Dear Parents of my Students: It's Your Fault. (F that 'sensitivy training'!)

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m not sure if I’m good at Pitting (well, I have bad manners on here half the time without even realizing it) but I am tired. I am so fucking tired of PARENTS. Because here’s the thing: I fully expect kids to act like morons. I know they’ll make stupid decisions. I know some will get knocked up, arrested, or worse. That’s unfortunate.

But do parents have to enable? Do you really have to come into my office and say, “Stop treating my kid like he ghetto; he ain’t a gangsta, you jus’ racist!” after your kid has been expelled from three schools already? Are we all racists?

Do you really need to tell your kid (in front of me), “I"m done with you. If you fuck up again, you’re outta here. I got three other kids to take care of. You ain’t shit.” (And the kid is 13.)

Is it really necessary for you to smoke pot with your kids before school? Excuse them from class because they got into a row with a teacher and don’t feel like doing their homework anymore?

Or the parents that let their daughter’s boyfriend live with them and the kids are 16 going on 30?!

Fuck them. You want to know why our school suck? Parents. I know I’m not supposed to do this - I’m not supposed to be judgmental. I’m supposed to appreciate home conditions. Saying it’s their fault makes ethnocentric and inconsiderate. Whatever. Fuck that.

Fuck the mom who ran off and abandoned her two children after her oldest son was shot. His brother just graduated last week and regularly has run-ins with a rival gang of his brother’s because he talked to the police about the shooting. They show up at his house, at school, whatever. And there’s nothing he can do.

Fuck the mom who lets her EIGHTH GRADE SON run around with ADULT GANGSTER MEN. She’s ‘given up on him’ and he comes to school 30 per cent of the time (if that). His UA just came back positive for COCAINE.

Fuck all of the parents who embrace gang culture.

Fuck the cracked out moms. They make their falling-apart and angry kids look normal.

FUCK ALL OF THE DEADBEAT DADS.

Double-fuck the parents who ‘agree’ with their kids when the kids say, “That teacher be trippin” after a staff member confiscates their drugs/cell phone/etc or asks them to refrain from using violent language.

Fuck the parents who never return our phone calls or inquiries about grades or truancy.

And fuck all those parents who don’t get their kids’ immigration papers straightened out when they had the chance.

Sure, there are good parents with bad kids. But what I see is a lot of bad bad parenting. Because of parents – you know, the ADULTS – I have a student who: 1) saw her father arrested and slated for deportation 2) watched her friend get stabbed 3) a week after her other friend had been shot in the head and 4) her sister was arrested and now this 16 year old girl is responsible for her sister’s kids so DHS doesn’t take them away. And this happened within a 3 week span. Did I mention she also lives next door to a rapist? The man is her friends’ mom’s boyfriend and regularly helps himself to his ‘stepdaughter’.

Call me insensitive. Call me racist because these are back and Latino kids I teach. Whatever. I reject the culture that you breed and enable.

I have been worried sick about this kid who is the apparent target of a rival gang (well, he’s not in a gang, but his brother was associated with so and so and blah blah territorial pissings: see the above story). This kid has straightened up his act, acted as a good role model/influence to the younger kids in the center and just graduated. He said to me, “Miss, I’m not scared anymore. I’ve been shot at twice. I’ve seen two people get shot. The worst that happens is a bullet hits me.” I’m sorry, but eighteen year old boys are supposed to worry about baseball and girls and college applications. He actually said to me, “Miss, I don’t want to leave school. No one bothers me here. I come here early, I go to work til late, I go home.” That broke my heart. Kids should be ELATED when they graduate.

I can be sympathetic (to a degree) with the kids. I can try to see the whole package. But at a certain point, you have to grow up. And these parents? I hate them. I hate them so much. These are beautiful children they’ve fucked up/are fucking up.

I see these kids, they come in all tough and their pants sagging and they’re stoned and so gangsta for being expelled from public school and…they open their mouths and you find out their voices haven’t even cracked yet! And they still love ice cream and stickers and silly jokes and hugs and high fives. They’re kids. And they deserve so, so much better.

2

just because you have not been visited by two angels as of yet, it doesn’t make working for Sodom Unified School District or even living anywhere in the vicinity any more of a sensible proposition.

3

That totally blows. It’d be great if there was something that could be done but hell if I know what.

Keep fighting the good fight. I’m sure some of your students appreciate you, or at least, they may someday.

4

Prepare for the ram, CP. You’re about to catch hell. This thread is going to be a real tar baby.

5

Can you even say that? :dubious:

6

Dunno, CP seems to be in a really shitty neighborhood, but teachers’ rants about bad parenting and how that leaves teachers picking up parens’t slack is something I’ve had to listen to all my childhood. If any Doper has teachers in his/her family, he/she wouldnt find CP’s rant outrageous.

7

Lack of appreciation for third-person-singular verb conjugation?

8

This is key. You have made your classroom a safe place or these kids. Keep it that way. Don’t allow bullying, assaultive behavior, foul language (as much as you can), etc. just say “we don’t do that here.” and “That’s the rules in here. If you don’t like it you can leave.” Repeate, as often as necessary (probably quite often).

But continue doing your best to keep your classroom a safe place for kids. For some of them, it might be the only place where they feel somewhat safe. And that may be the only thing you can really accomplish. It’s enough. You can’t handle their lousy parents, their poverty-stricken or unsafe home situation, the violence of the streets, etc. But if you can handle it within your classroom, you’ve kept at least one place safe for the kids. That’s an accomplishment to strive for.

9

I’ve never been a teacher and don’t have any plans to do it. But I’ve always thought that if I ever was a teacher, and I encountered kids who acted aggressive, disdainful, and disrespectful to the other kids and to the teachers, I would simply and straightforwardly ask them: “Why are you being this way? Do you realize that you are behaving in an antisocial fashion? What do you get out of this? Don’t you understand that this is not how civilized people behave?”

What would these kids even say to that?

10

Wow, CP, I admire your efforts to make the best of this bad situation and your committment to giving them a safe space where they can try to shake off the bad stuff in their lives for a little while.

My guess is that these parents are like this because they are unknowingly perpetuating the cycle of poverty, violence, and apathy that they’ve been surrounded by their whole lives. I want to be optimistic and think these kids will be the ones to break that cycle, and perhaps some of them will, but the sad truth is most of them will keep it going. It’s damn near impossible to grow up in that environment, with that sort of family life, and know what to do to get out of it and make it different for your own children. It can be done, but I can only imagine what an uphill battle it is.

I wish we put more money and resources into all our schools, but especially ones like yours, CP. If you had more to work with, maybe it would mean more kids getting out. The kid who is being harassed because of talking to the police sounds like he really wants to get out of there, I just hope he’ll be able to. My best friend’s younger brother was shot and killed when he was about 17. Several people saw what happened, but not one came forward to talk to police. At his funeral, the pastor went off on a tangent about taking responsiblity, and he pretty much called those kids out right then and there, but still, no one ever spoke up. It was depressing, and it made my friend so angry that her brother’s killer would never be caught.

11

Thank you for being a teacher, especially in such a school district. You are doing an extremely valuable service.

12

Thank you for trying. I have heard similar stories from all the teachers I know.

13

When I was 15 I wouldn’t even have understood the second question… if you ever have the chance to speak with one of those kids, I hope you’ll be able to, first, ask questions one by one, and second, speak in a register they can understand.

14

And to think I decided not to go into teaching just from learning about the helicopter parents in my first (and only) teaching class. I don’t know how you can deal with this crap, but I give you props.

15

Maybe I’m being whooshed but I don’t get it. The OP was a pretty conventional and understandable teacher tirade.

16

Care to explain what this is supposed to mean?

17

Probable answers, IMO:

  1. Silence/rolled-eyes.
  2. Quick shrug.
  3. “Man!” and a tongue-click.

Because what they’ll hear you say is, “I disapprove of you. You’re a bad person.” And that’s not something that’s gonna trip them up: they’ve been hearing that message all their lives.

18

Good luck with that.

19

Do you teach in South Bend? Are you my sister-in-law? If you’re not, you have surprisingly similar stories. It’s always interesting to talk to her about her job.

20

My sister is a principal of a public middle school. While she is fortunate enough not to be in an area where drugs and gangs are heavy in the community, her biggest complaint is the parents defending the student no matter what the teacher’s issues are. The parent and child will participate in a meeting and the child walks away with the thought that he is right and the teacher’s are wrong because Mama said so. Honestly, I don’t know how teachers do it.