Failure of Education

Now a Federal Appeals court has ruled that transgender students have a right to be called by their selected name and pronouns. Teachers refusing can be terminated.

I was attacked in my classroom by a student once. I feel sorry for this teacher because his career, at least with that school district, is over.

Parents are concerned after seeing a video showing a student punching a teacher in the face on Thursday.

Students are sharing the video on social media.

It happened at Lamar High School, Houston, Texas, and those who have seen the video are upset, saying it should have never… pic.twitter.com/Bke5YcRwFO

— D. Scott @eclipsethis2003 (@eclipsethis2003) April 7, 2023

While legally a child, this student is large. Larger than the teacher, yet there are many who will say that the teacher can’t defend himself because teachers can’t hit children. There are those who say that the teacher can’t take a student’s property. Still others say that the teacher should have let him use the phone. I disagree with all of those.

No matter what, the school district will likely fire or force the teacher to resign. He is now a liability, because if there is a future incident, the parents will point to this one and claim there is a pattern of violence on the part of the teacher.

In my case, I found a new job. When I got there, I resolved to not ever take anything from a student. Ever. If a kid is on the phone, whatever. Not my circus, not my monkeys. The problem with this is that the kids learn that quickly, and many of them simply don’t learn. This causes a larger issue, because kids are not allowed to fail. So they haven’t learned anything, but they eventually graduate. That’s why we have a mostly “educated” but unlearned nation.

Our schools are out of control.  

Colleges began eliminating entrance exams, stating that making students take exams was racist. Now, students being admitted can’t do well enough to pass the course. Will colleges reinstate entrance exams and have more rigorous barriers to entry? Of course not! If students can’t pass the course, then grades have got to go! Grades are now racist.

Of course they are. This is how we got to the point where only 19 percent of Maryland students are performing math that is appropriate for their grade level, and some schools in Baltimore have NO students who were proficient in math. When you account for reading as well, less than 5 percent of students are reading and performing arithmetic at grade level. So if Baltimore students can’t read or write, they must not be attending college, right?

Wrong. More than 43 percent of Baltimore high school graduates go on to attend college, but since they find it impossible to graduate, they will no longer receive grades of any kind. It won’t be long before a college degree is worthless, no matter what the major is.

This parent is upset that her child isn’t allowed to leave the classroom whenever she wants by using the claim of needing to use the bathroom. Students do this all the time. There are kids who will need to use the bathroom constantly, then will leave the classroom and wander the halls for half an hour or more. Many teachers, myself included, developed policies that were intended to keep kids in the classroom. If you don’t do so, you will find that the kids take full advantage of that, and of you.

There are some things that you hear when you are a teacher that are heard so often, they become cliché.

• The teacher is only giving me that grade because they don’t like me
• The teacher must have lost my homework, because I turned it in
• I wasn’t cheating, I was using my resources
• I need this phone to text my mom
• I wasn’t using this phone to cheat on the test, I was texting my mom. She needs to hear from me every hour, to make sure I’m safe.
• My kid wasn’t cheating on the test, he was texting me, you can’t tell my kid that he can’t text his mother whenever he wants to.
• I need to go to the bathroom (before being gone for half an hour)
• My kid should be allowed to do whatever they want.

You get the point. Kids will do anything and everything to get out of school, to get things that they shouldn’t have, etc. If you are a parent, you know how manipulative children can be. It’s a parent’s job to guide and teach their children the right way, to show them the path to becoming functional, responsible adults. Sadly, many parents fail in this duty and instead strive to be the child’s ally and friend, rather than their parent. I saw this time after time during my seven years as a teacher. It’s so tedious that it was one of the main reasons why I am no longer teaching. .

This bathroom thing is no exception to that. Let that child get hurt, and the first thing those very same parents want to know is why was their child not being supervised. It’s tiresome, and looking at this teacher’s policy in the article, it seems reasonable.

Mrs. Garrett has allegedly implemented a classroom “reward system” that allows students to earn “Garrett dollars,” which they can cash in to borrow supplies or use the bathroom, among other things. How do you earn dollars? Students can donate supplies, do extra work in the classroom, be good citizens in the classroom, etc. They can then use those dollars to buy things like a pencil or paper (which was donated by another student), bathroom trips, and other things.

It’s a great idea. It teaches the kids that work carries reward, it teaches them fairness, and helps impart a work ethic.

Instead, this parent wants to teach her child the lesson that whining and complaining is far more effective a tool to get what you want.

Sadly, that is the lesson that is learned far too often. Too many parents claim that their kid is different, their kid “would never do that,” which ties the hands of the teachers who actually DO want to do their jobs. That’s how we wind up with schools that can’t control kids, and the school becomes a discipline free for all, like this Minnesota school where parents are complaining that the violence is out of control.