| Sometimes I check out /r/teachers to get an idea of what's going on in education. The general consensus is that behavior issues are completely out of control for a variety of reasons: - Shortage of dedicated special education teachers - Parents who won't discipline kids at home - Top-down pushes from administration such as "restorative justice", "least restrictive environment", and a few other phrases that will make any classroom teacher's skin crawl - Unwillingness from administration to apply suspensions or expulsion due to how this ties to school funding - Lack of flexibility in the teaching job market due to teachers being a licensed profession and most states suspending a teacher's license if they quit mid-year, leaving apathetic teachers trapped in bad schools - Attempts to discipline non-white students frequently resulting in accusations of racism, making it not worth the trouble In the classroom, the end result seems to be that behavior meltdowns take up a disproportionate amount of a teacher's attention and they aren't empowered to deal with it, all at the expense of the quality of instruction for the rest of the students. The standardized test score metrics discussed here are a not too surprising consequence. |
This sort of culture now is unfortunately getting common, in the era of 'getting cancelled' nobody wants to carry the burden of helping others. Everybody is just one hair trigger away from hurting other people's emotions despite their best intentions to help.
What makes things more complicated is receiving help in many ways demands being humbled by the helper. This itself can be humiliating to go through. It could be misunderstood in a million different ways. And then you become the bad guy for helping and they become victims for receiving help. You lose in every possible way. Not only do you have to spend your time, energy and money to help them. You have also to risk getting cancelled for no fault of yours. And if you get cancelled, you are sanctioned for life.
For this reason its not just the classroom or office mentorship, people today as little as don't bother telling a person their wallet dropped from their pockets in a bus, out of fear it could be construed as harassment.
>>making it not worth the trouble
This is where you arrive.