What's your thought on people like this? They get kids who are difficult, they don't WANT to learn or do anything and so the teacher's response is then they don't HAVE to do anything, nothing will ever be expected of them, there'll never be any expectations to hold the kids up to. Sure on one thought you're thinking 'why put off the inevitable?' but on the other thing, and as a teacher especially they ought to know, if the kids are met with no expectations and know that everybody's holding out ZERO hope for them to make something of themselves, why should THEY feel encouraged to learn either?

Teaching is a 2-way street. Sad as it is to give up on kids who aren't interested in learning, I'd rather teachers focus more on the students who are. Send the kids who're resistant to responsibility to a school that specializes in dealing with slackers. I see no reason for a well meaning teacher, who doesn't have a way with petulant kids to waste their time on those who refuse to cooperate.

Impact wrote:

Teaching is a 2-way street. Sad as it is to give up on kids who aren't interested in learning, I'd rather teachers focus more on the students who are. Send the kids who're resistant to responsibility to a school that specializes in dealing with slackers. I see no reason for a well meaning teacher, who doesn't have a way with petulant kids to waste their time on those who refuse to cooperate.

And in schools where there ARE good teachers that might be a good idea, but not around here. In this town there are no alternative schools for difficult students, that was closed last year, and apparently that's the attitude all the teachers have, make the kids actually learn? Why? Actually teach them something academic? Whatever for? Teach them phonics so they even know the sounds letters make? How absurd.

No, instead they just let the kids play games all day and Skype and watch movies, and when you have no alternatives to send the kids to, I say you have to put more emphasis on the 'second' chance kids because they are given no chances. I have a neighbor who is 15 and has learned that she doesn't need to know how to read or write because computers have spellcheck and it isn't important anyway 'because things are different now' and has no plans for the future, and when asked what school is for, the answer she's learned by example is 'to go and play games'.

And I apologize if this is getting a bit redundant for everybody else here, but this is a hot topic with me. These are the kinds of kids that you would say 'fall through the cracks', and isn't that supposed to mean they're rare, happen here and there, and are not the norm? My mother has a friend who used to be a schoolteacher, he has a grandson in the second grade who is getting sent back to kindergarten and this is AFTER the grandfather spent two years trying to teach him, but nooooooooo, the kids don't want to learn, fine, they don't have to learn, they don't have to study, they don't have to do anything, they can just play games all day and when they get out into the real world, that's somebody else's problem because studying isn't what school's for anymore apparently.

Some kids won't be reached. However, I think that the a majority of the so-called 'problem children' are really more on the borderline, and *can* be gotten through to with diligence. A significant part of being a teacher, I think, is nurturing. It's every teachers responsibility to inspire a pupil, and if that means fighting to get through to them, then so be it. If you're going to teach kids, then you need to accept that the role will go beyond lesson plans and text books.

Chris wrote:

Some kids won't be reached. However, I think that the a majority of the so-called 'problem children' are really more on the borderline, and *can* be gotten through to with diligence. A significant part of being a teacher, I think, is nurturing. It's every teachers responsibility to inspire a pupil, and if that means fighting to get through to them, then so be it. If you're going to teach kids, then you need to accept that the role will go beyond lesson plans and text books.

Indeeeeed, nobody said teaching was going to be easy, if it was easy then...no, scratch that, several non-certified people already prove themselves better capable of teaching kids than the paid so called professionals.

Chris wrote:

Some kids won't be reached. However, I think that the a majority of the so-called 'problem children' are really more on the borderline, and *can* be gotten through to with diligence. A significant part of being a teacher, I think, is nurturing. It's every teachers responsibility to inspire a pupil, and if that means fighting to get through to them, then so be it. If you're going to teach kids, then you need to accept that the role will go beyond lesson plans and text books.

Chris wrote:

Some kids won't be reached. However, I think that the a majority of the so-called 'problem children' are really more on the borderline, and *can* be gotten through to with diligence. A significant part of being a teacher, I think, is nurturing. It's every teachers responsibility to inspire a pupil, and if that means fighting to get through to them, then so be it. If you're going to teach kids, then you need to accept that the role will go beyond lesson plans and text books.

Well said, Chris.