Archive for the ‘Teacher Welfare’ Category

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Perhaps Teachers Should Just Wear a Target Sign

August 23, 2012

Is it appropriate for an educator to throw food at a student? Absolutely not! Even when the student threw it at them first? That doesn’t make it any more acceptable.

But should a teacher lose their job over such an incident? It depends.

Especially when the student who initially threw the food gets off with nothing more than a suspension.

If you fire a teacher over retaliating then you must expel the student for initiating. You can’t send the message that students can throw things at vulnerable teachers and get nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Remember, students are being suspended nowadays for nothing more than  wearing the incorrect school uniform.

This story tells us that we can tacitly encourage our students to take aim at their teacher without any fear of a lasting punishment or a retaliatory response by the teacher:

A high school assistant principal has resigned following allegations that she threw a hamburger at a student in May.

Patricia Whitney, assistant principal at West Haven High School in New Hampshire, stepped down Monday. She was placed on administrative leave in May after she reportedly had a disagreement with a student when Whitney told the teen she was not supposed to be in the cafeteria at the time, WFSB reported. In response, the student threw part of her hamburger at the assistant principal, and Whitney allegedly picked it up and threw it back at the student.

The student was suspended, and district officials launched an investigation into the incident. The school board agreed unanimously Monday to accept Whitney’s resignation.

“I’m pleased at how it turned out,” Superintendent Neil Cavallaro told the New Hampshire Register. “I think it’s best for both parties to move on.”

Students, however, said Whitney got along well at the school.

“She’s very nice, she comes out of nowhere, she gives people great advice, she helped me a lot,” one student told WFSB.

I am not defending the actions of Ms. Whitney. What she did was clearly wrong. But this story has wider implications. It says that teachers, in the wrong environment are moving targets just waiting to be the victim of the next food fight.

Click here to read ’5 Tips for Stressed Teachers’.

Click here to read ‘The Overwhelming Responsibilities of the Modern Teacher’

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As Long as Teachers are Unhappy, Students Will Be Too

July 21, 2012

Too many quality teachers in the making are having their spirit crushed, their confidence eroded and their love of teaching taken from them:

SWAMPED teachers who quit the classroom say their passion has been “killed off” and they feel “overwhelmed and undervalued”.

And the profession has been described as “toxic” with a possible “crisis” looming.

The damning descriptions are part of exit surveys of 261 teachers and staff who resigned from the Education Department between January 2011 and January 2012, outlined in a report obtained by The Sunday Times this week.

The report also shows:

* More teachers blame poor work-life balance and workload pressures for their decision to quit, with those reasons cited in 13.4 per cent of resignations.

* Eleven per cent cited family reasons and just under one in 10 said they wanted to pursue other interests.

* Health issues were blamed by 8 per cent of those who quit in the past year.

* Staff said the department’s methods for dealing with disruptive students needed the greatest attention.

* Seven out of 10 teachers leaving the department said they would consider returning in the future, indicating most were generally happy.

There are many teachers who have not quit but are literally going through the motions. Our students require teachers who enjoy what they do. Any changes to our failing education system must address this.

Click here to read ‘5 Tips for Stressed Teachers’.

Click here to read ‘The Overwhelming Responsibilities of the Modern Teacher’

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What is the Punishment for Beating up a Teacher?

July 17, 2012

The only thing worse than the statistic that more than 5 teachers are being assulted by students in public schools every day, is that nothing seems to be done about it.

Putting the obvious pain factor of being assulted aside, can you imagine how humiliating it would be to be kicked and punched by a child in front of your own students? Can you imagine what that does the teacher’s authority and self-respect?

ALARMING new figures show there were 1062 assaults on teachers in the state’s public system last year – an average of more than five every school day.

Education Department figures, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, also show 144 were classed as “critical” incidents.

In 2011, teachers lodged 46 compensation claims for assaults by students aged between 5 and 15 – an increase on 38 claims in 2010, and 40 in 2009.

Education leaders say teachers are at greater risk of being assaulted because students have “much more complex problems”.

I’ve been hit by students before (albeit very young students) and I’ve had objects thrown at me. There is nothing much I can do about it. I would rather get a black eye from a student than jeopardise my career by restraining him (if restraining him required force). But should I even have to ponder such a scenario?

This frightening statistic is due to 2 factors. Firstly, there is a lack of respect for teachers among all quarters of society. This lack of respect filters down to impressionable students who see how badly their own parents treat their teachers and think that tormenting the teacher is fair game. And secondly, there is a complete lack of deterrence to send the message that assaulting a teacher is unacceptable.

This whole excuse of students having more ‘complex problems’ is garbage. The truth is, schools have become soft on this sort of behaviour. They tend to be  more interested in keeping the parent body happy than keeping teachers safe.

Click here to read, ‘Teachers Stripped of the Ability to Give Punishments That Work’.

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Bullying is Acceptable when it’s Directed to a Teacher

July 3, 2012

 

Bullying of all kinds is abhorrent.

When a child is bullied it is rightly considered unlawful, yet when a teacher is bullied it’s considered free speech. The only thing stopping the vulgar website Rate My Teachers from being banned is the fact that it is an American website which is allowed to operate under the guise of free speech.

The teachers’ union wants the Education Department to shut down a website it says allows students to make defamatory and slanderous comments about their teachers.

The State School Teachers Union council resolved recently to write to the department asking it to close the Rate My Teachers website that some students use to abuse teachers personally and professionally.

“The website has allowed anonymous postings for some years, many of which would be found to be defamatory and slanderous of teachers if tested against legislation,” the resolution said.

The US-based website’s rules state posts will be removed if they contain profanity, name-calling or vulgarity, but recent comments about WA schoolteachers include “She is a whore”, “He is a douche bag” and “Sadistic bitch, she is a horrible teacher”.

Other posts say teachers are “bad” or “completely incompetent”. The website emerged in Australia six years ago, but this is the first time the union has made a formal request for help from the department.

Can you imagine if there was a website called ‘Rate My Students’?

Freedom of speech? I don’t think so!

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If You Respect Teachers, Please Stand Up

May 15, 2012

There is a growing hostility against teachers from the Government down, and children are picking up on it. There is little use reinforcing the message that respect for teachers is paramount to students whose own parents openly treat the classroom teacher with disdain. Teachers are not trusted to do their job, are having to write-up ludicrously long and detailed planners to prove they are covering the curriculum and are subjected to a distasteful smear campaign from elements within the educational system looking for someone to blame.

Why should we be surprised if children exploit the lack of respect for teachers within elements of society?

A STUDENT holds a replica pistol to the head of a staff member in the playground – while a Year 9 boy at another school sprays urine on his teacher.

These disturbing scenes are happening at schools across NSW, just two of 218 serious incidents logged during term four last year in reports to the Department of Education and Training.

The reports show teachers being abused, assaulted and sometimes forced to disarm out-of-control students during fights.

One student fight even featured a didgeridoo as an improvised weapon, while in another incident a pupil stole a teacher’s handbag and made off with her car.

Last November, a Year 8 student threatened a teacher with a replica pistol from the drama department at a south coast school. The deputy principal tried to intervene and was abused by the student.

Meanwhile, at an Illawarra school, a Year 9 student urinated into a bottle and sprayed it on a male teacher on playground duty.

Precise details of the schools, students and teachers involved are removed from the reports, which are published by the department with one-term delays.

A department spokesperson said nine in 10 schools did not report a single incident during term four.

“From time to time, incidents affect schools just as they affect society,” the spokesperson said.

Psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said the number of violent incidents in schools wasn’t rising but were being noticed and documented “more vigorously”.

“Teenagers tend to be impulsive – all accelerator and no brakes,” Dr Carr-Gregg said.

“Violence as entertainment has desensitised teenagers and made them see violence as a problem solving device.”

He said another factor was teenagers becoming disaffected with rates of family breakdown increasing.

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Teachers Advised Not to Report Acts of Violence

April 8, 2012

Surely teachers are one of the most important figures in the educational process. If you were to do a hierarchy of influence when it comes to the education of a child, surely the teacher would feature prominently.

Why then, are teachers treated as if they offer next to nothing? Why is such a crucial ingredient in successful educational outcomes disrespected to the point where they aren’t able to defend a loss of dignity or report a physical assault?

The story below may come from New Zealand, but it looms as a universal story if the treatment and welfare of teachers doesn’t improve dramatically:

A teacher is punched in the face, another is shoved in the chest and their lunch stolen, one is regularly verbally abused while another has their car vandalised. But at the schools’ request, none of it is reported to police.

Post-Primary Teachers Association president Robin Duff called the situation “intolerable”.

He said, in the PPTA News, the teachers’ union could not continue to be “complicit in this conspiracy of silence” that concealed the level of violence within schools.

He said competitiveness in schools gave them an incentive to hide issues of violence towards teachers and staff, and some schools did not want police involved because it could lead to negative publicity.

The national executive was “particularly concerned” to learn that some schools were actually forbidding teachers from reporting instances to police.

In one case a teacher was sitting in their classroom eating lunch when a student walked in and punched them in the face. The school told the teacher not to go to police because it would be dealt with internally. Nothing happened.

Another a teacher was shoved in the chest and their lunch was taken.

There were also numerous reports of teachers being punched, kicked or threatened, and property including cars and houses, being vandalised.

One teacher said every teacher knew a colleague who had been verbally abused, physically threatened or suffered instances with students out of control and a risk to themselves and others.

“Senior management of schools are under pressure to reduce instances of suspension and expulsion and we all know of instances where there is pressure not to report assaults on persons, or criminal damage to teachers’ property.”

Standardised testing, dismissing so-called “poor teacher”, increasing teacher’s responsibilities and paperwork demands are all methods for improving the academic standards of schools.

I would argue that all those methods are doomed to failure. Any other initiative will have a similar fate, unless it comes on the back of a recognition that the teacher is a crucial stakeholder in the education of our children. Until they are respected, supported and appreciated, our children are unlikely to reach their potential.

 

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Posted in Bullying, Teacher Welfare | 10 Comments »

When Will Principals Start Taking the Side of a Teacher Over a Parent?

April 3, 2012

Those who read my blog know how nervous I am about teachers who have readily accessible Facebook pages. I have read too many stories of teachers whose careers and reputations have been jeopardised by an update status or cheeky photo.

But the story below story reminds us that there is another important factor at play here. Teachers are people like everyone else. We have every right to enjoy the sorts of pleasures that non-teachers do. Teachers should be able to, within reason, use their Facebook page without the need to have it monitored or vetted by a superior.

And if a parent complains about content on a teacher’s Facebook page, or any other matter that doesn’t qualify as extremely serious, I’d love to see the hierarchy defend their teachers.

Principals and superintendents seem far too reluctant to back their teachers in the face of controversy. A healthy school culture requires parents to be involved in the running of the school. An unhealthy school culture has the parents actually running the school.

When a parent complained about a PG-13 photograph on a teacher’s Facebook page, the superintendent should have defended his/her teacher:

When Kimberly Hester of Cass County, Mich. posted with permission a photo a coworker sent her on Facebook, she didn’t think it would offend the public school where she taught, or lead the superintendent to demand access to her Facebook page.  But a photo of her coworker with her pants down did just that.

Hester, 27, was a full-time peer professional, or teacher’s aide, at Frank Squires Elementary in Cassapolis, Mich. for about two years. In April 2011, a coworker texted a photo showing herself with her pants around her ankles, with the message “thinking of you” as a joke.

“She’s actually quite funny.  It was spur of the moment,” Hester said, adding that there was nothing pornographic about the picture, which only showed the pants, part of her legs, and the tips of her shoes.

“I couldn’t stop laughing so I asked for her permission to post it [on Facebook],” she said.  The coworker agreed.  Hester said all this took place on their own time, not at or during work.

Hester said a parent (not of one of her students) showed the photo to the superintendent, calling it unprofessional and offensive.  Hester said the photo could only be viewed by her Facebook friends.  The parent happened to be a family friend.

In a few days, the superintendent of Lewis Cass Intermediate School District, Robert Colby, asked Hester to come to his office.

“Instead of asking to take the photo down and viewing it from my friend’s point of view, they called me into the office without my union,” she said.  Hester is a member of the Michigan Education Association, which represents more than 157,000 teachers, faculty and support staff in the state, according to its website.

The superintendent asked that she show her Facebook profile page.

“I asked for my union several times, and they refused.  They wanted me to do it right then and there,” Hester said.

Hester’s story echoes reports of employers asking job applicants for access to their Facebook pages.

Hester said she and her coworker pictured in the photo were put on seven weeks of paid administrative leave, and they were eventually suspended for 10 days.  She said the coworker, who was up for tenure, was forced to resign.

Hester said she returned to work in September when the school year began.  While Hester previously worked assisting a teacher for emotionally impaired students in kindergarten through the fourth grade, she was assigned another program and was placed under a strict directive.  She said she was instructed not to speak with coworkers unless it was about a student and could not go to the bathroom before asking.

She said her contract allowed her 14 paid days off but the school would not let her use them.  She said she was also directed to read books about communication and to take 49 online classes.  She said that and the work environment at school took a toll on her emotionally in November 2011.

“I had a nervous breakdown, went to hospital and was put on medication,” said Hester, who has been on unpaid leave since November.

I greatly respect parents who are actively involved in their childs’ progress. However, if they ever raise concerns over a teacher, that teacher should be given the support and assurance they deserve.

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The Teacher Bashing Era Must End

February 26, 2012

Teachers have never been more criticised and devalued than they are right now. Whilst you can’t blame all negative incidents on a political and media campaign against teaching standards, I’m sure children pick up on the discontent in the wider community.

To read that three children in the 5th Grade twice attempted to poison their teacher, makes me wonder how children as young as that can rationalise in their own minds that killing their teacher would be a worthwhile solution to their problems:

Three California fifth-graders who confessed to using rat poison in attempts to harm their teacher are being moved to other schools.

The three students at Balderas Elementary School in Fresno admitted lacing the teacher’s coffee and a cupcake with rat poison in two separate incidents, according to the Fresno Teachers Association and published reports.

Miraculously, the teacher never took a sip of the coffee or a bite of the cupcake.

One of the three accused students apparently had a change of heart and knocked the coffee cup out of the teacher’s hand before she could drink from it.

The mid-December incidents came to light two months after they happened because a parent of one of the students bragged that her boy saved a teacher’s life.

No criminal charges have been filed against the two boys and one girl, according to ABC’s Fresno affiliate KFSN. The Fresno Police Department is continuing to investigate, but says there is little or no physical evidence remaining from the December incidents. The Fresno County district attorney’s office will decide whether to press charges against the children.

All three students have been expelled and moved to other schools, according to KFSN. The two boys are being transfered to the Phoenix Academy, which does not sit well with at least one of its teachers.

This story is quite sickening. I wonder if those students involved were in any way incited by a general lack of community respect for the teaching fraternity.

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Stripping Summer Holidays and Lengthening School Days is Not a Solution

January 14, 2012

If I wasn’t a teacher I think I would have supported Michael Gove’s push for reduced summer vacation and longer school days. Non-teachers are quick to remind us teachers that our vacation time is too long and our contact hours are just as generous. These same people wouldn’t teach if their life depended on it!

Firstly, while it is true that are holidays are long, we teachers get burnt out by the demands of our job. As much as I love teaching, towards the end of a given term, I am crawling towards the finishing line. Teaching is such a physically and emotionally charged career, it is simply impossible to envisage a 4 week annual holiday like other professions experience.

Secondly, our working hours do not stop at the end of day bell. Unlike many other professions, teachers are expected to take their work with them. From planning and marking to writing reports, teachers are forever working. This includes night, weekends and yes, holidays!

Michael Gove seems to think that quality will come with quantity. I am not so sure:

The school day could be extended and summer holidays reduced, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said yesterday.

Under the proposals for the extended day, pupils could remain in school between 7.30am and 5.30pm and attend on Saturdays, with an extra two weeks potentially being added to school terms.

Over a five-year period, the extended hours would mean pupils gained as much as a year’s worth of extra education, allowing them to take vocational subjects in addition to their exam material.

Asked how this would affect teachers, he said: “If you love your job then there is, I think, absolutely nothing to complain about in making sure you have more of a chance to do it well.”

Mr Gove said the move would benefit “poorer children from poorer homes”, who “lose learning over the long summer holidays”.

Mr. Gove’s assertion that if teachers loved their jobs they would have nothing to complain about is quite insensitive and offensive. I love my job and do the best that I can. But I have limitations. I feel that if I was teaching in England, this proposal would burn me out earlier and more severely. I find it very sad that the Education secretary is so out of touch with teaching and the demands of a modern-day teacher.

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Time To Shut Down Teacher Bullying Websites

December 22, 2011


I commend head teacher Andre Sohatski for not only standing up for himself and his reputation, but also for representing the downtrodden teachers and students victimised by scandalous bullying websites proliferating across the web.

Web sites like RateMyTeacher.com allow students to post salacious accusations and damaging insults. These sites, together with sites that allow students to slander other students such as Little Gossip  have been allowed to remain unhindered under the guise of freedom of speech.

Until now …

Andre Sohatski, headteacher of Priory School in Dorking, Surrey, took action after being told by his pupils that children were being targeted on the website Little Gossip with homophobic, racist and sexist abuse.

The site contains abusive and explicit messages written by schoolchildren that can be rated “true” or “false” by their peers. It allows them to name their “targets” but the user remains anonymous.

Mr Sohatski called for the site to be shut down and said it could cause “really big problems,” for children.

“I think it’s irresponsible. It is a form of internet bullying. Any kind of comment posted anonymously about somebody is basically unfair and sometimes cruel,” he said.

Police said they would investigate the US-based website, which has previously faced heavy criticism, and said the consequences of online bullying were “worrying”.

I am a big believer in the freedom of speech. I can accept that people have the right to vent about any professional within certain boundaries. When a student slanders another student or a teacher with homophobic, racist, sexist or defamatory insults it is fair to say those boundaries have been well and truly crossed.

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