OT - My 5th year as a teacher in a high needs public school
(Insert sarcastic speech about how teachers are some of the most important people in a child's life)
Recapping, I teach 8th grade math, in the neighborhood. Literally. The school is surrounded by townhouses and apartment complexes.
The kids are out of control. They've overtaken the building, and do as the please. The hallways are forever populated with kids making out between lockers, kids fighting, or kids that just don't feel like being in class. Having a mushy gushy building principal who believes that compassion, and not consequences, brought this on our heads. At least other years were somewhat manageable.
Teachers, for the most part, stopped documenting behaviors and lates. It would get sent upwards, and then the kids would come back with a smile on their face and a kind (ain't nothin' gonna happen) comment when they return to class. Calling parents has resulted in (in my case) 2 parents who have tried to storm the building because I told them that (their baby) did something wrong. (Our resource officer tased their asses into the ground both times - I get along with that guy.)
It's a complete and total clownshow, and historically, I've always been able to compartmentalize stress. I still can - outwardly I'm the type that is impossible to be worked up. On the inside, I began to have pretty bad memory loss - and I started to have heart palpatations - high blood pressure. I'm 31, a guy, and I'm not overweight.
I finally went to a doctor, and he put me on blood pressure meds, and prescribed me xanax. There's a history of anxiety in my family, so I was able to tell them that everyone has been allergic to (zoloft-like meds). I'm totally done, there's no hope left in public education (at least not near any kind of city area). I shutter to think of what this generation is going to try to do to us in our older age, because they're going to be so useless that there's no way that they are going to be productive.
This of course doesn't apply to all students. I still love, and pour my heart and soul into the 25% who still come to learn and better themselves. Most days now, like today, I come to work - pop a xanax - and float through the whole day. Then I go home and deal with the stepkid - LOL.
It sounds like between this
It sounds like between this and the stress you have at home you need to talk to somebody before you break...that won't do your daughter or soon to be baby any good.
Step life is stressful and it can creep over into your professional life as well. I spent years being nervous, upset and thinking it was mostly my job, when actually it was my home life affecting my job.
I do talk to my psychiatrist.
I do talk to my psychiatrist. I was referred by my counselor. I never thought that I'd need medication to manage stress though.
This generation is going to
This generation is going to lean on our generation and be dependent on our generation until we die. After that, extinction of the human race.
I agree with you this generation is the worst. Lazy, self entitled, backtalking, disrespectful to parents, heedless, Godless, short attention span, social media crazed so their sense of self-worth is dependent upon superficial reasons...
Civilization is doomed
Oh, I think it'll be
Oh, I think it'll be survivable. Even public schools in more rural areas are amazing. I student taught in that environment. Night and day. The city public districts will be heavily reliant on the private school + rural district kids. I predict that reliance on government programs is going to rise exponentially by the time these kids hit adulthood. Politics will change, and I hope I'm retired by the time they're pulling 70% of our earnings to support what's currently deemed acceptable in city areas.
I'm about to be 39 and I
I'm about to be 39 and I thought MY generation was bad. Smh. These tweens and teenagers are just so lost. In rural areas there's more resources per capita and more morals per capita. But the population of the city areas dwarfs the population of the rural areas. How will the few well adjusted of this generation support the majority of dropouts and failures.
Objectively speaking, I just can't see how it will work. My household being a microcosm of society, I'm looking dead in the eye at about 3 dropouts. 1 current, two future. They will siphon the life out of me and SO, until we have nothing left to give. Our household will eventually crumble and be dispersed to the winds like a dilapidated building in a category 5 hurricane.
The only thing that would keep it going is the parents. But what will they have once their parents are dead and gone? Nothing.
I feel like people are just so self-centered
That kids aren't learning to think about anyone other than themselves anymore, which makes them hostile and entitled and obnoxious. Heck! We see it everyday in the discussion of SKs. No one has taught them how to behave with people, no one has taught them manners or good hygeine, empathy is scarce. These are the same kids that run through school halls everyday, and I don't know how anyone puts up with it.
I look at my SKs. They're 15 and 10. I've known them both for their whole lives. SD15 can't manage to turn in her schoolwork and chitterchatters her way through class. She has an excuse for everything. Nothing is her fault. SS10 is the same way. BM has been looking for someone to diagnose him with ADHD for years to excuse his total lack of socials skills instead of just teaching him social skills (which she really doesn't have, either...). Punishments for bad behavior--like when SS10 threatened to MURDER a classmate--are brief and unremarkable. I believe the threat resulted in a "talking to" from BM and even the school didn't do much, even after learning that SS lied to the principal about the incident. Certainly no lesson is learned other than that you can do whatever you want without repercussion.
My bio-DD14 has been taught from the beginning that bad behavior has consequences. She's been taught to respect other people, not because they earned it but because we respect people. She's been taught that honesty and directness (and tact) are critical skills that frankly make dealing with people WAY harder than they need to be, but you still have to do it. She's been taught that you do your best because that's what we do. I've literally handicapped her for dealing in the world with decent morals, ethics, and a true sense of accountability.
We're suburban, and DD's school is a special magnet public school that still has a neighborhood component. I love that her school and principal have taken on character development as a priority. It gives me hope for the future. But I know her school and principal are rare and special. OP, I hope that you can find a way out for yourself. School or home, maybe both. This is no way to live.
Your stepkids represent a
Your stepkids represent a majority of the population here. I'm actualy in between classes on replies.
The murder threat comment got me. That stuff happens pretty consistently without consequences.
THE BIG ONE recently is when they caught a kid dealing pills in the bathroom, and the resource officer said quote "I called the state's attorney to press charges, and he said that because of the "school to prison pipeline banter going on politically", that he would not press charges on a student dealing drugs in school. They did confiscate his drugs, but that's it.
My jaw about broke when it hit the floor. The drug dealer is in my class walking in right now.
Nothing going back to the
Nothing going back to the future of the principal and coaches roaming the halls with paddles over their shoulders and enforcing the rules wouldn't quickly fix.
Tazing violent toxic pelvic projectiles who attempt to assault teachers and continuing to hit the sizzle switch until the police show up to haul them off in hand cuffs would go a long way to resolving the environmental issues that breed these young idiots. Frying their parents when they show up to bow up on teachers for failing an underperforming student or applying appropriate punishments for inappropriate behaviors would also send an appropriate message.
I for one would be supportive of teachers training and being CWP holders.
The good news is that even with the insane frequency of violent ill behaved young societal write offs, they represent a relatively small % of students. The good kids should not be forced to suffer the presence of these toxic progeny of failed parents.