[Robin29590]

They say you don’t know what war is like unless you have actually been on the battlefield. The same is definitely true of teaching, which is a modern battlefield in its own right (I know, I taught public high school math for a year). I think what you’ve experienced is a result of two phenomena: 1) people realizing that teaching is a daunting job for which they never gave their own teachers enough credit, or 2) they have absolutely no idea what the state of the modern classroom is like, as the only experiences they’ve had took place many years ago when children had been raised to respect authority. Today’s classroom is much different from the ones they might have experienced, in which no one would have dared talk back to the teacher, let alone cuss him or her out and throw chairs at them. Many classrooms are holding-pens, filled with 35 or more students who (despite the teacher’s most creative efforts to instruct and create interest in the material) have no desire to be there or learn and don’t feel like putting up the facade that they do. I know many teachers who were wonderfully gifted in what they did but could not deal with the tide of apathy against which they had to fight, and thus quit. This is just another indicator of the desperate need for a complete overhaul of our education system. In most places, it is illegal for a child to stop going to school unless he or she is over 16, so many just hang out until they hit the right age, and then the day before they turn 16 is the last day you see them in your classroom. These are often kids who should have been funneled through some sort of basic skills and job training track, but weren’t because no such track existed. Until such alternatives are not only available but promoted, you will continue to suffer the disrespectful effects, especially because those kids who didn’t want to be there eventually become parents.

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Name : Robin29590, Gender : F, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 24, City : Pittsburgh, State : PA, Country : United States, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, 

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