Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but I'm being fully honest in my question. I kept up with what was being said, but I'm 99% sure that I'm missing the joke. I know it's a faux pas, but can you explain the punchline to me?
I'm guessing it has something to do with the ruling class being shittier than the average person, but I feel like I'm missing something.
One of the biggest things I learned when I started working in the legal field is that the only justice you'll get is the justice you can prove. Things like this might be true, but if you can't prove it, you'll get no justice for it.
Is that fair? No. But the system we created is based on the assumption that people are going to be wrongfully imprisoned or charged for actions that they didn't commit simply because the government wants them imprisoned. We designed it that way because that used to happen often in other countries, and we didn't want that to happen here. So, we created rules to avoid wrongful imprisonment by the government without finding a way to also protect victims who may not have enough evidence to prove their victimization.
I'm not saying that what this woman is asserting happened or didn't happen. I have no idea what went down. I also don't know how we fix the system. People are wrongfully imprisoned, victims don't receive justice, etc., but this is how the system is designed, so whether or not it's true, she is required to demonstrate it, or she will receive no justice.
Okay, I normally try not to be this guy, but in this particular situation, I believe a little pedantry is called for. You mean that you couldn't care less. If you could care less, that means you do care at least a little bit, which is not the point you're trying to make.
Ditto. I feel like I'm the only one who still listens to the radio in my car. The only thing I want my car to have that it doesn't is cruise control. Otherwise, she's perfect.
Yes! This is the exact approach a good teacher takes with students who struggle with behavioral norms. There is a reason they are doing what they're doing. They are reacting to adults the way they have been trained to react by other, shittier adults.
Once they trust you as a person who actually cares, they seem to become a whole new person. They are no longer scared to be vulnerable in front of you. It's a sacred level of respect that teachers and/or mentor adults need to take very seriously.
I used to be the person who specializes in working with students who struggle with behavioral problems, and I can 100% assure you that exposure to violence from or among adults they are around is what led them to my classrom.
Barbaric, weird, and ineffective. It doesn't actually address what is causing the behavioral issue. It only punishes the kid for reacting normally to whatever stimuli they are experiencing. It's especially frustrating when the fix would have been something simple like listening to the kid's concerns or trying to have a conversation with them to address the root problem.
Ah, the same way I deal with issues in my life. Good to know that the tendency goes all the way to the bone.
I definitely agree that there aren't enough resources given to teachers, but the expectation of using common decency to reach the goal of educating our students is not too high of an expectation. Focus on the end goal. How you get there can vary (assuming it's appropriate), but you are still trying to reach the goal of educating the students. If your teaching style is prohibiting people from reaching that goal, why wouldn't you change it?
It's nice to think that as an English teacher, I only have to worry about how well they can interpret the modern applications of the lessons in Macbeth, or whatever literature we're studying, but in reality, teachers are teaching a whole heck of a lot more than their specific subject area. We're simultaneously modeling how to behave appropriately, teaching how to navigate complex social situations, and mentoring students on how to achieve their goals and deal with set backs. Teachers have always worn more than one hat. It's not only an expectation for the job; it's an absolute requirement for success.
Should they earn more money for having to do all of that? YES! That's why we've been complaining about the low pay and lack of resources for at least 40 years. The effort and skills are non-negotiable. Kids shouldn't get a crappy education just because some politicians are using their teachers' wages as political leverage. People go into education knowing that the pay sucks, but they actually care about other people and future generations. They don't go into just for the paycheck, and I don't know a single educator who wouldn't put in some extra effort to help a student succeed.
You're basing a lot of your opinion on the assumption that kids come to school ready to learn and healthy. The reality is that parents and home lives come in a wide variety of flavors. Some parents do exactly what you said: dump on teachers with their own expectations on how students should be handled. But others don't get involved at all. Some don't care about their child's life beyond how it affects them. Some are so busy working to make ends meet that they don't have time to be much more than an absent parent. No matter what life the student has, it's still my job to give them a quality education, so of that means giving them a granola bar or calling Joe Suzie, then that's what it takes.
We're basically fighting for the same thing here: better pay, better resources, and support for teachers so that students can get a better education. The difference is that I don't think students should get the short end of the stick for something they can't change (i.e. low pay), whereas you'd rather a teacher not do extra because they aren't getting paid to do extra. But my method reaches the end goal of educating students well, and yours instead basically says, "Reach the goal or don't. I don't really care since I did my part."
A good chunk of a teacher's job is to build appropriate relationships with your students. Students don't want to learn from someone they dislike, and you have significantly better learning outcomes when the students feel safe, accepted, and cared about. Appropriate nicknames, like Tim for Timothy, help in that relationship building. I don't know what your position is at that school, but Wisconsin teachers are literally taught stuff like this in college so that we know how to manage a classroom with the best learning outcomes and the fewest number of behavioral disruptions. We are taught how to keep those relationships appropriate and healthy, although much of that is just common sense.
Yes, you should separate work and home life for both your own sanity and for modeling good boundaries and work-life balance. But that doesn't mean you have to drop your decency at the door. At the end of the day, the goal is learning, and not being a douche is one of the easiest ways to get to that goal.
Extracurricular activities are an extension of these same principles, not an exception or something with a different set of standards. I think you might be mixing up appropriate relationship building with inappropriate fraternizing, and I'm concerned that you are having difficulty finding that line.
Whelp, Walker neutered our teachers' unions, and the conservatives pushed for being a right to work state, so here are some unexpected consequences of that. They do not have to tell him why his contract wasn't renewed, and now he doesn't have a union backing his position. Plus, he wasn't even "fired," just not renewed.
F this teacher for creating an environment of hate.
I used to think the cause of this was something about how you were raised or how repugnant any discussion of bodily fluids or medical stuff was in your childhood. Some of my friends can't handle talking about any medical procedure at all, which I always thought was odd, but I chalked it up to childhood experiences. I've since learned that child rearing is not the cause, although I'm sure it has some influence.
My mom was a nurse, and we talked about all sorts of bodily fluids, medical issues, and, frankly, gross stuff while growing up. I developed a full tolerance for it. Similar to you, it just felt like a step on the way to treatment and healing. It does not bother me at all to see it or hear a discussion about it at the dinner table, no matter how gross. But, my brother, who was raised in the exact same circumstances, passes out when he gets stuck with a needle. Every. Time. I know that the response to needles and blood aren't the same as medical procedures, but my point is that people react differently no matter their upbringing.
Clearly, some people are just made to react that way in emergencies. This is not throwing even a drop of shade at people who have to experience that queasiness, but I'm very grateful that I'm not one of those people. We just react differently.
Also, I 1000% respect people who work in emergency services. I don't know if you still do it, but you guys have to deal with a lot of horrific injuries and people at the worst moments of their life. You're absolutely essential, and I don't think you get the recognition you deserve. <3