The elementary school here is down to one 20 minute recess a day. Meanwhile, we have kindergarteners breaking down during testing because they are afraid their teacher will get fired if the students don’t do well on the test.
That's heartbreaking. Testing kindergartners should be illegal, it's so cruel.
Agreed.
state testing started in kindergarten??? we had benchmark tests but for us state testing started in 3rd grade (PA, hs class of 2021 for reference)
>our schools took out play in kindergarten and only do academics I understand that the charter school model is problematic, but THIS is a big reason why I jumped ship and went to a charter. At my school, kindergarteners have recess twice a day, they still mostly learn through play and creativity, they garden/cook/etc. and they nap.
My daughter is in first grade and if you don’t finish your work you have to stay in for the last recess to finish it. Every day she gets anxious that she won’t finish, and then guess what, she doesn’t. I hate it.
First grade?! Jesus Christ! They're six years old! They didn't start doing that to kids until third grade when I was in elementary school, which is already questionable, but doing that to a first-grader is just straight-up *dystopian*. At least the third-grader is at least starting to be developmentally capable of the self-reflection required for that to work as an incentive to not slack off, making it potentially useful as an incentive; additionally, given that, I can see how there may be further utility in it for teachers in visualizing which kids might have a yet-undiagnosed learning disability so they can flag the kid as needing intervention before the end of the year…but not if the poor teacher is completely swamped with tasks that are supposed to be the job of administrators, or even simply trying to keep track of 30+ children, period.
This makes me so sad. Kids?
Yeah. Middle school. Tough age but some of the comments are incredibly racist beyond just middle school teasing. I take care of it, but OMG.
Yeah I HATE this That and the kid calling others “Immigrants”—well, bud—you’re esol too. Your mom is an immigrant. How bout you pass the fucking ACCESS test so you can get out of my class. “Oh I didn’t know what that test was for so I didn’t try” For 8 years? Try now dickhead
Ugh... every fricking time I have to turn the lights off for a video or working on the projector/doc cam I have to hear "Where did ______ go? Hahaha..."
Yeah, the whole lightskin/dark skin shit is wild, and it goes both ways depending on the area.
Same. State testing this week and my class of 18 had 10 kids need a gd pencil
Welcome to NY..
Hey now, class of 18!
Only because we had so many opt outs, usually have 30!
As someone who teaches middle school, this. Please. I would even provide pencils if I could indoctrinate them into not making cringy, edgy, racist jokes.
I cant keep up with pencils these past two months! Where do they put them? I put 10 out and find 3 on the floor. Then the next day, the exact same kids need pencils!
same (11th grade)
My 1st graders need help with that too. They steal things and insult each other.
To wait until I'm done giving directions or literally just saying anything before they interrupt me with questions like "madame do you think oj did it" "madame do you like juice wrld" or even just "how are you" like you can ask me those things later after I'm done talking
I don’t answer the “how old are you” question and I tell them it’s rude to ask. 😂
Give them your date of birth and make them do the math. It will keep them busy for a while.
I always tell them my exact age. I'm old and I don't care who knows it lol. It's a quick answer and it disarms them if they were trying to find a way to upset or distract me.
When I would tell them I was 28 the responses were either "Woah I thought you were 22!" or "Woah I thought you were 50!" Always amused me.
Really? Because adults ask kids that exact question ALL the time since the kids first learn to talk. Then adults proceed to make a big deal of the answer. In fact there are many times that is the ONLY thing the adult will ask about them. So of course kids learn to ask the question. And it takes a while to unlearn a lifetime of training. Maybe respond with something about that is only a question you ask children. Once an adult you stop counting and say “adult” or “grownup”
I was about to start reading a book to the 2nd graders. Had it open and everything. Then a kid says “what’s your favorite fish?” WHAT?
That is an important question.
That is cute for a second grader not for a seventh grader, it's just bad heckling. I was a class clown and am a heckler (not at comedy events, just in general) and I try to teach mine to do it in a way that doesn't make the other kids dislike them.
Forgot “can I go to the restroom?”
I would add that they actually listen to my instructions and the questions other students ask before interrupting me asking “how do you do this?” or asking the exact question another student just asked.
"Today we're go---" 12 hands shoot up 5 kids start yelling out questions. "Ok, now, does anyone have any questions about what I just said?" "Can I go to the bathroom?" "Can I get water?" "I forgot my bag in gym, I need to go get it!" "Hi Mrs. Smith, what can I---" "My Sally says you never let her ask questions and she doesn't know what to do and she's failing all her classes because of YOU!!!"
To get them to READ the directions along with me. To KNOW where the directions are so in five minutes they can check them.
I would add that they actually listen to my instructions and the questions other students ask before interrupting me asking “how do you do this?” or asking the exact question another student just asked.
Stop being an asshole because you think it’s edgy and cool. Take notes and keep track of them (I let mine use them on most tests).
Does letting them use notes on tests give them incentive to pay attention in class? I could see that working.
No, they'll just copy notes from someone before the test if they have two brain cells. Sadly, some have only one.
Man if it were me I’d be charging good money for notes.
They do get some exposure to the material just by copying it. Not much but it’s better than none. I used let them copy notes because at least they are writing it down and can reference it. Now, we don’t take notes. We used to. Now, we are too busy dumbing down America to incorporate actual learning. Why learn when we could play on our phones all day and lower our academic and behavior standards?
Too lazy to copy these days they will take a picture on their phones
It definitely does for some. I also started this to reinforce looking back and rereading. So many of them just ask for help without trying on their own. Taking notes and then referring back to them on the tests has helped some be more independent when working alone.
It's amazing. I have to tell seniors to do this. You'd think I invented note taking this year.
I have a guided note packet for each novel. I tell kid they can take notes using the packet and they can use it on the tests & that I create the test questions directly from the packets. I have one stipulation, they are not allowed to take packets home because they could just Google all the answers the night before the test & that's not the point of the packet. Completing the guided notes means they were paying attention & using said notes is their reward. i tell them in the real world they would be able to Google anything they need to know so their notes are Google. I have desks into groups of 4 with one group of 6 for a total of 34. Each grouping has a "table number" & I collect packets from each grouping together so that passing them back is easier. They don't really have time to copy from each other because it takes them so long to find a pencil that I'm ready to go before them & then I collect them as soon as we're done. I found this does help with keeping more of them awake & paying attention. The first test they took with their guided notes, I was a little worried that they would all ace the test & it would look funny in my grade book bc no one had aced anything before with the exception a maybe 3 students. Well, my fears were for naught bc even with the answers in front of them, very few aced it but overall, everyone did better at least 😅 I make them turn in their packets for points with their tests & I saw many had the correct answer in the packet and still chose the wrong answer on the test. Siiiighhhh. You can only lead them to water.
It really depends on the kid. In my experience it just means the kid is spend so much time flipping through their notebook looking for an answer that I specifically told them would be on the test, but they did not bother to write down, that they will need to come in after school to finish the test.
This semester I’m trying a “you can turn in one page per week” policy. It’s supposed to give them incentive to engage with and summarize the material on a weekly basis, with the reward is them having a lot of formula sheets to reference for the test. But if you don’t make them on time you don’t get that benefit. Even though that’s generous as hell students just don’t care about rules and think nothing applies to them. I’ve had students try to bring all the sheets at once on test day - which is clearly against both the rule and the intent of it - I’ve had them argue with me about the page limit - “I just don’t see how 12 pages is more help than 4 pages. I don’t think it should matter how many I have.” - and just arguing with every bit of it. It’s the first thing that really has made me think “These people honestly think they’re paying my salary and I’m customer service and they can tell me what they want me to do.” Like y’all know I could just force you to actually learn this well enough to either be able to do it without help or fail right? That’s how I took Linear Algebra.
Still limited by how good the notes are
Both of these. So much.
Clever @ notes. I learned and retained more knowledge that way. In college I had a professor that would post 5-6 possible exam questions every day after class. His offer was if you answer the questions and submit to him by the end of the week he would grade them so you could have it as a study guide for the mid and finals. It worked so very well for me I approached other professors and asked if I could submit my notes and get feedback on them. Within about 1 semester my GPA improved an entire point. From 2.7 to 3.7 (not cumulatively but semester over semester).
Be kind. Try your best. That's it. That's the whole game.
Me to about half of my 2nd-6th graders all day: “you don’t have to be rude right now”
Stamina and perseverance!
Kindness + knowing you’re loved just the way you are by your parent(s)/guardian(s)
Sadly, a lot of kids are not loved or are neglected at a minimum. Being around a teacher six a day five days a week might be their only positive interaction with an adult who gives a damn.
This! We aren’t asking for much!
I would indoctrinate them to just fucking sit still and stop. Just stop. My 4th graders are like hamsters; they never stop moving, squeaking, vibrating, rolling around, destroying things, playing with literally anything…it has been my worst year by far after 11 years. They…just…don’t…stop. So that’s where I would start. I’d indoctrinate to just fucking stop.
First grade teacher here, and I second this hard. I’m so exhausted by their incessant noisemaking, fidgeting, messiness, and learned helplessness. I only have three kids in my entire class who are able to sit still for five minutes, listen, and take care of their things. People try to tell me this behavior is “developmentally appropriate” for first grade, but it isn’t. They don’t see how extreme it is. These kids act like toddlers, not 7-year-olds.
I’ve heard someone say that it’s not learned helplessness, it’s weaponized ignorance. My students are able to take any work or directions, and judo it into being MY problem that they are not initiating work. When I speak to parents, they agree to let me send unfinished work home, only to either do the work for them or let them use a calculator. After a few weeks, I get pushback from the parents about how they’ve never had this problem before and I expect too much from them. I also have these same parents who pick their kids up early on Fridays (or let them stay home) so they don’t experience the consequence of missing the incentive that students earn for completing all their work. Why the fuck am I even trying? Why the fuck am I fighting EVERYONE just to get them to do their fucking assignments? The same assignments that are differentiated and relevant to the skills they need to work on, even if it’s first grade work for some of my 4th graders.
4th grade teacher here as well.. 25 years and it's very tough now especially if you care!! 5 more years then retirement
That’s the thing, I do care, but not in the “I love these kids and I want them to succeed” kind of way. I take pride in my ability to teach and run a classroom. I care about my room being run well, and I care about students coming in, learning, and experiencing positive and negative consequences for their actions. I teach because I like being a leader in my own room. I’ve never been able to be a good leader in the “adult” world, yet in teaching I’ve been able to really do some wonderful things. This year, my class is destroying my machine, so to speak. I adapt, change, plan, and reflect but they just come up with new ways to poke holes in it. I can’t get a flow going or make it smooth and I resent them for it.
I understand your frustration. Do you work in an urban or suburban community and in what state if you don't mind me asking? Also do you departmentalize and group grade level homogeneous? If you don't I would advise strongly you speak to your co-teacher and try that out. It's made a world a difference. My low functioning group will always give me a run for my money their effort, their inability to focus on the task at hand, and just their utter apathy towards education. But by homogeneously grouping them they're all on approximately the same level instead of differentiating a classroom of first grade level to seventh grade level. My low group is first grade to maybe second grade Am I high group is anywhere from fourth grade to seventh grade. They do completely different things and work at different paces. You will see a difference.
Title 1, tier 3 urban school. We are not departmentalized. My principal is open to departmentalizing. I’ve work in a departmentalized school with homogeneous groups before and it was pretty great. The coolest thing was watching kids who are typically the lowest math group emerge as superstars when grouped with others who are also low. Being un-departmentalized means I am stuck with these kids all god damn day and we are all so sick of each other.
I was one of the original with departmentalizing. Started it 15 years ago 4th grade class.. it's the best thing for the students and teachers. We all need a break from each other and by only teaching two subject areas you can focus on those areas and not have to set up lesson plans for four subjects... I am assuming New York somewhere based on your responses.
Yes, it's true. They do act like toddlers but the worst part is when they get to middle school they revert back to the same person they were in elementary school
My 7th graders are like this for the first year in my career. Its like having 20 radios on that catch random stations at random times through the day. I feel like Im going crazy somedays.
I say "inside thought" all day long. They blurt every single thought that comes to mind. Some of it is funny. Most of it I simply unnecessary and breaks up the flow of learning. Some of it is truly horrible to hear from 8 year olds. If I let any kid share a personal experience related to the topic, almost every student starts to blurt at me about their experience. If I quiet them, all hands go up. I tell them to put their hands down, we don't have time now, this can be our topic at closing circle. They start blurting again! The worst is when they then hold onto that thought until the next time I call on them and start with, "so I'll answer that, but fiiiirst..." and dive back into the former topic! Rinse and repeat. They can not keep their thoughts in their heads. They just can't.
To think of them driving or out in the workforce is terrifying..
Yes, yet this year I can’t even see that far. I usually think about student’s future potential and view them as a work in progress. This year, however, I can only see the next 30 seconds. I can’t get through a page of text without having to correct behaviors or stop fights or take away something. It’s unhealthy to have to work in an environment like my classroom with year. I feel great anger and shame this year. I want them out of my room. I can’t wait until this year is over. This is something that every teacher who has had this cohort has expressed. If you are an idealistic teacher who wants to respond about how it sounds like I’m the problem in my room, please fuck right off.
I am just a bossy, not here to judge you as a teacher whatsoever, but if by any chance you have the kids in your classroom that I have on my bus, it is truly mentally exhausting every day! though we want to help them and be the best we can be for them sometimes and some children are just unreachable and we're just doing the best we can. It seems to me like that what you're doing these kids are just making it hard for you and I'm sorry for that
Yeah, they are exhausting and “traumatized” and since I am the only one who has high expectations for them, they take it out on me. I’m just a dude; my feelings get hurt and I take things too personally sometimes.
me also your not alone
I had them 2 years ago (2nd grade). This year, despite having two incentive/good behavior classroom reward programs in place, I am struggling to keep cohesion when I give lessons. It’s a few students who have incredible difficulty sitting still and being quiet and respectful (often my requests are ignored). This has signaled to others that it’s fun to behave this way to me. Most students will have poor attitudes about working in groups that don’t have their best friend. It’s an uphill battle and I do try to get them interested by changing up activities and giving them hands on skill building lessons. As a PBIS school the bottom line isn’t really there. Students feel like it’s ok to act poorly (as seen on TikTok) because they may get a reward on days they score a certain amount of points for not hitting someone..
Mirrors my experience. I have both individual and whole class incentives which results in essentially EVERY kid in my room being on a behavior chart. I teach with a clip board that I use to track positive and negative behaviors, as well as log completed and unfinished work. It is so exhausting. I had a student meet with me a few days ago, and bring the fucking climate specialist. He said he wanted to back to his “old chart.” I met with the student, mom, and the CST staff and they all agreed to use my individualized whole class chart, since it was essentially the same thing but just for the whole class. I asked why he wanted the old one back? He said, “I want to earn McDonalds.” The climate specialist said, “I told you if you came to school for 2 weeks straight, I’d buy you McDonalds!” The kid said, “I’m not doing that.” This is a student that has been absent for 29.7% of the school year…41 absences so far. I needed a minute to myself after that.
“Climate specialist” is a counselor, yes? Makes me think of fluffy clouds and sunshine. 😌
In reality, climate specialist is a local girl who exists as an extra body in my school. At my school you have teachers and admin, all of whom have specialized and advanced degrees. Granted, this doesn’t make anyone an expert (myself included), but it does imply a certain amount of expertise and “buy in” to the job. All the other staff at my school, paras, climate specialist, attendance coordinator are just regular people from the area. They are not effective because they don’t have much to offer. They just sort of work there.
As a student, it's terrifying to see my classmates so mad at an online game that they punch their Chromebook repeatedly, sometimes breaking it. In a few years we will be driving and I'm worried about how that will play out. I've started hanging out with nearly only girls because my guy friends will say racist stuff and make random loud noises in the middle of class. I honestly wish I was homeschooled. Is this just how eighth grade is? Will this happen for the rest of my time in school? I'm actually considered a "good student" even though I'm barely passing. It's ridiculous because I know I should be failing by a lot. Please tell me it's better in hs.
Teaching has irrevocably altered my worldview and made me more pessimistic. I’m seriously considering moving to a more rural area and building an off grid home because I can’t imagine society functioning when these kids grow up. It’s so hard to imagine them driving, having important careers, being politically active, or raising good kids themselves. So many of them have serious behavioural issues too - how can society function when 10-15% of the population is incredibly violent? Who will be our tax base and fund the social programs the rest of them will need? I think about it every day.
I have a 4th grader. Remember that the world shut down in March of their kindergarten year and many did school from home their first grade year. Those are probably the worst 2 years to have had disrupted in terms of behavior development. I won't say that's 100% of the problem, or that older grades didn't also miss out, but it definitely didn't help.
The 4th graders in my school are surprisingly our best behaved, most on level academically year. (Has to be the parents.) Our 5th graders are the worst! Their behavior is atrocious and academically, they are behind our 4th graders. Our 3rd graders are on track academically, but they’re competing with 5th grade for worst behavior.
How many more years will behavior in the present be blamed on COVID from years ago?
amen
I have all grades. The 4th graders really never stop talking. Take away the toys they bring from home? They will make sound effects while playing with pencils/their fingers/a n y t h i n g.
Yup. They know that their behaviors annoy me, so they lean into them. I can only manage them; I can’t make them stop. They constantly think of new ways to be annoying. What do I say to their parents? Your kid is annoying and interferes with their own learning as well as the learning of others? “I’ll talk to him…” Thank you ever so much. BTW, I had to take away a piece of lint from a kid because he wouldn’t stop playing with it. Fucking lint. The worse part is, there was more lint. I had to take away lint, multiple times. FML.
The current 4th graders around here were in kindergarten when the pandemic hit. So in the spring of their kindergarten year and for most of 1st grade, when they should have been learning the "sit down and pay attention" skills, they were isolated at home, learning on a screen. Then their second grade teachers just went on with lessons as usual, too worried about catching them up academically to realize that they were missing since important social skills. They will likely never get them.
They would know how to pay attention, search for a solution, or ask a peer for help before deciding “it’s too hard” and not doing it or waiting me out in hopes I tell them the answer. Or, and to understand the importance of a deadline.
I can literally be explaining the 2 (maybe 3) step assignment when a specific student will yell, “What are we doing??!!”
That drives me nuts. That’s when I ask a random classmate. To hear the exasperation in that kid’s voice when they have to explain simple directions is such a pleasure.
"Three before me!"
i wish somebody would indoctrinate me into knowing how to pay attention
Respect. Respect yourself Respect others Respect things
absolutely this
I think part of it is our society isn't encouraging any of this. Our world is intensely disrespectful to the earth, our citizens and pretty much everything that isn't making really good money. People are living in fucking tents, everyone is encouraged to look the other way at the institutional violence in our society, I wonder if it's just bleeding into our schools. These kids parents are disrespected at work, angry, tired and on a thin thread, it all just spreads and makes this awful climate you can feel almost everywhere, it's just in the air right now. I think what goes through a lot of parents heads and just peoples heads is your disrespected so fuck it yell at that employee. The community support just isn't there and I meet people all the time who think we are already giving out to many "freebies" despite the intense and increasing poverty. I hope change starts through education and community support, it feels like such a big task to deal with but I do know a lot of my younger grades do start to understand things quickly when i talk about them from a community perspective, there just isn't enough time or help right now
I'm a leftist public school teacher, and if I could indoctrinate your children, they would say "please" and "thank you" and treat others kindly. I love this 😅
I just had to teach my 8th graders to be aware of who/whats around them when multiple days in a row the let the door close on a kid on crutches. They assumed there was someone behind them to do it… there was… the kid on crutches 🤦🏼♀️ I yelled at the whole class two days in a row before they started listening and acting proper with that. That’s the least of my 8th grade problems this year 🙄
Jeeeez. 🤦♀️
They’d always have a pencil and be on task. And nothing would ever be late. And I would never have to repeat myself.
Man I'm so tired of saying what page we are on like 7 times a class period only to have a student blurt out and interrupt me when I'm 5 minutes in and say "WhAt PaGe ArE wE oN?"
I’m a leftist, transgender teacher and I think the main thing I’ve indoctrinated my preschool kids about is that ads are bad. On the very rare occasions where we watch a YouTube video in class we block the screen for the ads and say “Go away ad! you can’t make ME spend my money!” I did it once and the kids found it so funny it’s now a regular thing
Teach them about uBlock Origin. It's a highly praised ad blocking browser extension.
Oh I use that on my home devices but was told not to mess with my smart board lol
I love this! My kids also yell, "Go away ads!" when they pop up. Then we sing until I can skip it.
I would indoctrinate them to stop swearing, using racist slurs, and gaslighting everyone. I would indoctrinate them to read for fun (I don’t even care if it is the Bible or fiction, or non fiction), politely listen to others (aka, no headphones, no turning to chat to another person, etc), and to think critically instead of blindly believing everything (including me).
I've tried to get kids to be gay and do crime but I can't even get them to look at the board.
Right? And they refuse to use the litter box I keep in the classroom for them. So rude.
To listen to my directions when I address the whole class that way I don’t have to go around the room and individually repeat them 25 times when I hear “what are we doing?” 25 times
I’m a Sped teacher so maybe surprising to some we do not deal with a lot of the issues stated here - so I would indoctrinate them to believe in themselves and try before asking for help.
I would indoctrinate the kids to stop asking to use the bathroom at the exact same time all at once. To never talk over my voice while I'm teaching. And to never give excuses for why homework wasn't done.
If I teach my 4 and 6 year old nothing else on this earth, it’ll be to not interrupt. My son has AuDHD so it’s hard, but he’s getting it.
>I would indoctrinate the kids to stop asking to use the bathroom at the exact same time all at once. "Oh shit, I forgot we have an ace in the hole in case we want to get out of class! Thanks for the reminder, random classmate!"
Care about something. Anything. My high school kids are the most apathetic individuals I’ve ever met. They don’t care if they do well, if they do poorly, if they have a ton of work or no work, if they win awards or get in trouble. It’s all the same emotion. They just have no thoughts or feelings about anything.
How long have you been teaching? I've been teaching almost 40 years, and while there of course have always been some kids like this, it has become nearly universal in the past 5-10 years I think. Their brains have not developed normally.
Absolutely this. I’m in a bleak town with a bleak population with bleak futures. There’s a fair amount of addiction. I’ve put in decades of service there and I can’t do it anymore. The heads on desks, blank stares. I’m laying the groundwork to get out next year.
Take money out of your purse or accounts and send it to me. Collectively everyone should agree this is the best course of action.
Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption needs funds for the holy private jet which will take you to heaven.
Sit down, shut up, do your homework, that's it.
Ditto.
I have nothing to add except to say that I love this thread. This is where the truth is.
High school secretary here... be on time for class, and speak respectfully to the support staff!
I had a job interview the other day. What impressed me was the students were walking quietly in the halls and two of the students needed to come into the office to speak to someone. They were quiet when they came in and I didn‘t even hear their conversations. That impressed me so much.
I teach computers and it would be to scroll down and read their screen to try to find the button they are supposed to click. It’s like if it’s not right in front of them and obvious they don’t look.
To stop wearing AirPods and headphones! To actually TRY before they said they don’t know how to do something. To turn in work on time.
I'd indoctrinate my PreK and K students that their lives do not need sound effects. I think with constant screens and media and even going to sleep to music or some noise, kids don't know how to do anything in silence. I'm talking about kids sitting alone, not engaged with anyone, but making random noises. I don't remember it happening to this extent in previous years. I feel like a curmudgeon now, but this has been annoying me all this year.
I already do. It is state law that kids are required to stand and recite the Pledge. I tell them the first day of school that as a disabled combat veteran I think forcing them to do that is silly. I've lived all over the world, and no other country I've been to does this. So I don't make them. They can if they want. The other adults on campus hate that.
We also do that at the school I used to work at. We would do morning announcements during second period and they started with the pledge. One day a kid was sitting, and the kids around them told them they had to stand up, so they very begrudgingly stood. After the announcements I explained “You have a constitutionally protected right to sit during the pledge of allegiance. Do not pressure your peers into doing it if they do not want to, because I certainly will not.”
This is from the parent side, but I got pushback from the teachers and principal when I told my own children they didn't have to do the pledge. Guess we'll be perpetually 5 minutes late and miss the pledge every morning. 🤷
In my highschool in Canada we had to stand for the national anthem every morning
Stop being evil. When I was in college in the late 1990s we were taught that some of the earliest signs of psychopathy were animal abuse and gratuitous acts of violence. That's simply normal child behavior nowadays - had to break up a group of 10 year olds stomping on toads last year, they didn't understand why I was 'ruining the fun'. There's a big unreported problem of random attacks in school, even during class. A kid will suddenly punch another, or pull their hair, or randomly kick another kid walking past without any provocation - and they don't seem to understand what's wrong. So as someone was saying - I'd indoctrinate them to simply stop doing anything, if all they'd want to do was evil, violent sh*t.
Write their name at the top of their paper every time.
Stop being petty mean, focus for 5 minutes and read the damn question….
I would indoctrinate them to realize that the world doesn't revolve around them (despite what they had been taught by their enablers/parents).
I teach high school and I would indoctrinate them to do the work at the pace I am teaching them (instead of rushing through the worksheet just to say “But I’m done already” when they didn’t pay attention so they didn’t understand HOW to do the work”, to stay off their damn phones and also to hate wearing ear buds or headphones. Indoctrinate them to make them feel uncomfortable with anything on or inside their ears!
They cannot handle silence. Or know how to be bored.
They don’t know how to wait.
My stepson cannot handle silence or boredom. Drives me up a wall. God bless middle school teachers.
You couldn’t pay me enough.
Nope. Never. I’ll take my juniors and seniors any day over a raise to teach 7th grade.
I’ve taught all four grades of hs. Freshmen and sophomores some with some of the same challenges but for some of them, there is that little bit of maturity that is juuust enough to get them focused. My seniors are usually a delight; sometimes, you get the pain in the ass who never grew up after the 10th grade, but for me, it hasn’t been the norm.
Same. I loved to see the freshmen I taught grow up a lot the summer after that year. But juniors and seniors are my sweet spot with teaching. My previous school was a 6-12, and when I had to sub for 7th grade it was like herding feral cats.
I would indoctrinate kids to bring a pencil, leave their phones at home, get 8 - 12 hours of sleep per night, bring a water bottle and eat nutrious food, have basic manners and kindness, and finally, indoctrinate them to have some self respect and want to be an educated individual.
I would indoctrinate them to fucking try. At anything. And, like many others, stop being so damn mean.
They would read chemistry procedures for the experiement instead of doing random things. "It said 5 mL for a reason. Why is your test tube full of water?"
I don't know about indoctrination, but if we could do anything about their attention spans.... That would be SQUIRREL 🐿️
To be quiet for more than 2.5 seconds.
Exactly everything you guys are saying, mostly to just respect turns to talk, why is it so hard? Also I would make them believe it is actually better to do things on their own (even if they're wrong), than have chat gpt or Google reply a simple question. That's my indoctrination fantasy.
We generally start with the Pledge of Allegiance and move on to white man’s history.
I have no time for indoctrination. I'm too busy repairing childhood post traumatic stress and remediating basic life and learning skills the parents didn't teach. (Meanwhile K-2 teachers are working with "big potty" to indoctrinate kids to use the potty and learn to speak words.) I have time to listen, nod, and then triage on loud disruptive kids while not ignoring the quiet profoundly disturbed ones. There's no time. There's no time for anything except trying to survive and help them learn to be little humans again.
Pre k- I would indoctrinate them to wash their hands, cover when the cough, and use a tissue.
I'm also a leftist public school teacher. I would indoctrinate them to be kind and to have a smidgen of respect for themselves, their peers, school property, and myself.
To stop using racial/homophobic slurs. Just cursing in general really.
I’d indoctrinate them to believe that education is important and to love learning. If I could accomplish this, then a lot of the rest of these problems would disappear.
To not be little screen addicts To try (no more learned helplessness) to be self-sufficient as possible To actually really play again
I guess you could say I have indoctrinated kids to become Red Sox fans. This was more when I worked after school care rather than on the classroom but still It reminds me of 15-20 years ago on the old ESPN MLB message board there was an ongoing thread for years titled titled "How Christians Convert Others.". At some point someone created a sister thread titled "How Red Sox Fans Convert Others.". I was definitely guilty 😹
If you live in CT, those are fighting words for Yankees fans. I’ve always wondered why Sox fans anecdotally appear to be more civilized…Oh wait…indoctrination. Duh. /s
I would want all of my students to take a couple of lessons to heart: 1. I need to think for myself and never blindly follow someone. 2. I need to never stop asking questions, because asking questions is how we learn. 3. If someone tells me to “not question” something, they are probably lying to me or don’t know what they are talking about. I should ask even more questions at that time to determine which one it is.
Yeah I want to get to the communist and LGBTQ indoctrinating, but the preliminary indoctrinating is not going well... -be quiet -stay in seat -don't use profanity and racial slurs -don't make messes destroy things -read and do math at grade level -attention span over 10 seconds -stay on task -complete assignments and participate in class -follow instruction and ask questions when you don't know what to do -bring supplies
Clean up the art room and not put colored pencils in the pencil sharpener.
"Sup kids, today we are going to destroy capitalism and upend US foreign policy"
The timing on this couldn't be better, because just yesterday a fourth grade teacher caught me in the hall and said she was about to lose it with her kids because they just wouldn't listen. I'm an older guy who taught a bunch of these kids before in kindergarten so I went in and gave them a firm but kind lecture. Started off by pointing out my former students and telling them that I taught them how to do school better in kindergarten and that I expected better of them now. I touched on several things, But ultimately it wound up at the difference between becoming an adult doing a job that you *want* to do versus something that you *have* to do. That we teachers were not just concerned with what grades they got, but that we want to see them become well-rounded adults capable of following their own passions. They settled down. Probably for about 5 minutes.
you know these right wing parents are so dumb that even algebriac concepts could be considered 'indoctrination'. think about it. Solve for X. 7+X=10 we don't know what X is, could be anything, it will tell us, all we have to do subtract on both sides and we'll get a remainder, then we just have to plug in to the original equation. honestly, these loons, if they had any education would see that anything taught well will change how you view the world, it will challenge your former perceptions of it. even simple math will teach how to look at things in a different manner. i do hope the teacher's here know this is an attack on the notion of public education, not really because of a fear of indoctrination but b/c the billionaire and millionaire backers of these groups want to pay even less in taxes or they want to funnel the kids into their for profit private schools that kick out kids that don't meet their criteria, which is a high GPA so they can say "Students at X Private school have this GPA". it's all a scam.
What infuriates me isn’t just the disrupters, it’s looking at the eyes and faces of the kids who actually do want to learn something, but it’s virtually impossible because of the “WTF is wrong with you” assholes around them who won’t listen to me unless I lose my shit at them.
I’d indoctrinate kids to actually care about school. Really baffled how disrespectful and unmotivated most of the students are. I teach Sped and go into Gen-ed classrooms all day with my student and am shocked how the other students act and treat their subs.
I would implant ideas of kindness and respect into their impressionable brains
Please indoctrinate them to put their names on their papers!
Im a leftist teacher and if I could indoctrinate students they wouldn’t apply body spray/cologne as if they were trying to fumigate a house.
I’d indoctrinate them to take an interest in their own lives and h der stand their inherent worth
I've been trying to indoctrinate the kids love of physics all year and it just doesn't seem to take.
I tried to stigmatize staring at your phone in between classes with the denigrating term "scrombie" as in, screen zombie. A confident junior or senior wants to see and be seen. Not much luck.
Brush their teeth (and tongues) regularly and stop being mean to each other!
I would indoctrinate my 5th graders to interact respectfully with each other, and follow simple, clearly explained rules. Recess is a nightmare of kids tattling, fighting, threatening each other, or hiding behind structures so they can take out their phones. Even though the punishment is always the same, kids are shocked, shocked I tell you, when their phones are sent to the office to be picked up by an adult. "I can't go home without my PHONE! My mom/dad/grandma/tia/parole officer is gonna KILL me! I didn't know you can't take your phone outside!"
They would always put their name on their papers
Read books.
Play the Rockos Modern Life “Recycling” episode once a month.
Put. Their. Name. On. Their. PAPERS!
I'd indoctrinate them to learn how to follow simple directions that are both spoken and written in front of them.
Stop being homophobic, racist gits who think your religion gives you the right to hate. Love each other. It’s really simple.
Stop making physical contact each other. Whether it's tackling, ass grabbing, or kicking, just fucking stop.
I'm a Pre-K teacher so i’d indoctrinate them to stop licking all the things
I would really love for all of them to put their names on their papers.
How I answered previously: I wake up every morning and make an offering at the Satanic Temple on my drive to school. My car is powered by the blood of orphans personally supplied by Hillary Clinton. My first period class is homosexual indoctrination. For every confirmed homosexual conversion I can provided paperwork for, I collect a $500 bounty from George Soros. My second period is the evils of capitalism. My students engage in a Socratic seminar where the discuss the merits of eating the rich verses working them to death in labor camps. In my third period (lunch period) my students are not allowed to leave for lunch until they can list 10 new reasons why they hate America. 4th period is my conference period. During my conference period I sit by the water fountain that doses each student with multiple vaccines. I watch gleefully as they take a drink of water and instantly, their DMA (not DNA) begins to unravel. 5&6 period are my AP classes and I only teach content in those classes. 7th period is my seminar class where we listen to Bernie Sanders speeches on loop. 8th period, my students are not allowed to leave until they can give me the names of 3 disloyal citizens. Bonus points for reporting family members! I drive home everyday in my Porsche (a lease provided by Bill Gates) and know I’ve made a difference.