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Re: I Teach Thugs
Posted by unfathomable . . . but here's a sliver of hope on 8/29/08
You have my thoughts and prayers, and I am being VERY
serious about that.
Your students have them, too.
Books can't solve everything, but I really, really think
that the book "Teaching Outside the Box" by LouAnne Johnson
will help.
What subject do you teach? (I hope it's English or Lit
because then the book will help EVEN more as the author was
a Lit or English teacher or something related).
The classroom mgmt info in "Teaching Outside the Box" is
based on her experiences with a group not too different from
yours, I'd say.
It was a PROCESS, but slowly but surely she made daily
progress towards building a relationship with her classes'
students.
Bless you!
On 8/28/08, Horrified wrote:
> If you are one of those teachers with rose-colored glasses
> concerning student misbehavior, this post won't be to your
> taste.
>
> I teach high school students at a charter school. Tomorrow
> concludes our first week. Our students are drawn almost
> 100% from the ranks of juvenile offenders on probation. I
> am coming from a public school that drew mainly from
> middle-class families.
>
> The students are unbelievably ill-behaved. They don't
> work, they don't care, they smell, they come in stoned,
> they roam, they cheat, they steal, they curse teachers,
> they throw spitballs, they destroy any and all supplies
> and free breakfast foods furnished them, many of the girls
> are pregnant, so on and so forth. Out of 150 students, I
> would say less than 10 read above the fourth-grade level.
> Do they have the capacity to improve? No, because they
> have no interest in improving.
>
> I'm not thinking I'm going to be lasting too long. The
> director sees only dollar signs and the teachers are
> unable to have a student suspended or expelled, due to the
> ADA money. Nor can students be given even a 10-minute
> detention unless 3 instances of the same behavior occur,
> and if a teacher writes a student up, the director writes
> the teacher up. Last year 10 teachers (for 2 of the
> classrooms) cycled through, some lasting only a day. I
> didn't know this when I took the job. The student body was
> also misrepresented to me. The teachers who stay are
> uncertified and I guess they have nowhere else to go.
>
> The director spouts fuzzy feelings about how "damaged" the
> students are, often citing primary-school teachers as
> the "culprits" in "crushing" the students and turning them
> into gang members. There are students at this school who
> have committed murders!!! But to her, it's always someone
> else's fault..."they made the students shoot...they made
> them drink...they made them stab..."
>
> So far, I've been called a b*tch, racist, whitey, Anglo,
> and some unprintable things. I have never encountered such
> racism as the STUDENTS display. I began the week not even
> knowing the type of student I had -- and I began by having
> a reasonable, open setting -- immediately abused. The
> students feel that NO RULES WHATSOEVER apply to them, and
> the director backs up this attitude. It turns out her
> thuggy relatives are attending the school as well.
>
> Just venting, I guess. I find these students appalling.
> Anything nice they see as weakness, and they know we have
> no "big sticks" in our arsenal. The other teachers drive
> old "beaters" due to the amount of "keying" and denting of
> their cars. The students drive Hummers, Cadillacs, Lexus
> sedans, Excursions, and so forth.
>
> It seems an insane situation to me.
Posts on this thread, including this one
- I Teach Thugs, 8/28/08, by Horrified.
- Re: I Teach Thugs, 8/29/08, by unfathomable . . . but here's a sliver of hope.
- Re: I Teach Thugs, 8/29/08, by Pecos.
- Re: No, you OBSERVE them - & I hope you get out of their way, 8/29/08, by And I thought "Hard Times at Douglas High" was bad!.
- Re: I Teach Thugs, 8/30/08, by Aaron.
- Re: I Teach Thugs, 8/30/08, by mb.
- Re: I Teach Thugs, 8/30/08, by Kookoo.
- Re: Thoughts on this thread , 8/31/08, by L. Swilley .
- Re: Thoughts on this thread , 8/31/08, by firstyear.
- Re: I Teach Thugs, 9/01/08, by Tomi Evans.
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