So far, your put-downs have been pretty lame and immature. You’re hardly even trying.

Anyway, try to keep on topic next time…

My “Some Canadian girl kick your ass once?” was an appropriate humorous response, rather than simply pointing out how hateful and bitter your statement sounded.

Sorry if you didn’t get it.

The topic ranged from biology to geography to whatever - it was the most interesting time I had in a classroom. We actually paid attention to whatever it was she was teaching so we would have time leftover for the trivia game (and so we’ll know the answer to the question, of course).

Then the school cracked down on her, and made her stop - so I can see monkey_town’s point: school system don’t like iconoclasts. They only see one way of doing things: their way, whether it’s right or wrong.

As far as teachers go, I’ve had some great ones and some not-so-great ones. The great ones could control the class because they understood the students and what they were doing; they saw through the crap. The not-so-great ones lost control because they didn’t realize the students were egging them on. But that was a while ago. I honestly would not want to attend public school today, with half the kids on mind-altering prescription drugs and the teachers burned out from trying to discipline all day.

Well, the principal didn’t like the unstructured courses, didn’t like that no one actually had a desk (desks were more often than not used for holding a myriad of projects, instead of used for sitting at and studying), and didn’t like the noise (which couldn’t be heard outside our room). Our wonderful teacher was fired and a new one brought in. We came to school one day and found all the projects in the dumpster. We were told to sit down and shut up (actual words of our new teacher) and study quietly. We were assigned desks, materials and told to get to work. We were utterly heartbroken. The new teacher embarrassed us in front of each other, openly insulted us and generally was a terror.

We took it for about 2 weeks before snapping. It was pretty much a 25-person riot. We destroyed the classroom and chased the teacher out. Anyone viewing a video would have commented like a few people here. “It’s sad how they don’t respect their teacher.” “These kids are totally undisciplined.” “Someone was too lenient with them.”

And they’re right! We didn’t respect her because she didn’t respect us! We were totally undisciplined and we were happy and we had the highest grades of anyone in the school! Our former teacher was lenient with us because she knew that if we could do whatever we wanted, we’d learn and learn well! Before this we had never damaged school property, had never rioted, had never even fought! We were the sanest, nicest, most creative, happiest kids in the world. Then this teacher sought to smash us.

I’m not saying what we did was right, but damn it she had to WORK at it to make the situation get that bad. I know of students (especially in the school that shared our building) that were utter horrors. Those students will tear any teacher apart.

But my point is, I have found that people are too quick to forgive the teacher. It’s very likely that the teachers in these videos are not suddenly losing it. This is how they treat the students all the time. You get mean and snarky and you strike back at them because it’s the only thing you can do. You have NO OTHER WAY to make the situation right. Everyone will side with the teacher. When people don’t, it’s a rare situation, not the norm.

Come on, ted. Relax.

Interesting perception difference - the students actually don’t see what’s wrong with their behaviour, and blame the teacher for “not teaching” them. Not this teacher’s proudest moment. Why did he even allow the student continue to film him? Cell phones should be off in class.

Do they even have schools in Canada?

shecky– you can’t completely dismiss weak teachers. yea, they’re weak by their own faults, but they still had to go through the education to get there, and have to deal with these little pieces of sh*t. you have to at LEAST respect that. but yes, as harsh and true as it is, they will be sniffed out by the crappy students and the classroom will probably never restore order. sad.

truth is, without using so many pretty and frilly words, teenagers are useless. they don’t have a true sense of self because they’re at constant battle with their peers to be cool; trying to be someone they’re not. they don’t have a sense of self worth because they have had nothing to contribute to on a large scale. once they turn 18 things will change, but until then, they will continue to be little sh*ts. they are disrespectful and will continue to as long as their parents don’t instill certain discipline. now, i’m not saying their parents have to beat them in order to obtain tangible results, they just need to sit down and TALK to them. whoda thunk, that talking to your kids would be an effective teaching/learning agent… yunno, parents always say “yea school kids are tough.. they were tough when i was a little kid and they’ll be tough when your kids go to school.. blah blah blah..” but they don’t truly understand how bad it is to be a kid these days. it has changed drastically since the boomers were born, and they can’t be so naive to current conditions. it’s been a couple years since i’ve been a teenager, and i can only imagine that it has gotten worse. but moral of the story: parents need to step up and teachers need to stop taking sh*t!

I never had any respect for ineffective teachers. And still don’t. Life is tough. Any weak teacher will be sniffed out by students in about two seconds, and the classroom will likely be lost for the rest of the year. Pushing the envelope and tormenting teachers was, and still is great sport. End of story.

Yeah, yeah… kids today have very little respect for their teachers. And get off my lawn!

Young teachers will usually be a little hot-headed, as they work to get their sea legs.

But some of my kids openly admitted that there were one or two choice students who would intentionally bait the teacher to get the lesson plan off track. (delay a test or give the class time to prep for a test in another class, for example.)

And some students were just wormy pricks.

I call this method “Respect your teacher or your teacher wont respect you and you will become the laughing stock of the whole school with a silly one way radio in your hands.”

It’s pretty effective.

1) Rate your students grade on a % scale, take into account all homeworks and exams.

2) Everytime a student is disrespectful of the 3 R’s rule, deduce 1% from his score.

The 3 R’s

Respect of self
Respect of others
Responsibility for your own actions

3) If a student fall under 0% give him the right to go listen to the classroom from outside of the school property using a radio.

Done.

That being said, I was taught before everyone had cell phones, and if it were not for one student’s tape recorder, there would be a teacher employed who should not have been. What did we catch him saying? That all people who have AIDS deserved it. He was a substitute, along with the sub who slapped a boy with a metal ruler and cut him.

Not substitutes were the two tenyered teachers who molested students. I endured this in middle class suburbia in K-12 schools. I can only assume that Urban schools fare far worse.

I teach secondary Science although sometimes it feels more like it’s crowd control, babysitter, psychologist and entertainer… and hoping that students don’t get scarred for life!

;p

The teach is an adult and he/she should act like it. If their class is chronically bordering on explosion and chaos, then they should re-evaluate their skills as a teacher.