8 ms·

i left teaching in 2 years, and I wanted to leave it pretty much as soon as i started...took me 2 years to get out...what a mess... my day was full of personal

i left teaching in 2 years, and I wanted to leave it pretty much as soon as i started...took me 2 years to get out...what a mess... my day was full of personal conflict...not something I ever enjoyed...but I did grow as a person, but it was certainly not a pleasant process... the main problems? Inability to punish students, lack of respect...back in my day, if we disrespected the teacher, we got licks in front of the classroom... also, kids don't read that much anymore, making it hard to teach them

RappingBoomer 5y ago
one other problem is that the classes are not separated as to ability anymore...now in each classroom you are going to have one or more kids who have mental issues and who will wind up in prison, maybe for most of their adult lives...think about that--you have to ride herd on kids who are future lifer convicts...you can tell that these people will be in prison from an early age...they are really messed up...from birth, most likely...these kids are angry at the world because they do not fit in...and they take it out on the teacher...a lovely situation...the teachers warn each other about these kids...you can spot them fairly easily...naively, society believes you can get them on your side...you think we don't try? It does not work, long term...these kids fail at everything and cannot succeed at anything...
- Meritiooo 5y ago
  That's very disappointing to read. Imagine you are the kid which will end in prison. Wouldn't you feel betrayed from society if society can already see that you will end in prison and is doing nothing against it? You can we haven't accepted the right answer though: more money for education. Smaller classes, more support, proper trained psychologist
  - RappingBoomer 5y ago
    most teachers will tell you the truth--it's there from birth, and basically incurable
    - defterGoose 5y ago
      I mean...I'm kinda glad you got out of the profession...
      - toomuchtodo 5y ago
        I think it’s become tragically obvious that a whole lot of children are born to parents who should’ve never had children and have no business being parents. These children end up dumped on educators with zero support at home, and so little social system support we could also say it’s zero. This isn’t nature versus nurture per se (although I believe the data does show some ability and intelligence is genetic/inherent), but that it takes a lot for a human child to succeed unless they’re at the higher end of the bell curve (and even then it’s no guarantee).
    - RappingBoomer 5y ago
      yeah, I understand your meaning, but you fail to understand the situation...did you read the article? NO ONE can do the job...
  - ipnon 5y ago
    The United States already has below average class sizes, and spends 37% more per student than the average. There is some evidence that large class sizes produce better results, and it would seem that whatever the US spends its education money on isn't working, because our students test much lower than our investment would predict. [0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd
  - ryan93 5y ago
    The schools with the most future prisoners are already highly funded. Psychologists cant do anything for people stupid enough to end up in prison.
  - 01100011 5y ago
    I was a bad kid growing up. I ended up at a pilot program consisting of about 14 kids, mostly more screwed up than me, and about 3 psychiatrists and 5 support counselors. It did basically nothing for the kids. The thing that helped me the most was my parents moving away and putting me in normal school in a different state and peer pressure helping me be normal.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > more support Mostly outside of education. The US spends a lot on education and gets poor results for the investment because it also spends on lot on institutionalizing racism and reinforcing socioeconomic insecurity in the working class, which creates a lot for the education system to work against.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Sounds like the system dodged a bullet, but would be improved if it could have ejected you in less than 2 years. Bemoaning the lack of beatings and then making an analogy between your pupils and livestock? Nice.
  - RappingBoomer 5y ago
    lol...did you read the article? It's the same all over...i was the rule, not the exception
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I didn't think they were bemoaning a lack of beatings. It sounded like they were talking about how they don't have tools to discipline students. Stuff like some schools doing away with detention, etc. Then they put in their experience of corporal punishment growing up.
- vgeek 5y ago
  Going to public schools in KY, I look back at how we were grouped by horse families (e.g. thoroughbreds were gifted, clydesdales the laborers) based on academic achievement. Teachers could easily and openly identify which type of student by asking which family they belonged to, and students being entirely unaware of the joke unless they were aware of different types of horses and their applications.
  - hotpotamus 5y ago
    I can't tell if your teachers were reading their Huxley or not. I guess it's slightly more obscure than just labeling kids Alpha to Epsilon.
watwut 5y ago
Not being able to beat kids is not something new. It is something that existed for decades and over a generation.
- phil21 5y ago
  Zero punishment is quite new. We are seeing the results of the first generation raised in such an environment. We were well down this path when I graduated in '99, and went full steam ahead during my kid's primary school career. You either escaped to a (private or suburban) school not full of juvenile delinquents who had parents that still cared, or you simply gave up on having your child have an actual education. The inner city school I had to attend in 1998 was more or less a daycare even back then, and the anecdotes I hear today have only gone further in that direction.
  - watwut 5y ago
    Young people are better behaved now then at periods you talk about. Drugs abuse goes down. Young people commit less violent crime. They drink less alcohol. They even get pregnant less often. Young people now literally behave better wherever you look. The generation that grew in 90ties just was not better behaved.
    - phil21 5y ago
      > The generation that grew in 90ties just was not better behaved. I'm not talking about better behaved. I'm talking about better behaved in school, or you got expelled very quickly. That left others who were there to learn (or at least not to be disruptive) move forward in peace. I have no opinion on if kids were better behaved outside the classroom - likely not, having grown up during that time. A single kid can ruin an entire semester for 40 kids in the classroom. I've personally watched it happen, and there was nothing the teacher could do. Averages don't matter in this situation - only outliers do. I'd go back to a "rougher" generation that learns to behave when appropriate (and those that don't learn, get removed) any day of the week over what we currently have in the average urban public school system. Edit: Heck, I got suspended from a couple classes in high school due to attendance issues. Rightfully so since I was holding back other students on group projects and the like. Today that would be utterly unheard of in that same school system.
busyant 5y ago
Not sure why I'm sharing these stories, but...they are amusing. My father, 84 years old, remembers his elementary school teacher kicking him full-force on his flank (for fooling around with his buddies). Probably not the best approach, but he remembers it to this day. He also remembers students being forced to kneel on hardened kernels of corn as punishment. And I was repeatedly told when I was in elementary school, "If you were stupid enough to go home and complain to your parents that your teacher beat you, you just got beaten twice as hard." kids these days...
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat? How were we to know they'd go home to their fat psychopathic wives to be beaten within and inch of their lives?
- jahewson 5y ago
  They’re not amusing, they’re horrible. The fact that these stories are re-told just goes to show how traumatising they were as experiences for those involved.
  - jimmygrapes 5y ago
    Not all painful memories or memories of pain have to be catastrophised into "trauma". Some can be simply instructive ("hot surface hurts") without needing to go into provoking an irrational response.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dqpb 5y ago
> Inability to punish students, lack of respect It sounds like you leaving the profession was best for everyone involved.
- jlbooker 5y ago
  My wife also left elementary school teaching shortly after the pandemic. She had a child throw a sizable textbook at her, only missing her head by an inch or so. Felt the air as it wizzed by. She sent the kid to the vice-principal for their grade level. Thirty minutes later the kid was right back in her class, and once again causing disruptions. They lack any ability or willpower to meaningfully hold students accountable. My wife felt physically unsafe with this student in her room, yet apparently nothing could be done.
- RappingBoomer 5y ago
  did you read and understand the article?...i got out because I COULD get out...lots of teachers cannot get out or are pushed out before they can find an exit option. You think you understand, but you do not...
  - dqpb 5y ago
    I did read the article. It didn’t say anything about teachers inability to punish disrespectful students. Rather, it said things like this: > One of the things that students benefit from (diverse educators) is this idea of seeing themselves not only leading classrooms, but also in the curriculum Do you see the difference? They want to engage students by empowering them. In contrast, you wanted to demand respect through fear of punishment. It’s not hard to imagine why your days were plagued with interpersonal conflict.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
kerneloftruth 5y ago
"Inability to punish students, lack of respect" When I was growing up in Texas, most teachers had a wooden paddle, often prominently displayed. To be spanked by a paddle was called "getting licks". Female teachers would sometimes delegate the paddling to a coach or other male teacher. Most all this that I recall occurred in Junior High (what they now call middle school. Grades 7-9). By high school, "licks" were quite rare, as most students had learned how to behave better by then. To people today this all sounds barbaric. However, there were far fewer "broken people" coming out of that system than is produced today. That generation was not filled with sociopaths and 'challenged" people -- quite the opposite. It's the system today that produces those. Lack of ability to administer punishment is part of why teachers get so little respect. The past 2 years was very revealing as to how our modern public schools are failing today. It's embarrassing, and I understand and support the moves many parents are making to private or home schooling.
- DenisM 5y ago
  But the teacher-student violence only normalizes violence in the minds of the victims. Consider that as the practice receded in the US so did the violent crime. I claim it's no coincidence. Yeah, I know, leaded gasoline etc. Whatever. That's my story and I'm sticking to it - violence begets violence.
  - seanp2k2 5y ago
    +1, it’s why the “good guys with guns” stuff doesn’t work; more guns = more shootings, e.g. https://www.businessinsider.com/gun-control-research-concealed-carry-laws-mass-shootings-2020-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/gun-control-research-conceal... People will argue this until they’re blue in the face, but pulling a deadly weapon out escalates the situation, when de-escalation would likely lead to a less physically harmful outcome.
otikik 5y ago
> the main problems? Inability to punish students, Is this some kind of joke? If you want to lead with _that_, I hope you never are put in a position of power over any kid ever again.
- giantg2 5y ago
  What do you see as the alternative to punishment when trying to maintain an environment that students can learn in? I was generally a good and respectful student, and I was punished on the occasions I misbehaved or was disruptive. I think that punishment was necessary and helpful.
  - drsnow 5y ago
    Punishment is not per se problematic, beating as punishment definitely is. Physical violence is too far. Send them to detention or wherever.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      I thought they were talking about in general and threw in a personal experience of themselves having corporal punishment. Some schools have done away with detention.
  - cgriswald 5y ago
    As a child I was punished three times without cause, including once when I was a straightforward victim and had several witnesses; and twice by a teacher who disliked me only because a troublesome family member had been her former student. One of those times I was "convicted" on the word of my bully for something I had not done and my bully regularly did. They tried to get me to admit to things in each case, but even though I denied it throughout, I was still punished. As a father, I remember the only time my kid got in trouble at school. I received a strongly worded letter from my child's school that my child had been disrespectful to a teacher and that he was going to receive detention. It was like pulling teeth to get them to tell me what my child had actually done that was disrespectful. When asked (in email) they just kept repeating that he was disrespectful and they talked a lot about the teacher's feelings but never told me what my specifically kid had done or said. I wrote them back a last time suggesting I meet with the principal and the teacher in person to discuss the issue. They never replied to me, but I found out through my kid that they dropped the detention. I'd have pressed further, but we were already moving our kid to another school because of other shenanigans and overall low education quality. I asked my kid for his version of events. He said that he took a test about the field trip they had been on, and he had left the last question "What did you learn?" blank. The teacher suggested he answer the question. My kid said leaving it blank was his answer and the teacher left to check on the other kids. If this bothered the teacher, it wasn't even addressed at the time. Now, I had a good talk with my kid about the situation and I agree that he shouldn't have left that question blank. (I also sympathized with him because the field trip was the same each year and not exactly information rich. It was overall I think a good learning moment for him.) But this was what hurt the teacher's feelings and she found disrespectful? If the kid refuses to answer the question let his score reflect it. If you're not okay with blank questions, make that a detention-worthy offense. But to bring me your hurt feelings and how my kid was disrespectful... and then to not even be willing to tell me about it? I thought maybe my kid had a tone or was otherwise rude in his delivery of his decision; but if so, they wouldn't tell me about it. And I've talked to my kid about this incident since, and even as an adult he has no idea why the teacher had the reaction she seemed to have had. Anyway, the point of this is that discipline in schools is mostly unfair, arbitrary, and not clearly effective. In the general case there are no trials, no weighing of the evidence, or anything to protect the student from unfair treatment or abuse. I don't know what the solution is; parents suck and let their kids get away with murder. But many current parents also experienced such 'guidance' and have no desire to see their kids experience it as well.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> back in my day, if we disrespected the teacher, we got licks in front of the classroom The evidence that physical violence as punishment against children is counterproductive and harmful to their development is pretty overwhelming (and the evidence that it is harmful for those who merely witness and are under pervasive threat of it rather than actually punished with it is also strong.) Promoting abuse of children just because you were raised in an environment where abuse was normalized (and one where that might have been excusable as nonculpable ignorance because the evidence of harm was not as compelling as it has since become) does little but demonstrate what the phrase “cycle of abuse” means.
- esyir 5y ago
  Far from overwhelming. I thought so too, but that's largely from the correlation between poor quality households and use of severe physical abuse, as well as bucketing all corporal punishment from spanking to bashing them with closed fists. Studies that separated measured corporal punishment from outright abuse found drastically different results.
  - dmpk2k 5y ago
    Elaborate? Where can I find further reading?
    - esyir 5y ago
      Something like this, though I haven't touched this in a while https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7992110/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7992110/ I had this debate with a friend a year ago, and when we dug into the literature, it was certainly rather mixed.
  - esarbe 5y ago
    Can you provide more data?

RappingBoomer 5y ago

one other problem is that the classes are not separated as to ability anymore...now in each classroom you are going to have one or more kids who have mental issues and who will wind up in prison, maybe for most of their adult lives...think about that--you have to ride herd on kids who are future lifer convicts...you can tell that these people will be in prison from an early age...they are really messed up...from birth, most likely...these kids are angry at the world because they do not fit in...and they take it out on the teacher...a lovely situation...the teachers warn each other about these kids...you can spot them fairly easily...naively, society believes you can get them on your side...you think we don't try? It does not work, long term...these kids fail at everything and cannot succeed at anything...

Meritiooo 5y ago
That's very disappointing to read. Imagine you are the kid which will end in prison. Wouldn't you feel betrayed from society if society can already see that you will end in prison and is doing nothing against it? You can we haven't accepted the right answer though: more money for education. Smaller classes, more support, proper trained psychologist
- RappingBoomer 5y ago
  most teachers will tell you the truth--it's there from birth, and basically incurable
  - defterGoose 5y ago
    I mean...I'm kinda glad you got out of the profession...
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      I think it’s become tragically obvious that a whole lot of children are born to parents who should’ve never had children and have no business being parents. These children end up dumped on educators with zero support at home, and so little social system support we could also say it’s zero. This isn’t nature versus nurture per se (although I believe the data does show some ability and intelligence is genetic/inherent), but that it takes a lot for a human child to succeed unless they’re at the higher end of the bell curve (and even then it’s no guarantee).
  - RappingBoomer 5y ago
    yeah, I understand your meaning, but you fail to understand the situation...did you read the article? NO ONE can do the job...
- ipnon 5y ago
  The United States already has below average class sizes, and spends 37% more per student than the average. There is some evidence that large class sizes produce better results, and it would seem that whatever the US spends its education money on isn't working, because our students test much lower than our investment would predict. [0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd
- ryan93 5y ago
  The schools with the most future prisoners are already highly funded. Psychologists cant do anything for people stupid enough to end up in prison.
- 01100011 5y ago
  I was a bad kid growing up. I ended up at a pilot program consisting of about 14 kids, mostly more screwed up than me, and about 3 psychiatrists and 5 support counselors. It did basically nothing for the kids. The thing that helped me the most was my parents moving away and putting me in normal school in a different state and peer pressure helping me be normal.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > more support Mostly outside of education. The US spends a lot on education and gets poor results for the investment because it also spends on lot on institutionalizing racism and reinforcing socioeconomic insecurity in the working class, which creates a lot for the education system to work against.
jeffbee 5y ago
Sounds like the system dodged a bullet, but would be improved if it could have ejected you in less than 2 years. Bemoaning the lack of beatings and then making an analogy between your pupils and livestock? Nice.
- RappingBoomer 5y ago
  lol...did you read the article? It's the same all over...i was the rule, not the exception
- giantg2 5y ago
  I didn't think they were bemoaning a lack of beatings. It sounded like they were talking about how they don't have tools to discipline students. Stuff like some schools doing away with detention, etc. Then they put in their experience of corporal punishment growing up.
vgeek 5y ago
Going to public schools in KY, I look back at how we were grouped by horse families (e.g. thoroughbreds were gifted, clydesdales the laborers) based on academic achievement. Teachers could easily and openly identify which type of student by asking which family they belonged to, and students being entirely unaware of the joke unless they were aware of different types of horses and their applications.
- hotpotamus 5y ago
  I can't tell if your teachers were reading their Huxley or not. I guess it's slightly more obscure than just labeling kids Alpha to Epsilon.

watwut 5y ago

Not being able to beat kids is not something new. It is something that existed for decades and over a generation.

phil21 5y ago
Zero punishment is quite new. We are seeing the results of the first generation raised in such an environment. We were well down this path when I graduated in '99, and went full steam ahead during my kid's primary school career. You either escaped to a (private or suburban) school not full of juvenile delinquents who had parents that still cared, or you simply gave up on having your child have an actual education. The inner city school I had to attend in 1998 was more or less a daycare even back then, and the anecdotes I hear today have only gone further in that direction.
- watwut 5y ago
  Young people are better behaved now then at periods you talk about. Drugs abuse goes down. Young people commit less violent crime. They drink less alcohol. They even get pregnant less often. Young people now literally behave better wherever you look. The generation that grew in 90ties just was not better behaved.
  - phil21 5y ago
    > The generation that grew in 90ties just was not better behaved. I'm not talking about better behaved. I'm talking about better behaved in school, or you got expelled very quickly. That left others who were there to learn (or at least not to be disruptive) move forward in peace. I have no opinion on if kids were better behaved outside the classroom - likely not, having grown up during that time. A single kid can ruin an entire semester for 40 kids in the classroom. I've personally watched it happen, and there was nothing the teacher could do. Averages don't matter in this situation - only outliers do. I'd go back to a "rougher" generation that learns to behave when appropriate (and those that don't learn, get removed) any day of the week over what we currently have in the average urban public school system. Edit: Heck, I got suspended from a couple classes in high school due to attendance issues. Rightfully so since I was holding back other students on group projects and the like. Today that would be utterly unheard of in that same school system.

busyant 5y ago

Not sure why I'm sharing these stories, but...they are amusing. My father, 84 years old, remembers his elementary school teacher kicking him full-force on his flank (for fooling around with his buddies). Probably not the best approach, but he remembers it to this day. He also remembers students being forced to kneel on hardened kernels of corn as punishment. And I was repeatedly told when I was in elementary school, "If you were stupid enough to go home and complain to your parents that your teacher beat you, you just got beaten twice as hard." kids these days...

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat? How were we to know they'd go home to their fat psychopathic wives to be beaten within and inch of their lives?
jahewson 5y ago
They’re not amusing, they’re horrible. The fact that these stories are re-told just goes to show how traumatising they were as experiences for those involved.
- jimmygrapes 5y ago
  Not all painful memories or memories of pain have to be catastrophised into "trauma". Some can be simply instructive ("hot surface hurts") without needing to go into provoking an irrational response.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

dqpb 5y ago

> Inability to punish students, lack of respect It sounds like you leaving the profession was best for everyone involved.

jlbooker 5y ago
My wife also left elementary school teaching shortly after the pandemic. She had a child throw a sizable textbook at her, only missing her head by an inch or so. Felt the air as it wizzed by. She sent the kid to the vice-principal for their grade level. Thirty minutes later the kid was right back in her class, and once again causing disruptions. They lack any ability or willpower to meaningfully hold students accountable. My wife felt physically unsafe with this student in her room, yet apparently nothing could be done.
RappingBoomer 5y ago
did you read and understand the article?...i got out because I COULD get out...lots of teachers cannot get out or are pushed out before they can find an exit option. You think you understand, but you do not...
- dqpb 5y ago
  I did read the article. It didn’t say anything about teachers inability to punish disrespectful students. Rather, it said things like this: > One of the things that students benefit from (diverse educators) is this idea of seeing themselves not only leading classrooms, but also in the curriculum Do you see the difference? They want to engage students by empowering them. In contrast, you wanted to demand respect through fear of punishment. It’s not hard to imagine why your days were plagued with interpersonal conflict.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

kerneloftruth 5y ago

"Inability to punish students, lack of respect" When I was growing up in Texas, most teachers had a wooden paddle, often prominently displayed. To be spanked by a paddle was called "getting licks". Female teachers would sometimes delegate the paddling to a coach or other male teacher. Most all this that I recall occurred in Junior High (what they now call middle school. Grades 7-9). By high school, "licks" were quite rare, as most students had learned how to behave better by then. To people today this all sounds barbaric. However, there were far fewer "broken people" coming out of that system than is produced today. That generation was not filled with sociopaths and 'challenged" people -- quite the opposite. It's the system today that produces those. Lack of ability to administer punishment is part of why teachers get so little respect. The past 2 years was very revealing as to how our modern public schools are failing today. It's embarrassing, and I understand and support the moves many parents are making to private or home schooling.

DenisM 5y ago
But the teacher-student violence only normalizes violence in the minds of the victims. Consider that as the practice receded in the US so did the violent crime. I claim it's no coincidence. Yeah, I know, leaded gasoline etc. Whatever. That's my story and I'm sticking to it - violence begets violence.
- seanp2k2 5y ago
  +1, it’s why the “good guys with guns” stuff doesn’t work; more guns = more shootings, e.g. https://www.businessinsider.com/gun-control-research-concealed-carry-laws-mass-shootings-2020-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/gun-control-research-conceal... People will argue this until they’re blue in the face, but pulling a deadly weapon out escalates the situation, when de-escalation would likely lead to a less physically harmful outcome.

otikik 5y ago

> the main problems? Inability to punish students, Is this some kind of joke? If you want to lead with _that_, I hope you never are put in a position of power over any kid ever again.

giantg2 5y ago
What do you see as the alternative to punishment when trying to maintain an environment that students can learn in? I was generally a good and respectful student, and I was punished on the occasions I misbehaved or was disruptive. I think that punishment was necessary and helpful.
- drsnow 5y ago
  Punishment is not per se problematic, beating as punishment definitely is. Physical violence is too far. Send them to detention or wherever.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I thought they were talking about in general and threw in a personal experience of themselves having corporal punishment. Some schools have done away with detention.
- cgriswald 5y ago
  As a child I was punished three times without cause, including once when I was a straightforward victim and had several witnesses; and twice by a teacher who disliked me only because a troublesome family member had been her former student. One of those times I was "convicted" on the word of my bully for something I had not done and my bully regularly did. They tried to get me to admit to things in each case, but even though I denied it throughout, I was still punished. As a father, I remember the only time my kid got in trouble at school. I received a strongly worded letter from my child's school that my child had been disrespectful to a teacher and that he was going to receive detention. It was like pulling teeth to get them to tell me what my child had actually done that was disrespectful. When asked (in email) they just kept repeating that he was disrespectful and they talked a lot about the teacher's feelings but never told me what my specifically kid had done or said. I wrote them back a last time suggesting I meet with the principal and the teacher in person to discuss the issue. They never replied to me, but I found out through my kid that they dropped the detention. I'd have pressed further, but we were already moving our kid to another school because of other shenanigans and overall low education quality. I asked my kid for his version of events. He said that he took a test about the field trip they had been on, and he had left the last question "What did you learn?" blank. The teacher suggested he answer the question. My kid said leaving it blank was his answer and the teacher left to check on the other kids. If this bothered the teacher, it wasn't even addressed at the time. Now, I had a good talk with my kid about the situation and I agree that he shouldn't have left that question blank. (I also sympathized with him because the field trip was the same each year and not exactly information rich. It was overall I think a good learning moment for him.) But this was what hurt the teacher's feelings and she found disrespectful? If the kid refuses to answer the question let his score reflect it. If you're not okay with blank questions, make that a detention-worthy offense. But to bring me your hurt feelings and how my kid was disrespectful... and then to not even be willing to tell me about it? I thought maybe my kid had a tone or was otherwise rude in his delivery of his decision; but if so, they wouldn't tell me about it. And I've talked to my kid about this incident since, and even as an adult he has no idea why the teacher had the reaction she seemed to have had. Anyway, the point of this is that discipline in schools is mostly unfair, arbitrary, and not clearly effective. In the general case there are no trials, no weighing of the evidence, or anything to protect the student from unfair treatment or abuse. I don't know what the solution is; parents suck and let their kids get away with murder. But many current parents also experienced such 'guidance' and have no desire to see their kids experience it as well.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> back in my day, if we disrespected the teacher, we got licks in front of the classroom The evidence that physical violence as punishment against children is counterproductive and harmful to their development is pretty overwhelming (and the evidence that it is harmful for those who merely witness and are under pervasive threat of it rather than actually punished with it is also strong.) Promoting abuse of children just because you were raised in an environment where abuse was normalized (and one where that might have been excusable as nonculpable ignorance because the evidence of harm was not as compelling as it has since become) does little but demonstrate what the phrase “cycle of abuse” means.

esyir 5y ago
Far from overwhelming. I thought so too, but that's largely from the correlation between poor quality households and use of severe physical abuse, as well as bucketing all corporal punishment from spanking to bashing them with closed fists. Studies that separated measured corporal punishment from outright abuse found drastically different results.
- dmpk2k 5y ago
  Elaborate? Where can I find further reading?
  - esyir 5y ago
    Something like this, though I haven't touched this in a while https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7992110/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7992110/ I had this debate with a friend a year ago, and when we dug into the literature, it was certainly rather mixed.
- esarbe 5y ago
  Can you provide more data?