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

Sounds spot on. Those “I’ll fight for my kid” reels feed into this narrative. No don’t “fight” for them parent them. But that’s not as fun and dramatic I guess.

As someone who was bullied in school and the teachers did worse than fuck all in that they made it worse, I wonder if some of the issues now with parents not backing up teachers/schools are down to mismanagement of bullying etc in the past. If your trust was broken in teachers as a child, why would you automatically trust them to do right by your child?

Though I would say we've always worked very hard to have a good relationship with DS school and would never dream of acting as if he can do no wrong - we know he can, he does have issues as he's autistic and has a history of EBSA.

I agree with this. We were conditioned to think that teachers had absolute authority. At all times and under any and all circumstances.

The idea that parents have ‘switched sides’ is ridiculous and shows how deeply entrenched the concept is.

The way I see it is that the way we raise our kids today has evolved and the school system hasn’t. It is still based on the idea that adults have the absolute authority and power over their subordinates (ie children) and this is no longer how we parent at home generally. Kids are getting mixed messages at home and school but not because parents are feckless (of course a small minority are) but because things have changed in the world. Parents are advocating for their kids and so they should!

To be clear I’m not excusing ‘bad behaviour’ but we need to stop blaming and start having deeper discussions about how we structure school, how we subjugate children, how we make all the decisions for them, how we expect them to conform and about power and authority. We need to look at why families are desisting the absolute power of school/the teacher and why so many children are totally turned off to the school system as it currently is. Why is there an attendance crisis? What message are they sending?

Respect is a two-way street.

As a parent it is part of our job to know what our teens (both boys if it makes a difference but it shouldn’t) are looking at online. We talk to them, check their history, things can be flagged up via WiFi settings, who their friends are, we talk to them about influence, and the evil shit that can enter their phones and YouTube feeds, they were totally barred from SM and some communication platforms and at the moment don’t want them and as they have got older they understand our parental decisions. We explained to them all our reasonings and told them they are still our dependents and we pay for everything so whilst we would never say “no smartphone” or whatever, they are young minds needing guidance in the Wild West that is online and that is what we do as parents. This is not for school to control.

And it is not for school to deal with behaviour that results from unmonitored access to the internet at home. Although they do.

It is also our job as parents to send our children in ready to learn, to behave and to not make other student’s lives a misery or prevent their learning either. This is basic behaviour that has to be displayed at work so why shouldn’t it be shown at school? We as parents expect this of our children it’s got nothing to do with school or teachers or boring curriculum.

They are polite and confident enough to assert themselves if need be. We are always on hand to listen and work with their schools.

We have never been called/emailed by the school about their attitude or behaviour. I once had to contact the school because of a human error mix-up and was thanked for being so reasonable. I was just being polite and honest.

Your child’s behaviour, regardless of setting, is a parental responsibility. It is your job as a parent to know what is going on with your child and sort it out if necessary. It’s hard work, it’s relentless, but it should never be another student/family/teacher/stranger on the street’s problem. Your child’s behaviour is your problem.

You can make any excuse you like as a parent but in the end the buck stops with you. It’s what you sign up for when you decide to bring another human into the world.

It is, probably. And for kids too, ha.

Teacher here. The child actors and children in the crowd scenes were awesome and spot on. They are like that.

The actors pretending to be teachers were absolutely awful and nothing like any of the teachers I’ve known!!

Agree.

I think teachers and maybe society at large too are blithely unaware of the poison that is taking hold of adolescent boys and young men.

It's right there in plain sight.

This in a nutshell.

We've only watched the first three episodes as the third one left my DH speechless and quite affected. We have a toddler DD and a boy on the way so not dealing with any of this yet, but worried about it all.

DH grew up with a very hands-on DF as his DM was the higher earner which was probably less commonplace in the 90s. He's in no way sexist and is worried about social media influences on young men. A lot of his teenage experiences that he talks to me about - typical 12-16 year old boy stuff I guess - are things you still see and hear, even if shocking/gross to me (I was sheltered), but with a good male influence (DF) and no social media or Internet at hand 24/7 (we're just old enough to have missed this - smartphones/Facebook came out when we 17/18), he made it through unscathed. We can both see that boys with no support at home - i.e. modelling of behaviour from good men (and not just dads), coupled with bad influences on the net - are probably going to struggle. I think the absence of just one of these things may not be the end of the world but both would be a massive issue.

What struck me about episode 3 was that even though Jamie's dad is a constant presence, Jamie couldn't say much about his personality other than he's "masculine" and could talk about episodes of anger. A man who hides his emotions from his son can't teach that son how to deal with both positive and negative emotion, whether that's rejection, failure, joy, love etc.

I think the issue is that as women have caught up in all the ways that made men exceptional, men have done very little to match us - mainly, lots still don't put any effort into interpersonal relationships, especially family ones, or into building their own "village" like women do.

Boys and men who struggle with the idea of female equality and feminism are probably left feeling vulnerable that if it all goes wrong for them, they have little to fall back on and no community support. The "manosphere" then becomes this in place of real-life relationships.

I fear that violence amongst young men has increased because they spend so much time online that they don't experience geniune human emotion and don't actually see their victims as real human beings. It's scary.

The government proposals don't sound terrible, the devil would be in the detail.

What you were saying in your previous posts "they can use AI" isn't the same thing as children needing to develop "critical thinking" (referred to in your quote from the proposals. Critical thinking is generally associated with traditional learning).

Then again, extreme liberal thinking is also found in government circles at the moment, so who knows what they will try to do.

As I said before, yes changes to schools are needed. But I don't think what you have suggested in your previous posts fits with child development or brain development research. I don't think your suggestions would be in the best interests of children. And remember that the UK has been through this before - education was radicalised in the 60s and 70s, with most schools not teaching at all and the effect was disastrous. There is a link between rote learning of grammar and other subjects and high levels of literacy. Perhaps you don't think literacy is important because we can all just write phonetically?

Agree, and don't forget that gaming is often a serious habit, frequently with little attention paid by parents to the age levels of material, and fathers or father figures as much caught up in it as the boys are.

The late Ted Wragg, who was Head of Education at Exeter, was a leading exponent of the school of thought that kids would learn what they needed and wanted to know. No, they need to be schooled in the basics of lots of subjects, so they have a framework from which to start out. I think, please tell me otherwise, that the 1970/80s Ted Wragg philosophy has been discarded wholesale.

I work in a PRU and the programme really resonated. I'm not working in a city but the behaviours are spookily similar. The levels of vile verbal abuse against female staff and female students is really concerning. A new trend is to say "good girl" when staff are polite/hold doors open etc. It makes my skin crawl. I always call it out but get a massive backlash, with vile sexualised language and personal insults. Our young TAs are regularly in tears. A lot of our boys have sadly grown up with DV and are abusive to their own mothers. We have lots of PSHE sessions relating to relationships abd consent etc but social media is the devil for kids. I don't know the solution but things are not good!

Time and time again it comes back to:'schools need to...' But let's face it, many kids ignore what's taught in school on principle. Especially in pshe. As far as many kids- especially boys- are concerned, it's just more women droning on. And so much of their response is dictated by their own relationships with their mothers/ how they see women treated by men.

Ds was threatened with a kicking when he was in yr 8, because he was defending feminist principles to a boy in his class. I like to think we're doing it right, and I'm immensely proud of his principles. I just hope he stays this way.

“Good Boy” is a real thing at the moment. Not as vile as “Good Girl” but it’s an instant warning from me.

There's a risk with paper that kids put each other's name down to get them out of a lateness detention.
Calling the register and hearing the child's voice is a settling task. Getting the shy ones to speak up and the rude ones to answer politely sets expectations for the lesson.
The ones who can't verbalise are usually able to wave.
The missing ones can then be searched for and stopped from running round banging on doors.
Having starters ready is really not hard and it makes the rest of the lesson easier. Plus consolidates knowledge from previous lesson. What's not to like? Have a default starter such as "braindump the last lesson" for the days when the electric whiteboard failed or you got reroomed after leaving starter worksheets in the usual room.

Seriously, if the teacher disrespects their own management, that's not modelling respectful behaviour for pupils.

Surely the register is digital based now and will flag up on central system if a child is missing when nothing has been provided by parents that they won’t be in school today, or whether they have gone ‘missing’ between lessons

I'd love people not in schools to work in one for a week

I get the "good girl" shit in my secondary. I'm a 54 year old woman. I have also had boys "ssshhh" me when i'm talking. As a teacher I address this misogyny daily and we do pull boys up on it as a school but it's a losing battle. Girls regularly complain of boys behaviour and my own daughter, in 6th form, came home the other day saying a boy had grabbed her bum. Nothing seems to be being done so i'm on it, but things are descending to a terrible level. It's not all boys- plenty are wonderful- but i'd say about 5% of them are unteachable now if you are a woman. I've been teaching since 1998.

What I said was being able to look things up using AI or the internet makes a mockery of the spoon-fed, knowledge-based curriculum. And that is in part why kids are so disengaged. It feels so unnecessary to them to learn by rote so much information in the Information Age.

I disagree with you entirely that critical thinking is associated with traditional learning. I think the opposite is true! The curriculum mainly just imparts information to students and then they regurgitate it onto a test paper. In no ways shape or form does that nurture critical thinking. In fact schools do the opposite especially when it comes to rules around behaviour, routines, the curriculum and tests. Kids are given next to no input into their learning process. Motivation is at an all time low I can tell you.

Well I don’t know much about extreme liberalism haha but I know i want better for our children. And I am a big supporter of children’s rights so if that makes me liberal then I’m all for it. Becoming a teacher opened my eyes to how we subjugate children and how unsuitable the education system is for most children. Really the education system is way for the state to educate the masses in exchange for their parents going out to work. That’s all it was ever designed to be. We’ll take over the the job of educating your kids whilst you go out to work. It was never designed with child development in mind. It was designed to be as efficient as possible. And in my opinion that system is becoming more and more outdated as time goes on.

I do not think the current education system fits at all with what we know about child development. Far far from it. It is in fact failing so many children. 40% of primary leavers leave without a pass mark in their SATs and 30% of 16 year olds leave secondary without the required GCSEs.

Of course I think literacy is important! Without the ability to read and write you can’t function well. I stated that in one of my earlier posts. What I don’t think is important is the sheer amount of ridiculous grammar structures taught in school, especially primary. Have you seen a year 6 SPAG paper??

You missed the work greet.
But you are still wrong.

I think you’re right. I taught in primary schools for over 20 years, including in EYFS. The lack of school male role models in the first few years, the over regulated curriculum, lack of good outdoor play provision…have all contributed to poorer outcomes for boys.

Add in the austerity policy of closing children centres from 2010/11 onwards, the explosion of social media, the ingrained poverty of expectations among some parts of society and we have the perfect storm.

Our 14 year old boys were the austerity babies and then the ignored Year 4s at the beginning of the pandemic. I have teenage dcs and it is bloody hard steering them through all this shit.

I think dads need to step up more too. My friends all have teenage boys. The one having the issues with attitude from her son at the minute is the one whose husband is an ex for a reason. I've known them both for years. If ds spoke to me like her ds speaks to her, he'd get it both barrels from the pair of us. In her case, the ex basically condones it and, I suspect, fuels it.

We know that for teenage boys, a lot of what their mums say is effectively, white noise, and that they pay more attention to men. Dads need to not only model decent behaviour, but tell them. Like I've said upthread, dh is a good role model, but he could still do more in terms of explicitly teaching.

I certainly recognised some typical characters

We know what goes on, our dc tell us.

What do you do when children are verbal, show disrespect?

I follow our school sanctions /rewards policy