As a grandparent, and a retired teacher who hasn't been in the system for many, many years, I tend to agree. 

I see it in my granddaughter and her friends.  She is beautiful, social, talented but she also doesn't seem to know what is expected of her.  (she is also at a difficult age - she could pass for 13 and often thinks and acts like a teenager, but she is not quite 12)

Because she doesn't know what is expected of her - she is often getting scolded by her parents and grandparents.  ie last evening we were having friends in.  We were also babysitting the 4 year old.  She wanted to be here too.  I explained well in advance that she was welcome provided that she didn't get her little brother excited or worked up.  Within 5 minutes she was hiding in a closet shouting for him to come and find her - and he was shouting 'where are you'.  I helped him find her, told him to use his indoor voice and reminded her of her promise.  10 minutes later he was crying in the bedroom - they had been wrestling on the bed when he banged his head.  Another scolding - she goes off in a sulk.  Long rant.)

But the point I'm trying to make (I think) is that kids nowadays don't seem able to accept responsibility.  Parents fault - schools fault.  A bright child - this year she is having trouble in math.  She doesn't seem to know how to organize her homework, or to ask for extra help.  It's the school's fault for making the math too hard. 

An in another thread I've expressed concern about the books she's reading.  I'm really glad that she is reading.  But when I was involved with the schools we had a reading list - we had to choose a book from it at regular intervals and do book reports.  Anything off the list had to be approved in advance.  Of course we were free to do extra reading as well.  But we were exposed to some good literature.

My granddaughter can appear to be very outgoing, very confident on the outside.  But inside she is self-conscious and timid to try new things.  I'm think it is because she has never been taught what is expected of her.  I see it in her friends as well.

Am I making any sense in your thread?

I think you are making sense. Where i'm having trouble is finding the cause of all this.

part of it is parents who really don't parent very much.

part of it is schools which have given up on teaching children that their actions have consequences. However, the schools gave up on that a good fifty years ago. So that can't explain the recent decline in behaviour standards. So I think that brings the cause back to the home.

And I do suspect TV is a more serious factor than we realize. It, too, has been around for over fifty years, of course. But the availability of kiddie programming and of pure kiddie channels  has risen so dramatically as to create, in effect, a completely separate anf quite absorbing world for children, one in which the very awareness of adults ceases to exist. Intellectually, it's numbing. And it may also be affecting perceptions of adults and behaviour toward them.

graeme

I am not a teacher but I have noticed that parents, teachers, church school teachers ( in this world of new-parenting) are afraid of their kids. They are afraid to re-enforce study habits, rules and regulations because of what out side influences might say and do.Too many teachers and parents have been burned in the system. Kids know their rights and they use this as leverage.Here in sask., they can leave home at 16 and know that the system will take care of them.

Encouraging that children live by house rules; or school rules; or church rules that keep children safe is not a mean thing and imo is not bad parenting or teaching. I have worked in a church where anything goes with some parents ( as their little ones hang from the balcony and crawl under the baptisimal font.)  The parents are in oblivian somewhere until someone gets hurt. And then you hear 1....2.....

Am I a dinosaur? I hope not because from a dinosaur's perspective - parents and teachers etc. have to be more  supported in their decisions and fear has to be eliminated. because at this point in time ( for some) parents are being raised by the children.

Graeme: I apologise about the LENGTH odf this post but I think you'll find it pertinent to your concern. It's a story from today's 'Scotsman', Edinburgh (it's at: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/latestnews/Teacher-faces-ruin-after-assa...):

-----------------------

Teacher faces ruin after assault case

Published Date: 19 December 2008

By EMILY PYKETT AND FIONA MACLEOD

A TEACHER'S career lies in tatters today after he was convicted of assaulting two students who were behind a prolonged campaign of abuse against him.

However, a sheriff sympathised with Mike Barile, 51, who he said had suffered "extreme abuse" from the schoolboys, who had acted "disgracefully".

Barile's patience finally snapped when pupils at Lawside Academy in Dundee called him a "walking penis" and told him to "f*** off". The maths teacher grabbed one of them by the lapels and threatened to throw him through the blackboard. He also pinned a 15-year-old boy against a wall.

Barile, an associate director of Dundee United Football Club, was acquitted on two other charges of assaulting pupils. A further assault charge was not proven.

While he was found to be technically guilty of two assault charges, Sheriff Charles Macnair said: "Both of these assaults were minor and, had it not been for your position as a teacher, I do not consider that you would have been subject to criminal prosecution.

"I do accept that, on the two occasions, you were subject to extreme abuse by the two young men. The force you used was minimal and I take into account that this is going to have a very serious impact on your future career as a teacher.

"Having regard to the behaviour of the two complainants leading up to the offences, and your previously good record, at least since 1999, I consider that it would be appropriate to deal with you by way of admonition."

During the trial, one of the pupils told how Barile had grabbed him by his jumper and threatened to throw him "through the blackboard".

The second assault came as a student tried to leave class, despite Barile asking him to stay behind. As the boy went to walk out of the door, Barile put his forearm across the boy's chest and pinned him against a wall.

Gavin Callaghan, prosecuting, said teachers had no right to use physical force to control pupils. "Disgraceful conduct by pupils does in no way justify the conduct by the accused in this case," he said.

"The actions of the accused were grossly disproportionate and amounted to assault."

However, teachers' unions last night described some classrooms as "horrific" places where pupils conspired to goad staff into wrongdoing.

Ann Ballinger, president of the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association, said: "There are situations in some schools where there are definitely difficulties and violent situations, but, equally, there are schools where this never happens.

"Young people are very aware of their rights these days and if you get a pupil who has a tendency towards violence, they will know what they are entitled to and they will say 'you can't touch me because I have rights'.

"I would say there is a small minority of situations where violence is used against a teacher.

"It is horrific, because it is violence in the workplace and there is nothing you can do. You can't even put your hand up to defend yourself, because you could be accused of violence. If a group of pupils go against a particular member of staff, they can make their life an absolute misery and that can escalate."

Hugh Reilly, a secondary school teacher in Glasgow, said classroom teachers were often frustrated by the lack of action against violent pupils by school managements.

He said: "The kids pick up on the fact that not much happens to them. The majority know school managements typically go for a softly-softly approach and the kids don't see a consequence of their actions.

"It is much easier for younger teachers to be involved in this sort of thing, but you just learn you cannot control the way these kids behave."

He said the kind of behaviour experienced by Barile had always occurred, but was still rare.

"It's more the low-level stuff, like constant chatter, which is a growing problem," he said. "Years ago, the belt would have stopped that.

"One of the dangers is when you are getting closer to pupils in that way, some can see that as a teacher being a soft touch. Lots of us could be in his position."

Physical attacks on teachers and pupils in Scotland rose by 2.2 per cent between 2005-6 and 2006-7.

Any teacher convicted of a criminal offence is automatically referred to the profession's regulator, the General Teaching Council for Scotland.

They will then be subject to a hearing on whether they retain their status or are struck off the teaching register. Only in very rare circumstances would a convicted teacher be able to stay on the register. And that is very unlikely in a case of a teacher found guilty of assaulting pupils.

A spokesman for the teaching council said: "Where teachers are convicted with a criminal offence, this is reported to the council and considered within the disciplinary process."

In 2006, Barile was suspended from his teaching post at Madras College in St Andrews amid allegations of assaulting a pupil.

The suspension was later lifted after claims that Barile, of Strathmartine Road, Dundee, had been attacked by the pupil.

The assaults at the Dundee school took place in October last year and in May. Barile's career at the school – it has since been merged with St Saviour's High to become St Paul's Academy – appears to be over.

Andrew Gibb, defending, said: "The consequences are really rather serious. He is currently suspended and no doubt that will remain so."

A spokesman for Dundee City Council's education department said: "This teacher is currently suspended and Dundee City Council will now take appropriate action within its agreed procedures for dealing with disciplinary matters."

Last night, Barile said he could not comment, as he was planning to appeal the conviction.

This is not the first time there have been reports of violence in Dundee schools.

In September 2007, Linda Ross, the deputy head of Sidlaw View Primary, was suspended after her husband leaked reports of drug addicts wandering the corridors and of fights between parents.

'After a verdict like that, it will be open season for them, knowing they can bait a teacher'

Emily Pykett

THEY smirked when asked if they had respect for their teachers.

"A bunch of cocky classroom clowns" is how one bystander described the pupils giving evidence at Dundee Sheriff Court.

They knew their "rights", and they knew that by sitting in Dundee Sheriff Court giving evidence against their teacher, they had scored a victory of sorts.

All the teenagers had a defiant demeanour as they told how they finally goaded Mike Barile into action when he grabbed a pupil by his lapels and threatened to throw him through a blackboard.

One 15-year-old – who had previously been suspended for assaulting Barile in the school library – admitted he had been "messing around" and "showing off" in the class, did not do what he was told and was abusive to the teacher.

He said he did not respect teachers and admitted he had been playing to the gallery, with most of the class laughing and enjoying the "intimidation" to which Barile was subjected.

The court heard how Barile tried to write a diary of his ordeal but the pupils would snatch the paper off his desk. They argued it was "their right'" to see what he was writing

Some would watch videos on YouTube when they should have been doing maths.

They would refuse to go to their desks when they were asked to work, and routinely shout abuse at him such as "walking penis", "beast" and "bam".

One pupil would complain it was too hot, and, when Barile opened a window, the pupil would complain it was too cold.

But, as the cross-examining grew tougher, they became anxious and changed their stories.

Barile, 51, pleaded not guilty to terrorising his pupils by grabbing them by their school uniforms, pushing them off their chairs and pinning them against walls.

After he was convicted, however, community leaders said they feared the pupils had been ganging up on the teacher.

One Dundee city councillor, who asked not to be named, said: "It is almost as if they were hunting in a pack.

"After a verdict like that, I would be worried about the pupils now going back and saying, 'Who's next?'

"It will be open season for them now, knowing they can bait a teacher like that.

"It's not like that in most schools in Dundee but there is the odd occasion that they go all-out to get a teacher. To me, it looks like they were just out to get him."

Judith Gillespie, of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council, agreed that pupils are capable of targeting teachers they feel are vulnerable.

"Yes, there are pupils who provoke and there are definitely pupils who do sense when people are not secure and exploit it," she said.

"But the bottom line is the teacher should never allow themselves to be goaded so they step out of their professional role and neither should a teacher feel frightened to say that they can't manage a class. And if they cannot manage a class then steps should be taken to help them through it."

Mrs Gillespie added: "Maybe teaching as a profession is just not for him.

"But I do not believe all this abuse happened in just the one lesson.

"It must have been prolonged, and therefore he should have been able to seek support for what was going on."

Analysis: Problem of discipline is getting worse

Ronnie Smith

ALTHOUGH we do not comment on individual cases, the issue of pupil indiscipline is seldom far below the surface of the educational debate in Scotland. Teachers continue to regard how to solve it as a top priority.

Of course, there has never been a time when the behaviour of children and young people did not exercise the minds of teachers. However, the evidence is that the problem is getting worse and consuming more and more of each teacher's time.

Ask any teacher across Scotland about the most challenging part of their job, and you will receive near unanimity on the answer – the daily grind of maintaining effective discipline in the classroom.

Persistent, low-level indiscipline, the most common problem in Scotland's schools, is extremely frustrating for teachers and also for the vast majority of pupils who are keen to learn.

The actions of a small minority of pupils, who selfishly disrupt classes with poor behaviour, can have a hugely damaging effect on the learning environment of fellow pupils.

This is an issue which must be addressed, if we are to deliver the best learning environment and the quality of education our children deserve.

Schools reflect societal change, and many of the children we teach have increasingly complex lives in which they often communicate their personal difficulties through challenging behaviour.

The policies of inclusion and the presumption of "mainstreaming" have also presented new challenges for teachers.

These require teachers to be more reflective about teaching and learning, but also call into question the level of support they receive from school managements, local authorities and the Scottish Government.

Teachers should have the right to teach and young people have the right to learn in a safe, disciplined environment, and it is the responsibility of the Scottish Government and local authorities to meet those requirements. The Scottish Government should provide, as a matter of urgency, additional specialist behaviour facilities for children and young people displaying particularly challenging behaviour.

The EIS (the Educational Institute of Scotland] remains firm in its strong commitment to the reduction in class sizes in all sectors as an important means of supporting better behaviour and discipline.

Current government targets to reduce class sizes are not being met by local authorities, and this is compounding the challenges of maintaining classroom discipline.

Headteachers should continue to have the right to use exclusion where appropriate. The EIS acknowledges alternatives to exclusion and the work being carried out in promoting and funding innovative solutions. However, the impact of such innovations may take many years to become real or apparent, which is of little comfort to the teacher facing daily disruption in the classroom.

There are no simple solutions, no "silver bullet" which will solve all of the problems of pupil indiscipline.

Where schools have had success in tackling indiscipline, they have had clear and concise discipline policies which have been consistently applied.

It is these principles we wish to see applied at local authority and school level and, combined with additional resources, we believe we can reach our common goal of achieving better behaviour in all of our schools.

• Ronnie Smith is general- secretary of the EIS, Scotland's largest teaching union.

Too true. (The short answer isn't a dismissal. it's a recognition that your post tells the story very well and fully, indeed.)

graeme

Not a teacher, but interested in these comments.  I've a young friend, married, with a 2 year old child.  Her (much older) husband is a long term friend of ours - first marriage, first kid.  My sense in observing them when visiting is that the child is running life in the family.  The mom told me recently she doesn't tell him to say please & thank-you, or to hug or kiss people in greeting them, as she believes he will just learn to do it by observing & imitating them.  As you might imagine, there are few if any limits set.  She's a loving intelligent woman, but somehow seems to feel he must be his own person ... despite the fact that he's just 2.  She feels if she explains things, he'll understand & comply.  Seems to me a real lack of understanding of brain development and actual ability.  I'm challenged to manage my conversation when with them, because my own views are so vastly different.   

           I guess I offer this as an example of how parenting may have swung so far to an extreme, that we're seeing some of the behaviours we are in youth. 

yes, carolla, I agree.

Did anyone listen to CBC yesterday, and the dialogue with the woman re children and expectations.

Part of the dialogue was around parents helping do projects, arguing with teachers re grades, negotiating kids to be in different classes, etc.  Basically, fighting all the kids battles for them.

The one part that blew me away was that she reported parents had phoned their children's employers to have their reviews upgraded. 

PINGA,I am sure  that happens more often than we would guess.

Didn't hear that pinga, but I was reading article in Toronto Star today about style of dog training - it seemed to parrallel parenting styles we see!  Interesting...

OH, there's a big difference between dog training methods and parenting methods.

Dog training methods usually work.

graeme

LOL graeme!   And when the training doesn't work,  the owners just usually lock them outside - where they bother the rest of us .... hmmm .... maybe it is a bit like parenting??

I know that this is an old thread, but it's been much on my mind. And i think I'm starting to see the various parts of the problem.

1. Why the lack of intellectual interest in anything? The easy explanation, and probably at least partly right, is the long exposure to TV which bemuses but without making any intellectual demands whatever. It seemed to me in the classroom, though,  that these kids were afraid to grow up. To show an intellectual interest in something is recognize the reality of the world. Many of them don't want to do that. There seems to be a powerful resistance to the adult world and to joining it. To some degree, that's always been there. But it seems stronger than it was a generation or two ago.

There was a time when radio and then TV necessarily exposed children to a broader world. When there were few channels to watch, each had to show a range of programming from kiddie stuff to imitation sock hop to adult programming. Now it's possible for children of various ages locked into channels so specialized that they fit only a two or three year age range. It's possible for the viewer to close out any broader world. Now they're scared. That other world is completely alien to them. They're scared of what they don't know - and the fear shows itself in rejection and sulleness.

2. The popularization of educational theory through pyschology - for example - has led to the notion that the function of  the school is to adapt itself to the child. So inattentive child must be courted; the rude one must be tolerated; the disruptive one is just lovably active. That is all one hell of a message to give to kids.

The have to learn to be accountable for their actions. They have to learn to be considerate of others. They have to learn there are consequences for actions. They aren't learning that, and haven't for some years. What they are learning is that it is the responsibility of the world to adjust to them. Teaching nonsense and unreality like that is not doing anybody, including the kids, a favour.

Some will indignantly reply that expecting children to apply themselves is breading their spirits. Well, perhaps. In the same sense, teaching your son not to urinate against the dining room wall can be seen as breaking his spirit. Usual emotional language all one likes, the reality is that much of  life consists of learning to think of others as much as of ourselves. Call if being responsible. Call it breaking one's spirit. The fact remains this is something necessary for a society to function. 

3. All of this has added up to less learning and less maturing happening in schools. One thing I noticed in teaching is how university teachers always complain that students coming in are less and less well prepared. quite possibly so. But what is equally noticeable is that average university grades have been going up. in other words, both public schools and universities are teaching less, and covering it by inflating grades.

The lack of responsibility also shows in dropping percentages of class attendance in university,especially in first year. Universities, for the most part, don't publish figures on this, and I don't blame them for keeping it a secret. For many such classes, attendance across Canada might run as low as 50%. And they still pass.

In general, we seem to have forgotten that the purpose of raising children is not to keep them children forever but to help them adjust to the world after sixteen. To some degree, it's to encourage individuality and freedom. But it's also to enable them to function in a society - with all the limits individuality and freedom that requires.

Instead, we're encouraging them to remain Peter Pans forever, and to believe the world will adjust to them. It won't.

graeme

I think that a big difference in parenting and teachers relates to us boomers.  We grew up in an era where old styles dropped away quickly and so many were determined to be "friends " with our kids. 

We shunned the strict discipline of our parents and their friends but many didn't replace it with anything.

The comments about dog training struck home with me.  It is all about consistency, love, a few important rules, practice and consistency, consistency, consistency.

Many parents were afraid to set up rules and really afraid to enforce the ones they did make.  They wanted to be friends, not parents. 

At the same time courts were supporting children who confronted parents.  The current one is the case in Quebec where a father tried to stop a child taking a school trip  and the courts overruled him.

The older generation of parents believed teachers were to be respected and obeyed.

And yet, thse parenting styles also led to huge problems with parents and schools.  Corporal punishement, parents not believing kids who reported abuse, parents over disciplining.......

Class sizes are smaller now, but the student population, at least in big cities, is much more diverse culturally.  Very different expectations from parents.  At the same time , standardized tests were instituted and teachers seemed to stop teaching to the mind of the student and started teaching to the test.

Ask your parents what they took in school.  For my parents, in Toronto, it was much more world oriented.  They studied poetry and learned it.  The studied grammar and understood it.  they did much more complex math in the heads and on slide rules because they had too. 

Now the child reaches for a calculator.  I see kids in grocery stores not able to do math to give change. I worked with a girl who took out a claculator to divide something by 10.

Schools have changed for sure.  Some of it is for the better, some not.  Schools are recognising that kids learn differently.  Parents are less accepting of the status quo.  Divorced or absent parents only adds to the confusion for everyone.

Your line about the girl using a calculator to divide by ten really did break me up. It's the line of the week.

In general, I got profoundly interested in your post. It has a lot of food for thought.

graeme

From the time of first reading this thread, it seemed like a rehash of stuff I have heard all my life. 

I will say that I knew I had been less educated in the 70's than my mother and father in the 40's .  I also knew that my Professors who had done University in the 40's and 50's were much better educated than the Prof's who got their degrees in teh 60's.  HOWEVER, the prof's who got their degrees in the 70's kind of stand alone.  They were./are creative, talented, new kids on the block and now they are already retiring and no one has even come near them.  In fact, the new academics that I listen to sound like poorly educated spinoffs from the 50's and 60's who can't even fathom why they are so profoundly shallow.  Unlike their predecessors from the 50's and 60's they are not fighting the demons of WW2 or their overbearing parents and racist and sexist upbringings; rather they are fighting the threat of intellectualization and the recognition of the mediocrity of their academic training.  And with new rules in place the anti-intellectual pay off of their pseudo intellectual academic training is as always, a soft come on for a good salary by making no waves. 

oh, jln, it's even worse. That is a bit of a different topic, of course, but the profs and the universities are obsessed with research for sake of research because it feeds their egos and their sense of status. Indeed, much of their research is quite useless but in their minds, that is all the university exists for. Students don't really exist.

graeme

Graeme,

My understanding of it is that the "publish or perish" angle comes from the statistical average  that publishing increases the saleable "intellectual property" of the institution and thus, makes the institution more competative for grants.  I don't think it has much to do with ego but it has a lot to do with survival, not of the fittest, smartest or best educated or even most erudite teachers, but of the people who are able to focus their career on writing about anything, and if need be, flog a dead horse.

Marcus Borg comes to mind

Yes, it has a good deal to do with status and grants for the university, But that alone does not explain the phenomenal scale of flogging of dead horses, the detailed analyses of irrelevant topics, the funding of more and more journals that nobody reads.I was three years on the executive of a national organization to develop a new area of study. The intention of the founders of it had been to make a change in the way univesity students were taught. I soon learn it was impossible to get the professors on the executive interested in that. All that concerned them was making it a device to get research grants and to to found yet another journal to publish their articles in.

Having taught in a university, I can assure you that publication is virtually the sole measure of status and self esteem. I have been on many committees which evaluated professors for promotion and  increases. I have never known one which saw teaching quality as a major factor. But on all, publication was what counted. publication excused utterly incompetent and even destructive teaching. It is the sole means by which academics judges themselves and each other, and by which universities judge each other. As a consequence, serious examination of teaching methods simply does not exist in universities. Professors go into classrooms without ever having had five minutes of training in teaching. Consequently, what happens in the classroom is often a waste of time for everybody. Students sense that, and frequently stay away from classes in large numbers. especially in the introductory courses.

graeme

I have only taught for ten years.  I do know that one of the main differences now from when I am a teacher and when I went to school is that when I was a kid and if I got in trouble in school I would get into trouble at home.  My mother did not want to hear that I was making trouble in school.  I certainly did not want her to hear that.  (My Dad was a different story.  He never believed a bad word about me)  When the kids get into trouble in school now they go home put a spin on it like "My teacher is picking on me....I did not do anything....." and the parents are phoning the superintendant.  Parents are walking into schools shouting at teachers belligerantly in front of the class because their kid got into trouble.

So yeah I can see why the teacher lost it and grabbed the kid.  There are no consequences and the kids can get away with goading the teacher until they snap.  Grabbing the kid though is not a good choice because it is professional suicide.

In this part of town the youth who attend middle school  (Grades 6-8; generally aged 11 to 13) are bussed from the school to a stop near the elementary school where they get off and scatter to homes generally within a couple of blocks.  Two girls come to my house because their families have moved out into the country beyond the bus routes.

Yesterday it was very cold.  The bus stopped to let the young people off but the driver couldn't put out the 'stop' sign (I don't know whether the flashing red lights were working).  So he followed procedure, phoned for back-up, and kept the bus doors closed so that the kids, some of whom could see their homes, couldn't get off. 

So the bus sat there, a few feet from the drive way to the elementary school, on a residential street.  Parents began wondering where their children were - it was too cold for loitering.  Some parents walked over to investigate and they were permitted to take their kids off the bus - no one else though.

After 45 minutes another bus showed up.  The young people were instructed to get off one bus, onto the other, and then after travelling less than a block, the bus stopped, put out its 'stop' sign and let them off.   The young people were annoyed; the parents were furious.  We arenèt talking about kindergarden kids here, but intelligent young people 11 years old or more.  This wasnèt on a deserted road out in the country where they would have had a long walk in the cold, or on a busy highway, but on a residential street.  If it was deemed too dangerous to let these young people off on the sidewalk, why couldnèt the bus have pulled into the elementary school parking lot

Are schools different - are kids different

40 or more years ago when I was bussed to school the driver would never have tried to keep those kids on the bus - he would have used his common sense and not some instructions from a manual.  And the boys that I went to school with (and at least this girl) wouldnt have stood for it had he tried.  We would have got off that bus and walked home.

Interesting thing, though. If an intelligent kid gets hit by a car, he dies just as fast as a stupid one. And a bus driver can go to jail just as fast for letting an intelligent child get killed as for a stupid one.

I don't know whether they administer IQ tests to dead kids , but I suspect they might show IQs have little relationship to accident rates.

By the way, how do you know all the kids on that bus were intelligent? And how would the bus driver know? And what would be the cut off point in deciding which kids were intelligent enough to get off, and which were not?

graeme

Graeme - I would presum that age and grade level would indicate some intelligence. 

Since these kids were regularly dropped off at a common drop-off spot and expected to find their own way home (a few blocks away), rather than being dropped off at their individual homes, I would assume that they were all average intelligence.  If there were special needs kids among them, I would also presum that arrangements were made to have them met regularly - in which case the caregiver waiting at the stop would look up the road, see the bus, and walk over to it.

The chances a judge would accept your reasoning are zero. Consider the driver's position. If he holds them on the bus, you get mad at him. If he lets t hem off, and somebody gets hurt, he could go to jail.Unless, of course, somebody got hurt, and you volunteered to take full responsiblity, going to jail in his place.

grade level and intelligence have no legal role in t his. He has the responsibility. Something goes wrong - he gets blamed and faces the consequences.

graeme

Oh you are right Graeme.  When everybody is afraid of somebody suing, and a guy's job is on the line he has no choice but to follow the guide book to the T.  But where is common sense?

Our kids are coddled.  They aren't expected to take any responsibility for themselves.  Fifty years or more ago I remember my bus sliding into a ditch and then slowly tipping over on its side - lunch cans and book bags tumbling and kids yelling "Get off me"  "Get your elbow out of my ribs".  Then we scrambled off the bus and looked around.  We were maybe 10 miles from home but travelling through a familiar farming community.  So the driver went into the nearest house and phoned the school.  When he came back he told us that it would be about an hour before another bus came for us.  So we took off in small groups - a few of us went to my uncle's up the road, a few to another house down the road, a few here, a few there  - rather than sit around in the cold.  We may have told the driver where we were going - but he couldn't remember it all.  However, when the other bus came out to pick us up - the party line got the word out.  Kids, who had been sitting around warm farm kitchens, eating brown bread and jam if they were lucky enough to have picked the right house, came out to stand at the end of the driveways, waiting to be picked up as the bus when up and then turned and came back down.  No one hurt, and no one waiting on a cold bus.

Today's bus was heated - but think of the waste of gas to keep the motor going all that time.  And the waste of time for those kids.  And the worry of the parents when the kids didn't come home on time.

But yes, the driver had to protect himself.  Too bad the manual didn't say, "Use your best judgment when letting kids off in unusual circumstances."

Ah, now that brought back memories - and I think there is a lesson in them. I walked some two miles each way to school in north end Montreal. I cannot recall any day on which weather closed the school. There were also gangs to get past, especially on the way home. Occasionally, I would take a city bus home. My parents could afford the fare. So the trick was to get on with a bunch of other kids, drop you hand over the fare box when they did and hope the conductor would think you had dropped a ticket. Sometimes it worked.

I'l not such a curmdgeon as to suggest we should go back entirely to those days. But we did learn early on to take some responsibility for ourselves. I'm afraid that letting kids grow up does, as you suggest, require that they also take some risks.

graeme

I wading into this discussion with some trepidation.

I must admit that I find the tone of this thread a little disconcerting.  I am a parent of three of the kids you are talking about.  I struggle a little bit because this discussion strikes me as the age old refrain that denigrates the current generation in favour of the good old days.

Do I think kids are coddled today?  At times, yes.  But kids have been coddled through the generations.

However, I also think our generation uses some excellent parenting techniques that research tells us are a good idea....not to mention our own intuition.  Kids are hit less today as a form of "discipline".  Kids are less likely to be seriously injured while playing....bike helmets, safer playgrounds etc see to that.  As well, kids are better understood for their unique skills and are provided strategies to improve their function while preserving their dignity.  That young girl who used a calculator to complete a math skill could have had dyslexia or dyscalcula or some other form of learning disability that thirty years ago would have been undiagnosed and she would have been left to flounder.  Today it might be diagnosed and she would be provided with the tools to be successful.

The world is a complex place and many parents are trying to give their kids the tools to function in that world.  Are there bad kids...absolutely.  But there were bad kids twenty years ago as well.  But my kids, and the kids we know (and we know a lot!) are, on the whole, well mannered, thoughtful, intelligent kids who respect adults who EARN their respect and treat them with respect. 

graeme posted  "oh, jln, it's even worse. That is a bit of a different topic, of course, but the profs and the universities are obsessed with research for sake of research because it feeds their egos and their sense of status. Indeed, much of their research is quite useless but in their minds, that is all the university exists for. Students don't really exist."

And sometimes we do research because the questions truly inspire and excite us.  Sometimes we want to use the information to make a difference in the world. And sometimes we teach kids because we want to share that excitement with them.

Generalizations are very dangerous, particularly without the research to back up your claims.

I have avoided this thread because I share specialmom's sentiments. The tone disappoints me. I believe parents and teachers now have better information at their fingertips than any other point in history, in terms of how to foster positive childhood development. I think many parents do not nececcarily access it or use it - but neither do many educators.

Kids in our culture now have less physical labour to contend with at a young age. In the good old days, kids grew up too fast because they had to help support their families. Now, they grow up too fast because they are left to their own devices in a commercial market that targets them as adults with music, video games, and products which are unnecessary and in many cases inappropriate. Again, who is failing in this case? The kids? I don't think so. Parents buy into this consumer culture first, and either actively or passively assimilate their children into it.

And I suspect the biggest impact on how children are perceived to behave is that older generations often still expect deference, or compliance. Many kids these days are more their own people than their parents or grandparents ever were. They know their teachers can't hit them to get the "respect" or compliance they want in the classroom. I believe parents and schools alike have not yet done the work necessary to bridge that gap between forcing compliance with the threat of physical harm (which was an easy but wrong approach from yesteryear), and the current classroom situation in which kids are demanding as much respect for themselves as students, as teachers are for themselves as educators. Some kids demand it in appropriate ways, others in inappropriate ways. This is no different than "the good old days". What is different is that you can't beat either group of kids into submission anymore.

Do I know parents who I feel are too "easy" on their kids? Yes. But I know many who are harsh and unreasonable with their kids, who bark orders and act like a dictator. I don't see "coddling" as the definition of this problem. I think the issue is far, far more complex than the discussion on this thread has acknowledged.

Thank you, you two.

please note - at no point did I generalize. Anyone who says I did is not clear on the meaning of the word.

As to profs doing research to improve the world - I wish that were more often true. My point is that very often the research is done purely for personal advancement. Anyone who thinks differently should go through any academic journal and see what percentage of the articles might reasonably be considered as doing something to make this a better world.

My starting point was that there has been a great difference in schools in the past couple of generations. Whether that's good or bad, one first has to agree or disagree with that. And one has to consider why.

I quite agree that it was wrong to use phsyical beatings on students. I quite agree teachers should not humiliate students with abusive language. I quite agree stundents should be treated with respect. Nowhere have I sugggested any rejection of those principles.

I also think that students should not humiliate teachers with abusive language or behaviour. I think teachers should be treated with respect. I think you cannot have learning in which the student has no respect for the school or the teacher. If  you think differently, I should be interested to see your reasoning. And to ask where  you think y ou're going to get teachers to work in that atmosphere.

I think you cannot have learning in an atmosphere in which students have no respect for the rights of each other or of anyone except themselves. You cannot have learning when there is no control of bullying, whether physical or verbal. And you will have bullying in schools where the students have no respect for school authority.

As a teacher with over 50  years of experience at all levels, as the father of five children, as a student who was a problem kid, I think I do have the wit to recognize we do need to accomodate special needs of some children. If you will read my posts carefully, you will notice i have not advocated simply beating slow learners with leather whips.

However, I have also noticed a serious deterioration in the respect of students for each other and for their teachers. If that has not happened, then show me it has not, and we can end this discussion.

Ther reality is that no school is going to do a decent job of teaching in a setting in which parents have not instilled in their children some sense of respect for others. Nor are they likely, with those attitudes, to find much acceptance in the world. Face reality, the world is not goint to waste any time on a kid who has contempt for everybody but himself and will do only what he feels like doing. Certainly, no employer is going to waste time on such a person.

Yes, I know there are modern studies on child differences and on  how to teach. I read books, too. Yes, I know we h ave to maintain a sense of individualty whatever the world's pressures might be.

I also know we cannot function as a society if we are undisciplined, self-centred, rude, and abusive.

Now, can we please get off this nonsense some of you suggest that only you are in touch with modern educational thought, and everybody else wants to beat your kids to a pulp for curmudgeonly purposes?

What I have tried to suggest is that behaviour has changed - and i have tried to suggest reasons for that change. As well, I have suggested this might have consequences for learning - and for the achievement of some level of maturity. If any of that looks wrong, then show why. Don't waste time with preaching old saws like people always say generations are changing. Don't run off on a side issue about special needs which, in fact, we weren't talking about. Don't make accusations about generalizing when you don't know the meaning of the word.

Do you think it desirable for a school to have no authority whatever? If so. Why?

How much authority should it have? How do  you expect that to be exercised?

graeme

oh, special mom -  you say that sometimes we teach kids because we want to share the excitement of learning with them.

Very true.

Don't you think I know that? I have taught for fifty years. And I loved it for fifty years. There were times when I actually hated to see the weekend come.

Why do you write that note to me as though I have no sense of the spirituality of it all? Why did specialmom have to write that many parents and MOST educators don't even try to use new ideas? Does she even know MOST educators?

Educators, in fact, scramble for new ideas.One problem is that sometimes you cannot apply those ideas when you're dealing with a couple of dozen kids at a time. Another problem is that so few parents realize that education does not just happen in the school but in the home and the community and the religious setting. So they blame the school when anything goes wrong.

Amyway . I have taught. I have taught happily. I miss it dreadfully. Now, with the contacts i still have, i see  changes that have happened. Other teachers, too, have mentioned it. These changes, i think, will produce poorly educated children (who will all get diplomas, anyway), and poorly socialized adults. That's why I'm trying to talk about - but obviously running into a lot of defensive parents.

graeme