Public Schools stopped disciplining kids long ago. Fear of retribution, legal action, and a mountain of headaches from all angles. Why would anyone want to teach these days?
Now let me answer this question more directly. It’s actually worse than a lot of people think. There is an intense and overwhelming amount of utter bullshit that gets rolled down the hill starting with Congress, added to by state legislatures, and further reinforced by local school districts. And of course teachers are at the bottom of the hill. When you focus on that, and all the ways that the system is utterly dysfunctional, and not beneficial for students, it can be defeating.
But when you focus on your job, which is students, it’s the single most rewarding thing you can do, in my judgment. I was a lawyer for 5-6 years before getting into education. I hated every day of my life. Now I wake up excited to see my students and be with them. It’s genuine fulfillment I never thought I would have in my life. So, if you can withstand all the bullshit, and there is a metric shit ton of it for sure, it’s an amazing job. If you can’t stand up for yourself, or if you can’t deal with irrational requirements imposed by people fully out of touch with reality—-if you can’t, in other words, set aside, or ignore to the maximum extent possible, dealing with other adults, you should definitely avoid it.
I can do those things. Becoming a teacher was the single best decision I’ve ever made.
I’ve taught school for more than 20 years, starting at an alternative high school and following that with a rural high school, middle school, and even some college. What I’ve learned is that a teacher who speaks up won’t have a job (Questioning why it was okay for our male students to go the gym, with administrators’ approval, to play ball with a male teacher who was supposed to be a role model, instead of attending class.). A teacher who doesn’t watch every word they speak (Explaining that in formal writing, one should not use 1st and second person pronouns and being told by a parent that their precious child shouldn’t be taught the word gender, even though that word was never even spoken.)will end up as a target for uneducated parents or those with a misguided agenda. I’ve been in both of those situations more than once and after 20 years of crying for my kids, crying from the stress, and just generally questioning my sanity at staying in a profession that has become the scape goat for all the problems that our society faces, I’ve just grown tired. I try to discourage former students from going into the profession and have watched 3 young gifted teachers leave the profession in the last year alone. I’ve had training on how to properly search a backpack for drugs. I’ve had training on how to do triage on gunshot victims. I’ve had training and drills on how to barricade myself and my students in my classroom in case of an active shooter situation. And I did it all for one of the lowest pay scales in a state that already is woefully underpaying it’s teachers. I did not sign up for any of those things. If I had wanted to risk my life, I would have been a first responder or soldier. So I’m sure someone will ask, “Why did you stay?” There are multiple reasons to stay: job security, retirement pension, and mainly, my students. I love being able to help my kids and I love helping them realize their potential. That said, I’m counting down days until retirement. I’m looking forward to a new career in which I don’t feel like I have a bullseye painted on my back, being able to sleep at night without the stress, and mostly, I’m looking forward to not having to monitor every word I say and bite my tongue around everyone for fear of community tongue wagging. I only have a few years left and the end can’t come quickly enough.
That's a really difficult question. I thought about it for a while, but I don't think I have any answers that would qualify (given the requirement to be "realistic").
It is super important to keep in mind, though, when thinking about public education that public schools are expected to serve a multitude of functions that are related to education only in the sense that they involve the same children who are our students (nutrition, counseling, social work services, etc.). And that's fine, I guess, if schools are where the social safety net has to catch vulnerable children. But that needs to be acknowledged and factored into how we think about schools.
I’m a teacher at an urban Title I school (over 70% of our students qualify for reduced or free school lunches). Yes, there is a lot of paperwork involved when you need to transfer student to alternative school or outright expel them. It’s only an issue though when you don’t document what’s happening along the way. And of course, documentation is not a bad thing. It would be a bad thing if kids were being run out of schools at the whims of tired, overworked, extremely stressed teachers. On the other hand, the really wacky stuff comes when it’s a special education student. You literally cannot suspend them for more than 10 days in a school year. I was the general education teacher in FBA meetings for three of my SpEd students who brought weapons to school (two knives, one taser). The result was to put them all on a functional behavioral plan which requires weekly reports about whether they are meeting FB targets: of not bringing weapons to school. The plan included that when they did meet their targets, they should be rewarded in certain ways, like being given time on a computer or time to speak with their friends or whatever. So, yeah. Rewards for… not bringing weapons. Now that was crazy.
Expulsion and suspension. I know a teacher who works in a school with this problem; state DOE policies puniah schools for suspending or expelling violent children, so instead they are allowed to continue terrorizing their peers and instrucrors.
To me it is definitely telling that the US Supreme Court found it constitutional and legal to administer corporal punishment by drawing analogies with prisoners in a jail. As in the pg essay “Why Nerds are Unpopular”, primary school is essentially a prison for the kids, a glorified day care center to keep them out of trouble while parents can work.
But elsewhere in many districts if the parent doesnt care then there are literally no consequences for children who disrupt classes, that don’t backfire badly on those who would try to make those consequences.
Good luck trying to administer corporal punishment to a young man who is bigger, fitter and stronger than you, has already demonstrated a willingness to use violence against you and has a room full of willing accomplices. I hope that anyone foolish enough to try it has good healthcare.
> Good luck trying to administer corporal punishment to a young man who is bigger, fitter and stronger than you
Why are teenage boys bigger, fitter and stronger than the teachers? Maybe because ~75% of teachers are women? There's value in the ability of physically-capable adult males to quietly intimidate adolescents. There's value in well-rounded men who can provide classroom instruction but maybe also coach the boxing/powerlifting/wrestling teams. The next time Mr. Smith puts some bass in his voice and tells you to sit down and stop disrupting class, there should be a voice in the back of your head that says "I should do that, because he just might uppercut me into the stratosphere". I suspect that students aren't learning the principle of "Fuck Around and Find Out" from ANY authority figure in their daily lives. Our society as a whole seems to have forgotten the importance of male role models IMO...
>a guy who 'might uppercut me' sounds like a great male role model
On average, men are more likely to aspire to be Thor or Captain Marvel than they are to be Rick Moranis's character in Ghostbusters. They are more likely to take guidance from a larger, stronger, and more assertive man than otherwise. The military has already figured this out, just look at the stereotypical Drill Instructor for an extreme example of the concept. Do you dispute this, or are you simply speaking of what works/doesn't work for you as an individual? A single anecdote doesn't really tell us much about what society-wide initiatives we should pursue.
Also, Andrew Tate is already out of jail and currently under house arrest.
Now let me answer this question more directly. It’s actually worse than a lot of people think. There is an intense and overwhelming amount of utter bullshit that gets rolled down the hill starting with Congress, added to by state legislatures, and further reinforced by local school districts. And of course teachers are at the bottom of the hill. When you focus on that, and all the ways that the system is utterly dysfunctional, and not beneficial for students, it can be defeating.
But when you focus on your job, which is students, it’s the single most rewarding thing you can do, in my judgment. I was a lawyer for 5-6 years before getting into education. I hated every day of my life. Now I wake up excited to see my students and be with them. It’s genuine fulfillment I never thought I would have in my life. So, if you can withstand all the bullshit, and there is a metric shit ton of it for sure, it’s an amazing job. If you can’t stand up for yourself, or if you can’t deal with irrational requirements imposed by people fully out of touch with reality—-if you can’t, in other words, set aside, or ignore to the maximum extent possible, dealing with other adults, you should definitely avoid it.
I can do those things. Becoming a teacher was the single best decision I’ve ever made.