another school shooting

[Ghost]

I'm not saying I only want to help the best and brightest. I am saying that I put more energy towards people that ask for my help or that make some kind of indication that they want help.

If you only had a limited amount of seeds, would you plant them somewhere they might grow, or just throw them around at random?

tbh i think thats probably where the problem lies on the side of the schools, there is obviously the parents side which is the other contributing factor.

I dont want to be rude but that attitude is just awful.

You are essentially saying that the kids that really need your help dont get it because they dont fit your personal idea of what a student should be.

[Ghost]

I'm not saying I only want to help the best and brightest. I am saying that I put more energy towards people that ask for my help or that make some kind of indication that they want help.

If you only had a limited amount of seeds, would you plant them somewhere they might grow, or just throw them around at random?

i think mike is saying you are paid to help everyone
Not those that you decide deserve your attention.
Your choices of who deserves help based on your opinion might be different to someone elses.

perhaps in the interest of fairness you should scatter the seeds randomly.
If you scatter the seeds randomly each seed has an equal chance. your method is selective based on your own logic which may not always be correct.

I wonder how may seeds go through life without the attention they require and i wonder how they end up?

The seeds that grow easily dont need as much watering and attention as the ones that dont, wouldnt you agree?

[treelizard]

I'm not saying I only want to help the best and brightest. I am saying that I put more energy towards people that ask for my help or that make some kind of indication that they want help.

If you only had a limited amount of seeds, would you plant them somewhere they might grow, or just throw them around at random?

[treelizard]

And I will add that the kids I bend over backwards for and spend tons of time doing extra research and work for so that they can better achieve their goals are the ones who HAVE goals and ambition and who I see working hard through all odds. The kid who asked me to sit in the back of the room so he can concentrate better because his friends keep talking to him, who always writes down everything on the board before being asked, who raises his hand to get extra help because his language skills are still developing, who writes five-page essays when the assignment calls for two... Of course it's important to reach out to everyone but to be honest, I would rather put a lot of time and effort into somebody who deserves it. I am also more likely to put a ton of energy into something where I think I will see results.

[treelizard]

I have a lot of students like that. In fact I just met with a dad who was quite upset that his kid's probation officer didn't get him to school... he SENDS him so then it's the STATE'S responsibility to make sure he gets there.

Unfortunately, in a class of 31, or even 21, I cannot give a heck of a lot more than a few minutes of individual attention to every child that is damaged (which in my school is most of them) while teaching. I do my best but the one-on-one time I have is extremely limited. Of course, like most teachers I do try to set a very good example but I cannot force every student to listen to me or to talk to me or to open up instead of shutting down when dealing with whatever it is they're dealing with. I can only do what I can do, and hope that the students I don't have rapport with can find another teacher to talk to. I can recommend counseling, I can try talking to students one-on-one during my (unpaid, afterschool) detentions, I have an open door policy when I am at school or in my room during lunch, I write long-winded comments in their journals and I utilize specific strategies to try to teach adult behavior, good study skill strategies, civic responsibility, the correlation between achievement and effort, blah de blah. However, some of my kids have gotten expelled anyway and you know what? I don't feel too much responsibility for it. I figure a lot has happened to get them to the point where they were at when I got them, and I have known them for less than three months. Parents, unlike teachers, are there all along and can provide the consistency and support that even the best teacher can't offer. And if one of my expelled kids comes to school with a gun or jacks our cars in the parking lot (the latter is probably more likely due to our kick-ass security team) I'm not going to feel responsible either.

"I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it."

I reckon that the types of kids that start school shootings are probably the ones that would pull away from the type of support that teachers and counselors try to offer.

[treelizard]

double post

[treelizard]

Charter schools? I asked one of my teachers about working at one and this is what she said: "Aside from the fact that they aren't governed by the same rules as regular public schools, and aside from the fact that they aren't well funded, and aside from the fact that many teachers who work there aren't certified, and aside from the fact that many teachers who work there aren't highly qualified, and aside from the fact that the administrators for the most part come from business or elsewhere and know nothing about education, and aside from the fact that most kids attending charters are there because they have been kicked out of other schools, or have failed so many times they are just desperate to get credits to graduate? I guess they would be a good place to work." If you look at test score statistics for charters... Well, actually I took the liberty of looking up charters in Colorado Springs, and this is what I found: http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/...tings&tab=over

The four "excellent" and "high performing" schools were public. Of the four "low performing" schools, three were charters.

The only shooting I know of in Tucson (including schools that do or do not deal with violence as criminal activity) was at the University of Arizona, where a student opened fire in class at the nursing school, killing two professors, a bystander and himself. I know for a fact that the U of A does indeed deal with campus violence as a criminal issue.

I'm not aware of any shootings in my school, but there certainly is a lot of action.

More info on our local high schools here:

http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/157740

[treelizard]

There is not just one teacher's union. If you go to the NEA site (the nation's largest teacher union, incidentally), you will see on their homepage a school crisis guide "created by educators for educators to help keep schools safe and to help students and staff return to learning after a crisis." http://www.nea.org/index.html
Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but it's not about carpal tunnel. The American Federation of Teachers website, right here, http://www.aft.org/ has a school safety link, "Keeping Schools Safe" so that members can "learn more about establishing a safe and orderly learning environment."

I would be interested in seeing your research which indicates that handling school bullying as criminal activity reduces school bullying. Like I said, it is handled as criminal activity at my school and I'm not convinced that there is a reduction because of this. As far as your teacher who really touched his students, that is really great and all but many students do not wish to learn.

It is great when teachers are good at motivating, engaging and supporting their students but we have them for about 45 minutes a day (about 6.5 hours total) and the parents have them the entire rest of the time. Our primary function as teachers is to teach. I know, that sounds nuts, right? But they aren't testing these kids on the AIMS on their character. As a teacher I need to provide an atmosphere conducive to learning, so I need to be supportive of my students and let them know I care about them, support them and want them to do well and to succeed. Despite that, some kids are like Humpty Dumpty after the great fall. Teachers can't reassemble them. Society needs to recognize that kids have parents for a reason!

As far as teachers working for less than minimum wage, I'd have to pull up the file but that figure is coming from the amount of hours teachers I know work divided by the amount of hours they get paid, subtracting the amount of money spent on school supplies and supplementary material etc. that is not paid for by the district. We looked at average beginner salaries, minus average amount spent on supplies that are not reimbursed, minus the the amount spent on tuition, fees, books, etc. for continuing ed credits required for their licenses or which they feel are necessary for their performance. We also factored in what overtime pay would be (i.e. time and a half for hours over 40), time spent obtaining professional development hours (180 clock hours every five years if I remember correctly, averaging around 36 annual hours of unpaid labor), time spent in the summer on curriculum planning, etc.

[treelizard]

I'm saying that even though my school does it differently, I don't think that the measures in place fix the problem. I already mentioned what I'd do to fix it--get parents to parent. I think that would make much more of a difference than prosecution will, as evidenced by repeat offenders.

I already answered the question you reposted. I could repost my response, but I'll just let you scroll back instead.

[treelizard]

With all due respect, it is pretty over the top to say that teachers won't use fairness or judgement to step up when kids are bullied, won't report crimes and do not differentiate between perpetrators and victims (I do hate that word).

Did you even read your own paragraph? No one cares about your kid as much as they do pay raises or carpal tunnel? And you can make that judgement because of some union newsletter, despite the fact that most teachers work sixty to ninety hour weeks at less than minimum wage...which just might have something to do with the fact that they care about children?

IF some teachers aren't following proper procedure in regards to student violence, I'd say that there's a good chance it has more to do with bad judgement or lack of training/knowledge than the type of evil motives or selfishness that you imply...

[treelizard]

I'm not saying it's a bad thing at all. I write a lot of referrals. I'm suggesting that teachers could follow all the proper procedures and kids could still be violent anyway. I think blaming teachers for not addressing these issues is misguided; there is more at play and it starts at home.

I'm tired of schools having all of the accountability for students' behavior, as if they are computers we can program. Schools have become one-stop shopping for a wide assortment of things parents used to be expected to do. We feed them breakfast and lunch. We provide school supplies for those who can't afford them. We provide counseling and social work. We provide tutoring and help with homework. We provide probation officers. We provide mentoring and motivation through a variety of programs and training. We provide character education and health education. We provide after school programs to keep them off the street. We try to teach them everything they need to know about every imaginable content area so that they can get high scores on standardized tests, regardless of whether or not they actually do the work that is assigned or even show up to school. The day isn't getting longer and the year is still in the same archaic 1800's model it's always been. And now the schools are supposed to be held accountable when the numerous interventions they have tried aren't working?? What do the parents do??

I would also say that the prison system doesn't seem to be working as far as reform is concerned. I'm all for locking people up and keeping them off the street, but I don't think our criminal system does much in the way of reform at all.

As far as suggestions, I posted a link to an article by Love and Logic, which is an organization that helps both parents and teachers raise responsible children. Love and Logic and other programs like it help teach kids to be more responsible instead of just hammering down consequences.

The article I cited, I think it was this one: http://www.loveandlogic.com/pdfs/research_data_bllp.pdf
has a lot of references at the end for research on efficacy as parents.

[treelizard]

The reason I think it may have been addressed in the best way teachers/administrators knew how to address it is because I have seen people address things properly and it not change student perception or behavior. One of my students was expelled for bullying, and I have documentation of many many many many many interventions that were tried (yes the police and counselors were involved). I have several students who ARE on probation and also act up in school... yes they are mentally and emotionally screwed up, but I don't think that's necessarily due to improper interventions.

I'm not in the teacher's union so I can't address their website.

What that tells me, the average parent, is that no one there cares about my kid as much as they do pay raises or carpal tunnel, and that no one will step in with any kind of fairness or judgement if my kid gets bullied at school. No one is going to report a criminal to the police if a kid beats up on my boy, and if he's going to stand a chance, he'd better learn to fight and not get caught. If he gets caught, well, he'll be treated just like the guys who beat him up, and he'll get sent home. Not cool.

Not necessarily true.

[Tom Yum]

Memories...

I went to highschool with some pretty bad dudes. The school itself was located in a decent area, but with re-districting and all kinds of other district politics, most of our students shipped in from not so good areas with not so good homes.

I think alot of adults were naive at the time (most of the 90's) and thought that highschool was still something akin to Leave it to Beaver...seriously. I remember during my sophomore year seeing atleast 2 fights a day, getting jumped twice and one occasion where several police officers were called to break up a riot. Bullying wasn't a case by case thing; it was a random, unpredictable thing.

You come down the hallway, accidentally make eye contact with the wrong guy, gold teeth and all - the next thing you know you're in a fight (none of this meet me in the parking lot bs) and the only way people would stop messing with you was if you fought back and sometimes the fighting back part got bad.

Most of us used to joke that we attended a public prison, rather than highschool - all kinds of kids trying their hardest to be hard and be a gangsta'. At that time, only the thugs/bullies were packing - not the regular kids you see today - seeing what's happening today sadly makes sense. Its just a reaction to what's been happening daily in public school for the last 10+ years with no sense of justice?

[treelizard]

It might have if action had been taken when the bullying started instead of months or years later...

I'm still not sure what makes you believe it wasn't addressed when it started.

[treelizard]

Since the guy was willing to kill himself, I'm not sure either consequence would've stopped.