Recent Violence Against Teachers

[ChickenWyngz]

Teaching has long been a dying profession and a teacher/sub shortage has never reared its ugly head like it has since the pandemic. It seems that state continuously push to take away from funding for education, including teacher retirements, etc. In the meantime, we see stories about violence against school staff more and more. The two stories I'll share below are the worst of the worst, but it makes me ask what in the heck are we doing wrong raising out kids? What do we do to fix it? 

We better figure out a way to turn the tide on the disrespect teachers face from students and otherwise or there will be no one else headed to the profession. 

2 16 yo students from Iowa kill Spanish teacher

Principal beaten unconscious by student

[cincyswords]

Problems that I see are the following:

As a society we are becoming more violent due to becoming more extreme in our thinking

Students are a product of their environment 

Social media deals in extremes in our society.

Schools are now the place that has to teach socially acceptable behavior and expectations before you can even begin to teach academics.

[Beechwoodfan]

Not a teacher, but I have several in my family.  Personally, I think most of it stems from absent/bad parenting.  When I was a kid, if you got into trouble at school, you were in twice as much trouble at home.  Today too many kids grow up with no discipline and have no consequences for their actions.  Even kids from “good homes” often have parents who believe their kids do nothing wrong, and will defend them when they get into trouble at school.

Teachers need to feel supported by parents and I don’t think that happens enough anymore.

[Voice of Reason]

Do we need laws making stiffer penalties for violence of any kind in a school?

Perhaps additional laws for stiffer penalties if any school official is attacked by anyone, students or parents?

As to why things like this are happening, I believe the break down in the family is perhaps the biggest part of it. Our society does not value family like it did 50 years ago. Divorce is common and an easy out since divorce laws changed in the late 60's. Kids get lost in the shuffle. It is much worse in the lower middle class and below. In addition to divorce, the marriage rate is declining. More than 50% of out or wedlock children are born to women who didn't go to college. I won't go deeper into it here, but the failure of the family structure is a very big part of this.

[The Raven]

On 11/13/2021 at 7:30 AM, Beechwoodfan said:

Not a teacher, but I have several in my family.  Personally, I think most of it stems from absent/bad parenting.  When I was a kid, if you got into trouble at school, you were in twice as much trouble at home.  Today too many kids grow up with no discipline and have no consequences for their actions.  Even kids from “good homes” often have parents who believe their kids do nothing wrong, and will defend them when they get into trouble at school.

Teachers need to feel supported by parents and I don’t think that happens enough anymore.

And heaven forbid the school does take some steps to discipline the student.   If they do, they end up getting sued and spending all their time in court explaining why the student needs to be suspended for a while.

We've also labeled so many actions with fancy names and acronyms.  ADD, ADHD, etc.   No one is responsible for their actions because they all have some "disability".   (Yes I know that there are people that are affected by these conditions, but we need to quit labeling bad behavior with these so it doesn't become the accepted norm.)

[Bluegrasscard]

Daughter-in-law teaches 3rd grade. 

Kids in her class are talking about Squid Game on Netflix. 

That tell you something of the current "normal" environment at home. 

 

 

[theguru]

One of my teacher facebook friends recently posted a thread with this opening post:

The Good Ones are dropping like flies. It's only a matter of time for the rest of us...😢 

[The Double Deuce]

3 minutes ago, Bluegrasscard said:

Daughter-in-law teaches 3rd grade. 

Kids in her class are talking about Squid Game on Netflix. 

That tell you something of the current "normal" environment at home. 

 

 

This isn't directly germane to your post, but your post triggered it for me.  I see too many kids with parents who are more interested in being their kids' buddies, than being their parents.  They almost encourage them growing up too fast so they have a friend to hang with, even when the kids aren't nearly mature enough to handle it.  Joking about kids' messing around WAY too young, letting them have beers "around the house" when they are 14, things like that.

I'm the furthest thing from a prude, but I'm their parent first, and being liked, or the "cool dad", or the rest of that stuff isn't on my radar.  

It is creating so many issues, truly, violence in schools among them.

[TheDeuce]

The answer is simple. It's poor or absent parenting. 

 

[theguru]

6 minutes ago, theguru said:

One of my teacher facebook friends recently posted a thread with this opening post:

The Good Ones are dropping like flies. It's only a matter of time for the rest of us...😢 

My response to it:

The negative comments about how tough it currently is to be a teacher are mind boggling. 

Absolute school choice is the only possible solution here. 

[theguru]

I talked to another teacher friend of mine yesterday and asked him how things were going, he said, "morale in the building is so low."

[nkypete]

My wife is a Kenton County elementary school sub covering 11 schools. She could work every day if she wanted.

[theguru]

1 minute ago, nkypete said:

My wife is a Kenton County elementary school sub covering 11 schools. She could work every day if she wanted.

Same with my neighbor subbing in Boone County.

[theguru]

From wlwt.com:

OXFORD, Mich. — A 15-year-old sophomore opened fire at his Michigan high school on Tuesday, killing three students and wounding six other people, including a teacher, authorities said.

Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe said at a news conference that he didn't know what the assailant's motives were for the attack at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, a community of about 22,000 people roughly 30 miles north of Detroit.

https://www.wlwt.com/article/michigan-school-shooting/38391169?

===============

Clearly we have bigger fish to fry with this event but it is another example of violence against a teacher.  How sad...

[nkypete]

45 minutes ago, theguru said:

From wlwt.com:

OXFORD, Mich. — A 15-year-old sophomore opened fire at his Michigan high school on Tuesday, killing three students and wounding six other people, including a teacher, authorities said.

Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe said at a news conference that he didn't know what the assailant's motives were for the attack at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, a community of about 22,000 people roughly 30 miles north of Detroit.

https://www.wlwt.com/article/michigan-school-shooting/38391169?

===============

Clearly we have bigger fish to fry with this event but it is another example of violence against a teacher.  How sad...

Too much hate and despair in this world right now.  Very sad to see that hate and despair in young people where they feel the need to not only hurt others but end their lives as well.