Puritanical college prep & sheltering teens

[Melissa Louise]

1 minute ago, TechWife said:

That "blurring" of professional boundaries has always been inappropriate. It is becoming increasingly unacceptable and people are speaking out about it more than ever. Good for them. We shouldn't accept the status quo when the status quo is unacceptable.

It's really nothing to do with sheltering. 

It's to do with power, disclosure and ethics (speaking now of the choice, wisely avoided in this case, to use those prompts in college). 

I teach writing. I would 100% support a college student choosing to write about his or her sexual experience.

I would never require they do, explicitly or implicitly. 

Ugh. This conversation brings back memories of so much boundary crossing in college. 

 

 

[Melissa Louise]

15 minutes ago, vonfirmath said:

This is what I felt the sub was doing in my daughter's class -- blurring of boundaries that should NOT be blurred.  And honestly after seeing it once and what else was happening that I didn't realize, next time I'll be in the office after the FIRST blur of boundaries and not wait for it to get so out of control. I didn't want to rock the boat because I know they are having problems getting subs, it was not "that bad" etc.

 

I'm sorry to hear that. 

It absolutely does happen.

At college level, it's worth letting your DC know it's ok to say something.

At high school level, it's worth supporting your DC to say something and then, if needed, saying something yourself.

Boundary blurring isn't always creepy - but it's something teachers are ethically and professionally obliged not to do. 

 

[PaxEtLux]

 

There's been a bunch of kerfuffles in our local public schools lately here about curriculum, and what surprises me, as someone not involved with public schools at all, is how teachers seem to have carte blanche over the curricular materials used in their classrooms.  There seems to be a complete disconnect between what the principal and the district think is being taught, and what is actually being used in real classrooms. I had thought that there were administrators in our district's headquarters who select textbooks, workbooks, etc., purchase them for the schools, and get them placed in the classrooms, and then teachers are free to choose from those.

But every time, in the recent problems, some teacher got a workbook, or teaching materials from some third party, and when a parent complained about it, both the principal and the school district claimed they knew nothing of these materials, claimed they weren't purchased directly by the district, and that they were inappropriate.

For all the talk our districts like to do about standardized curricula, seems like the message isn't making it down to the teachers, where the rubber meets the road.  Are other districts like this?  Am I just misinformed about how public schools work? (wouldn't be the first time).

[Terabith]

I haven't seen the book, but isn't it a list of 600 prompts?  And none of these prompts regarding sexuality were actually used?  

I completely agree that it would have been inappropriate to use the prompts.  But nobody was asked to write about their sexual experiences here.  

That seems very different than a book with SIX HUNDRED prompts, a few of which are inappropriate, and were never used.  

[Terabith]

Just now, PaxEtLux said:

 

There's been a bunch of kerfuffles in our local public schools lately here about curriculum, and what surprises me, as someone not involved with public schools at all, is how teachers seem to have carte blanche over the curricular materials used in their classrooms.  There seems to be a complete disconnect between what the principal and the district think is being taught, and what is actually being used in real classrooms. I had thought that there were administrators in our district's headquarters who select textbooks, workbooks, etc., purchase them for the schools, and get them placed in the classrooms, and then teachers are free to choose from those.

But every time, in the recent problems, some teacher got a workbook, or teaching materials from some third party, and when a parent complained about it, both the principal and the school district claimed they knew nothing of these materials, claimed they weren't purchased directly by the district, and that they were inappropriate.

For all the talk our districts like to do about standardized curricula, seems like the message isn't making it down to the teachers, where the rubber meets the road.  Are other districts like this?  Am I just misinformed about how public schools work? (wouldn't be the first time).

In our district, there are standardized lesson plans and course materials, but no textbooks, so teachers are required to source their own materials to teach the objectives.  Believe me, this is a major pain in the butt.  There is no grammar book with exercises for students to use.  There is no math book with math problems.  There is no science book to work through.  The teachers are constrained by both very stringent ideas of what they must teach (and often what they are required to teach is incredibly developmentally inappropriate in the early grades) and also the teachers are given no resources with which to do that.  So yes, they're going on TPT and buying lesson plans.  

They're asked to do things that are impossible, given no leeway or freedom, micromanaged, and also not given any support in terms of curricular materials or classroom assistants.  

[Tanaqui]

Quote

“If you want to do a writing course, it’s hardly necessary to write a story about ‘sex you wouldn’t tell your mother about’ or ‘your first orgasm,’” attendee Bill Klausman told cleveland.com, referring to two of the questionable prompts in the book. “If they knew what was going on, they need to be terminated.”

I agree, and also agree that it would be not just unnecessary but inappropriate for a high school teacher to assign this.

However, it does appear that these prompts were never assigned. And if they were never assigned, then that's a different kettle of fish entirely.

[Melissa Louise]

5 minutes ago, Terabith said:

In our district, there are standardized lesson plans and course materials, but no textbooks, so teachers are required to source their own materials to teach the objectives.  Believe me, this is a major pain in the butt.  There is no grammar book with exercises for students to use.  There is no math book with math problems.  There is no science book to work through.  The teachers are constrained by both very stringent ideas of what they must teach (and often what they are required to teach is incredibly developmentally inappropriate in the early grades) and also the teachers are given no resources with which to do that.  So yes, they're going on TPT and buying lesson plans.  

They're asked to do things that are impossible, given no leeway or freedom, micromanaged, and also not given any support in terms of curricular materials or classroom assistants.  

Teachers need to stop propping up a broken system. 

I work with teachers. They complain like champions, and all their complaints are valid!

But then they turn around and enable the same broken system they are complaining about. 

They need to work to rule and stop funding their classrooms from their own pockets. Yes, it's bad for the kids. So is the status quo. 

 

[Danae]

I’m not clear from the article if this was a book handled by the students or just a book that the teacher used as a resource for choosing writing prompts.
 

 

[Terabith]

2 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

Teachers need to stop propping up a broken system. 

I work with teachers. They complain like champions, and all their complaints are valid!

But then they turn around and enable the same broken system they are complaining about. 

They need to work to rule and stop funding their classrooms from their own pockets. Yes, it's bad for the kids. So is the status quo. 

 

Well, teacher's unions and collective bargaining are illegal in Virginia, so there's no way that's happening.  

But yeah, it's a very broken system.

[Melissa Louise]

As a parent, the videos wouldn't have bothered me. Trans men DO need gyne care. Knowing about the MAP helps avoid having to get an abortion. Yay, MAP! 

Yep, I care far more about the writing prompts, lol. 

[Melissa Louise]

Just now, Terabith said:

Well, teacher's unions and collective bargaining are illegal in Virginia, so there's no way that's happening.  

But yeah, it's a very broken system.

And teachers allow themselves to be emotionally manipulated into propping it up. 'For the kids'. 

[Melissa Louise]

The book looks fine for peer adult writing groups. 

It is advertised as 18+.

Sounds like teacher had it on his/her shelf, and just pulled prompts from it as needed? 

Frankly, write an ode to an onion would make me want to jump out the classroom window, but horses for courses. 

If the teacher avoided the 18+ murder and sex prompts, I can't see they did anything wrong, so I row back my comments about choosing another resource. 

School just needs to say students were not given 18+ prompts, and did not have access to the book itself. 

 

Edited February 14, 2022 by Melissa Louise

[KungFuPanda]

5 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

And teachers allow themselves to be emotionally manipulated into propping it up. 'For the kids'. 

They also ‘allow’ themselves to be financially manipulated by wanting to keep their health insurance and pay their bills. They are “propping up the system” by keeping their jobs, retirement benefits, and feeding their kids doesn’t exactly make them complicit. The list of things people think teachers ‘should’ be doing only ever grows. There’s no winning for them. 

[Melissa Louise]

1 minute ago, KungFuPanda said:

They also ‘allow’ themselves to be financially manipulated by wanting to keep their health insurance and pay their bills. They are “propping up the system” by keeping their jobs, retirement benefits, and feeding their kids doesn’t exactly make them complicit. The list of things people think teachers ‘should’ be doing only ever grows. There’s no winning for them. 

Yeah, I know. 

But at some point, things have to change, and the only way I see it changing is via collapse.

One of my jobs is in a school, doing remediation. I'd advise any young person thinking about teaching not to teach. 

[Terabith]

1 minute ago, Melissa Louise said:

Yeah, I know. 

But at some point, things have to change, and the only way I see it changing is via collapse.

One of my jobs is in a school, doing remediation. I'd advise any young person thinking about teaching not to teach. 

The problem is that there is not a single career field my kids have ever expressed any interest in that people have advised them not to pursue.  Health care, education, engineering, the clergy, IT, being a librarian.  

The system that is broken is broad.  

[Melissa Louise]

Just now, Terabith said:

The problem is that there is not a single career field my kids have ever expressed any interest in that people have advised them not to pursue.  Health care, education, engineering, the clergy, IT, being a librarian.  

The system that is broken is broad.  

I'd definitely avoid teaching and nursing. 

 

[HS Mom in NC]

The all or nothing thinking is what bothers me.  Yes, I would agree that it's inappropriate for minors in high school to write about sex. I think it's wrong for adult students to be required to write about sex and wouldn't be bothered if it was optional.  But neither of those things happened, right?  Assuming the teacher(s) had sense enough to do neither of those things at the high school, there's no reason for an uproar. Every single prompt isn't for every teaching situation, but a teacher can own a book that has prompts that include adult prompts in it.   We can't be outraged at teachers for owning books that have prompts are are inappropriate for some students if they don't use them for those students.

[Catwoman]

23 minutes ago, Danae said:

I’m not clear from the article if this was a book handled by the students or just a book that the teacher used as a resource for choosing writing prompts.
 

 

That's what I'm wondering, as well. If the kids didn't actually have that book as a textbook, and the teacher used it as a personal resource to find interesting writing prompts for the students, then the book seems fine to me -- because the teacher didn't assign any of the inappropriate prompts. 

I'm not excited about the kids having that book as a textbook if there are sexual writing prompts in it, though, because there are so many other (and more age-appropriate) writing prompt books out there from which to choose, that there seems to be no need for this one.

[Hilltopmom]

42 minutes ago, PaxEtLux said:

 

There's been a bunch of kerfuffles in our local public schools lately here about curriculum, and what surprises me, as someone not involved with public schools at all, is how teachers seem to have carte blanche over the curricular materials used in their classrooms.  There seems to be a complete disconnect between what the principal and the district think is being taught, and what is actually being used in real classrooms. I had thought that there were administrators in our district's headquarters who select textbooks, workbooks, etc., purchase them for the schools, and get them placed in the classrooms, and then teachers are free to choose from those.

But every time, in the recent problems, some teacher got a workbook, or teaching materials from some third party, and when a parent complained about it, both the principal and the school district claimed they knew nothing of these materials, claimed they weren't purchased directly by the district, and that they were inappropriate.

For all the talk our districts like to do about standardized curricula, seems like the message isn't making it down to the teachers, where the rubber meets the road.  Are other districts like this?  Am I just misinformed about how public schools work? (wouldn't be the first time).

I’m a teacher. We are required to teach all of the state standards but are not provided the actual materials/ textbook etc to do so. So, yeah, I buy most of my materials off sites like Teachers Pay Teachers, or other places. I’d be happy to teach from a textbook if any were purchased for us.

[Hilltopmom]

40 minutes ago, Terabith said:

In our district, there are standardized lesson plans and course materials, but no textbooks, so teachers are required to source their own materials to teach the objectives.  Believe me, this is a major pain in the butt.  There is no grammar book with exercises for students to use.  There is no math book with math problems.  There is no science book to work through.  The teachers are constrained by both very stringent ideas of what they must teach (and often what they are required to teach is incredibly developmentally inappropriate in the early grades) and also the teachers are given no resources with which to do that.  So yes, they're going on TPT and buying lesson plans.  

They're asked to do things that are impossible, given no leeway or freedom, micromanaged, and also not given any support in terms of curricular materials or classroom assistants.  

All of this, yep.

[prairiewindmomma]

School districts often don't adopt curricula because they can't afford to do so.  

Everything is so dang broken. 

[vonfirmath]

58 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

I'm sorry to hear that. 

It absolutely does happen.

At college level, it's worth letting your DC know it's ok to say something.

At high school level, it's worth supporting your DC to say something and then, if needed, saying something yourself.

Boundary blurring isn't always creepy - but it's something teachers are ethically and professionally obliged not to do. 

 

Yes. This is why I was so proud of her. She got to the point where she went to the principal's office herself and told them she was afraid to go to class and what was going on. She stood up for herself.

[hippymamato3]

2 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

A sexual writing prompt is inappropriate at all levels.

I don't think that's sheltering. It's maintaining professional boundaries between student and teacher. 

Sounds like the prompts weren't set, which is good, but what the heck kind of resource is the school using that includes sexual writing prompts, even as an option?!

 

 

 

I could see it being appropriate in some college classes, possibly.

[SKL]

45 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

The book looks fine for peer adult writing groups. 

It is advertised as 18+.

Sounds like teacher had it on his/her shelf, and just pulled prompts from it as needed? 

Frankly, write an ode to an onion would make me want to jump out the classroom window, but horses for courses. 

If the teacher avoided the 18+ murder and sex prompts, I can't see they did anything wrong, so I row back my comments about choosing another resource. 

School just needs to say students were not given 18+ prompts, and did not have access to the book itself. 

 

I think the facts were that minor students did have access to the whole book.

And again ... just because they said they never did anything with those prompts doesn't mean it's true.

For example, if they allowed the kids to choose any prompt from a given list, and the list included that some sex prompts, does it matter that the kids didn't in fact choose those sex prompts?

I just don't see why the school system had to be obstinate about it.  I could totally understand them not realizing that prompts 546-549 were of a sexual nature because they didn't actually read every word in the book before buying it.  But now that they know it's in there, and every kid in the district knows it too, you can't pretend they aren't there or don't matter.

It's not like this book of prompts is absolutely essential to the teaching of writing.

My kids' photography teacher is under investigation for allegedly telling kids to send him nude photos.  I mean nude photos are art after all ... appropriate in some adult contexts ... and high school students shouldn't be shielded from real life.  Still inappropriate?  What if the teacher denies he suggested nude photos?  Then clearly it never happened and everything is OK and we need to stop coddling our teens.

[Melissa Louise]

4 minutes ago, hippymamato3 said:

I could see it being appropriate in some college classes, possibly.

Like I said, maybe in gender studies. 

The resource looks like it is designed for adult community writing groups. That's a very different dynamic.

[Melissa Louise]

28 minutes ago, vonfirmath said:

Yes. This is why I was so proud of her. She got to the point where she went to the principal's office herself and told them she was afraid to go to class and what was going on. She stood up for herself.

She rocks! 

[mom2scouts]

45 minutes ago, Catwoman said:

That's what I'm wondering, as well. If the kids didn't actually have that book as a textbook, and the teacher used it as a personal resource to find interesting writing prompts for the students, then the book seems fine to me -- because the teacher didn't assign any of the inappropriate prompts. 

I'm not excited about the kids having that book as a textbook if there are sexual writing prompts in it, though, because there are so many other (and more age-appropriate) writing prompt books out there from which to choose, that there seems to be no need for this one.

I believe the students did have copies of the book because a parent saw the book at home. It wasn't just a book from the teacher's shelf.

[Melissa Louise]

11 minutes ago, SKL said:

I think the facts were that minor students did have access to the whole book.

And again ... just because they said they never did anything with those prompts doesn't mean it's true.

For example, if they allowed the kids to choose any prompt from a given list, and the list included that some sex prompts, does it matter that the kids didn't in fact choose those sex prompts?

I just don't see why the school system had to be obstinate about it.  I could totally understand them not realizing that prompts 546-549 were of a sexual nature because they didn't actually read every word in the book before buying it.  But now that they know it's in there, and every kid in the district knows it too, you can't pretend they aren't there or don't matter.

It's not like this book of prompts is absolutely essential to the teaching of writing.

My kids' photography teacher is under investigation for allegedly telling kids to send him nude photos.  I mean nude photos are art after all ... appropriate in some adult contexts ... and high school students shouldn't be shielded from real life.  Still inappropriate?  What if the teacher denies he suggested nude photos?  Then clearly it never happened and everything is OK and we need to stop coddling our teens.

Oh lordy, the photography teacher...I'm so sorry that happened. 

It's a problem that there is a growing lack of trust in teachers and schools, that's for sure.

I don't believe it's coddling to avoid sexual writing prompts in school. That's an appropriate boundary. I'd like to think the teacher has been responsible in this case, but teachers do overstep and blur boundaries at times. 

I don't necessarily have a problem with the prompts being in the book and the students having access to the book, so long as the prompts weren't used in class or as homework, but someone should have thought it through. I can see using it as a teachers resource but damn, just hand out photocopies of the onion ode prompt. 

 

 

Edited February 14, 2022 by Melissa Louise

[Murphy101]

5 hours ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

I never ever wrote about sexual experiences etc. in university.  Instead I wrote essays about Shakespeare, Russian history, and various other university level content areas that were covered by class.  I'm more bothered by the fact that they would need a writing prompt.  (Even in my university writing class we didn't have writing prompts per se but we asked to write a personal essay or a persuasive paper etc.) 

This. My husband is currently working towards his psychology degree and even his upper level courses that were called things like “human sexuality” never had students write about anything personal.

My daughter is about to go to graduate school for fine arts. She has drawn and sculpted nude models. Never any personal sexual conversation. (And she is just now turning 21, so she’s had plenty of exposure since she was 14.)

Getting an education does not mean personal privacy boundaries and professionalism should be tossed. I don’t think that has anything to do with sheltering or Puritanism.

Edited February 14, 2022 by Murphy101

[Murphy101]

Good boundaries remove a lot of possible scandal opportunities.

Most expectations or policies of professional behavior don’t just protect subordinates but the leadership as well. 

I’m fed up with being told that boundaries of professionalism are coddling. The school is literally spending millions of tax dollars on school materials. So no, I’m not letting them off the hook for not bothering to vet the materials thoroughly before buying for class use. I think it’s naive at best to just say “well we should trust the teachers to self regulate this and skip that section”.  No. We shouldn’t.  The professional standard should be to preclude that decision being an option because that’s how scandals like this are avoided to begin with.  You’d think with all the sexual abuse and trafficking that’s been so well documented everywhere these days for decades now that we shouldn’t have to even discuss this. But here we are. It’s so frustrating to even have it insinuated that basic professional standards and policies be enforced is in some twisted wackadoodle way can be called coddling and puritanical.

I’ve said time and time again, if a parent or priest did it and the response would be an outcry of allegations - we shouldn’t be okay with teachers in public schools doing it either. 

[City Mouse]

To be honest, I am not surprised at all that there was an uproar. As a burned out public school teacher, I can’t believe that the teacher was even will to have such a book in her lessons. She had to know that it would cause problems, but then again maybe she knew parents would be upset and didn’t care. There would have been somebody upset with something she did one way or another, so she might as well go big.

[Kassia]

If this was a DE class, is it possible that the teacher had to follow the curriculum and use the same textbook as the college they were teaching for required?  Maybe the teacher didn't have any choice.  I don't know how it works when high school teachers teach DE college classes in their high school.  I know they have to have certain qualifications (very few of our ps teachers can teach DE classes at the high school) but don't know how it works for what is taught.

[Katy]

It was clearly a mistake to link to that article. My larger question was why does it seem to be a trend that parents avoiding raising children to be adults? 

[Melissa Louise]

I haven't noticed it as a trend, tbh.

I've read about it though. 

Idk. Why do any parenting fashions rise and fall?

[Dmmetler]

3 hours ago, Terabith said:

I'm all for parents being involved in their children's educations, but I will admit the current educational environment has about convinced me not to go back into teaching.  I don't want to be arrested because I brought in a picture book to read to a class that someone disapproves of or because my lesson plans needed tweaking sometime post July 1.  

My kid has chosen not to get a teaching license in conjunction with a BS in bio, but to get a psych degree instead. For some inexplicable reason, the idea of teaching biology in public schools just isn’t appealing at all, even if it’s just for a semester to get the license (mine’s dream job is to do outreach programs for a zoo or NGO).  I suspect that mine isn’t the only one reading the writing on the wall and deciding that yeah, no. Maybe after the BS, the pendulum will have shifted. 

[bolt.]

2 minutes ago, Katy said:

It was clearly a mistake to link to that article. My larger question was why does it seem to be a trend that parents avoiding raising children to be adults? 

I see that you accidentally gave kind of an off-point and nuanced example of the trend you think you are seeing.

I'm still interested though.

Could you set out some more solid examples that speak to the trend? Because I don't really see what you mean from just the sentence of, "avoiding raising children to be adults" -- maybe I'm standing too close to it? My oldest kid is in high school. I think she's on track to graduate, enter post-secondary education, and start at the beginning of a career of some kind.

I think most of her peers will come out of high school on the standard bell curve of success-to-struggle.

They wear their hearts on their sleeves a bit. And they stand up for themselves in a way that can come across as leaning towards entitled. Are those the things you mean? Or something else?

What type of unpreparedness concerns you?

[Melissa Louise]

2 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

My kid has chosen not to get a teaching license in conjunction with a BS in bio, but to get a psych degree instead. For some inexplicable reason, the idea of teaching biology in public schools just isn’t appealing at all, even if it’s just for a semester to get the license (mine’s dream job is to do outreach programs for a zoo or NGO).  I suspect that mine isn’t the only one reading the writing on the wall and deciding that yeah, no. Maybe after the BS, the pendulum will have shifted. 

Psych + science isn't a bad combo, especially for someone like your dd who also has networked from a young age. 

I wonder if she'd be interested in science writing/communication/journalism down the track?

Science needs awesome communicators with a solid handle on the science and the stats. 

[Dmmetler]

15 minutes ago, Kassia said:

If this was a DE class, is it possible that the teacher had to follow the curriculum and use the same textbook as the college they were teaching for required?  Maybe the teacher didn't have any choice.  I don't know how it works when high school teachers teach DE college classes in their high school.  I know they have to have certain qualifications (very few of our ps teachers can teach DE classes at the high school) but don't know how it works for what is taught.

This is the case for DE classes done in high schools from the college L did DE at. There is one textbook/resource list for ALL sections of the same course, whether they be done on campus (with mostly adults), at night (with mostly non traditional student s), at a high school (with all 16-18 yr olds), or at the state prison! 
 

I can only imagine the difficulties in picking materials that work for all those groups. Meanwhile, I have several different music method series I choose from depending on the child, and it is really rare for me to have even two kids doing exactly the same thing. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

22 minutes ago, bolt. said:

I see that you accidentally gave kind of an off-point and nuanced example of the trend you think you are seeing.

I'm still interested though.

Could you set out some more solid examples that speak to the trend? Because I don't really see what you mean from just the sentence of, "avoiding raising children to be adults" -- maybe I'm standing too close to it? My oldest kid is in high school. I think she's on track to graduate, enter post-secondary education, and start at the beginning of a career of some kind.

I think most of her peers will come out of high school on the standard bell curve of success-to-struggle.

They wear their hearts on their sleeves a bit. And they stand up for themselves in a way that can come across as leaning towards entitled. Are those the things you mean? Or something else?

What type of unpreparedness concerns you?

When ds started college there was an entire orientation session for parents that focused on not being helicopter parents. So yes, some parents do coddle their kids and keep them from growing up. But I don’t think that it’s that hard to reverse this. Most kids I knew who complained about helicopter parents were eager to make their own decisions and did just fine when given a chance. 

[Faith-manor]

14 minutes ago, Kassia said:

If this was a DE class, is it possible that the teacher had to follow the curriculum and use the same textbook as the college they were teaching for required?  Maybe the teacher didn't have any choice.  I don't know how it works when high school teachers teach DE college classes in their high school.  I know they have to have certain qualifications (very few of our ps teachers can teach DE classes at the high school) but don't know how it works for what is taught.

Here the PS teacher who teaches DE must use the materials and syllabus the college provides and follow it to the letter since the student is receiving college credit from that university or community college. There really isn't any choice in the matter.

At the rate things are going, there won't be any public school. Our district has lost so many to retirement and just quitting, that they have no hope of giving anything resembling education to students, and the teachers left are terrified of the parents. So many of these "adults" are aggressive and threatening all.the.time. It isn't just a few, it is quickly becoming the majority. 

Universities in my area have announced they are cutting back their teacher ed majors/departments. Every year there are fewer and fewer students, and it is impractical to continue to fully fund the department.

I don't have a problem with the book if the sexually-inappropriate-for-minors type writing prompts were not assigned. The fact that the writing prompts exist is not an issue. Just choose not to use those. I do think that parents who have a freaking cow about this stuff are often times profoundly naive about what their teens are "writing" about on social media or texting or..... So maybe take care of things at home first before going ballistic at the school.

Teaching is the very LAST profession I would encourage anyone to go into these days. Shoot with all my years of experience, I still am unwilling to even sub. I can't imagine throwing a newbie into the lion's den.

 

 

[Frances]

5 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

When ds started college there was an entire orientation session for parents that focused on not being helicopter parents. So yes, some parents do coddle their kids and keep them from growing up. But I don’t think that it’s that hard to reverse this. Most kids I knew who complained about helicopter parents were eager to make their own decisions and did just fine when given a chance. 

As I posted on the parenting thread the other day, I’ve read various articles about young adults being less prepared for adulting than in the past. But one of the resources they have that didn’t exist when we were young is all of the YouTube videos and supposedly many use these to help learn how to do things they weren’t taught at home. In big cities, I’ve also read about “How to …” classes for young adults.

[KSera]

30 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

This is the case for DE classes done in high schools from the college L did DE at. There is one textbook/resource list for ALL sections of the same course, whether they be done on campus (with mostly adults), at night (with mostly non traditional student s), at a high school (with all 16-18 yr olds), or at the state prison! 
 

That’s interesting. It doesn’t seem to work that way where I am. I have known kids enrolled in the same class at the same school but with different section and instructors, and they varied a lot. English 101, for example is all over the place with how each instructor chooses to approach it. One of mine had theirs entirely via texts focused on race in America while another had a more standard selection of classic books to read and write on.

[SKL]

Youtube videos are great though.  My kids have learned all kinds of things I never got around to teaching them, or could not have taught them due to my own lack of knowledge / skill.  There are things my kids don't know, and things they know that I didn't know.  It probably evens out roughly.

[goldberry]

2 hours ago, Terabith said:

Well, teacher's unions and collective bargaining are illegal in Virginia, so there's no way that's happening.  

But yeah, it's a very broken system.

In a neighboring county there has been threatened a mass teacher walkout and all the comments are "good riddance!" ...  There is already a teacher shortage! Where do these people think NEW teachers to teach their kids under all their specific parameters are going to come from?  Everyone blew a gasket when schools had to go online a few days because half the teachers had Covid.  What do they think will happen when there are not enough teachers?  I do not get the concept.  Some people say that's the end goal, to make the whole thing collapse so it can be privatized, but can it really be??  I don't know, nothing else makes sense.  Who is going to teach these kids??

Yes, it's right to want to have some parental control.  But seriously people do you really think you are going to get full on personalized schooling in a public school?  There has to be a middle ground where teachers can still function.

[BusyMom5]

There is never a reason for a professor to ask private, personal questions about your sex life.   I'm married for over 20 years and I would be offended by a writing prompt like that.  It would feel as if the teacher were try pry (or perv) on my personal life rather than teach me how to write.  Discussing sexuality in the DE Psychology course my kid is in- yes.  Talk about it IN GENERAL,  but never ask about someone's personal life. Discussing sexual function in biology class?  Yes, please!  Going into details about options of BC and appropriate dating practices in the First Semester welcome class?  Yes.  All of these things, yes.  But soliciting anyone to write about their sex life crosses a personal boundary.  This is not about coddling or puritanical parents,  its about boundaries. 

[Kassia]

19 minutes ago, KSera said:

That’s interesting. It doesn’t seem to work that way where I am. I have known kids enrolled in the same class at the same school but with different section and instructors, and they varied a lot. English 101, for example is all over the place with how each instructor chooses to approach it. One of mine had theirs entirely via texts focused on race in America while another had a more standard selection of classic books to read and write on.

I got the impression this was only for DE classes and not regular college classes.  It is ridiculous how different sections of the same class can be taught so differently with very different levels of difficulty (and teaching quality).  

[KSera]

2 minutes ago, Kassia said:

I got the impression this was only for DE classes and not regular college classes.  It is ridiculous how different sections of the same class can be taught so differently with very different levels of difficulty (and teaching quality).  

The DE classes my kids have taken have all been just regular classes at the college, in which some of the kids happen to be dual enrollment students. Or did you mean the dual enrollment programs that are taught at the high school rather than at the college? Seems like those ones might be different because the school has to make sure they are meeting the college’s requirement for credit. I agree college classes can be all over the board in respect to difficulty and material covered, even for the same subject. Though I don’t remember finding that to be the case in my own science classes. There was a pretty standard body of material that had to be covered, but clearly some professors were better at it than others and some wrote harder exams than others.

[Dmmetler]

11 minutes ago, BusyMom5 said:

There is never a reason for a professor to ask private, personal questions about your sex life.   I'm married for over 20 years and I would be offended by a writing prompt like that.  It would feel as if the teacher were try pry (or perv) on my personal life rather than teach me how to write.  Discussing sexuality in the DE Psychology course my kid is in- yes.  Talk about it IN GENERAL,  but never ask about someone's personal life. Discussing sexual function in biology class?  Yes, please!  Going into details about options of BC and appropriate dating practices in the First Semester welcome class?  Yes.  All of these things, yes.  But soliciting anyone to write about their sex life crosses a personal boundary.  This is not about coddling or puritanical parents,  its about boundaries. 

And I see nothing to indicate this happened. I will say, though, that one reason why I discouraged my teen from doing public speaking DE was that when I was in college, a lot of students chose to speak on fairly personal topics and some got quite explicit. I could easily imagine some high school students CHOOSING to write about their sex lives, even if the prompt was fairly general. 
 

Heck, some of the essay prompts for college applications could swing that way if you have a student for whom it was a “transformative experience” and who doesn’t have a guidance counselor or parent screening those essays! 

[HS Mom in NC]

As awful as it is now and when it happens in full force, I think the only way we can save public education is to let it implode spectacularly.  Let parents face that cold, hard reality of 40 kids to a class, being bused across creation to a neighboring consolidated school system, bare bones austerity schools, and such.  It's way too abstract and distant right now for some people to grasp what happens when teachers spend too long in intolerable working conditions. I'm not saying public school has been entirely where it should be or that rebuilding from the ground up will be anything other than painful, but let's be honest, since teaching, nursing, nurse assisting, childcaring, and retail work is mostly done by women, people have been willing to dump on them for a long time. They're fed up and I want them to give a resounding NO MORE to the public that has treated them like crap for so long.

Edited February 15, 2022 by HS Mom in NC

[KSera]

2 minutes ago, HS Mom in NC said:

As awful as it is when it now and when it happens in full force, I think the only way we can save public education is to let it implode spectacularly.  Let parents face that cold, hard reality of 40 kids to a class, being bused across creation to a neighboring consolidated school system, bare bones austerity schools, and such.  It's way too abstract and distant right now for some people to grasp what happens when teachers spend too long in intolerable working conditions. I'm not saying public school has been entirely where it should be or that rebuilding from the ground up will be anything other than painful, but let's be honest, since teaching, nursing, nurse assisting, childcaring, and retail work is mostly done by women, people have been willing to dump on them for a long time. They're fed up and I want them to give a resounding NO MORE to the public that has treated them like crap for so long.

But that’s going to fall primarily and the hardest on those already with the least advantages. Those who can will withdraw their kids and pay for them to go to private or homeschool or whatever. And then they will care even less what is happening in the public schools. 
 

Not that I have an answer that will fix the system.