To think kids shouldn't talk to teachers like this.

[onlyindreams]

I realise that the majority of kids will show respect to teachers but some of the stuff my dgc tell me is awful. One girl called her teacher a disgusting human being" , another said "you dirty little peado", another one said, when asked not to shout "who do you think you're talking to".

How has it all come to this, i despair, where's the respect gone, please tell me it's not all that bad and not typical of the average 12/13 year old and probably above.

Hint: it's humiliating if you are made to do something as a different from the rest of the class as a punishment, in full view of the rest of the class, for a very extended period of time. To compare that to standing to read or putting your hand up, which everyone is doing and isn't a punishment, is showing a worrying lack of understanding. None of the other punishments that have been mentioned would be in full view or for such an extended period of time.

I'm having this little daydream where a kid has his chair removed for constantly and persistently swinging on it in class, goes home and complains to his mum and instead of swinging into school telling the teacher how to manage their classroom, tells the kid that the next time they persistently disobey a teacher that their X-box is going in the bin.

This constant undermining of teachers and their attempts to maintain order in the classroom is a huge part of the problem.

If a kid is bolshy enough to persistently cock about in the classroom, then I'm pretty sure they can cope without a chair for a bit.

I am convinced that poor performing SLT are to blame for many of the ills in schools. Over the past couple of years class sizes have risen significantly but this is often accompanied by an increase in the number of senior teaches who do very little.
Everything is the classroom teachers responsibility and yet most schools have dramatically increased the number of admin staff who are accountable to SLT. I remember being told by a reprographics assistant that SLT take priority when it comes to photocopying and classroom teachers had to wait days for classroom sets to be ready.
SLT move on to become Ofsted inspectors and most of them have little understanding or empathy with ordinary teachers.
Recruitment of teachers is harder these days with lots of non teaching jobs offering work from home
Teaching has traditionally been a family friendly job which attracts mainly women. This is changing and, until classroom conditions for ordinary teachers becomes a focus for improvement, the government will struggle to attract teachers into the profession.

Cosy fires

Where is the problem then? If you have not said anything is humiliating, you must not think the punishment was humiliating?

@lm9004

It doesn't matter if I find the punishment humiliating or not. Like I said before, you deemed the punishment humiliating and as a teacher that is something you're not to do. Why do you keep deflecting?

I don't know how the girl felt. As noble said if she is bolshy enough to ignore my instructions she can cope without a chair for 2 hours.

I now have to get to my class anyway. I'm sure there will be plenty more posts after people have had another day in the world of teaching.

I remember my son's maths teacher stapling his tie to the desk to stop him chair swinging. Worked a treat.

He is not noticeably damaged from the experience.

I wish everyone who works with children could read this

@Lm9004

No you don't know how she felt but you did have the intention of humilating her (whether it worked or not is irrelevant).

You can't punish a child with the intention to humiliate them. It's as simple as that and the fact you keep deflecting from it implies to me you know what you did was wrong and went against behaviour policy.

I can kind of see where cosy is coming from actually. I think a punishment that lasts an entire afternoon is ill though out and would aggravate an already heightened situation and defiant pupil. I don't think a teacher attempting to force such a punishment can be surprised if bad behaviour escalates, they must take some responsibility for this.

I'm a parent who has never been called aside for a little word about my child's behaviour by the way.

DD has just started school and I am terrified of being told that she's been naughty by her teachers I can't understand parents who criticise the school for disciplining their child. I'd be mortified.

That said, some of the things kids are punished for and the punishments given surprise me. I used to swing on my chair, wander around the classroom and go to the toilet during class. I have (then-undiagnosed) ADHD and couldn't sit still to save my life, moving was the only way I could concentrate. If a teacher had made me stand up for two hours I'd have disrupted every other pupil out of sheer being unable to control myself; detention would have been a preferable punishment.

I think all teachers work very hard and the majority do a brilliant job, as in every stressful work environment (I work in a high stress, high pressure environment too), but I think some methods of punishment are outdated and don't work when you're dealing with a classroom where more and more pupils are now being diagnosed as not NT.

I dunno why anyone would be terrified and mortified like that Ovaries because you already know you can't expect children to behave like adults and most will get carried away in a class room environment from time to time. It wouldn't reflect badly on you in most cases

Likewise I dunno everyone else's reasons for criticizing their child's teacher but I've had plenty over the years and am especially sick of the hypocrite ones

Don't get me wrong, I full support that teacher need to discipline children and agree that parents are too quick to go in all guns blazing.

But children should be disciplined as per the school behaviour policy which does not include humiliating them. If usual behaviour strategies don't work with a child then a meeting with SLT and other relevant staff needs to take place to come up with a new strategy to try.

Oh I'm sure SLT would really appreciate a meeting to tackle persistent chair swinging It really is getting ridiculous now.

Luckily, I don't think take a kid's chair is humiliating them, merely stopping them from swinging on it.

noblegiraffe Can you not read? I did not say that taking a chair is humilating. What I'm saying is Lm9004 made the child stand to try and humiliate them. That's my problem. But clearly some people only read what they want to believe.

I'm in my late 30s and in my time at secondary school i remember a gang of kids making up a song about a teacher basically calling him a paedophile just because he was a bit geeky and weird and shared a name with a famous paedophile. I remember kids telling teachers to fuck off regularly, i remember one boy walking out of class and coming back with his older brother intent on 'battering' the teacher for some perceived slight. Its not a new thing that some children are rude and out of control.
FWIW, the group who made the song up were higher set kids, who all went on to have good careers (at least 2 are teachers themselves!) and aren't degenerates, they were just stupid kids with no concept of the harm they could do.

Cosy Can you not read? I'm defending my own actions of chair-taking.
You described chair-taking as a 'punishment which caused physical discomfort and humiliation'. If you don't think that taking a chair is humiliating, then it's hard to understand why you keep going on about it.

I doubt the other teacher did it in order to humiliate either, and they never said that they did.

I believe she did;
She never did it again, better to be humiliated than crack her head open. Do you not think?

I also believe that making a child (assuming primary age unless it was a double secondary lesson) stand for 2+ hours is an excessive punishment and shows a lack of control of her own anger on the teacher's behalf.

From what I have observed in school, the level of disrespect depends on whether male or female as well as status within school,. Non-teaching staff get the worst of it, less so if they are male. SLT get the least amount, more so if they are male. Sexist attitudes are alive and well amongst teenagers sadly.
I have been advised (as a female non-teacher) not to engage with argumentative students, but to get a male teacher to deal with them. Which I do as I value my own safety and do not wish to become a target.

Unfortunately being disrespectful to teachers is nothing new as I can remember it happening and I'm in my early 40s. The only difference I suppose was that teachers generally weren't intimidated by the kids then - not in my school anyway) and I don't remember anyone threatening to tell their parents if they got into trouble. We just accepted that if we'd done wrong then we'd get a bollocking. Some parents seem to be affronted when their children get into trouble at school. I think that they take it as a slur on their parenting. Much as I love my DC, I am under no illusion that they are angels so I would always back the teacher unless I have genuine cause to believe it was unmerited.

Cosy That's your interpretation of a response to someone else saying that the punishment was humiliating.

If we agree it's not humiliating, and the teacher in question has said that they don't know if the pupil involved was humiliated or not, then as punishments go, if you wanted to pick one to deliberately humiliate, then this one obviously isn't the one to go for.

As for lack of control of teacher anger - you've no idea if the teacher was even angry.

Just popped on to agree with Cosy who's getting a hard time having made a very fair point; also to agree with those talking about lack of support from SLT.

You know it is possible to generally sympathise with the crap teachers put up with, and taking part in the thread as a whole, whilst at the same time not agreeing that an example given of making a student stand up for 2 hours is ok. Both points of view can co-exist.

I understand that kids have to even run around in PE .

If we agree that it's not humiliating to a pupil to remove their chair when they keep sitting on it in a manner which is not conducive to learning and also potentially dangerous, then what exactly is the problem with them standing (they usually kneel, in my class)? I stand for hours a day in a classroom so it's hardly something far too strenuous to possibly bear. Children are fairly robust, aren't they?

I don't believe standing whilst trying to concentrate/work/write is conducive to learning either. That's why children have chairs in the first place.

But it is not dangerous, Cosy, where swinging on chairs is. See PP about exploding noses.