Quote From: skenskiI have taught for over 8 years in an inner city school district located in the mid-west. Although I have heard stories and seen news reports even locally similar to this show's examples, I have never experienced anything like that in the two schools I have taught at. What I have experienced is so out of control children and such little support from the district or parents I find it very difficult to teach the curriculum outlined by the district and the state. Currently I have 24 students and 3 of them are on specific behavior plans. These plans include tracking sheets that I must stay on top of and record each student's behavior sometimes as often as every 20 minutes! I must also reward behavior that simply complies to school and classroom standards sometimes as often as three times a day. Each student's behavior must be logged daily to document successess and failures. Each student has an agenda and behavior tracking sheets that must be completed with detailed descripitons of behavior for parents to read, sign and have returned daily. I am required to meet monthly with the parents and the team which help to set up these behavior plans. Now on top of this...I have 21 other children I am trying to teach, assess, grade papers, file, complete lesson plans, tutor, prepare for formal observations, and keep up parent contacts with. I do all this with no additional help. We have no aids or PARA's. I work from 6:30 in the morning to 6:30 at night, come in and work work for 5 hours every Saturday, and of course take work home with me every night. Yes, some teacher's and schools are NOT doing what is right by our children. Sometimes that is through poor disciplanary procedures, but most often its because of too much paperwork and too little time actually caring and teaching the children we are given the responsiblility to teach each year.
Bless your heart, I too have had 8 yrs experience in an inner city school. I no longer teach and although I miss it; I don't miss this kind of mess. The last year I worked I had 33 regular ed kids, another 7 that were inclusion students from the BD class and 4 more from the mild/moderate class. There was never a para. Out of the 33 ten kids were 504 for behavior/academic issues. I've been slapped, kicked, and threatened by both students and parents. I've had to disarm students on two different occasions, testify in court, and have dealt with the police so much that one jokingly suggested setting up a sub-station in the school.
I found the "experts" take on the situations shown to be simple rhetoric. As a classroom teacher I'm sure you found it to be the same. If I had a nickel for every time I heard the buzz word, "best practices," I would be a rich lady today. Classroom teachers need real support not just someone sitting in an ivory tower offering the current educational buzz words.
What I saw today was just plain wrong. I totally understand these teachers' fustrations, but to allow a child to sit in her own urine, or belittle a 5 yr old in front of the class, (try that with an inner city kid and you'll see how street wise they really are), or to take an adolecent, who is inherently hyper-sensitive about her changing body, and strip search her, is far and beyond acceptable. I have always told parents they are welcome to drop in my class anytime to quietly observe because what was going on in my room was an open book. I understand that policy is not popular with most teachers because it can be disruptive, but it definately kept me on my toes, not that many parents/grandparents took me up on my offer.
PS. Pat on the back for the parents who thought to send their son to school with the recorder. Clever.
