Demanding the Impossible...

[SuperScout]

THE TEACHER APPLICANT

After being interviewed by the school administration,

The teaching prospect said, "Let me see if I've got this right:

You want me to... go into that room with all those kids,

1. correct their disruptive behavior,
2. observe them for signs of abuse,
3. monitor their dress habits,
4. censor their T-shirt messages,
5. and instill in them a love for learning.

You want me to..

6 - check their backpacks for weapons,
7 - wage war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, and
8 - raise their sense of self esteem and personal pride.

You want me to....

9 - teach them patriotism and good citizenship, sportsmanship and fair play, and
10 - how to register to vote,
11 - balance a checkbook, and
12 - apply for a job.

You want me to

13 - check their heads for lice,
14 - recognize signs of anti-social behavior, and
15 - make sure that they all pass the state exams.

You also want me to

16 - provide them with an equal education regardless of their
handicaps, and
17 - communicate regularly with their parents in English and Spanish by letter, telephone, conferences, email, homework hotline, web page, midterm newsletters, and report card.

You want me to do all this with a piece of chalk, a blackboard, a bulletin board, a few books, a big smile, and a starting salary that qualifies me for food stamps.

You want me to do all this and then you tell me......

"I CAN'T PRAY?"

[phuloi]

Some irony, huh?

With prayer they could prune 1-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 off the friggin list!

[revwardoc]

I guess parents are no longer part of the teaching equation.

[revwardoc]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/lif...cle6054770.ece

Teachers targeted in their own homes by pupils, say union delegates

Teachers are being intimidated in their own homes by unruly pupils, a union has claimed.

One teacher returned from work to find the word “bitch” painted across her garden wall. Another found that his car had been scratched with a key. A third had 17 windows smashed at her home, while a fourth received a series of late-night obscene calls.

These events are just a snapshot of a much bigger picture of intimidation and damage to property endured by teachers daily, members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers heard at their annual conference in Liverpool.

Even when they are on school premises, teachers cannot be sure that their property is safe. In the past year the union has received 146 claims about malicious damage to property and 69 claims of damage to vehicles.

Maxine Bradshaw, a teacher from North Wales, told the conference that pupils felt that they could get away with anything. “Parents and teachers feel powerless to discipline children for fear of repercussions or, worse still, prosecution,” she said.

Even when police did get involved with cases of vandalism, it was often a waste of time, she said.

When her car was damaged by pupils from another school she was offered restorative justice — in which perpetrators meet the victims to make amends. But the youngsters “appeared to feel no remorse” and offered an insincere apology, she said.

Ian Martin, from Bristol, said that he was aware of staff facing knife threats. On one occasion the knife had been made from copper in a workshop. In another incident a former student drove to a college and fired an airgun at pupils and staff, he said.

“A member of staff teaching 16 and 17-year-olds who had recently returned to work following a triple heart bypass was subjected to a student threatening to shoot him and students,” Mr Martin said.

Ms Bradshaw said that schools should follow the policy of many other public buildings with display notices indicating that they will operate a “zero tolerance” policy towards anyone who is violent or abusive to staff.

Although violence and abusive behaviour among pupils are commonplace in many schools, teachers are given very little training in how to respond.

Wendy Hardy, a teacher in Derby who works with excluded pupils and those at risk of exclusion, said that trainee teachers were offered just one hour and fifteen minutes’ training, during three or four years of study, on how to handle challenging behaviour.

A recent survey by the union found that challenging behaviour was one of the main reasons why one in five teachers leave the profession in the first five years of their careers.

But Irene Baker, a delegate from Sefton, Merseyside, said that schools were partly to blame. Pupils knew that they could get away with bad behaviour because the worst thing that they face is a talking-to. This would leave pupils little able to cope with the world once they left school and were forced to accept the consequences of their actions, she said.