To be shocked at how today's kids speak to their teachers?

[EyeScreamSunday]

I'm currently doing a work placement at a local school. It's a lovely school, nice staff etc but I'm really shocked at how a lot of the pupils speak to their teachers and other members of staff!

I left school 15 years ago, so I'm not really old enough to remember the days of the cane but I wouldn't have fucking dared speak to my teachers the way I've seen and heard some of the kids speak to us over the last few weeks. They will argue with you, completely ignore instructions, say "No" when asked to do something, there's a real disrespect for adults and authority. I even raised it with a teacher one day and she said, "yes, they are very confident aren't they?" Confident or just bloody cheeky? I know what I think... They are eight years old and act like cocky teenagers! In fact I dread to think what they will be like when they actually are teenagers.

Maybe I'm just getting older, but I was ever so slightly in awe of my teachers. I wouldn't have dared answer back, I had respect for them. Not all of the kids are like this, but so many are it's left me a bit shocked. What the hell has changed in the last 15 years or so?

I know a mum who teaches her child to do as he's told only if he thinks it's a good idea too. She claims no child should be taught to follow orders from adults unquestioned. He is taught to ask "why?" to his teachers following a request and if he doesn't find the answer acceptable then he is taught to say politely that he doesn't agree

So when they turn up at the workplace and decide on a whim they don't fancy doing something, are they going to start getting into a debate with their boss and not agree to doing the work. OK so it's "great" they are all empowered and assertive, but I bet their card will be marked and next on the redundancy list. That isn't going to pay the rent is it.

I'm always shocked on MN when a parent starts a thread along the lines of "my DD teachers did this..." and the responses suggest writing a letter to the chair of governors!?!

Parents need to let the teachers discipline their students in their own way.

I know that a lot of people on here are educational professionals, but at the same time a lot aren't. The ones that aren't should not really be commenting upon a teacher's teaching style...

I was ok at primary school but had serious issues at secondary school. I was never violent or aggressive I just didn't like being shouted at and would clam up and cry when voices were raised and spent a lot of time being sent out of the class for it. if it's not ok to shout at your kids at home why would it be ok for a teacher to shout at them? Why does a teacher need to shout? I don't know.

Saying that my secondary school was the subject of a panorama documentary on bad schools recently so maybe my old teachers are bad examples to use!

It's the low level disruption that means everything slows down, pace of learning, readiness to work, all the things that make tiny differences that accumulate into an entire heap of distraction and squabbling between children..
I'm a supply teacher, and I go into around 25 schools in a term, some numerous times. I'm the same person every day. But the huge discrepancy between what one Y6 class achieves in a day with me, and a different Y6 class can be vast.
Yes, it's sometimes the catchment , but it's also the attitude to the teacher and being in school. How they respond to requests and the imposition of the school's discipline code.
Had a fantastic Y6 class for three days last week, I'm not going to be that lucky this week.

' I love how your example of poor behaviour is a child wanting to read!'

When you are starting a maths lesson with a fast-paced mental maths activity, followed by some challenging material, then yes.
Faffing around with your reading book, two or three requests to put it away and then trying to engage in a minor cheeky conversation with the teacher is inappropriate and trying to entertain and distract your peers by your non-compliance is disruptive, wastes time and some lose focus on what they should be doing.
Reading is fantastic. Not when you should be doing a different task.

I agree to a certain extent that a teacher of long-standing in a particular school builds up a reputation and pupils expect him/her to command respect. But my post in a Glasgow primary school (where the deprivation and home lives of the children were appalling) was taken up after only 2 years of experience in a very privileged area in Edinburgh. I'm sure that being a successful teacher is a talent one can be born with. It may be learnt, but there are 'born teachers' and I truly believe I was one.

I also concur that some teachers' classes are badly out of control while others run very smoothly. My last Head (of a MIddle School) always gave me the 'problem' classes and also transferred 'problem' pupils to me. I only had to enter the room and the children became calm and co-operative. It was a gift I seemed to possess. If this sounds like boasting I'm sorry, but I can only relate what is the truth. I had many student teachers assigned to me and on returning to my class after their trial lessons, some were in tears at the mayhem. I had to explain the points I listed in my post up-thread, but many of them were unable to take control and couldn't cope. Teaching is not easy and children will eat you alive if you give them the opportunity.

Children from all backgrounds and temperaments can be horrendously rude and disobedient if allowed to be so. But conversely, any child (and I only have experience of those up to the age of 12) can become motivated, respectful and a pleasure to work with if taught with the necessary skills of a competent teacher.
No doubt there will be more cries of 'tosh' 'utter rubbish' etc. But there you are...

You sound like an ideal candidate for accelerated cloning for release into the nation's schools.
Problem solved!

The child in that example was in the wrong even before the teacher opened her mouth to make her first utterance directed specifically at him. If the whole class is supposed to be doing something, and most of them know it, then one who requires a personal request is being difficult and wasting everyone's time.

For him to say anything at all in reply is already is compounding his error, and he replied twice.

I suppose he is young and hasn't yet worked out the difference between how you behave with your parents and how you behave with a teacher.

I believe you hatespiders! The teachers I had like you (and there were only a couple my whole school career) are the ones I remember with huge respect and fondness, even 30 years down the line.

I find parents have no respect for teachers & schools these days. My kids go to a school with many 'my kid doesn't lie/ wouldn't do that / is completely perfect' parents. I feel really sorry for the staff, it's quite a rough area with parents ranting on facebook, calling the teachers all sorts. No wonder the kids have no respect.
My kids have never had any behavioural issues and if they did I wouldn't automatically believe them over the school but many parents do. I have heard about kids who have been to every primary in the area because parents refuse to see the child is the problem, blame the teacher who hates and picks on their child move school and have the same problem time and time again. But it's never their DCs fault!

I know a mum who teaches her child to do as he's told only if he thinks it's a good idea too. She claims no child should be taught to follow orders from adults unquestioned. He is taught to ask "why?" to his teachers following a request and if he doesn't find the answer acceptable then he is taught to say politely that he doesn't agree.

I read a thread on a different forum, a while back, posted by a mother whose child (aged 5/6) was having problems at school, and this ^^ was exactly what she had taught him to do.
She couldn't understand that the teacher couldn't devote the same time and effort to explaining why, such and such had to be done now, when her child was in a classroom with numerous others, versus being at home with her.
He also wouldn't accept being told off for breaking a rule, because the teacher who found him doing so and told him off, was not his teacher.

I think she ended up deleting the thread.

I really believe the whole idea of if you do everything in a certain way, command magical respect and if children are rude it is your fault is incredibly damaging to new teachers coming into the job and to pupils also. Yes, some teachers are not cut out for the job and their discipline is poor. But I have known some fantastic teachers who seemed to possess all of the divine abilities mentioned above,yet they have STILL come across behaviour issues. Teaching skills develop as you progress and the best teachers are those who are open to learning from new experiences and are willing to change their approaches where necessary. Lack of empathy for less experienced colleagues, believing in the 'divine right of teachers' and rigidly insisting you have been at the top of your game since the minute you walked in the door doesn't make a good anything in my experience.

And basing all of your ideas only on your personal abilities within a limited age range shows some quite blinkered thinking.

" There is not a sense of trusting the teacher to do the best thing by their child."

and honestly, why do you think that is? possibly because of our own experiences?

'and honestly, why do you think that is? possibly because of our own experiences?'

Often yes. So, usually in a different school and 20 years ouf date. But that's a problem for the school teaching your children to address, to help you understand and see and realise that things have changed.

but from what I saw, in my kids' junior school, things have not changed that much. There were teachers joining in with bullying, shouting in children's faces, blanking out or being downright rude to parents, not following the curriculum, the secretary banging shut her little door in parent's faces.

Admittedly that was in one school where the new head admitted she had a 'problem with culture'. Just our misfortune, and yes I moved them.

I don't think what happened even 10 years ago in the classroom is that relevant to today.

I find some of my children's friends cheeky in the extreme. I've been at birthday parties or days out recently and had to stop children doing something unsafe (swinging on bars in banned area) or socially undesirable (e.g. poking other child) and been met with a cheeky response. I actually couldn't believe it- I know my children can be at home, but if I thought for one second they would cheek a teacher, or Brownie leader, or another parent, I'd be mortified! (I know they don't)

I hate doing birthday parties now with the children as I know out of 10 children, at least one won't come and sit at the table when asked (these are 9 year olds), will defy you if you ask them to sit down/help with something/join in and will say something rude or 'clever' if you ask them to stop doing something. I once said to a child who was kicking some essential equipment at a climbing centre, 'just move along there'- he said 'mooove, are you a cow?' (he was 7).

I have to say that the thought of teaching these children in a class of 30 would require nerves of steel I don't possess. This is nothing to do with deprivation/issues in the home by the way- some of the children I find the cheekiest and don't respond when you ask them to stop doing some destructive thing to your house come from extremely 'naice' homes with material wealth and are not remotely troubled, except by annoying adults and teachers trying to stop them doing what they want, all the time!

this was not even ten years ago - it was about six. My DCs are still in school. why is it not relevant? people do not act the way they do in a vacuum

all children should do exactly what they were told. I tried to respect teachers, but they didn't respect me. I have/had MH problems in school because of constant bullying. Not one teacher cared.

I'll NC after this, but Ann Maguire cared. i loved her so much. She was the teacher that we all loved and she loved us - she helped me a lot. none of the others did. didn't care. Respect is earned.

Respect can't just be given out - respect is something you must earn. My teachers didn't earn my respect by bellowing in my face while I was crying because I was being called names, making me cry more. I was strangled with a skipping rope and the HT banned skipping ropes but i got shouted at ...
for not telling a damn teacher.
telling a teacher makes things worse. you get bullied for being a grass. a swat. whats the point? Of course, I will send my children to school but I have such disgustingly bad memories of teachers who didn't respect MY views and the fact I wasn't acedemic and wanted to do my own thing (which I resent the school system for, now) and failed school miserably, with only a B in spanish thanks to Ann. I can't count. I don't like reading because of the fear associated with reading aloud in front of a lot of people - I will read to my DP. but that's about it.
it's just the same as I don't really respect my parents as they haven't earned my respect. I love them, they've brought me up - but they scream and they shout and I can't cope, i don't even have to do anything wrong. and it makes me feel like it's because I failed school and I'm not what they wanted me to be.
I'm sorry but if my teacher asked me to get up and read and I started having a panic attack going "no, no, no, no nononono" and "please don't make me, I can't" not being able to breathe, and they drag me up to the front and I pass out, I can't deal with that. That's not respecting someone - thats bullying - adult to child.
school is a vile, awful place to be.

Respect can't just be given out - respect is something you must earn

I fundamentally disagree with this. Every person deserves respect and the presumption that they deserve to be treated with respect.

I would hope that we should be prepared to give respect, unless one is given cause to withdraw it.

Why respect? I never quite know what it means- and certainly don't expect my children to give it to anyone simply because of age or seniority.

Good manners, on the other hand, and following the rules of the community in which they live and which they have signed up to - yes, always

I'm always shocked on MN when a parent starts a thread along the lines of "my DD teachers did this..." and the responses suggest writing a letter to the chair of governors!?! Parents need to let the teachers discipline their students in their own way.

That assumes that teachers are at all times perfect human beings and they inevitably know best, which manifestly isn't the case. I have enormous respect for teachers who do a difficult job I could not do, and am willing to cut them all sorts of slack given the long hours, big classes, masses of government inspired crap, and sometimes very difficult children that they have to deal with. I have certainly always taught my children to behave politely and respectfully to everyone, particularly their teachers. Nevertheless, if a teacher does something that is obviously wrong, it shouldn't be ignored.

Nokids, would you have given this advice to the mother of the child whose teaching assistant was convicted last week of various assaults including tying her to a chair and taping her mouth with sticky tape?

Some teachers don't help themselves though, some aren't prepared to admit they are wrong when they are and continue to tell the child they are wrong when they aren't.
By admitting they have got it wrong and apologising they become human and children will learn a vital lesson that as a grown up you can't always be right.
I think this was the only time my dd lost respect for a teacher.