I know we've moved on from this, but I wish there was a magical threshold of when people recognized others as posters. For instance, I've been here since the great migration with the same name, but just posting randomly. Granted, more often recently. I'm still "new". I just chime in here and there, but haven't had much interactions and haven't made friends yet. I feel like it just takes forever to build a post count and become a regular face.
Also, thighs over breasts any day. I also have strong feelings about chicken thighs.
I feel like I know you. But I'm also a sporadic poster and "know" you from the book board!!
Sure, things have changed since 1992. But if things are getting worse, you'd think we'd see it in the data. Except that the data show that -- things are the same as they always were, or maybe a little bit better. NAEP scores are flat or up slightly, suspension rates are flat or down slightly (Texas, New Jersey), expulsions for bringing a firearm are down from the 1990s peak (but up slightly in the past couple of years), teen pregnancy is down, as is teen sexual activity. I have a hard time believing that all the data is being manipulated or that all the measurement error is going in the direction of underreporting the bad stuff.
The only thing I can find where things are getting consistently worse is drug use other than alcohol, where things are getting worse but are still better than they were in the '70s. But alcohol use is down. Even bullying -- the thing everyone is terrified about these days -- is up, flat, or down, depending on what data you look at.
I got lectured a lot about how my generation was the end of civilization because we listened to Nine Inch Nails or Naughty By Nature or played Doom or wanted to see Kids or our parents had to get a second phone line installed because their kids were always talking on the phone or using the dialup modem. Somehow, civilization survived. I don't want my kids to have the same experience.
Have you visited any HS classes lately? Have any peers that teach HS, in a public school or urban environment? Watched any Facebook videos that kids have taken of fights, kids disrespecting and cursing out staff, etc? The phones are a serious issue. Instructional time is lost. If they aren't fighting in school, they fight out of school and when parents come to speak with administrators, they always inquire if Facebook or snap chat was involved. Usually with police help they can figure out that kids were posting during class time and it was handled (fought about) outside of class.
But why doesn't it show up in the data? I am not trying to be flip here. If the phones are this much of a problem, we'd see more disciplinary action over time, especially starting in 2008 as smartphones became mainstream. Instead we see the same or fewer disciplinary actions. It makes me think that whatever the problems are around phones are just replacing problems that used to be about other stuff, not generating new problems.
I have family who teach and coach in public school at different levels, and friends with kids in public elementary schools that are middle of the pack in terms of achievement. Some years there are big behavioral problems in class. Some years there aren't. I have coworkers who coach a robotics team for public school kids, and the team comes into work a few times a year. They seem fine, but that's obviously self-selective.
Sure, things have changed since 1992. But if things are getting worse, you'd think we'd see it in the data. Except that the data show that -- things are the same as they always were, or maybe a little bit better. NAEP scores are flat or up slightly, suspension rates are flat or down slightly (Texas, New Jersey), expulsions for bringing a firearm are down from the 1990s peak (but up slightly in the past couple of years), teen pregnancy is down, as is teen sexual activity. I have a hard time believing that all the data is being manipulated or that all the measurement error is going in the direction of underreporting the bad stuff.
The only thing I can find where things are getting consistently worse is drug use other than alcohol, where things are getting worse but are still better than they were in the '70s. But alcohol use is down, as is the use of other drugs. Even bullying -- the thing everyone is terrified about these days -- is up, flat, or down, depending on what data you look at.
I got lectured a lot about how my generation was the end of civilization because we listened to Nine Inch Nails or Naughty By Nature or played Doom or wanted to see Kids or our parents had to get a second phone line installed because their kids were always talking on the phone or using the dialup modem. Somehow, it wasn't. I don't want my kids to have the same experience.
Are you at schools ever, or are you running your arm chair lit reviews from behind a comfortable screen, at a comfortable work desk, in a bubbled community? When was the last time you were at a public school, or around kids who aren't in daycare in a comfortable community? Please answer the question.
You can see my response to @barefootbarista for current public school cred. We're going to send V to a public school that's good but not world class, and not in a bubble that serves only kids in the top 5% or whatever. Per-pupil spending in WA is a little below the national average. I have no idea what the SES is of the people we see at the library or the playground.
Look, I am not saying there are zero problems. I'm saying it's hard to see from the data that things are getting drastically worse. Sure, you can juke the stats for a given study, but almost all the stats are going in right direction or unchanged. And I have a hard time believing that the conspiracy is so massive that almost every institutional researcher everywhere is in on the game.
But "New NAEP scores show schools doing about as well as they did last year, which is slightly higher than they did a generation ago" doesn't generate clicks on Huffpost Parents. And in every social circle somebody has a horror story. Those horror stories are real, but it's just hard for me to see that there are more of them today than there were in the '80s, and '90s, when Generation Lead was still in schools and juvenile delinquency was a national political issue.
But why doesn't it show up in the data? I am not trying to be flip here. If the phones are this much of a problem, we'd see more disciplinary action over time, especially starting in 2008 as smartphones became mainstream. Instead we see the same or fewer disciplinary actions. It makes me think that whatever the problems are around phones are just replacing problems that used to be about other stuff, not generating new problems.
I have family who teach and coach in public school at different levels, and friends with kids in public elementary schools that are middle of the pack in terms of achievement. Some years there are big behavioral problems in class. Some years there aren't. I have coworkers who coach a robotics team for public school kids, and the team comes into work a few times a year. They seem fine, but that's obviously self-selective.
Disciplinary action is down because they don't discipline for shit anymore. It takes a lot to suspend EC students. My students can only be suspended for drugs, weapons, or sex. Disproportionate representation and systems are afraid of lawsuits. Or they do it off the books. Rather than suspend, they'll call the parents to come pick them up so a suspension isn't on their record.
Fights are done off campus. Or they snap chat and fight in the bathrooms. We find out about so many fights that occurred during class changes in the bathrooms- on Facebook because kids have no chill.
I don't really care to try to change your mind, but I'm 100% certain things have gotten more difficult since I've been in the classroom for 14 years. And it's gotten more difficult to discipline kids.
Is the bolded happening more now than a decade ago, and with an eye towards keeping suspensions down?
Do bathroom fights not count? Or because a teacher doesn't witness it you can't really do anything about it?
Is the bolded happening more now than a decade ago, and with an eye towards keeping suspensions down?
Do bathroom fights not count? Or because a teacher doesn't witness it you can't really do anything about it?
I can't tell if you are being serious. What do you really think?
I am being serious, maybe that's my bubble talking.
I get that there's a disconnect between the high-level data and the on-the-ground reality. I am not naïve enough to think that after NCLB, all of the improvement in graduation rates or test scores or suspension rates reflects real improvements, instead of terrified teachers and administrators. There is too much at stake in a lot of this stuff now to believe it's all on the level. (NAEP is low-stakes, I think, which is why it's considered trustworthy?). It's just hard for me to see that they're getting worse.
I will also cop to being a big believer in the impact of lead -- maybe too much so. Now that most of the kids who had lots of lead exposure are out of the school system, things might improve a little.
You can see my response to @barefootbarista for current public school cred. We're going to send V to a public school that's good but not world class, and not in a bubble that serves only kids in the top 5% or whatever. Per-pupil spending in WA is a little below the national average. I have no idea what the SES is of the people we see at the library or the playground.
Look, I am not saying there are zero problems. I'm saying it's hard to see from the data that things are getting drastically worse. Sure, you can juke the stats for a given study, but almost all the stats are going in right direction or unchanged. And I have a hard time believing that the conspiracy is so massive that almost every institutional researcher everywhere is in on the game.
But "New NAEP scores show schools doing about as well as they did last year, which is slightly higher than they did a generation ago" doesn't generate clicks on Huffpost Parents. And in every social circle somebody has a horror story. Those horror stories are real, but it's just hard for me to see that there are more of them today than there were in the '80s, and '90s, when Generation Lead was still in schools and juvenile delinquency was a national political issue.
I'm going to have to check you here. We live in a white ass, privileged as hell neighborhood. If your argument's context is your experience and the similar experience of your (our) peers, your perspective is pretty limited and it comes across as condescending to people who have lived a different reality.
My work in a school that serves primarily lower income students of color has really hammered home the bubble in which I live.
No, I don't think that my neighborhood experience gives me a ton of cred. I don't have a ton of lived experience, I will admit. The public schools my cousins teach at (some urban, some rural in areas where most of the middle class population is in private school or homeschooling) definitely have their fair share of problems. I'm not totally oblivious, but it's almost all second-hand at best.
I love it when the internet validates my desire to eat chicken outside of my own home.
And, back to the spirit of awkwardpenguin's initial post, I just thought of a confession. I find it highly suspicious when I look up neighborhood moms with school-aged kids on Facebook and we have zero friends in common.
Because of a payroll/work thing, I think DH and I may end up with about 2k less this month than we expected. It makes me sad that at this point in our lives 2k is still such a huge deal. We really needed that $ and I am worried that it isn't going to work out in our favour in the end.
I don't even think it's something bad that "at this point in your lives" 2k is important. 2k is 2k which you have budgeted for and planned for. It's not an insignificant amount of money for most people. (It's almost two tickets to London in my mind).
When I was in high school we passed around zines and played games on our TI82s. Also there was at least one killer cafeteria fight every week. We didn't even need social media. I also got in school suspension for returning to (not leaving) school, even though I had a free period.
Disciplinary action is down because they don't discipline for shit anymore. It takes a lot to suspend EC students. My students can only be suspended for drugs, weapons, or sex. Disproportionate representation and systems are afraid of lawsuits. Or they do it off the books. Rather than suspend, they'll call the parents to come pick them up so a suspension isn't on their record.
Fights are done off campus. Or they snap chat and fight in the bathrooms. We find out about so many fights that occurred during class changes in the bathrooms- on Facebook because kids have no chill.
I don't really care to try to change your mind, but I'm 100% certain things have gotten more difficult since I've been in the classroom for 14 years. And it's gotten more difficult to discipline kids.
Is the bolded happening more now than a decade ago, and with an eye towards keeping suspensions down?
Do bathroom fights not count? Or because a teacher doesn't witness it you can't really do anything about it?
Yes. (Keep in mind that this is based on my state, I don't know about yours.) Schools don't get paid if students aren't there. Principals get their wrists slapped if their suspension rate is too high. Hell, they get their wrist slapped if their referral rate is too high so teachers get their wrists slapped for writing kids up for actual offenses. Principals try to turf serious issues back to the teacher, issues that are far beyond what a classroom teacher should handle or has time to handle. It is utterly ridiculous for a teacher to spend 30+ minutes dealing with a discipline issue like a fight INSTEAD OF TEACHING because the kids were sent back to class with the referral and a note to handle it in the classroom so that it wouldn't be turned in as an official referral. What is "too high" of a rate? Oh, that would be if you are in the top 1/3 of your district for referrals/suspensions or some other bullshit nonsense number. Nothing is based on actual issues or problems, ONLY on numbers and money. You can't make AYP if you have too many kids suspended, shit like that.
Education is BEYOND screwed up. Because of technology, there is no "leave it at school" or break or escape. Interactions are constant and carry over.
Honestly, I don't know that I'll ever go back in the classroom. I absolutely love teaching but I just can't anymore with the politics of education have permeated every aspect of teaching to the point that teachers spend more of their time being someone else's punching bag and doing meaningless paperwork than actual teaching. Kids are paying the price. Sure, there are absolutely some teachers out there that are able to make a difference despite all the odds but I'm watching those teachers leave the classroom from burnout and the ones that can't leave because of money, hate teaching and cry regularly out of frustration and impotence, knowing they are being worked to death and spending hours a day on things that are meaningless instead of planning solid lessons and working with their students. When is enough enough?
The Kids These Days are going to be fine. Technology is not going to screw them up. This time is not any different from the last 77 moral panics about some bit of new technology. My math teacher had this series of quotes stretching back to the 1700s, when ink pens replaced the quill, of The Olds complaining about how some bit of new technology was going to ruin the children -- first it was the transition from quills to pens, then from ink pens to ball point pens, then pens to pencils, then the slide rule (I probably missed some in there), then the calculator, then the computer, and on and on and on. Sure, I think it's a little gauche when SIL brings her BF and his kids over, and the 16yo spends the whole time on her phone while the 7yo and 9yo play with V, but ... wtf would you have done when you were 16? Probably complained that you had to go at all, wished you could be back home talking to your BFF or BF on the second phone line, not spoken to anybody, maybe brought a book or a magazine. SO MUCH BETTER.
End rant.
I'll play devils advocate here because my biggest concern is the lack of social skills that kids have today. No one talks on the phone anymore, they all text. I hate hearing about people laughing when they say everyone in the room was on their phones and they are texting each other in the room.
I think there is definitely a place for technology in the classroom but I am scared for the next generations.
I feel like in a few months when the baby can actually sit up in the shopping cart my life will change for the better, lol.
When he can sit at a high chair at home end at restaurants it will be life changing for me!
I'm going to pull a "just you wait" but... You've already been there. LOL! DD (15 mo) is such a nightmare at restaurants! I want my immobile, non table food eating blob back. Ha! trade?
I'm going to pull a "just you wait" but... You've already been there. LOL! DD (15 mo) is such a nightmare at restaurants! I want my immobile, non table food eating blob back. Ha! trade?
Oh I DEFINITELY remember a period of a few months when going out to eat just SUCKED with Noah. I don't remember what the issue was, just that it wasn't pleasant. But right now we have to hold the baby upright a the table, and it's a PITA!
I do the car seat in the upside down high chair at restaurants.
I do the car seat in the upside down high chair at restaurants.
/confession
(not my baby)
I can't bring myself to do this after I saw a baby knocked out of one once, seriously I will never get that visual out of my head. I'm not judging anyone that does it, I just can't do it myself bc I'd have anxiety the entire time. Also, my issue is that when we are out, my baby is nosy and wants to be sitting up and looking out at everything lol.
Oh that's rough. I keep him locked in and/or have my hand on the chair at all times. Going out to eat with Ben was great from like months 9-15 so I'm hoping the same with be with Ethan too.
We always just got a booth and put the baby seat on the bench with us.
This is what we did, too. I really dislike the idea of hot/heavy plates being passed over my kids head so I also prefer for her to sit on the inside of the booth.
Oh shit. I just remembered Peruvian roast chicken. I go to a restaurant in my neighborhood exclusively to get that and "salchipapa," which is basically French fries with cut-up hotdogs. Food loving is all about mixing highbrow and lowbrow tastes, isn't it?
You are not talking about Pio Pio, right?
Peruvian roast chicken is one of my very favorite foods.
A lot of restaurants make very mediocre chicken (well, really, most restaurants make mediocre everything). But some restaurants make chicken masterpieces. That's what they always say is the sign of a good chef, right? Mastery of roast chicken?
Now I want to go to Pio Pio tonight but they're all so faaaaaar in the cold. God I miss having Pio Pio deliver to my office.
Peruvian chicken NY GTG?
Pio Pio was the first thing I thought of when the chicken discussion started. Love it. Oh the green sauce!
**Posting even though my post count is not high, but love of Pio Pio is.
I'm going to pull a "just you wait" but... You've already been there. LOL! DD (15 mo) is such a nightmare at restaurants! I want my immobile, non table food eating blob back. Ha! trade?
Oh I DEFINITELY remember a period of a few months when going out to eat just SUCKED with Noah. I don't remember what the issue was, just that it wasn't pleasant. But right now we have to hold the baby upright a the table, and it's a PITA!
Is the bolded happening more now than a decade ago, and with an eye towards keeping suspensions down?
Do bathroom fights not count? Or because a teacher doesn't witness it you can't really do anything about it?
Yes. (Keep in mind that this is based on my state, I don't know about yours.) Schools don't get paid if students aren't there. Principals get their wrists slapped if their suspension rate is too high. Hell, they get their wrist slapped if their referral rate is too high so teachers get their wrists slapped for writing kids up for actual offenses. Principals try to turf serious issues back to the teacher, issues that are far beyond what a classroom teacher should handle or has time to handle. It is utterly ridiculous for a teacher to spend 30+ minutes dealing with a discipline issue like a fight INSTEAD OF TEACHING because the kids were sent back to class with the referral and a note to handle it in the classroom so that it wouldn't be turned in as an official referral. What is "too high" of a rate? Oh, that would be if you are in the top 1/3 of your district for referrals/suspensions or some other bullshit nonsense number. Nothing is based on actual issues or problems, ONLY on numbers and money. You can't make AYP if you have too many kids suspended, shit like that.
Education is BEYOND screwed up. Because of technology, there is no "leave it at school" or break or escape. Interactions are constant and carry over.
Honestly, I don't know that I'll ever go back in the classroom. I absolutely love teaching but I just can't anymore with the politics of education have permeated every aspect of teaching to the point that teachers spend more of their time being someone else's punching bag and doing meaningless paperwork than actual teaching. Kids are paying the price. Sure, there are absolutely some teachers out there that are able to make a difference despite all the odds but I'm watching those teachers leave the classroom from burnout and the ones that can't leave because of money, hate teaching and cry regularly out of frustration and impotence, knowing they are being worked to death and spending hours a day on things that are meaningless instead of planning solid lessons and working with their students. When is enough enough?
Oh man. This is so discouraging. This makes me feel really fortunate to teach college, where my disciplinary issues are minimal. I have so much respect for K-12 teachers.
We looooved going out to eat with M, especially around 9-15mo. He was super into food and was happy as a clam stuffing his face lol. We went out to lunch almost every weekend. Now...restaurants are a nightmare. I miss this aspect of my social life!
So my feeling on technology is similar to climate change. Yes things are cyclical.
Yup! Why do you think I got so irked yesterday. I was like, "Do we have another Lorax motherfucker in our midsts? Didn't we just do this last week? Haven't we been doing this since Christmas? How many times are we going to have to do this? Did a Lorax just brush off the examples, views, voices, and first hand experiences, on the issue of American education, from woman, after woman, after woman, in this thread? Did he really just roll up in, a day late and a buck short, with loaded ass data that probably include a basil and ceiling normed off mediocre farm kids, from the 1950, in Iowa? Does he know anything about institutional racism, and the school to prison pipeline that continues to grow at a rapid pace, do to loaded data fucking over kids and teachers off all races and incomes right now? Does he know anything about the schools is his state where he probably would rather move, than send his child to be among the school community? Did he really just bogart someone else's classroom experience, and attempt to go toe to toe, and then sing a sad sad song about how hard life was for white kids in the 1990s, because some people said something mean about them, and please don't say some mean things about my sheltered baby, I don't want his feelings getting hurt? Meanwhile @choco @246baje, and @natariru are already training their toddlers in the skill of how to stay alive, once you're no longer cute, because then you are public enemy number 1, even if that is at age 6. DaFuq? But schools are fine, people are just over-exaggerating because I did a google search onetime in my freetime, and my truth numbers don't lie? No, I double checked my truth numbers, I'm not wrong. I'm male, don't tell me I'm wrong. I don't get it, I 'm looking because onesided facts, and I have + or - 11 non white Facebook friends".
Am I the only one seeing this? The hell? Let the countdown to the back peddling, and woulda shoulda coulda tears begin. While we're at it, please let us know how you feel about pine trees, voting for environmental issues over social issues, and Cecil the Lion. Do Black (and POC) Lives Matter, or do they only matter when "the numbers" add up, from behind a privileged PC?
This Bernie Sanders style shit is the worst.
I don't see it. I don't see how him debating that topic has anything to do with him being male or with race. The initial topic had nothing to do with either of those issues. He disagreed with posters, who yes, were both women and in a few cases POC, but his discourse seemed appropriate to me, he was using data to support his case, others were using their experience. Both are valid evidence for supporting one's opinions. I don't see how any of this has anything to do with him being a white dude.
Edit: I should qualify my last sentence. I can see how being a white dude means that he is speaking from a privileged standpoint. But I don't think he was rude or dismissive of anyone, he was just debating the data he had found on the topic.