Then your son and his friends need some discipline. In my classroom, there is no hitting. None. Zero. Not any. That is fact. That has always been the way I run my classroom. Over the years, I’ve probably had several thousand students. They all managed to go through my class each day with no hitting. Here’s the thing: Even among teenage boys, hitting is only okay when you figure there will be no repercussions. Bet your son and his buddies don’t “buddy punch” the class psycho. Bet they don’t “buddy punch” the principal. In fact, they don’t “buddy punch” anyone who can kick the shit out of them either physically or through the system. If your kid hit me or one of the teachers in my school and you came in to tell me (I’m on the disciplinary Committee) something like you posted here, all I would say in return would be “I don’t think so. Tell it to the magistrate, if you like, but I don’t think he’ll buy it either.”
Diane, did you miss the part where he threatened to harm her further, and has a history of being violent and bullying other students?
Salary negotiations are carried out between individual unions and schools, and they vary wildly. I’ve never heard of a public school that pays teachers $100,000 per year (although that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen in Beverly Hills). Our district has a cap less than half of that, no matter how long you work there or what degrees you get (see below).
As for your responses to me above, I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree. My response isn’t “knee-jerk” by any stretch of the imagination. Violence against teachers isn’t lessened because it didn’t leave a mark. One can be slapped around pretty thoroughly (enough to hurt a lot) without leaving marks. This isn’t a “zero tolerance” issue. What the kid did was flat-out wrong, and should be dealt with harshly, by which I mean suspension (this time), a visit to the police station, and a crystal-clear explanation that the next offence means expulsion and possibly jail time.
Again, it varies from district to district. Our district doesn’t require advanced degrees at all, but teachers are paid on a “steps and lanes” system. Basically it’s a salary grid. When you’re hired with a bachelor’s degree and no experience, you start in the lower-left box (around $20K/year here). Each year of experience moves you up a row. Each advanced degree or special certification moves you to the right one column. If you stay 20+ years and get your PhD and an extra cert or two, you could end up at almost $50K/year.
I understand that some teachers put in outrageous hours. I used to teach in college, and the prep time was murderous. HOWEVER, an elementary teacher that’s been teaching the same grades for a decade or more has the lesson plans pretty much down pat, and homework grading isn’t too bad. $50K may not sound like much, but you can do it in 45 hours a week or less, and get over three months a year off, during which you work another job if you need more money. Schools typically have pretty good insurance plans (ours has a very low deductable and covers the spouse for a nominal amount) and other benefits on top of that.
And $50K/year in rural Montana, where you can still buy a 2,500 sq foot house for $150K, is very different from $50K/year in San Francisco.
I’m with Antinor01. There’s something wrong with those boys.
I’m a 5’0" brunette woman and I don’t allow anyone to hit another person in my class. I don’t allow them to be cruel to each other verbally in my presence either. It’s true that boys like to get physical with each other, and I have stepped in during such “play” to shut it down, because eventually, someone is going to get hurt, no matter how non-serious the hitting is when it starts. “Boys will be boys” will not cover my ass if one of those boys gets hurt and the parents blame me for not controling my students.
I’m not sure what I’d do in the OP’s place, though that’s because the AP at my school would be on this like white on rice. Not all administrators are as responsive and clear-headed as mine.
Maybe this isn’t the best school for you, Ms. Fumando. My previous job was at a school where the principal didn’t consider kids drawing swastikas on my desks to be of any concern at all, despite my horror, what with the Jewish last name and all. I got no support from the admins and it sucked. Now, things are much better. I wish you luck. Finding the right fit when you need to keep food on the table is tricky.
Pull your head out of the sand. Playing rough is fine. Let the kids play sports, run, wrestle, and such. But if they can’t be together for two minutes without hitting somebody, there’s something wrong.
And, of course, because he’ll hit them if they say anything that’s not nice about him. 
How many times did either of your kids hit a teacher? None? Then they’re not exactly relevent to the kid in the OP, are they?
And if you don’t like people criticizing your parenting skills, don’t use your kids as examples to back up your argument. Evidence in any debate here is going to get discussed and dissected. The fact that the evidence in this case happens to be your offspring doesn’t give you a pass on that.
Another data point:
No Child Left Behind requires that, as of next school year (I believe), all teachers:
-Have a bachelor’s degree
-Have a teaching certificate
-Have competence in the subject they’re teaching.
In North Carolina, this means that all elementary teachers must undergo a teaching program at an accredited university (unless they’re coming from another state). If you don’t have a teaching certificate, you can’t get your masters in education, at least not at the two universities I tried at. You have to do a five-semester program to get the certificate, which may or may not net you a second bachelor’s degree, and only then can you go for your master’s degree.
If you’ve got your bachelor’s and you want to teach at the middle or high school level, or you want to teach special ed, you can take an intensive summer program that will get you a provisional teaching license; you’ll take evening classes for a year or two to qualify for a full license.
If you’ve got your master’s and you’re willing to teach something like math, the process for being hired goes something like this:
- Call the school district you’d like to teach at.
- Answer their question: “When can you start?”
A friend of mine needed to move to another city. Having never taught before or taken any education courses, she was in front of the students in three weeks.
A master’s degree, or a National Board Certification, will net you a 15% increase in salary. I don’t think salaries for teachers in North Carolina ever rise above $50,000, even if you’ve got your doctorate and your board certification and have taught for 25 years.
There are predicted shortages of teachers; North Carolina is heavily recruiting teachers from the Dakotas, if I understand correctly. I can’t imagine why these shortages exist.
Daniel
My qualifications as a career counselor? WTF you talking about? Career counselor? Career counselor? Get your facts straight before your open your yammering gob, you fucking SDMB village moron.
Aside from that, explain to me how a teacher, who sees herself as the helpless widdle 5’2”, blonde (the fuck is that about?), girl, ever going to be tough enough to stand up to, and garner respect from, 9th grade kids. If the kids perceive her as she perceives herself, they are going to eat her for lunch.
Scumpup - AFAIK, my kids have never fucked around in class, hitting each other or something else, I have had exactly two calls from the school for the behavior of my kids. The first one was a when my oldest son and his friends taped the bathroom stall door closed (with another friend inside). That was 7th grade. The second call was when my daughter wore a Superman cape and a mohawk to school (9th grade). I have never been told my kids rough-house in class.
Go back and read my post. Jeeezuz, do you guys see the words? Comprehend them? Read English? My sons DON’T buddy punch the principle, teachers, me, or anyone else except each other, and even then they don’t do it in class. I would have heard about it long ago and put and end to it. And yeah, they would have been punished.
Did you happen to notice that I said the boy in the OP deserves to be punished? That it was wrong to do? That he needs to understand there are consequences to certain actions? HELLO? Yo hablo English?
No Guin, I didn’t miss anything, thanks. It doesn’t change my opinion that:
- The kid was wrong and should be punished.
- There was quite the display of the typical SDMB mob mentality (before the additional information came out) springing to life. I find it hilarious to watch the indignation contest blast off into full action.
- The OPs perception of herself certainly isn’t going to help her teach junior high school kids. Period.
Can I make this any simpler?
No Miller, my kids aren’t relevent to the OP (I got that, but thanks much) in the fact that they never hit a teacher (thank the good lord baby jeesus someone finally comprehended that complicated matter). The part of my post that is relevent (which I used them as an example) is my experiences around teenage boys and that they can play rough. That part is relevent. Dickhead up there felt the need to question my parenting skills. . . . I am a mom, I ain’t gonna let it fly.
Wombat - You make it sound like my kids are constantly slugging each other. Not true at all. My youngest son is very active in sports. He doesn’t go around hitting other people, in fact, he is more of the weird fist hit, knuckle-bump, shoulder-to-shoulder handshake type when meeting up with his friends. He thinks he is the perfect image of cool. My oldest son is the same way. The only exception is when they are together and they feel like they need to wrestle each other until mom looses her fucking mind. HOWEVER, they have had enough friends that I have been around quite a few teenage boys to know that they can be pretty physical with each other. I wondered in my first post if maybe this kid took buddy-slug thing outside the boundries without thinking about it first and now my suffer the consequences.
I wasted enough time explaining what was (at least in my opinion) very clearly stated in my first post in this thread. I now must go perform those Career Counselor duties, whatever the hell that means.
I’ll take credit for that. He’s a peeve, and he’s my pet.
Though treis didn’t say it specifically, he sort of implied that teachers do no work and get paid handsomely for it. That attitude is pretty ubiquitous, and I was just trying to stem the tide, not cause an entire hijack.
It seems to me that people remember their schooldays, when they went home at 3pm, and just assumed the teachers did too. And because the teacher wore a nice vest and drove a car, he must be rich as well. And hey, it’s the students that do all the work. The teachers have books with the answers already in them!
I guess that these childhood assumptions just carry over into adulthood.
Gee, Diane, overall it sounds like you had fuck-all to contribute to this thread beyond some ill-conceived career advice. If your kids aren’t like the pile of dogshit who struck the OP, there was no reason for you to bring them up at all, was there? If you just want to brag about them, then start a new thread of your own.
Not much of a psychiatrist either.
Daniel
Which is, you know, really special and unique in a thread where about half the posters have actually been teenage boys. Thanks for sharing your expert testimony, it’s really shed a whole new light on the OP for all involved, I am sure.
And again, if you don’t want people questioning your parenting skills, don’t try to use your parenting skills as evidence for a debate. No one is impressed or intimidated by your mama bear routine.
Did I ever say that boys won’t play rough with each other at times?? The part that I took exception with was the ‘can’t be together more than two minutes’ comment. That implied a lot more than occasional rough play. That implied aggressive behaviour that they can’t control. OTOH I happen to have known plenty of non-sissy boys (god that sounds so wrong to say) that don’t hit people, ever.
Great for him, that’s all wonderful. What the hell does that have to do with hitting your friends every two minutes or assaulting a teacher?
I didn’t say that you were a bad parent (talk about knee jerking). You presented one snapshot of your child and by extension your parenting. If you see a child in a restaurant throwing a fit do you think, oh they must be so well liked and well behaved in other settings, what wonderful parents! ?
What I was saying was that if a 15 year old doesn’t know that you don’t hit teachers or other people every two minutes, they there is something wrong with them and that is usually because of how they were raised.
He’s been sent to the office 3 times for his lack of control. It is not at all unreasonable to report him to the police officer assigned to that school (isn’t that why they are there?). Nor is it unreasonable to expect him to be suspended with the possiblility of expulsion based on his overall record and school policy.
I do agree that the was she described herself appears to show a poor self image for an authority figure. I can see however that it would be easy to see yourself as a helpless figure after sending someone out for assaulting you and the people that are supposed to deal with it send them back because they just ‘don’t have the time’.
Psychiatrist? Keep trying, but one more strike and you are out. Ya know, I really haven’t noticed you much as I tend to skip over your many, many windbag posts, but you really do live up to your reputation as the board imbecile, doncha?
Scumpup - The reason I even brought up my kids was to show that I have been around quite a few teenage boys in my old age (kind of like other posters do when they bring their views and experiences). Where it went from there, you may see as bragging, I see it as defending my skills at motherhood.
Off to do some of that there psychiatristy stuff.
Miller - You are very welcome! May I also compliment you on the vast amount of quality information and enlightening views you bring to the board? My god, don’t ever leave!
Sure: you suck as a pitcher.
I invite you to keep skipping over my posts, and to keep deluding yourself about my reputation hereabouts; looks to me like you’re pretty busy building a reputation of your own.
Daniel
Not to be mean, but so the fuck what that you only get paid during the school year? The conversation concerned teacher’s annual salaries. If you, as a teacher, make $40k a year, that’s what you make A YEAR . The fact that you get paid 18 times in that year instead of 24 times should change neither your net nor gross incomes. Let me help you with an example: whatever your salary is I am sure someone in another profession (who works just as hard and is just as educated) makes the same amount, but without the summer/Christmas/spring breaks (if he’s lucky he gets ten days and the big 7 naitonal holidays off). I’l let you guess how he gets paid? Dollars to doughnuts it’s in those"smaller paychecks " you lament - you know, the one’s you would have were you to take your annual income over the entire year. If you run out of dough in the summer, it’s probably not a result of low pay, it’s poor planning.
As Clothahump keenly observed, this is a wild hijack and inasmuch as I am largely responsible for it, I appologize to the OP.
Back on track –
Kids don’t hit your teachers.
A kid that hits his teacher in the arm and then the next day threatens to hit her in the mouth deserves a one-way ticket on cruiser to an all-expenses paid weekend at the gray bar hotel
out of curiousity (seriously, I have no dog in this fight), how do you get psychiatrist out of her post? what did I miss?
I was just fucking with her, seeing as how she was acting far too stupid to take seriously. She referred to me as a moron, so I took that as a diagnostic of the sort that’s best left to the professionals. It wasn’t a comment from me to take too seriously. She’s not worth my bother to be serious.
Daniel
tdn -when I had a bus problem, on the take home from school bus, I called my son’s elementary school at 4pm (that’s when he gets off the bus–school is out at 3:30). Nobody there. I drove over there–locked and dark. That is farily typical, unless there is prep going on for a school play or concert. (that is not true of middle or HS–those are very busy beehives!).
I am sure that teaching has its difficulties and challenges–I subbed for a few months and it was not a cakewalk by any means. But neither was it ohhhhh, sooooo difficult that all else pales by comparison. I refuse, facing the challenges that I face every day I work, to view teaching as any kind of gold standard re stress and being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work to be done. Come, be a nurse in acute adult care for a day. Teachers aren’t working nocs, weekends, holidays etc. I work a 12-14 hour day on my feet, moving people who weigh in excess of 300 pounds almost continually. This could easily become a spitting contest, so I won’t go there. But there are plenty of professions and jobs out there that make teaching seem like at least an easier street, if not easy street.
I understand and sympathize (somewhat) with teacher’s complaints about discipline and class size and having to teach the test. But none of this should come as a surprise to any teacher. IMO, the OP is not in the appropriate grade, and might not be in the right school for her. She needs lessons in assertiveness, and even outright intimidation(to be used when needed, only, not as a crutch).
But she also needs to garner respect from her students–not liking, not fear, but respect. You do that by earning trust. You cannot rely on the social convention of “me, adult-you, kid, so I you have to treat me with respect”–that doesn’t always work, as we see here. This kid doesn’t buy into that construct, for whatever reason. But he may participate in “I’m your teacher and I’m here to challenge you in math; let me show you ways to use your math skills to compete, to learn, to win points or whatever”. If she shows the class that she respects them (by not just sending them down to the AP), she might get further or at least not face these situations as often.
It can be a fine line, extending yourself (especially to kids who have shitty home environments and who may well be clueless as to role expectations etc), and not opening yourself up to possible disrespect or abuse.
There is no easy answer to this kind of thing–that is why I get exasperated when I read about police, arrests, expulsion etc–they don’t solve the problem. They just get rid of one kid. And next year, the OP will be faced with a bigger kid, or a girl with behavior issues–the approach needs to change, IMO.
Right back at you, Diane. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen people change their mind in a debate because of your calm, reasoned input and unique insights. If I had to guess, I’d say it would be somewhere in the high ones, at the very least.