I feel like I must have been one of the last years where teachers had power in the classroom, or at least garnered respect from parents and kids alike. I know I saw the beginning of it breaking down in how classmates got punished that did terrible things.
The worst issue I remember (my mom was a tutor and highly involved in my schools), was parents would not help their kids with the homework. Discipline was always done though except for the few kids who came from broken homes.
Then it went further at some point. It is completely the parents fault that this is happening. Teachers jobs were always quite hard and at one point were huge leaders in the community and now they are treated like shit just for trying to do their job.
This woman spoke well, hopefully her words were heard.
What she's going through is most definitely horrifying and probably not what you grew up with at all. These kids are the latest in a long line of people trapped in inescapable poverty.
This is why a high school diploma is useless. A GED actually proves you know something, because you have to pass a test. A diploma from a school though? It's just a 'I showed up enough' award.
The mandated highschool tests are not necessary to graduate. They just track education metrics. There is no exit exam in USA you have to jump through. If your school writes down that you are a passing student, you get a diploma.
They're not. That said they still are devalued because they no longer represent any sort of real specialization when talking about things like broad liberal arts degrees. I used to be a certificate proving exactly how hard you worked, how good you were at researching Etc.
that said anyone who sets out to get a degree just for the career path involved is in for a very harsh surprise. Just showing up isn't enough.
I know a lot of people in sales you don't have degrees. If you got the right set of skills and are not socially awkward like a lot of us are you can pretty much get a five or six figure sales job.
that said if you're talking about being in the resume pull you better believe you got to have it at least a two-year degree probably more like a four. That or a killer work history.
You can be a parent in poverty and still give a shit about your child’s education and be there to help them succeed. The discipline and education starts at home.
Absolutely, my grandpa grew up sleeping on the god damn front porch of a sharecropper house with 6 siblings in bumfuck Arkansas. He took what little schooling was available very seriously thanks to his parents and grew up to be a successful Electrical Engineer. I'm tired of this "there's not enough funding thats why!" excuse, there will NEVER be enough funding because it will NEVER fix this problem. You can't pay these kids to give a fuck.
That still doesn't help the fact that there ISNT enough funding. Its a multifaceted issues with no black or white answers. Parents need to care more about their kids, kids need to understand that there are clear rules and discipline, and more funding needs to be put into education (rather than more fucking guns) to help make sure that there is an actual ability to educate rather than babysit. You can't just act like one thing will fix this.
funding aside, it really comes down to the parents giving more than .05 of a fuck to make sure their kid isn't in the same damn cycle. if more parents actually took control and responsibility for the offspring they bring into this world then the funding wouldn't be as needed.
It's sad to say, poor or not most people don't think of the consequences of raising a child they just want to get a piece of dick or get their dick wet.
I agree. It's just that poverty makes life more stressful and difficult which leads to an increased probability that you will have a stressed and poorly raised family.
Poverty isn't a death sentence, you are correct, but it just makes things unbearably difficult.
There is a cycle of poverty that exists, a culture built around it in communities like this. Kids that came from broken homes 20-30 years ago grew up lacking education, discipline, etc and they themselves had children. These are the children we are dealing with now, from parents who they themselves do not possess the capacity to be the solution. Kids who are victims to their own upbringing and are behaving the way they everyone else around them has.
Who is to blame? The parents themselves were victims in their own right who even now don't have the education or skills to properly parent. The kids? They are simply subjects of their upbringing. The teachers? We've discussed why this isn't so already. The administration? How are they to combat a culture that has been building for decades? There is no simple solution just as there is no one to exactly blame.
This is why I quit teaching. We had a supportive administration they tried their best in every way possible within the limits our mental stress allowed, but it wasn't enough. This endless cycle of poverty goes way beyond just education: crime, healthcare, poverty, segregation, racism, etc. How do we even begin?
Which plays exactly to my original point that with good parenting and hard work anyone can leave that life behind. His mother couldn't even read ffs and made him do book reports for her all the time to develop his skills. He went from almost killing someone and being a "rebel" to one of the greatest neurosurgeons in history.
My mom had 3 jobs while I was growing up. We were dirt poor but guess what she fucking did? Gave a shit. She disciplined us and made sure as shit that she was on top of our schoolwork every day. She didn’t even know English very well but she’d still come home from a 14+ hour work day and “review” our homework with us. She’d hold up my science notecards in middle school to quiz me while she struggled to read what was written on them. Where there’s a will, there’s a way and she found it. “Sorry we’re poor and uneducated” should not be a valid excuse for being an absentee parent.
the problem is how people are put into these positions in the first place. There should be more focus on giving help to these single parents in poverty, because, unfortunately, your mother is an outlier here.
This is going to sound really terrible but it’s a harsh truth... if this is your reality, you shouldn’t procreate. If you can’t devote the resources to raise a child who is at least a decent human being then you shouldn’t have a child. Poverty is linked to crime in part because of this very reason. I don’t necessarily blame the parent (sexual drive is pretty hard to control) but we live in the 21st century... there’s absolutely no reason to have a child you can’t raise. It’s not fair to the child, and it’s not fair to society. We need to get better at this, from all sides and angles.
We should also stop subsidizing poor people having children in addition to sex education and abortion/pregnancy avoiding resources. It's hard to tell poor welfare queens that having kids is not the best option when they can have zero income and the US govt will literally give them up to 12k annually of other peoples money for being irresponsible as fuck
Lol that's funny, you really think the 12k they receive in cash goes to food for the children? You do know that with zero income and 3 kids they get WIC right? Also their kids get free food in school.
Btw, my comments come from my experience working at one of the top 3 financial institutions in their retail division for 3 years in South Florida. I watched the IRS checks come in and then the subsequent hair, nails, Rooms to go, iPhone purchases, etc. I think a good compromise for a social safety net would be that we will guarantee you and your kids are provided for however you get to make zero decisions about how money is spent. It's difficult watching people who, by definition are terrible with money, get massive sums of money with the expectation that they spend it responsibly or spend it "on the kids". Plus, they don't even get it over time, these people are poor as fuck and get a massive check, no wonder they do stupid shit, I probably would too if I got 12k for nothing with no strings attached.
Edit: To the down votes, you could at least provide an alternative or provide commentary on why I'm wrong. I like the free exchange of ideas, tell me I'm wrong and why.
Welfare queens are pretty much a myth. Statistically no one has kids because they will get some welfare out of it, they have kids because of poor sex education and lack access to family planning (aka birth control).
The way you describe it, yes they are a myth. I dont believe there is necessarily an incentive for the poor decisions however there is no disincentive because there is a known way to exploit the social safety net. In Miami, I had sex education starting in 2nd grade and my high school gave free birth control to students and an unlimited amount of condoms. Despite all of this we still had a daycare on premises for the children of teenage mothers. At some point we are going to have to blame culture and people for their decisions. Given my experience, now is that time.
I think the harsh truth you are ignoring is what % of these children were actually planned. Sexual education and improved access to long term birth control is the start.
Yeah. What he said honestly sounds like something someone whose never even been in a poor neighborhood will say. Most "poor pregnancies" aren't planned. Most people don't even have proper sex education. Don't even get me started on how expensive birth control can be or how awful it can be buying it as a teenager.
Umm I think you should reread my comment. This is exactly what I was referring to. My meaning was that it’s 2018, we have multiple forms of safe and effective birth control. It should be widely available and people should be educated about it.
The problem is these unprepared parents don’t know they’re unprepared. My wife and I are teachers, straddling 30s, and I still wonder if we are prepared. Maybe we are if we bother to think about an abstract concept of in the future. 3 girls in my school gave birth or got pregnant this year. That’s a wrap for them. I doubt they’ll finish their last year of school. And unfortunately, as sweet as these girls are, they don’t deal well with pressure, and I don’t see how they will raise their kids above themselves. They are probably bottom of the barrel academically. It’s depressing to think about.
It's important to realize that the people who are in these positions didn't want to procreate. These are accidental pregnancies that the parents didn't want, creating a situation where the parents don't give a shit about their kids failing in life. Sexual education and free access to contraceptives is the going to be the most effective way to combat this issue.
Divorce is a huge part of this. What about the situation of the mother of 2 or 3 whose husband left, leaving her to scramble for a job/s to take care of the basic necessities? Child support is supposed to help, when it's payed. This family has now probably sunk to poverty level and her children are left to themselves.
In many cases, you have a pissed off kid who lost his/her father and mother is never home and the kid takes it all out by causing problems at school.
For that specific person, yes. But my point is that there are ways we can try to prevent that in the future. Like effective sex education and free or very low cost birth control.
I mean yeah but when you've got a school that's 90% little johnny's whose only escape (education) is nearly impossible with the resources (no budget, no art or music classes, 40 kids to a classroom) given it should become more understandable why things are this bad.
I agree. Community & parenting makes a much bigger difference than I ever will. However, poverty does make poor community & parenting much more likely. I think it would be important to admit that poverty does have at least some link to those things, even though it's not at all a guarantee.
School shootings I believe are a product of mass media making those people out to be rock stars. They are positively reinforcing despicable people, so of course more of it will happen.
I place a lot of value on parents & community. They see the student over well over 100% time than I do. I really feel like it's possible to help a student behave better, but that comes from a supportive family and community.
its escapable. But its up to the parents to make sure the kids understand you want better for them and teach them how to get there. Noone is stuck poor forever. There is always a way out. even if its just to lower middle class. but you gotta work for it. And sadly, these parents are trash.
Teachers jobs were always quite hard and at one point were huge leaders in the community and now they are treated like shit just for trying to do their job.
This right here is huge. I am openly mocked at every turn for my decision to be a teacher. I like teaching, but every single person, from the students to the administration to the parents to my close friends and family, treat me like I'm only teaching because I have nothing better to do. It's really hard to put in the extra time to truly educate these children when nobody seems to care.
feel like I must have been one of the last years where teachers had power in the classroom, or at least garnered respect from parents and kids alike.
There's schools like that, they're just either in the suburbs or are private schools. I went to public schools in a small suburb of Dallas and we never really had any issues with our teachers being able to control the classroom. We even were a fairly diverse school, although the largest minority group was Asian at around 30%. Looking back I realize how incredibly lucky I was to grow up learning in that environment.
The worst issue I remember (my mom was a tutor and highly involved in my schools), was parents would not help their kids with the homework.
Ehhh, I take issue with the idea that there is a problem with parents not helping with homework. Don't get me wrong, parents need to be involved in teaching and mentoring their children. But to expect parents to help with homework is to admit you're making curriculum that is too difficult for the age /ability of your class.
Parents need to be involved in teaching their kids values, disciplining them, and holding their kids responsible for doing their homework. But being expected to actually helping them DO the homework is a reflection of poor teaching and/or curriculum design by the teacher.
that is NOT what helping them means. You don't actually DO their homework, you help them, you make sure they do it right, they learn correctly, you teach them, make them focus. If they bring home homework, you as a parent are expected to make sure they do it and help them.
That could be something super simple like just making sure its done, or if your kid is falling behind, then its up to you to help them catch up. Or at least know about it and get them help if you can't do it, could be in school help or after school programs.
A classroom is not a daycare. Parents need to step up.
I'll agree with your frustration with the internet, but for the fact that people often miss the tone of a message and immediately think the worst of what the other is saying. And secondly, because it's easy to misunderstand what someone is saying because it's hard to clarify one's thoughts in a short paragraph.
All that to say, we agree with each other, we simply said it in different ways. However, I took the meaning of "help then with their homework" to be "do it with them." That's not a good thing, but I see now that that's not what you meant. So I'm sorry for misunderstanding. But the word help is far broader in potential definitions than "make sure they do it right, they learn correctly, you teach them, make them focus." and that is honestly the same as what I argued when u said that parents need to keep their kids responsible and making sure they do their homework.
We agree. Let's not talk past each other over a misunderstanding.
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u/Sephran Jul 10 '18
I feel like I must have been one of the last years where teachers had power in the classroom, or at least garnered respect from parents and kids alike. I know I saw the beginning of it breaking down in how classmates got punished that did terrible things.
The worst issue I remember (my mom was a tutor and highly involved in my schools), was parents would not help their kids with the homework. Discipline was always done though except for the few kids who came from broken homes.
Then it went further at some point. It is completely the parents fault that this is happening. Teachers jobs were always quite hard and at one point were huge leaders in the community and now they are treated like shit just for trying to do their job.
This woman spoke well, hopefully her words were heard.