Speaking of Bad Parenting

This entry is related to the last entry (SAW 5), and is dedicated to everyone I know that works in education.

Today was a horrible day. I have two classes back-to-back of kids who refuse to care and it makes me not care. You want to be shitheads in my class? Fine. Be shitheads, but you're going to the office. Get out of my room.

The first group is three sixth graders. One of them is a good girl. She does what she is supposed to. She is quiet. She is respectful. She is a little odd, but not obviously so. I like her. The other two kids? Well, they went to the same elementary and they seem to think that they run the show. One of them was trying to tell me that her friend's mom got a teacher fired. She said this because I had told them that they would not be rewarded with a fun activity on Friday if they didn't do work today. So I turn to her and ask if she was threatening me. And then told her that if she was, she would need to explain that to the principal because that was not allowed. She got mad and all 6th grade attitude with me. I don't care.

The other student, a boy, was imitating everything I said. Real mature. He asked if I was ever in a good mood. And seeing as I was having one of my 'wits ends days' I replied, "Yes. But not when you guys are here." I continued to tell them that I couldn't believe the way they were acting for being 6th graders. I have never met such a disrespectful group of students ever in my life. (That's not totally true...there were three shitheads when I worked on the north side of the metro...but they were 8th graders...technicality.)

So the bell finally rings for their class and the next group comes in. Not looking a whole lot better. It's the boy from the first classes brother, and two other boys.

Now like the other group, this group has one worker and two that piss away the entire class period doing absolutely nothing. This is nothing new. These two tend to spend every homework day doing absolutely nothing. But today was different. I was in a bad mood from the class before, and the brother was picking on the other two boys saying everything was stupid. Telling them to "make me" when they would ask him to stop, or not do something. One of the other boys was pretty worked up when the first boy took one of his things, used it and threw it away. I was done. I sent him to the office, stating simply to the principal's secretary, "Attitude".

After that hour, I needed to debrief. I went to the child study secretary who laughed as she said that she didn't know how we dealt with some of the behaviors that we get in our classes. But having thought about it now since the end of the day, I have realized the problem is three-fold.

1. The class sizes (for my room) are so small that the students don't think that classroom etiquette rules apply...I don't even know if they think any rules apply. That's not totally true. The rules apply to everyone else, but not to them.

2. Special Education is a double-edged sword. Some of the students have this learned helplessness and refuse to do anything on their own. Why should they? If they don't get it done, someone will sit down with them to do it? Why have internal motivation?

3. Lack of External motivation. I believe that the kids that are disrespectful in the classroom are not being motivated by anyone at home to do a good job at school. I can't really believe that the parents would encourage this behavior. Take for example the girl that was talking about getting a teacher fired. On what grounds? Not letting you sing and scream in class and actually making you do something? Sorry. Nobody told me when I was in college that my main job as an educator was to let you piss around for 13-18 years and then give you a diploma. My bad.

After today, I wish that we could go into meetings and be truthful with parents. Instead of saying that they child is delightful, I wish we could be honest and say, "Your child is a disrespectful brat." That might stun some parents into doing their job. Lying and telling them that we love their child makes them think that they are doing a good job of raising their children, when in fact, they aren't.

I know, some kids can't help it. But they have a label that covers that (EBD). Unfortunately for the kids I am speaking of today, none of them have that luxury.