An Open Letter to High School Students

[FreddyMuscle]

Why is it that so many replies are certain that A) I'm not a teacher, B) don't exist, C) or a fraud?

I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to verify my bona fides and some will never be satisfied. I am, in fact, a teacher at both the high school and college level. My main content areas are History and American Government.

I'm sorry that some of you do not care for my style of writing but I totally understand. I think it was Barb who replied that I "officially suck"; and it must be true since she's the official expert on sucking--so thanks for that. Makes me feel right at home. I get insulted by teenagers on a daily basis and frankly, "you suck" is mild by comparison and not nearly as creative.

I think DGS49 got it right though... 5 to 7 years is about all any one adult can stand in this kind of work environment.

If I had to do a demographic of my classes, I would say that out of 30 students (13-17 yr olds):

* at least one is wearing a "Lo Jac" around his/her ankle so the State can keep tabs,
* two are on some type of parole/work release from the juvenile court system
* at least four already have kids of their own
* one or two are currently pregnant
* 30-40% are reading at two or more grade levels below their current grade
* 20% are being treated for ADHD with Ritalin, Adderall or some other methylamphetamine salt
* at least two are packin' some form of weapon
* at least two are holdin' some form of recreational drug and another is selling the same
* at least one has clinically diagnosed oppositional defiance disorder and two more should be
* several will have aggression issues that haven't been worked out yet medically
* 40% have no concept of what constitutes acceptable public behavior and don't care to find out
* I could go on but by now you get the idea...

and 95% will go on to the next grade regardless because of "social promotion". Some will even graduate and still be functionally illiterate. It's criminal and difficult to witness.

Anyway... I'm sorry that so many of you didn't care for my letter. Despite its title it really wasn't written for High School students... just a late night rant in between getting lessons ready for tomorrow.

Thanks.

 

[Jackson]

Just maybe someone will respect you if you give them some respect and someone else will listen and learn something in your class. Won't get through o 95% of them? It doesn't mean you still don't try. Make the lessons interesting and change their day from the hell they're living into something different for an hour. It doesn't hurt to try.


We have just 7 hours and then a break before we go back and try it again. Who knows, someone just may thank you one day. Don't look for it, but it would be nice. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. But don't stop looking for new recipes, sometimes, it's a bad chef.

 

[FreddyMuscle]

Wow. You really missed the point of the exercise, didn't you.

"Just maybe someone will respect you if you give them some respect and someone else will listen and learn something in your class."

Where did you read anything about me NOT giving respect? What you did read, though, was the part about students demanding respect without acting respectful. So aim this barb in the other direction. Part of the reason the job gets frustrating is that teachers are required to remain professional at all times despite the daily provocations.

"Won't get through o 95% of them? It doesn't mean you still don't try."

Really, Captain Obvious? You mean I should just keep on going even though I don't reach 100% of students? That never occurred to me.. gee thanks.

"Make the lessons interesting and change their day from the hell they're living into something different for an hour."

The "hell" they're living???? Did you seriously just write that? These kids get fed breakfast and lunch on someone else's nickel during the school day. They get driven to and from school every day--the one's that don't drive themselves, that is. Every one of them has a cell phone with an unlimited texting plan, instant Internet, little responsibility and even less accountability. They have a roof over their heads, a place to sit down, and air conditioning. They have an army of support people and their beck and call--from nurses to guidance counselors, instructional aides, school psychologists, etc. Everything is handed to them--paper, pens, pencils, notebooks-- because they can't be expected to remember to bring stuff. They're too busy. They're given access to sports equipment, gynasium, track & field, and a library. Adults trip over themselves to kiss their little backsides and give out inflated grades to help them graduate. Other people pick up their trash and clean their rooms. All that is really ever asked of students is that they mind their behavior for the six hours that they're in class.

If it's hell they're living... it's a hell of their own making.

"We have just 7 hours and then a break before we go back and try it again. Who knows, someone just may thank you one day. Don't look for it, but it would be nice."

I don't know anyone in this profession that does it expecting thanks, including myself.

"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. But don't stop looking for new recipes, sometimes, it's a bad chef."

And sometimes it's the ingredients...

I appreciate the time and effort it took for you to post the "cut and paste" commentary and warmed-over cliches but you assume too many facts "not in evidence".

 

[Esmeralda]

An Open Letter to High School Students
I often wonder why I chose to become a teacher. In the beginning, I was a believer out to change the world. Now I settle for summers off. A distasteful change has taken place. I’ve traded outlook for overlook, industry for ire. Is this preordained penance for some karmic-deficit from a previous life or is altruism merely trumping my common sense? I’m writing to you in the hopes that together we might find the answer—an answer that’s been buried under years of callous injury. I’m sorry that you don’t already know what I know but it’s hardly my fault. And it’s no wonder I’ve lost the plot. I spend my day amongst you soul-sipping Versace-clad vampires when I’d rather be shaking my fist from the bell tower.

Is that wrong? Is the sum total of my existence now reduced to stop-gapping your slow-leaking egos with my own self-worth? You demand respect. You offer disdain. You force me to wade through your weapons-grade sense of entitlement but, you can’t get past your own hedonistic notions of individual privilege. You hit the target but miss the point. You convey but don’t convince. Pardon me for recoiling from your specious outrage—it’s not the vacillation I mind; it’s the volume.

I can stomach the incessant cherry-cheeked white noise emanating from your insult-laden insolence, but after I sift through the wafer-thin patina of your blatant prevarications; all that remains is the steady drip, drip, drip of your insipid meanderings—the meaningless import of your profane pronouncements; the random oration in your venomous verdicts. Like some indignant moralizing gossip, you’re always the last to give up the conch. Your myopic world view is reassuringly one dimensional and the joke is at your expense. Why is it that you laugh the loudest? Congratulations. Irony is wasted on the comforted. And I hate myself for being party to your tenuous foot-hold on civility.

I’m aghast at your blissful, boiling-frog indifference—the casual way you steep in your own ignorance. You seek solitude amidst the reflection of a thousand carbon-copies. Yet, you leave traces behind. Emboldened by the sacrosanct certitude of your smug affirmations, you goose-step through your day like downtrodden fascist lemmings coming ever closer to the edge. In your haste to derive benefit, you raise a dust-cloud of resentment. In your rush to make a difference, you trip on your own lack of perspective. Your hair-trigger attitudes are as unpredictable as they are incendiary. You smolder with violent proclivities and cast the embers to the winds. And despite your pathetic posturing, I might even buy into your pampered mendacity if I didn’t already have a front row ticket to your perpetual freak show.

You’d get what you want if your tone wasn’t so insufferably acidic—if you didn’t throw in extra syllables like you’re chambering-up more ammo; where a simple “I know” becomes an admission that you built the Ark (I know-ah) all performed in descending register for maximum effect. Is it really so hard to take “Yes” for an answer?

Blind puppies in a sack, you shuffle aimlessly through the halls; compelled to entangle us in your foul-mouthed diatribes—your manufactured dramas—your non-stop talentless auditioning. We’re invited in only to defend ourselves while you leap at the chance to kra maga your over-sized concept of personal space. It’s not that I’m offended by the way you parade your half-dressed adolescence; it’s the carefree self-indulgent effrontery—the absent-minded exhibition, that I find so disagreeable. It’s nothing but unpaved street theater; bone-jarring spectacle for the masses. Maybe if you weren’t hiding behind designer-phones and taking up my parking space, I could make some sense of your grasping lurch for celebrity. Don’t tell me what you deserve while earning my contempt.

You exude all the charm of Hannibal Lechter and wonder why I don’t throw myself on your plate. You circle the wagons around your own misconceptions and expect me to care. You cast empathy down an emotional fox-hole while insisting that I heal the bruises leftover from people touching you with ten-foot poles. I’m puzzled at what you hope to achieve by alienating those within your sphere of flatulence. The pain you inflict is needless. We all have bad days; most of us don’t expect to find relief in the open-air chaos of public humiliation. Seriously, what are you thinking? Or not?

I ignore the furtive glances that signal misdemeanor and you think because I forego, I forbear; because I forgive, I forget. You think I’m blind; but it’s you, hurrying to go nowhere like a hamster in a wheel, who truly can’t see. You get it over; but you don’t get it done. You skim the detail and skip the point. You draw to an inside straight while raging against the Deal. You adorn yourself in glitter then pursue invisibility—shut the window then curse the view. Surprise—no compromise.

And while you endeavor to avoid the ever-vigilant eye of the priggish hallway fashionistas; your “Lord of the Flies” existence extends a fleeting and flirtatious promise that one day it’ll be you that’s perched on the top rung like some lemon-harangue gargoyle. You want so desperately to matter; your self-anointed prerogative can’t come soon enough. But you never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity and I tilt at the windmill of your flapping arms. You have only yourself to blame.

We’ve reached a crossroads, you and I. While I anguish at futility of making a connection; you collude to keep us apart. While I hold out hope for your future; you fail to see past tomorrow. In the end, perhaps your frenetic lethargy and calculated coarseness will triumph. But if you are gambling that I’ll grow weary of the chase; you are betting against the house—and the odds are not in your favor. I persist—unbowed, unbroken, unrepentant—and ready for class.

Take your seat and let’s get started.

Signed:
A Teacher in Baltimore

I thought you found this on the internet; I didn’t realize you had written this yourself. If you’ve been teaching for several years, and this is how you feel, I think it’s better for you to find a new career in another field. Not attacking you-just saying this in all seriousness. My comments, also, are not meant to be an attack but a serious and thoughtful response to your post.

Your letter is nothing more than a string of insults directed toward your students in which you compare them to vampires, vipers, Nazis, lemmings, guns, Cro-Magnons, canablistic serial killers, criminals, and more. You find them both violent and pathetic. You find them insufferable and don’t seem to see any redeeming qualities in them.

Rather than feeling anything positive toward your students, you want to recoil from them, and you clearly want to return the insults you feel you get from them every day. You attack their very humanity and find “disagreeable” what kids essentially are: arrogant and self centered. They are too immature to realize they are not the be all and end all, that they didn’t invent the wheel.

You see yourself as self-righteously putting up with them, but it is your job to open up their minds, to teach them critical thinking skills, to help them mature past that childish self-centeredness. If your students lack perspective, it is your job to teach them to have it, especially as you are a social studies teacher. Instead, you abscond any responsibility for how your students behave when you should realize that it is how you conduct yourself and your class that is the answer here: they are the students, you are the teacher.

In the end of your diatribe, you say, okay, let’s get to class. You are not ready for class. And with your attitude, you students won’t be either. You compare teaching these kids to a battle. You cannot go into school each day with this kind of attitude and deal effectively with your students.

Overall, your letter is really nothing but one insult after another directed at your students. We could say this ‘letter’ is just letting off steam, but I think it is a great deal more than that. You are clearly fully frustrated and unhappy with your job. This attitude benefits no one: you cannot be an effective teacher when you feel like this. You seem to loath them, yet at the end, you expect them to come to your class to be taught by you. Would you want to be taught by someone who held only distain for you?

I think your options are 1) to get out of teaching completely, 2) to quit high school/middle school teaching and just teach at the college level, 3) to change to elementary school, grades 1-4, because the kids at that level are still mostly looking up to teachers and are cooperative, 4) teach in a private school, or 5) make huge, and I mean huge, changes in how you teach and your attitude toward your students. Teaching is at least a well honed craft, at best an art form. Maybe you are just not cut out for it. I don’t say it is easy by any means, but there are people who are just not cut our for teaching, especially at the middle school/high school level.


Your students are a reflection of how you treat them and how you engage them in learning. If you cannot find a way to make this a profitable, productive experience for either you or your students, for your own mental health and for them, just find another walk of life or teach at an altogether different level. If you stay and continue on like this, you become that hated thing toward which Americans direct their vitriol: the teacher who is just there to collect a paycheck and have summers off.

As far as your writing skills: I’ve already noted that there is little thought here, only a string of insults. As well, you over write, piling on the metaphors and similes, often mixing them, and it resembles what is called purple prose. Don’t go into journalism—maybe pulp fiction.

 

[FreddyMuscle]

Finally... a thoughtful, well-constructed response. And I had almost given up hope.

Again, I appreciate the time and effort that went into this... especially considering the hour. Couldn't you sleep either?

Forgive me, but I'm going to ignore all the vocational advice... and most of the literary advice as well.

The modern classroom is a diverse enterprise... so of course you're going to have a wide range of Vampires, lemmings, Nazis, cannibals, etc. etc.

I'm also sorry you don't like the way I mix metaphors, it just comes naturally. I mean, this isn't rocket surgery...

 

[Unkotare]

What part of "you're not fooling anyone," don't you understand, kid?

 

[Esmeralda]

Finally... a thoughtful, well-constructed response. And I had almost given up hope.

Again, I appreciate the time and effort that went into this... especially considering the hour. Couldn't you sleep either?

Forgive me, but I'm going to ignore all the vocational advice... and most of the literary advice as well.

The modern classroom is a diverse enterprise... so of course you're going to have a wide range of Vampires, lemmings, Nazis, cannibals, etc. etc.

I'm also sorry you don't like the way I mix metaphors, it just comes naturally. I mean, this isn't rocket surgery...

I don't live in the same time zone as you do.
If your story is true, you are very wrong in not changing your job, unless you plan to make major changes in your approach to teaching. Otherwise, you will be miserable and will not be doing those kids any favor. There isn't much else to say, except for the fact you are what you call them: arrogant and self centered. Though why anyone would chose this misery is unimaginable.

 

[editec]

A beautifully written screed, I must admit.

 

[Esmeralda]

A beautifully written screed, I must admit.

There isn't anything beautiful about purple prose. It's atrocious.

 

[Unkotare]

A beautifully written screed, I must admit.

And now we know something about you.

 

[High_Gravity]

Why is it that so many replies are certain that A) I'm not a teacher, B) don't exist, C) or a fraud?

I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to verify my bona fides and some will never be satisfied. I am, in fact, a teacher at both the high school and college level. My main content areas are History and American Government.

I'm sorry that some of you do not care for my style of writing but I totally understand. I think it was Barb who replied that I "officially suck"; and it must be true since she's the official expert on sucking--so thanks for that. Makes me feel right at home. I get insulted by teenagers on a daily basis and frankly, "you suck" is mild by comparison and not nearly as creative.

I think DGS49 got it right though... 5 to 7 years is about all any one adult can stand in this kind of work environment.

If I had to do a demographic of my classes, I would say that out of 30 students (13-17 yr olds):

* at least one is wearing a "Lo Jac" around his/her ankle so the State can keep tabs,
* two are on some type of parole/work release from the juvenile court system
* at least four already have kids of their own
* one or two are currently pregnant
* 30-40% are reading at two or more grade levels below their current grade
* 20% are being treated for ADHD with Ritalin, Adderall or some other methylamphetamine salt
* at least two are packin' some form of weapon
* at least two are holdin' some form of recreational drug and another is selling the same
* at least one has clinically diagnosed oppositional defiance disorder and two more should be
* several will have aggression issues that haven't been worked out yet medically
* 40% have no concept of what constitutes acceptable public behavior and don't care to find out
* I could go on but by now you get the idea...

and 95% will go on to the next grade regardless because of "social promotion". Some will even graduate and still be functionally illiterate. It's criminal and difficult to witness.

Anyway... I'm sorry that so many of you didn't care for my letter. Despite its title it really wasn't written for High School students... just a late night rant in between getting lessons ready for tomorrow.

Thanks.

So what the fuck did you want? to teach a bunch of choir boys you fucking pussy? if you hate your job so much just quit.

 

[editec]

A beautifully written screed, I must admit.

There isn't anything beautiful about purple prose. It's atrocious.

Well one supposes that regardless of how one might feel about the content, the delivery was first rate.

Screed - b : an informal piece of writing (as a personal letter). c : a ranting piece of writing

Have you ever taught HS, Esmeralda?

It has its moments, believe me. Some of them wonderful, some of them make one wonder if you haven't make a terrible mistake on your career path.

I've done a wide variety of jobs to make my way in the world but teaching was perhaps the most rewarding, the most frustrating, and certainly the most difficult task I've ever done.

 

[Esmeralda]

A beautifully written screed, I must admit.

There isn't anything beautiful about purple prose. It's atrocious.

Well one supposes that regardless of how one might feel about the content, the delivery was first rate.

Screed - b : an informal piece of writing (as a personal letter). c : a ranting piece of writing

Have you ever taught HS, Esmeralda?

It has its moments, believe me. Some of them wonderful, some of them make one wonder if you haven't make a terrible mistake on your career path.

I've done a wide variety of jobs to make my way in the world but teaching was perhaps the most rewarding, the most frustrating, and certainly the most difficult task I've ever done.

It's the delivery I am refering to when I use the term purple prose: it is atrocious.

 

[Katzndogz]

Why is it that so many replies are certain that A) I'm not a teacher, B) don't exist, C) or a fraud?

I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to verify my bona fides and some will never be satisfied. I am, in fact, a teacher at both the high school and college level. My main content areas are History and American Government.

I'm sorry that some of you do not care for my style of writing but I totally understand. I think it was Barb who replied that I "officially suck"; and it must be true since she's the official expert on sucking--so thanks for that. Makes me feel right at home. I get insulted by teenagers on a daily basis and frankly, "you suck" is mild by comparison and not nearly as creative.

I think DGS49 got it right though... 5 to 7 years is about all any one adult can stand in this kind of work environment.

If I had to do a demographic of my classes, I would say that out of 30 students (13-17 yr olds):

* at least one is wearing a "Lo Jac" around his/her ankle so the State can keep tabs,
* two are on some type of parole/work release from the juvenile court system
* at least four already have kids of their own
* one or two are currently pregnant
* 30-40% are reading at two or more grade levels below their current grade
* 20% are being treated for ADHD with Ritalin, Adderall or some other methylamphetamine salt
* at least two are packin' some form of weapon
* at least two are holdin' some form of recreational drug and another is selling the same
* at least one has clinically diagnosed oppositional defiance disorder and two more should be
* several will have aggression issues that haven't been worked out yet medically
* 40% have no concept of what constitutes acceptable public behavior and don't care to find out
* I could go on but by now you get the idea...

and 95% will go on to the next grade regardless because of "social promotion". Some will even graduate and still be functionally illiterate. It's criminal and difficult to witness.

Anyway... I'm sorry that so many of you didn't care for my letter. Despite its title it really wasn't written for High School students... just a late night rant in between getting lessons ready for tomorrow.

Thanks.

Your letter was magnificently put. However, and it might have been by design, the words you used may well have been a foreign language to both students and adults. But you knew that. It was one of the points the letter was making. You put them in their place. While the complainers know that by some machination they have been put in their place, they can't identify or articulate how it was done. They only have a third grade reading level. Hence the all inclusive "you suck".

 

[psikeyhackr]

Why is it that so many replies are certain that A) I'm not a teacher, B) don't exist, C) or a fraud?

I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to verify my bona fides and some will never be satisfied. I am, in fact, a teacher at both the high school and college level. My main content areas are History and American Government.

Anyway... I'm sorry that so many of you didn't care for my letter. Despite its title it really wasn't written for High School students... just a late night rant in between getting lessons ready for tomorrow.

Thanks.

Well you don't teach math or sciences. I figured that with writing like this:

I can stomach the incessant cherry-cheeked white noise emanating from your insult-laden insolence, but after I sift through the wafer-thin patina of your blatant prevarications; all that remains is the steady drip, drip, drip of your insipid meanderings—the meaningless import of your profane pronouncements; the random oration in your venomous verdicts. Like some indignant moralizing gossip, you’re always the last to give up the conch. Your myopic world view is reassuringly one dimensional and the joke is at your expense. Why is it that you laugh the loudest? Congratulations. Irony is wasted on the comforted. And I hate myself for being party to your tenuous foot-hold on civility.

I was suspecting English Lit.

psik

 

[squeeze berry]

A beautifully written screed, I must admit.

There isn't anything beautiful about purple prose. It's atrocious.

Well one supposes that regardless of how one might feel about the content, the delivery was first rate.

Screed - b : an informal piece of writing (as a personal letter). c : a ranting piece of writing

Have you ever taught HS, Esmeralda?

It has its moments, believe me. Some of them wonderful, some of them make one wonder if you haven't make a terrible mistake on your career path.

I've done a wide variety of jobs to make my way in the world but teaching was perhaps the most rewarding, the most frustrating, and certainly the most difficult task I've ever done.

that ^ sums it up

 

[Unkotare]

A beautifully written screed, I must admit.

There isn't anything beautiful about purple prose. It's atrocious.

Well one supposes that regardless of how one might feel about the content, the delivery was first rate...

No it wasn't, and you must be a hack of the first degree yourself to think so. You seem like enough of a tasteless buffoon that you would gasp at the sight of a circus clown because you assume from his appearance that he must be an important and sophisticated gentleman.

 

[Two Thumbs]

assuming this op is really from a teacher


If that's how the twat writes, could you imagine having to sit and listen to him speak for an hour?

 

[FreddyMuscle]

Wow... so now I'm a pussy AND a twat. I'm detecting a theme here. Still not up to my 9th grader's level... but give it time.

Honestly, if this is what passes for discourse on this board I think I'm going to pass. But you guys keep right on posting... it makes your ID block so much more impressive. I'm especially taken by the number of Thank Yous some you have accumulated. It's fantastic.

 

[Unkotare]

Honestly, if this is what passes for discourse on this board I think I'm going to pass.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhQql-ZbZmg]Tombstone Well, bye short version - YouTube[/ame]