Job Discussion Forums

[moonshine]

ok, truthfully, my only teaching experience was overseas (Korea) but again, it was for almost 6 years, which is respectable experience.

still, today I did my first substitute teaching, in a high school, not really urban but more suburban, although highly diverse student population.

I was absolutely stunned how rude these students were. cursing, shouting, throwing things, eating and drinking in class, you name it, they did it.

they absolutely hated me and had no qualms about showing it.

at one point I even called security. the afternoon was better, but wow, I was
blown away by the 2 morning groups.

it was truly the inmates taking over the asylum. the teachers all seemed so passive, as well, as if they were afraid of the students.

what's gotten into our culture, for goodness' sake??

I've read horror stories on here before about American classrooms but really believed I could handle it after Korea, but now I'm not so sure.

comments?

[NYCESOL11211]

I started my teaching career in Korea, working with rich kids in a rich suburb of Seoul. The teaching part (not the working for greedy hagwon owners) was great, and I decided to attempt to make a career of teaching kids.

My first stop after Korea was in NYC. I started taking graduate EDU courses, and I got a substitute teaching license. 75% of the schools I subbed at were hellish, mostly in Brooklyn. I'll never forget the day I called security when the junior high kids were attacking each other with bricks. Yeah, it was that bad.

After that I started teaching adults, and I haven't looked back. It's a much, much better occupation for me.

Good luck!

[Sadebugo]

[moonshine]

it also cracks me up how many people will go on about how no one wants to teach in urban schools always implying that those people are racist or elitist. I admit I was even leaning in that direction until I saw for myself just how chaotic it truly is.

later this week I taught at a new school, 9th grade only - seriously - an entire school just for 9th graders, down the street from the other h*ll-hole I was in before - and some of those students were definitely headed the same direction as the charming (not) ones I'd had earlier.

I've heard it's pretty much the norm in way too many schools across our country that the kids are like this. wow, just wow. what's going to happen in the next few years when these people are adults and are suppose to be an integral part of society? except for the integral part?

be afraid, be very afraid.

[TeresaLopez]

Sadly, this is nothing new. I have a degree in Elemetary Education, and started my brief career as a teacher of small beings in Chicago. This was over 20 years ago, and it was just about as bad as you describe even then. From there, I moved to Milwaukee, WI, where I taught for 5 years, and it was actually worse than in Chicago. I also worked for 6 months in a lovely small Catholic school in a suburb, where, strangely enough, most of the kids weren�t Catholic, but had very few discipline problems, just the usual ones you�d expect with kids - talking during a lesson, passing notes, not paying attention, etc. Parents were very involved, which makes all the difference. But the pay was abysmal, not enough to survive on. Came to Mexico to visit relatives, ended up getting a job and staying for a looooonnnnngggggggg time. I also tried teaching kids here, and found the opposite to be true, kids in private schools are awful for the most part, if it is a more elite school, and great in a small neighborhood private school, but again, there is the pay issue. I have been teaching adults now for years and would probably never go back to teaching children. So it�s not just a problem in the US, I think it is in many places, though I blame US influences for lots of problems in Mexico, inside and outside the classroom.