Shocked by hatred of kids & parents on TES website

[kris007]

I've spent a bit of time reading the TES website which contains threads and postings from teachers and I am stunned by the level of hatred and abuse directed towards students and their parents. I am horrified to think that some of these creatures may actually be teaching my kids!
It appears that the "state of war" we read about it British classrooms is by no means one way traffic - the teachers
seem to relish getting in on the all the drama.

kris007

Just wondering, is your chip off the old block named Jade by chance.

Or perhaps Britney?

I have only read the first page of this post and am steaming a bit!! Several people have kindly said that people who criticize teachers should walk a mile in our shoes before they throw stones (pardon the mixed metaphor). I have also just read the post of a mum who had her children at home for one half term week and who wants to send them back to school so she can have her life back....

...I know she probably meant it jokingly and so on and so forth.

If you have never taught you would never understand that teachers can moan in the most dreadful way about everyone in their classes while still loving them and doing our very best for them. I expect most the the most negative posts would be from very young teachers in very large school with very little support from parents. If you combine the pressures from governments and parents for teachers to reach each and every new target and goal with the attitude of the mum I referred to earlier...then I rest my case.

I would agree Heated that the quirky, off-beat students are fun and very good humoured, unfortunately I get the sense that Kris007 has a huge chip on her shoulder that she has passed onto her DD. If she wants to be treated like a nearly 17 year old (and not an 8 year old)she should start behaving like one.Taking off your coat before a lesson starts is common courtesy, it would be thought very strange if the teacher took the whole lesson wearing a coat! By 17 she should have planned her toilet visits around lessons-again the teacher isn't at liberty to go off to the toilet in the middle of her lesson.The other issues seem to be around uniform,make up and jewellery-all of which she knew about before she started the school.
I think she will be much better off at college.

fireflytoo

you should have read a bit more. Most of the thread is pretty supportive of the teachers and most are pretty at the attitude of the op.
Your comments aboutthe young teachers venting on the tes site are fair enough but I remain pretty uncomfortable that one poster there seems perfectly happy observing that most children are c*nts. A few more tes posters being similarly outraged would have been a bit more reassuring !
Mostly though I feel teachers should vent as much as they like - if it saves them beating my children . And with three kids between 14 and 5 I can say I have only ever met three teachers who i genuinely thought were unprofessional tossers - and two of those are my in-laws.

I can't actually, to date, think of a single teacher I've really had issues with. Niggles, yes.

At the moment I think all teachers are saints because my son's half-term football trip was caught up in a five-hour delay coming back from Italy and they had to entertain them in the airport. Forty boys of 10-13. Can you imagine?

pagwatch

If you would be so kind as to point to the offending post, I will talk to the TES people about having it removed.

Have a good one.

"she hands out the college prospectus at school"

dear God what a rebel.

Kris007 your posts are full of utter shite. You clearly know nothing of the education system in this country. I have had a good olf laudh at your risible posts. You are a troll.

laugh, even.

"any reference will not be an issue"

you just make it up as you go along ....carry on, it's good.

I'm a teacher and I use the TES site for resources and information. I occasionally venture onto the forums because often they have good posts from professional/creative/imaginative people that will inspire me in some aspect of my work or help me out with an issue I may be having.

I do agree that there are some posts which are offensive, illiterate or downright shocking. I think teachers have a professional obligation to self-censor on a public forum. My honest opinion is that those who have the time to spend hours bitching about their job, the kids, the parents etc are simply proving that they probably are pretty rubbish at their jobs!

Teaching is hard. I teach in a special school with the full spectrum of SLD and PMLD students. Today I have been poked in the eye, scratched, nipped, licked, slapped and had to clean up faeces and urine.
But you know what? I bloody love my job. I love the kids and have the utmost respect and empathy for the parents. And tomorrow I will be working with one of my students at home all day so that her family can have a break. I'm nothing special, I'm a decent teacher and I reckon, a decent human being. I have bad days but I certainly wouldn't spout off in public where I could bring my already much maligned profession into further disrepute!

A number of people have commented that parents should 'walk a mile'. I suggest that teachers should do the same before being so quick to criticise.

Basically, what i'm trying to say is that, on behalf of the teachers, there are many of us that do the job because we really want to and will do our very best for all of your children. And on behalf of the parents, we don't need to hear our children being called c*nts and the like by the very people that we entrust them to on a daily basis.

I agree with the general thrust of what you;re saying there, cataline

Cataline you said"My honest opinion is that those who have the time to spend hours bitching about their job, the kids, the parents etc are simply proving that they probably are pretty rubbish at their jobs!"

do you mean teachers should spend EVERY minute of their life working? are they not allowed to be human for an hour or so and vent their emotions on a website?

parents do here..look at the threads, we're brutally honest and even have the guts to admit that sometime swe hate being a parent because x,y,z.

that's normal, you are being rather arrogant and smug methinks...although I envy your wonderful school. You should try having rude and agressive pupils with rude and agressive parents who blame the teacher for their child's obvious ill manners and lack of attention. Then throw in a poor management which panders to the parent and always blames the teacher...hey presto one pissed off teacher who needs to vent before they go home sobbing and getting ill with stress.

Having plenty of experience of SLD kids (and the bruises to prove it ) I have to say I much prefer teaching them to the idea of a rowdy secondary class of neurotypicals.....

Microwave, of course teachers need to vent and often their working day is very stressful. A public forum is just not the place to do it. Just makes it all worse for them, surely?

MicrowaveOnly, I don't think I'm arrogant or smug. My point was that those teachers who use a public forum to vent such vitriol and hatred towards their job and their pupils are perhaps not doing their careers any good. They aren't asking for help or advice, they're just being vile.
I previously worked in a school where we had neurotic parents who blamed us for everything, were rude and aggressive and also a management who never took our side, always sided with parents and were pretty aggressive themselves. I've lost count of the number of times i've not wanted to go to work because I was so stressed or upset. But I didn't go on the TES website and let the whole world know about it, calling parents, management and pupils awful things!
I got a new job
I'm not saying teachers shouldn't have a life or be allowed to whinge/let off steam etc but I do think that there is an obligation, both moral and professional to ensure that it's not done in such a way so as to give teachers a worse name than they've already got!

poinydog, but where else? its reassuring on these sites to find you are not the only one..that its not always your fault. Teaching is often a lonely proffession, and most of the staffroom at my school for example, are too busy to spend time supporting each other. thank goodness for TES.

cataline..good point about getting a new job..that's why its good to go on websites and get sensible ideas like that ..seriously, its easy to lose sight of the bigger picture, that there are other options.

Thinking about what you said about public venting, I guess the problem is that you're lulled into a false sense of privacy on TES. you kinda assume its for teachers only and that they understand. So I see what you mean ...not that I would call anyone a C!!

"I do think that there is an obligation, both moral and professional to ensure that it's not done in such a way so as to give teachers a worse name than they've already got!"

That's the sort of t hing I agree with and that's why I find it almost unforgivable that TES enables this to happen.

Where else? Colleagues, friends and family, the usual more private ways. And I don't mind if there are teacher forums, not at all. But I do not think the teacher forum should be part of TES. That's the nub of it. That's what makes it so unprofessional.

oh I would call some people cunts

I have worked in a 6th From and I agree that it can be more relaxed - also means that parents are less likely to know what their cherub is up to until it is too late. 6th Form Colleges can get rid of kids more easily than schools - they also have lots of rules about behaviour and attendance. Plus if you do not do well in the first year then you will not be allowed into the second.

I only hope that some of the pupils that that Kris007's dd is taking with her to college are looking into their options clearly and not just jumping on the bandwagon.

I think it is pretty naive of any teacher who uses TES regularly to suppose only teachers use it. I often get the impression reading some of the posts that the writer has never set foot in a classroom ... EVER! Like anywhere TES has thoughtful, funny, informed, sometimes tongue in cheek and sometimes annoying posters and a few who like to provoke and attack and cause outrage. Please don't condemn a whole forum because of Kris007.

I agree mrz, you register by giving a user name and email address only.

Just a thought, if teachers (and others) cannot vent anonymously into the ether about other, anonymous people, and rant with others that share similar experiences then where would you suggest they do it? At home to their fanilies (if they have one) - not going to do much for family/marital harmony.....; at school with colleagues - not going to happen if the problem is with another member of staff, moreover most teachers spend enough time at school working and need to get home; with colleagues in the pub - great if you live within walking distance but most teachers live some distance away from their schools; with friends....great occasionally but do it all the time and watch your friends disappear as they get fed up with your moaning....; don't offload anywhere in case you upset somebody, bottle it up and become ill/bitter and cynical/depressed. I'm struggling for alternatives here! If you have such an issue with a teachers' forum (which also has lots of trolls out to cause trouble) please either a) give them an alternative for offloading or b)don't read it!

I think that some teachers can behave irresponsibly and unprofessionally in pseudo public places.

I remember once having a supply job where I was sitting in the staff room at lunchtime. No one spoke to me, and I assume they did not know why I was there. However, they had the most dreadful conversations about 'vile' pupils etc. Even giving the benefit of the doubt to the best of my ability, it was clear that these teachers had little respect for their pupils and saw no redeeming features in them. I was very shocked they had this conversation with me sitting right there. Needless to say, it rated very poorly with Ofsted.

I think that we, as teachers, have to drill ourselves into criticising behaviour and not the pupils themselves. Without this discipline, it is so easy to slip up. And when you slip up, you are racked over the coals (being public property and all that).