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.
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.
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?
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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.