For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 01, 2010

I always liked the strict teachers because I was the kid who never broke any rules. The strict ones were great because they kept brats like Michael quiet so I could get my work done.

To ejcapulet, they eventually expected perfection out of you and the first time you messed up, you were permanently discredited and no longer liked by the teachers. That was my experience growing up. I regret that I wasn’t more bratty. I regret that I wasn’t sometimes a bully. I regret that I didn’t make the occasional F.

One mistake, and it’s over.

Strict teachers were great. Much better than the mollycoddling that kids get these days…

”That’s okay, Dear. It’s not your fault that you’re not doing well. Let’s blame your teachers, your parents, ADHD, the Prime Minister of Canada, the Swine Flu, television…”

Ha! It’s easy for adults to talk about “one day” because we’ve lived through the growing up years and we’ve learned. Plus John doesn’t have a boss, so he doesn’t have to deal with a strict one to make his life difficult.

@kboone4 - that’s a new one on me. I always felt like the better behaved kids got a couple extra free passes because the teachers knew a mistake wasn’t normal. The only problem that my daughter has is that they always put the troublemakers next to her because she tries to do the right thing and won’t join them in bad behavior. She’s tired of not being paired with the nice kids.

Shoot, I learned quickly to do badly at the beginning and then slooowly get better. Yep. Fooled a lot of teachers!

@lightenup, I fully understand as two of my three children ended up in classes like that. It is hard on the child, and on the parents who are trying to support him/her! But as far as strict teachers being great, that depends on how strict and how consistent they are. Consistency is what is needed. And I agree that too much time/effort is now focused on making children feel good about themselves no matter what, and way WAY too little time on learning self accountability. Glad we taught that at home!

I get annoyed with all the bashing of teachers “these days.” Back in the day, I was trained as a teacher but took another path. Still, over the years I’ve spent a lot of hours in classrooms as a parent volunteer, PTA, etc. I can tell you that my kids know more than we did at their age. I can tell you that the teachers don’t mollycoddle - and that it’s mostly people who don’t spend much time getting to know what’s going on in class who say that sort of thing.

BTW, I mostly had great teachers - the worst not those who demanded much (they made us feel good by challenging us) but those who made fun of kids who struggled.

They know more about some things but far less about important things. Most have terrible math skills and can’t construct a sentence to save their lives.

Webspider you forgot “W” or “Bushdick”. Musta had smething to do with it.

i hated strict teachers. they were no fun! i was not a trouble maker, but i prefered a more relaxing classroom environment.

Good luck, Michael. “Some day” I’m going to be retired!

Me too howtheduck! My fourth grade teacher was SO mean! I wasn’t even a bad kid! She got better as the year wore on but still, I don’t have very good memories. :(

Strict teachers are great… if you’re a kid who never shows an original thought, absolutely follows every arbitrary rule, and pretty much wants to “stay in the box” throughout life. If you’re a creative kid with a mind of your own, strict teachers are horrible authoritarian Nazis who don’t care a whit about education, they only care about blind obedience to their power trips. The only thing you learn from these people is how much life can suck when you’re under the control of stupid people with power.

And yes, I am bitter. :)

“The reasonable man adapts himself to fit the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Ah, I get it now. Any teacher who requires discipline in his/her classroom is on a “power trip”. Any teacher who demands that all students do the work required is a “horrible authoritarian Nazi”. With attitudes like this, is it any wonder that our school classrooms are out of control and the kids only learn enough to pass the state exams? My sister just retired from teaching 3rd grade for almost 40 years. She was so disillusioned about today’s teaching requirements. She was one of the “strict” teachers who actually managed to teach something, but her hands were tied so much by today’s educational requirements (read social engineering) that she was unable to teach things like history, proper English, grammar or reading. The sole focus of classrooms in CA is to pass that state exam with as high a score as possible. So, the only thing she had time to teach (other than gay studies and political correctness, of course) was what was on that test. Never mind the rest of a rounded corriculum.

Odd… I was always very creative and because I was well behaved even the strict teachers let me express myself. I am not talking about the inconsistent “power trip” kind of teacher, but the kind who like to maintain order and respect. And, yes, I got a bit of a free pass to occasionally be bad because it was rare (I once got completely fed up with a bully and smacked him and the teacher told him to leave me alone). I did have two teachers who were too much. One was in her last year and was just plain tired out. And because I was well-behaved, her being nasty to me stuck out like a sore thumb and she ended up making a public apology! The other got caught terrorizing students and was dismissed. By the time I was in high school, if a teacher needed books counted, I’d get assigned to count books and not have to do the homework for that day. I don’t regret behaving myself at all.

Michael has so far shown himself to be disrespectful, rude, and over-exaggerates (case in point, he says the babysitter who goes by the rules is “real mean”). You have to earn slack and he hasn’t.

It’s not being strict that matters but meanness.

I had a lot of strict teachers that were also very nice. I had a few mean ones that weren’t necessarily that strict.

There’s a huge difference between teachers with high standards, and teachers who are on a power trip, and their only purpose is get a paycheck while keeping the kids as quiet (and fearful) as possible.

The reason schools suck these days is because the schools suck. Everyone wants to blame society, or blame the parents, or blame “the kids these days”, but no one wants to blame the teachers, the unions, administrators, principals and the everyone WHO ACTUALLY RUNS THE SCHOOLS. Because supposedly we’re supposed to “respect teachers” who are underpaid and underappreciated.

Well, to heck with that. They’re the ones responsible for educating the kids, and if the kids aren’t learning, then they need to do whatever is necessary to engage each kid INDIVIDUALLY and figure out what works with each kid. Some kids need a lot of structure, while other kids need a freer hand. The authoritarian Nazi teachers are too lazy to treat kids as individuals.

Sorry, but I don’t buy in to the notion that “it’s everyone else’s fault except the people who actually create and teach the curriculum.”

Sure, there are good teachers out there who are victims of “the system”, just as their are good administrators who can’t get the bad teachers to do a decent job. Of course, the teacher union is just pure evil, all the way through, no exceptions. But I don’t care. I want results, I don’t want excuses.

And don’t get me started about tenure… (after TWO YEARS here in California).

Thanks for the glimpse of reality, Nairebis. I’d say only about 1 in a hundred teachers are defined as really good. I had one that was excited about what he taught and we couldn’t help but feed off that excitement. Much more affective than having an authoritarian teacher.

ejcapulet said:

“I always liked the strict teachers because I was the kid who never broke any rules. The strict ones were great because they kept brats like Michael quiet so I could get my work done.”

Well, I sort of agree. Sometimes creativity is mistaken for ‘being a brat’, especailly when I child hasn’t learned much self-discipline. I want to see Michael meet a teacher who recognizes and nurtures his talents, but in the mean time, a ‘hard-ass’ teacher is not a bad experience to go through (though is doesn’t seem like it at the time).

I was not a brown nose - I was disapointed that the 5th grade teacher died before I got big enough to pay him back for his idea of Christian behavior.

Ever notice the littlest grades got the toughest teachers?

Nairebis, I will agree that there are some awful teachers out there. I worked with some. But on the majority… I still blame the system.

The idea of teaching individually these days… unless you have been in a classroom and tried to individually teach to 35 kids at a time with no administrative or parental support… It’s impossible. They have done many studies that show that for each child added into a classroom above 22 the effectiveness of the teaching declines. Basically teachers have become glorified babysitters these days. It kills the spirit of the teacher to not be able to give the amount of time and energy to each student that they need, but the schools keep cramming as many students into a classroom as possible. At one of the schools I taught at, administrators and parents did very little to assist in discipline… I couldn’t do any of the creative teaching I wanted to do because i had to keep students from beating each other and starting fires in the classroom.

Anyhow… I have sympathy for Michael’s teacher.

Neb, there are so many holes in your argument and logic… I’m not even going to waste my time refuting them… especially since you used the, “there’s no argument…” bs. I’m sure the rest of the folks are smart enough to see what a load of bleeep you just dished out.

Thank you Mirthiful: You said what I wanted to say but more concisely. My son did not have excellent teachers every year and wasn’t always the perfect student; however, we parents did not expect our teachers to teach our children good manners, respect or any moral values that should be taught in the home. Parental involvement from elementary through high school was huge. Parent nights were standing room only. I think that makes a HUGE difference. Children know you care about them and I think teachers appreciate the support.

Neb: If my son misbehaved in school. The blame was squarely on his shoulders, no one else’s. I think that is a problem today. We don’t make our children take the consequences for their own behavior.

By the way, when I was in catholic school, lo those decades ago, our average class size was 40 and God help you if Sister called your parents to say you misbehaved. I am glad that attitude has lessened somewhat

Most classes I attended in NYC public schools K-12 had between 35 and 40 students. Sometimes we had to share a desk, and sometimes there were two grades in the same class. We learned because we were expected to. While the teacher was busy with grade 4, the kids in grade 5 read their textbooks, did the assignments and taught themselves.

We were all from middle-class families, which enabled the teachers to maintain order and discipline without a lot of punishment. We understood that we were in school to learn, and we valued the learning…mostly.

The schools today reflect the many problems in our society. The middle class is struggling financially, even with both parents working full time. Who’s available to lead the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and look after the kids after school? Who sees that homework gets done, and who visits the classroom to help out the teacher? No one, for the most part. How are you going to fix the schools without fixing the society and the economy? Can’t be done.

pattybf hit the nail on the head: “we parents did not expect our teachers to teach our children good manners, respect or any moral values that should be taught in the home.”

I’m a lucky teacher - teach in music schools where the kids are there because they want to be (or well, because the parents want them to, in some cases ;) but I wouldn’t want to teach in a school where half the kids’ parents backtalk teachers and school half the time and then when they misbehave the going is: No MY CHILD can’t do anything wrong!!! Sure doesn’t set a well behaved classroom.

Let’s see about Mike’s teacher - she might be using the age-old tactic: Let’s be really strict at first, don’t give the children any reason to think they can bully the teacher, then you can ease up after a couple of weeks, keep a nice order in the class without being a horrible one.