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(RSS readers – I’ve embedded a video. You probably can’t see it so you’ll have to visit my blog to view it. Sorry about that).
I can totally understand this woman’s frustration.
Kids nowadays ARE self-entitled spoiled brats who whine too much because parents are more concerned with being their friends and not their parents. I’m sure it’s terribly difficult to deal with that kind of attitude in the classroom. Especially nowadays when the kids all know that if anything happens, their parents will become fire-breathing dragons and threaten a law suit. (And trust me, I hear about these kids from my high school boys, too. The disruptions, the attitudes, the blatant disrespect. If half of what they tell me is true [and I take what they tell me with a grain of salt], then it’s a wonder these teachers can teach anything over all the “noise” produced by these troublemakers).
I can’t imagine being a teacher in today’s classrooms. I can totally understand why this woman needed to blow off some steam. I’m not a teacher, but I’ve seen enough bad behavior, just as an outside parent, to make my blood boil. Can you imagine being stuck with the brats every day?
However, I do find her naivety just a bit annoying. She published her first name, last initial AND a picture of herself on her blog – yet she didn’t think anyone would ever find her blog? *snort* Please. The Internet has a LOOOOONG memory. Even if you delete some stuff, it’s possible to find it later and today’s kids? Are computer savvy. They’ve grown up on this stuff so it’s really easy for them to navigate and search things out.
I’ll be interested in what happens to her. If her contract specifically addresses an issue like this, then she will deserve to lose her job, but if not, she didn’t do anything illegal. Was it smart? No. But she has a right to her opinion and she didn’t list the school by name or any specific students so …
I ABHOR ABC news – and I thought the interviewer in this video was purposefully slanting the questions to make the teacher look like the insensitive one (because God forbid we blame the PARENTS of these bratty kids for the way they turned out *dramatic gasp*), BUT, I thought the question she posed to the teacher, asking her how she would feel if her children’s teachers made some sort of remark like that referencing her own children was pretty interesting.
I think if I had been asked that question, I’d say something along the lines of, “if my kids are truly that awful when I’m not around, I’d want to know about it. Because no kid of mine is going to blatantly disrespect their teacher like that.”
And I would. I realize that kids are totally different when they are not around their parents, but if they’re that bad? I want to know. I have no problem with being told my kids are acting like assholes because I live with them. And they can be assholes sometimes. I’m not delusional enough to think my kids are on their best behavior at all times.
But I think most parents WOULDN’T want to know. I would imagine most parents would get all defensive if confronted with a less-than perfect child because they would think it reflected poorly on their parenting skills.
Which, it probably would.
But that’s why I felt compelled to write about this because as the teacher says in the video, perhaps this will spark a conversation. A long overdue conversation, about how kids nowadays are out of control. How parents don’t parent anymore, they pawn off them off on the nearest caregiver, relative or school they can find. How parents don’t seem to have a backbone anymore when it comes to teaching their children morals and disciplining them when they do something wrong. It’s all about not hurting Johnny’s feelings or bruising his self-esteem.
(*talk to the hand*)
Hogwash. I get so impatient with that “new age” way of thinking. Kids are tough little boogers, not to mention, extremely smart. Kids pick up on this wimpy parenting style and they manipulate it for all it’s worth. They KNOW teachers can’t touch them. They KNOW teachers are really limited to what they can do or say before getting themselves into trouble. They KNOW that mommy and/or daddy will bail them out if all they do is cry their tears or cry foul in some way.
We’re raising a pampered, spoiled generation. Let’s be honest.
So yeah, I feel sorry for this teacher. She probably shouldn’t have wrote those things on such a public forum (if she just wanted to keep it between her and her friends, she should have made it a private blog), but she’s only saying what we’re all thinking.
Our youth HAVE gotten out of control and parents? It’s time to own up and take some responsibility. Our kids are whiny brats because we’ve raised them to be that way.
Write From Karen 