Education today

[Yusuf Evans]

Are students allowed to get away with more, than they were 5-10 yrs ago?

 

[Alencon]

Are students allowed to get away with more, than they were 5-10 yrs ago?

I doubt it. I don't think discipline has changed a whole lot over that time frame. Now if you want to talk about 40 or 50 years ago, then maybe.

 

[FSTDT]

Are students allowed to get away with more, than they were 5-10 yrs ago?

Maybe more than 10 years ago there were designated smoke breaks, if that means anything.

 

[Lokisdottir]

Maybe more than 10 years ago there were designated smoke breaks, if that means anything.

My mom was around for those. But she was also around when all the bathroom stall doors were removed to prevent students from smoking pot, with the result being that nobody used the bathroom.

 

[sc4s2cg]

My mom was around for those. But she was also around when all the bathroom stall doors were removed to prevent students from smoking pot, with the result being that nobody used the bathroom.

And they walked uphill to and from school in bad weather while trying to read their school books for the days test. Thats what most of the adults talk about in my area, how we have it so much easier. "In my days we didn't have snow closings".

G-d bless,
sc

 

[BarbB]

And they walked uphill to and from school in bad weather while trying to read their school books for the days test. Thats what most of the adults talk about in my area, how we have it so much easier. "In my days we didn't have snow closings".

G-d bless,
sc

Well, I walked uphill from school. In really bad weather my mom would come pick up a bunch of us. But we did have snow closings and so looked forward to them.

Another difference, we could read, write, and do arithmetic when we graduated from high school.

 

[Mr. QWERTY]

Another difference, we could read, write, and do arithmetic when we graduated from high school.

But so can today's students. Some cannot, true, but many, many can, and more and more students are going to university every year.

When I was in school (20 years ago), people were lamenting then about how things had gone downhill in the last X years. It is no different today, and will be no different 20 years from now either.

 

[Cydol]

No, I don't think so. Not in that short a timespan.

 

[ScottishJohn]

In the UK I would see the change of attitude is more amongst parents: When I was at school the real fear of getting into trouble came from the inevitable involvement of my parents and punishment in the home. What I see now, is parents who consistently take the side of their child. If Parents 'opt out' of the discipline process, then teachers are powerless. There are very few real punishments a teacher can issue - sure they can do detentions and punishment excercises etc, but how do they MAKE pupils attend/ do the excercises if their parents are up at the school disputing them, complaining their child is being picked on etc etc. What I see is a progressive degeneration in parenting skills. I see this at work (I am a youth worker) my mother also sees it in her work (she is head teacher - think that is the same as principal - in a primary school here). In fact my mother had an experience a couple of years ago - Blairs government introduced an appeals system for parents whose children are expelled from school for bad behaviour. It is heavily skewed to favour the parents. My mother expelled a boy for consistantly disrupting the school, and the final straw, physically assaulting a teacher. There had been a long process leading to this point where the school had been attempting to work with the parents to achieve better behaviour, thwarted by the parents refusing to beleive that their child was disruptive. (the boy was 9) The parents, rather than attempt to discipline their child appealed the descision. At the appeal they were allowed to make a case, my mother was allowed only to answer direct questions, the appeal went against her. She had to let the boy return to school.

It is situations like this that make discipline a thing of the past in many schools.

 

[Brimshack]

More of what? And why does it matter? The purpose of education isn't to control people, but to teach them. Whether or not a student should be allowed to "get away" with something depends on whether or not their behavior will be detrimental to their education or to those around them. If it won't, then why should I care as to whether or not they get by with anything?

 

[AdamAnderson21]

sc: And they walked uphill to and from school in bad weather while trying to read their school books for the days test. Thats what most of the adults talk about in my area, how we have it so much easier. "In my days we didn't have snow closings".

G-d bless,
sc

I actually do have to walk to school uphill in bad weather both ways, on some days. They're doing construction on my dorm and stuck us in "Baity Hill Apartments". As the names says, it's on a pretty big hill.

 

[AdamAnderson21]

As for students getting away with more...don't know about that. Certainly not in the schools themselves. Outside of school it's pretty bad. In high school I'd guess 75% of the people went out and got drunk on the weekends quite regularly, and probably 30% binge drank very regularly, and about 8% were pure alcoholics that drank during school (that was me). And the drug scene was pretty big. Alot of people, mabye 15%, were potheads, but I lived in a beach town, so it might have been more than usual in my area. But the biggest drugs were prescription pills like Hydrocodone, a painkiller. Particularlly the girls liked these. I'd guess 10% of the people used some form of prescription drug very regularly. As for sex. Let me put it this way, as a sophmore in college, I'd say only 15% of the people are still virgins. Probably over half of the people in high school had lost their virginity. And about 20% just hooked up with random people at parties all the time.

But these are just my made up guessed percentages. But none of this took place in school. The teachers are probably somewhat laxed about attendence, but other than that, I don't see any of this as the school's fault.

 

[Yusuf Evans]

Thank you all for responding. I am agreement that the parents are responsible for the way their kids are acting today, and it happens everywhere, even in the military. As my handle suggests, I'm a Chriistian Marine, which most people would consider an oxymoron. I know of an incident in which a parent took their childs side, even though the evidence was overwhemingly pointing the other way. Parent's need to stop sheltering their children. We need selfless indivduals, not selfish brats

 

[trunks2k]

Define what they may be getting away with, and what age group you are talking about, and where you are talking about.

My entire school life, public k-8 and private for highschool, plus a private 5 year University (in 5gth year now), has been pretty tame. The occassional drinking here and there and a few real druggie mess up kids I knew that are probably in jail right now.

My parents seem to have had a much wilder experience with school (both public and private) than I did. My dad got into fights multiple times and nobody really cared all that much, I've never gotten in a full on fight. My mom used to drive to New York all the time when she was 18 so that she could drink. They did more stuff, but I can't remember. And my parents were on the well behaved side of their peers. But they "got away" with most of that stuff.

 

[psychedelicist]

I don't know about getting away with more, but they're sure not doing a good job of actually teaching kids. I have people in my english 4 class who don't even know how to use things like commas and semicolons properly. And not just one or 2 kids, like half the class. Maybe dallas just attracts stupid people?

 

[In A Perfect World]

Well my parents and their friends used to carry either a knife or brass knuckles in high school, and from how they describe high school during the race riots; i'd say things have gotten a lot better.

 

[trunks2k]

I don't know about getting away with more, but they're sure not doing a good job of actually teaching kids. I have people in my english 4 class who don't even know how to use things like commas and semicolons properly. And not just one or 2 kids, like half the class. Maybe dallas just attracts stupid people?

I'd hazard a guess that it's more of a geographic thing in your case. I'm not entirely convinced that (public) schools as a whole aren't doing as well of a job as teaching children, rather than we're seeing some sort of grouping. For example, upper middle class families moving into primarily upper middle class communities which will have well performing schools (due to a variety of reasons, primarily decent funding), leaving lower class families to be concentrated in communities and thus giving a failing school system.

I think this is most evident when you look at schools in urban areas vs the immediate suburbs.

I think the similar thing applies for private schools. I'm not convinced that private schools are just simply better, rather they may perform better because they filter out most of the kids that aren't as likely to perform well.

 

[AdamAnderson21]

Well, if you're poor it's a different story. I didn't think about that.