Why do our schoolchildren behave so badly?

[somanyquestionz]

I see a lot of posts on here about schools/teaching and how behaviour in schools is getting worse. I started teaching English in France this year and was really worried about it because I know what British kids are like and expected the French to be no different. I've been pleasantly surprised though as they are really well behaved. I work with 15-18 year olds and they're all lovely. All really polite and get on with the work and come up with good ideas when we have group discussions. They can sometimes be a bit noisy but will be quiet if they are told. Meanwhile, I read so many horror stories online and hear awful things from teachers I know in real life. I remember being at school and the kids were horrible to the teachers, fights every single day, a pregnant teacher got punched in the stomach (baby survived luckily), someone smeared poo all over the wall in the toilets, doors and windows getting smashed every day. And that was before Covid and TikTok.
So why are our kids so bad? French kids are on social media too and use TikTok, they all went through the pandemic, some of them experience problems at home just like here. I know about 10 other people also teaching English and the behaviour is good in all schools. When I told the French English teachers (if that makes sense!) about what our schools are like, they were shocked.

Well my son is in a well funded Swedish school. There are 16 children in his class with 2 teachers and 1 teaching assistance. Much easier to control and deal with issues and support the children than with a class of 30 and 1 frazzled teacher.

I have taught in France for 20 years, my dc have just finished terminale ( and gone to uni in another European country, as fast as their legs could take them😂).
In primary school, they are terrified of having to repeat the year( despite what people say, it still happens). By the time they get to lycée, the only thing that matters is the dossier - get me out of here card. No-one will risk upsetting the apple cart. However, Where dc don’t have parental expectation/ ambition it’s no different from elsewhere. I have colleagues in the public system who have been stabbed/ stalked and harassed. The turnover is insane.

No one wants to hear it, but parenting is an issue. And I think it is all done with good intentions but too many parents, although well meaning, are a bit clueless or misinformed. You see it start in the toddler years - a lot of negotiating instead of clear instructions, acceptance of extreme behaviour like hitting and kicking parents, and no consequences. Toddlers rule the roost basically and then of course they grow up with a big sense of entitlement and a lack of empathy for others. That’s what a lot of poor behaviour comes down to - not always - but too many children and young people are brought up to be selfish, they want to do what they want to do at all costs and need to be centre of attention at all costs, fuck how the teacher feels and fuck other other children who actually want to get an education and enjoy their learning. As a pp said - rights and responsibilities… many children are raised to feel very indignant about being wronged by others and don’t see the irony at all in the fact that they never give a shit about how others feel themselves. Rights matter - responsibility, what’s that?

I'm sure you're right. My own experience of life in France was in a rural village where everyone knew everyone else, so not comparable with the large French cities.

Why did you assume I was in a large city?

today I dealt with teenagers who refused to work, and I was told that I should just die. There are no consequences in school and they know it.

We have a shit government who won’t find anything, Slso l believe in France all teachers do is teach. In the U.K. they are also, psychologists, counsellors, advisers, and carry the whole pastoral thing.
If only.

It's not just kids, in Europe the adults are far less aggressive in general. When I moved abroad I couldn't believe how friendly people are. I used to feel on edge when a group of teens walked past me, now I feel totally fine.

I'm not joking when I say the only people who have been rude to me since I left are tourists from the UK!!

I didn't give a moment's thought to where you were. I was comparing behaviour in a rural village with that in a large city.

Yes ‘le shoplifting’ is famous in tourist towns. I have a French (teenage) Godson and he wouldn’t disagree. 😆

I have a European husband. Until he moved here, he’d never seen a fight. Whereas I had seen one literally every time I was out.

Fair enough, though you can see how the fact that you replied to me meant you might have been referring to what I said.

I have lived rurally, in small towns and in larger cities in France and the U.K. and been to schools in all of them (lucky me). Children’s behaviour didn’t really seem to have anything to do with whether everybody knew everyone else in my experience. Different problems in different places. Parents and teachers don’t see everything either, and my experience was that of a pupil so I can’t comment on what teachers experience in various places.

I can believe it!

It's because we teach them from primary that they have rights but we fail to make them understand that they also have responsibilities.
So every child is only concerned about their own rights and forgets to realize that every one of their 29 classmates also have rights thus creating a selfish and entitled cohort of children.
Rinsed and repeated every year with every class since around the last 10 years, maybe more.

What a load of nonsense! it depends on the school,the area and group eg would you expect a group of failed Sen children in bottom set maths to behave?

Bored out of their minds, most very capable but simply not taught in a way that they understand, told they are thick, the curriculum/syllabus moved on without them.... are they supposed to sit there'and just take it??

All sorts of variations on that theme.

My teacher in Year 5 in 1983 told us that kids in her previous school took knives into school.

Too many parents in Britain are more concerned with short term gratification, about their children being happy right this minute than they are about raising their children to become well-adjusted, productive adults.

That. It's been going on for decades now. Initially from government, but spreading outwards and downwards to the point where teachers don's stand a chance.

I'm not saying that teachers and schools shouldn't be monitored and held up to high standards. But the government set out to take them down a peg or two, until at one point (maybe around the mid 80s-90s?) you could barely ever put the news on without it being someone from government saying that teachers are useless. And that was a groundswell for some time, to the point where today's young adults grew up to hear only negative things in the media about their schools and their teachers.

Now those younger people are the parents who don't respect teachers and pass that on to their children.

In our culture now teachers are t respected. I was terrified of some teachers at school but didn’t stop
me being a basket case. I literally was the resident basket case lol. My poor teachers. I had some fantastic teachers but also a few crap ones as well. I’ve worked in a post 16 education environment in the uk and behaviour management is hard. I found the kids great but getting them to do work was a challenge.

This.

I worked in a school where teachers were not backed up by SLT.

Students were given detentions as per the behaviour policy, but when they didn't show up there were no consequences.

In the same school, a student was extremely unsafe with lab equipment, swore at me on multiple occasions and even punched a wall. I refused to teach him from then on and I was even pregnant at the time. He was still continuously sent back to my class, because he refused to be taught by anyone else in the department.

On another occasion a parent called me asking why I'd given their child a detention. Their child was denying their misdemeanour and his mum believed him. She didn't even want to hear what I had to say and just argued with me on the phone before cutting me off. No wonder behaviour in schools is shocking.

My current school is amazing though. Kids still misbehave but there are correct procedures in place and students do not get away with anything.

Also as a teacher and a mother, gentle parenting is certainly not the issue.

@Rhino94 I wrote that it was “gentle parenting and not setting boundaries” two different things. Both totally damaging the culture and ethos of British teens.

imagine the generation that fought WW2. If they’d been brought up in the same way so many of our young people are brought up. Loads of the teens you see in schools need a good bollocking and clearly don’t get that at home

It’s also extremely difficult to get sen support. Most kids that clearly need an ehcp are routinely turned down by la’s and left to try and manage in mainstream. Unless they have a parent who understands the law and is able to take on the legal fight they are just left

The generation that fought WW2, were allowed to leave school at (?) 14 and go into a job or apprenticeship if they were not academic.
Some children are being set up to fail by forcing them to stay in education learning an irrelevant overly academic curriculum. It's no wonder they lose respect for the school.

Two things imo

1. Parents are terrified to tell off their children. I was shopping and my teenage ds was incredibly rude to me. I turned round and said in a firm voice "how dare you speak to me like that". That was it. Well some passers by looked at me like I was some sort of monster. I remember a thread on here years ago where a woman wanted to report a mum for calling her daughter a pest in the supermarket. Busy bodies everywhere. Yes we need to report actual abuse...but parents should be allowed to tell off their dc fgs

1. General quality of life. Kids don't have a lot of freedom really. They don't go out to play independently. Parents have to arrange playdates. A lot of life in centred indoors and British houses/gardens are quite small. Too much screen time...not enough exercise leaves them bored.