Cuthbertson High School teacher told students VP Pence should be "shot in the head"
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ChickenHawk
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I knew what was involved and chose not to get into teaching. I think people just get sick of hearing teachers act like martyrs, dude. My sisters are great teachers from what I can tell, but like 80% of teachers I've known they act like they should be treated like they have the toughest job in the world when other jobs have BS that goes with it and you don't hear the same amount of complaining. I have a hard time empathizing with someone that complains about something they knowingly got into.
Just like I have friends that complained about people being jerks to them because they were cops. What did they expect?
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Nah. I was not prepared for the indoctrination that I witnessed daily, nor was I prepared for how petty many of the staff could be, most especially the TAs. It was a very middle school-esque cliquey atmosphere amongst many of the staff, and just endless belly aching about every aspect of the job from the old timers that seemed like they were simply coasting without much passion. The parents were a 50/50 split of great and horrific. I absolutely loved teaching the kids, even the bad ones, and I still miss that to this day.
Not trying to grind down the profession, I've met and worked with many amazing teachers, but Lord at the horrible ones I worked with that had no business dog sitting, let alone shaping young minds. The administrative staff, well, you know how that is. And the absolute greasiest, sneakiest POS superintendent you could ever care to meet.
I've had many extremely different professions since then, and while teaching was far from the most difficult, it was frequently the most depressing and exhausting, at least in the poverty stricken Title I schools where I was working. A bad day at work now means I can home and blow off steam with a few beers, whereas teaching, I knew I had students going home to stuff cotton balls in their ears while they slept to keep the roaches out.
Maybe this is why we should give teachers a bit of slack when it comes to their so-called "martyr complex" and salary concerns?
Not on the salary; it is plenty fair for 10 month employees. As for the martyr complex, well, I'm not a fan of anybody acting like their job is the paragon of difficulty when they chose it, but, no, not all teachers do that. You think a classroom of 25 kids is tough? Try surveying for 10 hours when it's 99 degrees and 100% humidity and not a single layout point is in the shade. Try working a 14 hour shift reviewing over 10,000 patient samples for 78 compounds each. Try reconditioning GC column for hours on end. Try finishing 18 realistic dental appliances in a day. Try underwater welding, landscaping, roofing, humping hills with 80lbs of ruck in the mideast, animal control, etc, etc. We choose our jobs and the benefit outweighs the burden or we move on. I've yet to find a thing in this world worth doing that was easy.
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Well, my classes have 250 students in them; and I've tossed chain and been sprayed by mud on an oil rig floor and certainly worked on plenty of lab equipment including GC, HPLC, etc. etc. Whatever.
And not one of those jobs does your performance rating rely on 12 yr olds...
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All the bad teachers I know? Teaching was a fall-back because the college courses are easy. The solution then is obvious.
Once upon a time Appalachian was a renowned teaching college... then they needed more teachers and voila. I can't imagine what happened.
Once upon a time Appalachian was a renowned teaching college... then they needed more teachers and voila. I can't imagine what happened.
BudE
Hillsborough, NC
You're right in the X ring SR30
I went to a parochial grammar school in the late 40s and early 50s. The school was very diverse; Irish Catholics and Italian Catholics and one black kid whose name now escapes me as do the names of most of the others. The teachers took NO abuse! It was the other way around. If you came home and it came out that you got smacked around, be prepared to get smacked around again. In retrospect I have come to realize those nuns were crazy. However, in a class of say average 50 students, you learned math, English, history, spelling and of course most important religion. to give a little example, in the first semester of the eight grade I got a 98 on the final exam which earned me a crack across the face for the true/false I got wrong. I saw kids with room temperature IQs learn times tables and spelling etc.. Maybe we need a little more of that, but not quite that extreme, in the classroom today. Eureka! I just remembered that kid's name. Richard Brooks. If I recall correctly his fathers owned a taxi cab business.
I’d settle for parents who took their job seriously, and didn’t see the school as an adversary. Of course with a lot of the foolish teachers these days, they’re not helping themselves.
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I teach w many App alums, they still turn out great teachers.
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BudE
Hillsborough, NC
Again, right on the money.
Not sure why you've taken offense, as I've merely stated that all careers have their own unique hardships. Sorry if it came off otherwise.
Not trying to make light, but after languishing in the lower tier of middle management and my performance rating depending on a dozen or so 22-50 year olds, I'd take the 12 year olds any day.
OP
Soooo...before I also go off on a derailment tangent...
Anybody here come across the teacher's name yet?
Now for my derailment:
Yep, predictable. So I'll put in my take.
EVERYBODY who has come up through the schools has had at least one run in, or has otherwise come across, a teacher who wasn't really worth squat for some reason or another. Maybe they just didn't have good teaching skills. Maybe they just had d*ckhead personalities. Whatever.
However, in the decades I've been around, I've found the following to be true by and large: most people (including teachers) are actually pretty good people. Yeah, the "concentration" of d*ckheads varies from time to time, but most people really are pretty good people.
With that in mind, this kind of makes the bad apples in the basket stand out all the more.
So, be wary of painting with too broad a brush.
And, honestly, even the d*ckheads have valuable lessons to teach our children. How so, you ask?
Well...d*ckheads exist in every walk of life. In fact, in some situations you can't swing a cat by the tail without hitting d*ckheads all around you.
If nothing else, d*ckheads in schools are opportunities to teach your kids this reality...and how to cope with them. And the best way to cope with them is to succeed, inspite of the difficulties.
Am I a teacher? Nope. However, I HAVE been an instuctor in the Navy for shore duty and let me tell you...the same problems exist there as in any other school. Some teachers (and students) are just d*ckheads.
Do I want to be a teacher? No.
Well...let me clarify that a little bit. I LIKE teaching...but not as a full time, actual trained and paid, job.
Why?
Because I know my limitations, and one of them is "challenge" must be coupled with "variety". I would love a classroom environment...for all the time it took me to learn the job and get good at it. At that point, it would become "same-old, same-old" for me and my interest would drop, and so would my performance. My 40 month shore duty as an instructor was a perfect length of time for that job. (And even then...I made Chief and they pulled me out of instructor duty to fill a different job at NPTU.)
I like the job I have now...it has so much variety, so many levels of challenges, that at any time I might start losing interest something comes up out of the blue and off I go.
I strongly suspect that had I been born a couple decades or so later, I would have been diagnosed ADHD or something.
Best advice I can give is that parents MUST get involved with their kids' schooling. Know what they're doing and how well. Get to know their teachers. Get involved at some level.
If you truly believe that a teacher's primary job is to teach...then make sure that at leasts YOUR kids aren't requiring them to be babysitters and disciplinarians.
Anybody here come across the teacher's name yet?
Now for my derailment:
Yep, predictable. So I'll put in my take.
EVERYBODY who has come up through the schools has had at least one run in, or has otherwise come across, a teacher who wasn't really worth squat for some reason or another. Maybe they just didn't have good teaching skills. Maybe they just had d*ckhead personalities. Whatever.
However, in the decades I've been around, I've found the following to be true by and large: most people (including teachers) are actually pretty good people. Yeah, the "concentration" of d*ckheads varies from time to time, but most people really are pretty good people.
With that in mind, this kind of makes the bad apples in the basket stand out all the more.
So, be wary of painting with too broad a brush.
And, honestly, even the d*ckheads have valuable lessons to teach our children. How so, you ask?
Well...d*ckheads exist in every walk of life. In fact, in some situations you can't swing a cat by the tail without hitting d*ckheads all around you.
If nothing else, d*ckheads in schools are opportunities to teach your kids this reality...and how to cope with them. And the best way to cope with them is to succeed, inspite of the difficulties.
Am I a teacher? Nope. However, I HAVE been an instuctor in the Navy for shore duty and let me tell you...the same problems exist there as in any other school. Some teachers (and students) are just d*ckheads.
Do I want to be a teacher? No.
Well...let me clarify that a little bit. I LIKE teaching...but not as a full time, actual trained and paid, job.
Why?
Because I know my limitations, and one of them is "challenge" must be coupled with "variety". I would love a classroom environment...for all the time it took me to learn the job and get good at it. At that point, it would become "same-old, same-old" for me and my interest would drop, and so would my performance. My 40 month shore duty as an instructor was a perfect length of time for that job. (And even then...I made Chief and they pulled me out of instructor duty to fill a different job at NPTU.)
I like the job I have now...it has so much variety, so many levels of challenges, that at any time I might start losing interest something comes up out of the blue and off I go.
I strongly suspect that had I been born a couple decades or so later, I would have been diagnosed ADHD or something.
Best advice I can give is that parents MUST get involved with their kids' schooling. Know what they're doing and how well. Get to know their teachers. Get involved at some level.
If you truly believe that a teacher's primary job is to teach...then make sure that at leasts YOUR kids aren't requiring them to be babysitters and disciplinarians.
Sadly, a lot are at this phase.
Ive literally read these sorts of things on my system's facebook page - parents outraged because their kids will be home ANOTHER day following a really bad snow storm (last year).
"Well, little Johnny cant remember to come back and see you to pick that book up, do you mind tracking him down and delivering it to him each day?"
"Well what are you going to do to get his grade higher" (question asked to me about a failing student a few years ago)
Students with parents involved TYPICALLY perform better
I say 'involved,' it could be as simple as a parent who checks their grades weekly and sees if they've been out or not
ChickenHawk
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A particularly bad teacher made me hate unions and tenure by my junior year of high school. He was a physics teacher and would give different students different formulas for problems. Couldn't be fired due to tenure, and the principle had to write notes to go along with student's transcripts when applying to colleges to explain away that class affecting their GPA. That was a good lesson to learn.
One hour and you’d change your mind, at least you can fire yours...
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My wife’s a teacher. If I had to deal with the crap I hear about from her I’d wind up in jail for putting my hands on someone. I have zero empathy for little turds with big mouths. I wouldn’t do that job for any pay.
This
Right
Here
We'll all have/had bad coworkers, and it sucks. But it rarely affects OUR performance.
In managerial jobs we've had/have some employees under us that arent good - in time they can be let go or transferred.
In education if I have a bad kid, Ive got AT LEAST 90 school days with the kid. In one case I had a guy three times.
This is the kid who spread rumors I was saying homophobic things in my class.
Youve got to go in and do your best to get this turd to learn something and not distract their peers for 90 minutes each day
And if someone complains about dealing with a dozen folks... lol
Ive got 80 a day I see every day.
Eighty different personalities.
Eighty kids going through puberty and high school drama and their home lives sometimes are garbage.
Eighty kids who are very easily swayed by the other 79 (plus the other 800 in the building).
And Eighty kids who sometimes have parents who think they know better and think they know what takes place in those walls.
But, all that said - Ive met some WONDERFUL folks and Im fulfilled on a regular basis by the lives Ive been able to be a part of.
Out of those 80, Ive got about two that I'd like to see gone from my room. So about 3%...not bad at all.
OP
@sr30 @HMP
If I may...
If you are a good teacher, then rest assured that you have students out there who will remember YOU for that...perhaps even in a life-altering way.
And perhaps by a student who would surprise you, if you only knew.
My last year and a half in the Navy was...let us say "challenging" in place of "horrible". I was SO looking forward to a tour at sea as a Chief when I landed on a submarine in the middle of a shipyard availability, just months away from completion.
Amongst other things I had to deal with, I had that ONE guy in my division who wasn't just out to make my life miserable...he was flat out maneuving to get me fired from my job.
It was due to issues related to his activities that made me decide "you know...20 years is enough of this sh*t" and I retired at 20 instead of extending for a couple more years.
Life in the Navy is hard enough...and coming up on 10 years married to my wife, with three children, I decided it was time to move on to other pastures.
Fast forward almost a decade.
Guess who the RC-Division Chief was on one of the submarines undergoing a refueling overhaul in the shipyard?
If you guessed it was this dirtbag Second Class from the ship I retired from, you hit the nail on the head.
And d*mned if that guy didn't come up to me and APOLOGIZE to me for being a d*ckhead back then.
During our talks, it turns out he figured out I was the one who kept the command from deep-sixing him because I saw potential in him that he didn't.
(He was an incredibly intelligent know-it-all, but hadn't yet figured out that being a technically smart mofo wasn't what it took to move up and be a leader.)
Yeah...there will ALWAYS be good students who will remember the good teachers fondly. And yes, it's good to hear from them as life moves on.
But if only ONE of those "3%" (as HMP calls them) finds you later in life and says YOU were "the one"?
That is incredible.
So...to you, and all the other good teachers out there, understand that there ARE people who appreciate you for doing what you do.
Never forget that.
Ever.
If I may...
If you are a good teacher, then rest assured that you have students out there who will remember YOU for that...perhaps even in a life-altering way.
And perhaps by a student who would surprise you, if you only knew.
My last year and a half in the Navy was...let us say "challenging" in place of "horrible". I was SO looking forward to a tour at sea as a Chief when I landed on a submarine in the middle of a shipyard availability, just months away from completion.
Amongst other things I had to deal with, I had that ONE guy in my division who wasn't just out to make my life miserable...he was flat out maneuving to get me fired from my job.
It was due to issues related to his activities that made me decide "you know...20 years is enough of this sh*t" and I retired at 20 instead of extending for a couple more years.
Life in the Navy is hard enough...and coming up on 10 years married to my wife, with three children, I decided it was time to move on to other pastures.
Fast forward almost a decade.
Guess who the RC-Division Chief was on one of the submarines undergoing a refueling overhaul in the shipyard?
If you guessed it was this dirtbag Second Class from the ship I retired from, you hit the nail on the head.
And d*mned if that guy didn't come up to me and APOLOGIZE to me for being a d*ckhead back then.
During our talks, it turns out he figured out I was the one who kept the command from deep-sixing him because I saw potential in him that he didn't.
(He was an incredibly intelligent know-it-all, but hadn't yet figured out that being a technically smart mofo wasn't what it took to move up and be a leader.)
Yeah...there will ALWAYS be good students who will remember the good teachers fondly. And yes, it's good to hear from them as life moves on.
But if only ONE of those "3%" (as HMP calls them) finds you later in life and says YOU were "the one"?
That is incredible.
So...to you, and all the other good teachers out there, understand that there ARE people who appreciate you for doing what you do.
Never forget that.
Ever.
OP
I can't find the name on any news link or other internet story website.
HOWEVER...the Cuthbertson Facebook page has this (keep in mind that this is NOT a verified source in any way):
After 20 years in the classroom, generally it’s the parents who are the thorns in my side, and asshole administrators.
Just yesterday one of my former students came to school to shadow prior to starting her position as an 8th grade science teacher. She’s the second former student I’ve had the pleasure of teaching with...
I’d def like to have a sit w you and a certain other bubblehead member.
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OP
I look forward to it!