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OP here.....Thanks all.......
You know, much of this is me being 53. I know that. But I do take it personally when they KEEP coming in and swearing like sailors despite my repeated attempts to quell it, nicely and otherwise. And I go home and see mouthy teenagers on TV or whatever and for the first time, I think "my God it sounds like my students." I NEVER used to think that.
I have seniors, and they are not the worst (many of my sophomores are just over-the top disrespectful), but they still do disrespectful stuff. The'll say the s-word, and I'll say "Shoot". They'll say hell and I'll say "heck." So they know where I stand, yet they still do it and make no attempt to apologize.
We had a talk about it on Friday, and they couldn't figure out why if they are 18 they can't swear in my classroom....and I went into everything from decorum and common courtesy and because I asked nicely and respectfully and not to mention you are 18 and you could drop out and go home and cuss all you want. But not in the environment of my classroom. Everything from c'mon guys to laying down the line. None of it works. I've been going at it all year. And I don't budge on it. But there's been no effect, other than a handful of the high achievers maybe appreciating my efforts.
I am truly going thru a phase here, where I think I may have stayed too long in the game at teaching year #20 (I started teaching later than most), and that I have always prided myself as a good teacher. But when I was younger I was seen as cooler than the other old teachers, and flexible and adaptble and malleable and all that. But now that I'm older it's not seeming to be working. I've discussed it with administrators and all it did was have them doubt my classroom management abilities....and so now I doubt them too. And it's started to snowball into me becoming apathetic with teacher tasks and grading, paperwork, etc. I've turned into a bit of the "what's the use?" guy.
Thanks for letting me vent folks.....I'm trying. I think.
By the time I hit 4th grade, way way back in prehistoric times, kids starting cursing and it reached the pinnacle by 6th grade. I think by high school, the shock value and the novelty wore off a bit, but they still cursed. This was to each other, never to the teacher, unless it was some sort of sly joke. For example, I remember that a science teacher came back from a school break wearing a full beard. One of the students (a good one who was generally well-behaved) said, "Mr. D., what's all that S--- on your face and the whole class, including the teacher, burst out laughing. I also remember my very nerdy 7th grade science teacher making a sulfur solution and he was breathing it in. He also uttered a few profanities and everyone laughed. Now, when the teachers got angry at us, especially during the junior high years, they would curse at us using every curse word under the sun, including MF. No one stopped them. Since my parents never used profanity, this was how I learned about the C word when some female student really got under a hippy-drippy teacher's skin. Some kids went back and told their parents and the parents objected, but back then, teachers had a lot more authority and autonomy. Teachers could never get away with speaking to their students now in the same way they did back then and perhaps, in this respect, that's a good thing. Teachers also used a lot of sarcasm and belittled their students, something else that would result in disciplinary action now. My kids tell me that some of their college professors curse like sailors in the classroom.
By the time I hit 4th grade, way way back in prehistoric times, kids starting cursing and it reached the pinnacle by 6th grade. I think by high school, the shock value and the novelty wore off a bit, but they still cursed. This was to each other, never to the teacher, unless it was some sort of sly joke. For example, I remember that a science teacher came back from a school break wearing a full beard. One of the students (a good one who was generally well-behaved) said, "Mr. D., what's all that S--- on your face and the whole class, including the teacher, burst out laughing. I also remember my very nerdy 7th grade science teacher making a sulfur solution and he was breathing it in. He also uttered a few profanities and everyone laughed. Now, when the teachers got angry at us, especially during the junior high years, they would curse at us using every curse word under the sun, including MF. No one stopped them. Since my parents never used profanity, this was how I learned about the C word when some female student really got under a hippy-drippy teacher's skin. Some kids went back and told their parents and the parents objected, but back then, teachers had a lot more authority and autonomy. Teachers could never get away with speaking to their students now in the same way they did back then and perhaps, in this respect, that's a good thing. Teachers also used a lot of sarcasm and belittled their students, something else that would result in disciplinary action now. My kids tell me that some of their college professors curse like sailors in the classroom.
Funny how it has completely flipped, isn't it? It's not okay for either to speak that way. I am glad I never heard a teacher curse, let alone say some of the words you are implying they did.
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I must have grown up in a privileged area or something despite growing up poor. I never ever heard a teacher curse. They certainly were harsh in their discipline, but they did not curse out their students. (I'm 72 so in school starting in the 50s and out of high school in 1962).
I've taught in both public and private schools, private currently. So of course bad language is not tolerated nearly as much and is considered a big offense. I teach freshman so it's generally not a huge issue, but if I do hear a bad word, I'll usually give the kid a "look" or "What did you just say?"
I draw the line and write referrals when it is directed at me or someone else. A few months ago I called a kid out for taking someone else's binder, and he blamed it on someone else and said that kid "is a f-ing idiot." Of course I had to write that up. A few weeks ago, a kid knocked a stack of freshly copied papers off my desk. I asked him to pick them up, he said he didn't do and when I asked him to do it again, he said "F that".
I don't curse in front of my classes. I do occasionally say that some misbehavior "pisses me off" and sometimes I say "crap" (but usually, without even realizing it). Sometimes, I find a well-placed "damn" to be kind of effective. Example: A boy came into my room everyday with his (uniform) shirt untucked. I'd constantly ask him to tuck it in and it never stuck. One day I went up to him and quietly said, "Tuck in your damn shirt, please," and never again did I have to ask him!
I had a student who NEVER did any work. He was only in attendance about 50% of the time.
I finally talked him into writing something for me. I said, "Just write how you talk."
This is what I got (I am most likely adding punctuation he did not, but this is my re-telling.)
So, last night, me and my boyz went out and sh*t. We hung out at J's house and sh*t, then we went to 7-11 to hang and sh*t. Then we went to El Pollo Loco and sh*t.
And it went on from there.
I wrote in big red letters at the top of his paper, "I hope everywhere you went had clean restrooms!"
It went completely over his head. I wanted to add, "Maybe you should see a doctor about that condition," but refrained.
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