Teachers who have watched 'Adolescence'- what are your thoughts?

[Fstt1978]

Had an interesting experience this week after watching this at the weekend

sanctioned 4 boys this week with a demerit each - for pushing and shoving in the corridor- swearing loudly and generally being gobby to me.
All 4 boys parents have written emails to say it's unfair/ I'm picking on them etc etc. As it was 4 of them- none of them can be singled out.
We also have a boy caught on CCTV physically assaulting a much younger student unprovoked - it is categorically an assault- with the victims parents pressing charges. He has been permanently excluded and his parents have instructed a solicitor to contest this.

What is going on with parenting boys? Girls sanctioned rarely have parents like this - this is NOT a goady thread- I am genuinely really interested , and open to discussion about it

In the ways listed above. Was I stupid or just incompetent? Etc etc

Oh wow she actually used those words?! That's terrible. I'm sorry you have to deal with parents like that. I can't imagine speaking to anyone like that. I do find that since I've moved abroad, it's very different culturally. I moved from the UK to Switzerland a long time ago and when I come back to the UK I really notice the difference. The last few times I've been back to the UK, I've been flabbergasted by people's behaviour. A few examples; taking a train and asking a member of staff a question about by onwards journey only for her to respond effing this and that about the train delays. I took a public bus which stopped at a layby so the bus driver could get out and have a smoke for 5 mins. Then there's the uber driver who told me he only picked me up because I didn't look like a tramp and then he stopped at a coffee shop enroute because he was thirsty.
I don't think this is just a parent problem but a society problem. Here in Switzelrand people are more conformist. I don't see any anti social behaviour. Sure they can be rude but not like what I'm experiencing when I visit the UK.

It was very accurate IMO. Ex teacher in lower end of league table comprehensives. The portrayal of the teachers wasn't quite right but the chaotic environment, disruption and blatant disregard for authority was spot on.

What did annoy me though was the handling of the investigation within the school. Police detectives wouldn't be going in and out of random classrooms. It would have been much more structured and targeted.

@JessyCarr

Best post in thread

I believe the internet is the Pandora's box of modern times.

It's let so much harm and evil into the world and it's going unchecked.

I just don't understand why it's allowed.

Porn
Violence
Radical views all types
Grooming
Sexploitation

Misogyny
Homophobia
Racism
Hatred against disabled people
Ability to buy knives drugs

I could go on and on

If people were approaching our kids in the street and doing this we wouldn't allow it.

Why as a society are we allowing it via a computer screen

@HeBeaverandSheBeaver , you can't turn back the clock, but you must regulate your children's access to social media. Everything you mention is objectionable or worse but the Internet is a fact of everyday life. I'm ancient, but I rely on it everyday, for all sorts of trivial amusement and vital information too. The crucial skill is the ability to discriminate between good and bad information, relevant and irrelevant information, reliable and unreliable information -- and we all make mistakes while we learn.

@Papyrophile
Of course there are many benefits but the dark side is causing so much harm. Are we really ok turning a blind eye to that? What will it take for society to wake up and demand change.

I feel like we as a society are blundering with the internet and AI. There’s no plan and no one is in charge. It’s too big to expect individual parents to be able to deal with this. Look at poor Molly Russell’s dad fighting his campaign on his own breaks my heart. It’s overwhelming and terrifying for us parents. We didn’t grow up with this. I thought the program put that across really well. I don’t know any parent of teens that couldn’t relate to that.

The problem isn't the register, its the other shit that you have to do at the same time which is impossible.
At one school we had
Something on the board for the class to do as they entered Brain gym type of thing. (sounds easy)
Pupils should be working ASAP on entering the classroom.
Greet the class at the door (individual pupils)
Class should immediately settle.
Explain lesson/starter (not what was on the board)
Take register.

All whilst coping with disruptive pupils and SLT that are always demanding more.

Most Mnetters are so engaged with parenting that it is a bit easy to forget those that have more urgent problems. Money to get to the end of the month is one. Dodgy, unreliable men will always be dodgy. I could suggest you leave, before conceiving another and it would make life easier but would a loved up you listen?

With respect, I think part of the reason why teachers aren’t respected as much now is because of things like this.

If the school has had to push for kids to be getting on with work from the beginning of the lesson, I imagine it’s because too many teachers have been faffing about and taking too long to get started. It really should be expected that the lesson starts as soon as possible.

I’m surprised that taking the register is stressing you out to be honest. A quick headcount or glance around the room should be enough to double check. Of course mistakes are made but that parent would probably end up being contacted by phone, text, email and letter for the next three months asking why her child wasn’t in class and why her attendance was so poor.

A lot of parents today have incredibly stressful jobs where they’re working harder than ever, for less money in real terms and all of their costs are going up. I don’t imagine they’d take their child’s teacher particularly seriously if they were to hear how challenged they were by taking the register.

Not a teacher, but it felt very similar to my own school experience. Some of the boys were absolutely feral. I went to a state school in a fairly 'nice' area between 2000-2005.

I was personally bullied by a group of boys in my form right the way through (including sexually). I dread to think what that place would have been like with social media in the picture.

Wouldn't you see the student by looking up at the room? I've taught before (admittedly at a university) but I never thought taking the register was a challenging task. I just sent a piece of paper around the room for everyone to write their names.

I was badly bullied in school. Funnily, it was super easy not to murder anyone despite this.

Bullying is bad, but relatively expected in schools. Murder isn’t.

In the modern era, being a class teacher is a lot like being in an abusive relationship.

No matter how much you do it's never enough.

No matter how good you are you're never good enough.

No matter what happens, is always your fault.

Most teachers don't realize the extent to which they're being abused until they successfully escape teaching.

Nobody I know has ever regretted leaving the profession.

I haven’t seen this, but I will watch now (despite loathing football), as this so neatly encapsulates what I think. There’s almost a phobia among some parents of their child ever experiencing discomfort. It leads to so so much time wasting, frustrating, and ultimately pointless faffing about that doesn’t improve educational outcomes.
Example (am a teacher, with a pastoral responsibility): spend 20 mins on phone with parent, discussing escalating bad behaviour of child, including flat out refusal to attend detention. Mum claims child has to run home to use bathroom as he is too afraid to use school toilets due to bullying. I get agreement that child can access disabled loos. This takes time. Tell child, who says he finds school loos totally fine, and looks at me like I’m gone out. I actually despair.

It’s not future generations, they’re here already.
I work in a very large organisation and manage an admin centre. The new youngest staff struggle enormously with the most basic expectations of the workplace.
I have one young man/boy who is constantly late, can’t focus and gets very angry when given any feedback. I won’t obviously be keeping him after his probation, his attitude is horrible. And he’s just one of many.

Thank you. Add to that several in the class with anxiety and it's hard to even get the frigging register done!

OK you're right

My teen ds has never had any sanction or even lost behaviour points. I don't think these violent kids are the majority or even average of the boy population-

I do think that males are naturally more physical Etc by their nature- from what I have read when it comes to suicide for example a male will do so with a more physical method than a female. I suspect teen males acting out would be more physical and therefore obvious than females. I would imagine the girls who are being arses is much more on the emotional / psychological side and less easy to see or catch on cctv. Are there more arsehole boys than girls - we will never know as by the nature of the behaviour it is less likely to be caught and therefore measured in girls.

However, we also need to tackle male violence and where teens are displaying this is needs to be addressed up front.

I do wonder about the comments saying boys need to be more physically active and taught differently. The thing is theres been a clear slide in behaviour and it’s come with schools being more relaxed not less in some senses. I can’t imagine a school in the 1950’s was trying to nurture boys masculine spirit by allowing them to wander around. They’ve always been expected to sit at a desk look forward and pay attention with consequences for not doing so. The idea that even less control is a good thing for boys is a bad idea I think. They need to feel safe and acknowledged but they also need very clear rules. Black and white.

I think boys do need to be taught how to be men, thats resilience, no making excuses, owning your behaviour, duty, civility etc. same sort of stuff I’m trying to teach my daughter. Boys don’t need coddling, they need loving discipline and firm boundaries. Out of the boys I know, the ones who know how to behave and are courteous towards women etc and I consider to have grown into fine young men have dads who take no shit. Extremely firm boundaries, high expectations around behaviour, good modelling in terms of how their mum is treated by their dad but also loving, encouraging and flexible.

I wish they could put cameras in some lessons to show parents how badly their children behave. Although some parents would still blame the teacher because in some places sticking up for your child no matter what they do is a mark of being ‘a great mum/dad’.

You have hit the nail on the head here

As a parent I would have no problem with cameras in every classroom and corridor.

On the toxic masculinity at private schools point, I've got a very close friend whose son's are at one of the schools named on the Everyone's Invited site a few years ago.

Apparently the school started doing some work with the boys on consent etc. My friend was outraged that it could ever be thought that her sons could behave in any way that was not appropriate. I was really struck by this. Why wouldn't you think it was a helpful thing to do

at our school, the staff have asked the MAT to consider bodycam for the amount of false allegations we get that waste our time- i.e "the teacher screamed at my child"