The thread topic is, “There should be consequences for problem students and problem parents” so beyond what has already been written in the last two pages I imagine you can add to the thread, concur or debate any post thus far. Personally, I’m pretty sure the horse is fairly well dead since there’s another thread or two somewhere that deal with corporeal punishment for wayward young folks as well as a thread or two about parents who might be mistaken for cabbages. Long to short Lon, I guess any direction you wish to go with the thread and still be able to stay on topic is fair game.
When I was the program chairman of the EMT program at a state college in Texas, I was standing behind the Dean and the College President in the procession line at graduation, and they were talking about what a great job the chair of the nursing assistant program was doing because three-fourths of her students were on the Dean's List, yet she made time to volunteer for all sorts of extracurricular college activities. I felt a little underappreciated because... the nursing assistant program took in only 15 students a year, whereas my program was the second largest on campus, with over 200 students a quarter; plus, I had another campus, a satellite campus with more than 100 students, and sometimes as many as 200 a quarter; and the nursing assistant program had three full-time instructors, besides the chair, whereas I had only two; so she didn't teach very many classes herself, while I was literally teaching at one campus from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm, at the other from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm; plus, I taught night classes from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm two nights a week at each campus and taught a skills class from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm on Saturdays; and of course, if the percentage of my students on the Dean's List was important to me, I could have given easier tests. I don't know if the nursing assistant students had to sit for a state certification exam in order to be eligible for employment, but my students were prepared for either a state certification exam or a national licensure exam, or both. In more than ten years of teaching, I didn't know of a single student of mine who failed their certification or licensure exam, and for the six years that I was program chairman, I followed that closely, but that never seemed to be important to the Dean of Students, who was my immediate superior. The school tracked the number of dropouts, failures, those completing the program, and those who excelled academically within the college program; whereas I intentionally began each new class with a tough regimen so that those who weren't cut out for it could change programs while there was still time to switch to another program, and I was more interested in how many of them were employable as EMTs, EMT-Intermediates, or EMT-Paramedics than with whether they were on the Dean's List. More than half of my graduating students didn't even bother attending graduation ceremonies. They were interested in going to work. Since I taught adults, there were no consequences to the parents for problem students, but they were usually out of my program within two weeks. New EMT students were faced with their first major test after two weeks, and it was a tough one, designed to cull those who weren't willing to do the work. I usually lost about a quarter of my class within two weeks and felt good about that.
I had a history teacher in high school who told us on the very first day that no one had ever aced one of his exams but if anyone did, he’d give them an “A” for the rest of the semester. No one aced one of his tests that year either but there wasn’t one student who wasn’t studied up and ready to take one of his tests. Another teacher, (English and Latin) the same year told us that we needed 2 sharpened pencils at the beginning of the class and a pen on Fridays. A trip to the pencil sharpener cost 1 week in detention and no ink pen on Friday cost the student 2 weeks in detention. That was a heads up that she wasn’t going to put up with any garbage and again, students learned not only because she was a great teacher but she was also a ruler swinging, knuckle rapping strict individual.
As you said.... your students were adults but mine were High Schoolers "ready" to enter college and the future.
To a point, Silvia........welcome to the "teaching" career. I completely understand how you felt, but then again, wonder how often this happens today. Probably a whole lot more than the school system will admit?[/QUOTE] I taught 26+ years. The incident I mentioned happened about 10 years ago.
I was a HS teacher until recently. Although I had the seniors...I am so glad I retired because the school authorities and the system were impossible to suffer even with a "more than excellent" salary.
Another reply to Cody might be that compared to when we were growing up, very few girls in particular want to grow up to be teachers. It wasn’t long ago when girls wanted to grow up to be mommies, nurses or teachers but that isn’t the case any longer. Big tech and other financially and positionally postured positions are much more available to the ladies than ever before. Women in particular aren’t stuck with taking care of someone else’s kids but have a wider range of possibilities. Maybe we just do not have the cream of the crop as teachers any longer and I’m sure if the presumption is correct, the students reflect that