JoeB1317 said:
Given your shitty superior attitudes towards poor people, maybe you'd be happier doing something else for a living?
Again what are YOU doing to help the poor? Since you didn't answer that, I'm going to assume it's less than what I do. If you're to talk the talk-at least have the balls to walk the walk.
For the record, I love my job, and I don't have a "shitty" attitude, I have a realistic attitude (that has been gained from experience).
The problem is when I have students in my classroom who tell me that they'll never have a fair shake at life so why should they bother trying-they hear this from their culture and from the media where the liberals/democrats tell them such-so they sit there and do nothing. I can tell them until I'm blue in the fact that getting an education is not a waste will help them out of poverty-they don't buy into it (many of them).
What I posted is 100% true based on my own experience. Of course I've taught poor students who have managed to get themselves out of poverty, but let's be real: the majority (yes majority) of my students are respectful enough-but they stare at the wall the entire class period and perform no work. They have no motivation or ambition to perform their work. They're just another spoke in their family's wheel of poverty.
JoeB1317 said:
Has it occurred to you that you just suck as a teacher? My mom was a teacher, and I had people come up to me decades later and tell me they became professional artists because of what she taught them in art class. (Ironically, I can't draw a straight line.)
Professional artists?! My students don't even have food on the table when they go home at night, and wouldn't be able to afford the canvas to paint on, give me a break. I get students coming up to me all of the time saying one of three things:
1) Thanking me for helping them make a better life for themselves
2) Telling me they regret not taking me seriously, but thanking me nonetheless
3) Laughing at me when they see me/try to say hi
PS: In a title 1 school, with a large population of ESOL/former ESOL students (I teach English mind you), I continually beat my district exam scores by a full letter grade. I teach at one of the worst schools, and beat most of the teachers from better schools...and you want to know why? Because I don't bullshit my students-and the ones that buy into it (which is more than many of my peers), know that I'll do ANYTHING for them to succeed.
JoeB1317 said:
Well, you have a point. This is the 21st century, where good honest labor is being done by machines and third world people now. Unlike the 20th century, where you could get a good union job with just a HS Diploma and still be able to feed a family.
I agree that's a problem (jobs being lost overseas and from new technologies), however the solution isn't expecting society to conform to the individual-the individual has to conform to society. The jobs that have been replaced by technology are NOT coming back. People have two options: whine and ***** about it, or to do something about it. It's why I continually tell my students: "what are you going to do about it?".
JoeB1317 said:
But quite honestly, if you go into the classroom every day thinking they are all going to fail and deserve to, you are probably not helping the process.
I had a male student this year hug me last day of school and cry uncontrollably because he's the first student in his family to go to college-on a full ride scholarship-and thanked me for helping him with the application process, helping him to write letters, helping him 2-3 times a week (unpaid) after school to become a stronger writer.
This DOES exist...the sad thing is that he's in the minority-most of my students (certainly not all) would rather do/sell drugs, gang-bang on the weekends, buy/sell guns, and try to be rappers (at least the last one is a legal means of making money-but unfortunately it's what they tend to be the worst at it lol)-they're not the cute cuddly "kids" the media would have you believe.
The reality is that it takes students like the gentleman above, and students who WANT to do better-most of his peers don't, and in 10 years when they're sweeping the floors at 7/11 for minimum wage (if they're lucky or even get a job), they'll be bitching about how much money he makes, and why society was so unfair to them.
Finally, and let me be crystal clear: I never stated that they all deserve to fail-I stated that the students who stare at the wall and-literally-put no effort into their work whatsoever deserve to fail. The ones that want to succeed-even if they're D/F students-I WILL get them to where they need to go, even if it means putting in extra hours, or working much harder than I need to (because I want to).
Go back to what you're good at (being a keyboard warrior), and I'll go back to what I'm good at: helping some people in the next generation get out of poverty.