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Yeah, if i was a teacher, I would never break up a fight. If they want to beat each other up then that's not my problem. I would be hired to teach X subject and that is what I intend to do.
I'm talking about personal boundaries, which exist for a reason. They are guidelines that exist to protect people. The boundary that says, for example, parents of adult children should not tell those children how to live their lives. The boundary that says teachers should not party with students.
You crossed the "professional" boundary when you joined the mean girls, regardless of your supposed motives.
Absolutely. Complete ethics issue. And fairly creepy, at that.
I've been a youth outreach worker and counselor, as well as a teacher, most of my professional life. I know how it works. When you "join in with the kids," you are showing serious lapses of understanding of appropriate boundaries, as well as a lack of understanding regarding human development and social psychology.
It is possible to build rapport and establish relationships built on trust and respect without feeling you have to "become one of the kids." That's a rookie mistake that often turns into big trouble (like, legal trouble) for youth workers and educators. As in, potentially career-destroying rookie mistake. What you are suggesting is inappropriate in many ways, on many levels, and for many reasons.
I think your "logic" is lacking. And as for the idea that you have some sort of gift that allows you to transcend the adult child boundaries....its a little disturbing. That doesn't even touch the ides that you want to get paid to groom and recruit your future employees based on keeping a gossip log in public schools. That is assuming what you wrote is even true. You sound very naive and immature for a college graduate in their 20s. Good luck to you in whatever you do end up doing.
Oh, my, I should have finished the thread.
So, you are looking to infiltrate schools, ingratiate yourself to social cliques, keep private burn books of how students are cruel to one another, consider yourself to have an "in" that gets students to really trust you and let you in, groom teens based on your personal observations of their interpersonal interactions, and then, in the final step that shows the true ulterior motives, cull from the herd of followers you have developed, a group of underling employees.
No, that doesn't sound at all creepy or cultlike at ALL. I can't imagine why this "business model" wouldn't work, nor why school districts wouldn't be willing to pay you more than they pay executive level administrators to perform this role. Seems like a no-brainer.
Absolutely. Complete ethics issue. And fairly creepy, at that.
I've been a youth outreach worker and counselor, as well as a teacher, most of my professional life. I know how it works. When you "join in with the kids," you are showing serious lapses of understanding of appropriate boundaries, as well as a lack of understanding regarding human development and social psychology.
It is possible to build rapport and establish relationships built on trust and respect without feeling you have to "become one of the kids." That's a rookie mistake that often turns into big trouble (like, legal trouble) for youth workers and educators. As in, potentially career-destroying rookie mistake. What you are suggesting is inappropriate in many ways, on many levels, and for many reasons.
And who decides what is an appropriate boundary?
An invisible force?
If you join in with the kids, out of fear of disciplining them, then yeah that's pretty weak.
But I explained what my plan was and it worked and yet you still complain about process!
Legal trouble? I doubt it. There's no law they can punish you under? You can't press charges on you personally not agreeing with me.
Many levels and many reasons? Such as? Could you try being more specific?
Don't Middle Schools already have such a person in the capacity of a counselor? Not necessarily to take detailed notes in color coded pencils but to be there to talk with the students, keep abreast of student problems, etc. Our school counselor is quite good with the kids. She counsels, conducts all the anti bullying training, establishes the mentorship programs and really knows the students even though our Middle School is big! She works hand in hand with the guidance counselor who is more in tune with the academics. They make a good team.
Then again, we live here in NJ where they try to be on top of this bullying stuff.
I think a person that never leaves their office and normally talks down to the students is going to suffer from reporting bias. Only the most concerned students will ever even think of getting "counseling help."
And while it is still better than nothing at all, almost no problems are caught early this way. It is considered "social suicide" to even get counseling at all, so if the student is willing to go to them, it already must be pretty bad.
So that position might keep students from killing themselves, but doesn't help with the daily issues that the students face. It's still important to have that position, but I think more is needed.
Once you start defaulting to anti-bullying training/programs, you're finished. Those things are useless and never work.
If you're into politics at all, those programs are like the political conventions. They move the poll numbers a few points for a few days, but after a week or two, the polls are right back where they started.
Yeah, if i was a teacher, I would never break up a fight. If they want to beat each other up then that's not my problem. I would be hired to teach X subject and that is what I intend to do.
People like you are exactly why this position is so important.
Heaven forbid you go two steps out of your way for no immediate compensation!
And then we wonder why students are so selfish these days?
Based on everything you have written, you have no business being involved in any setting with children
Comments like these are exactly why I believe that most adults don't actually believe in living in a free society.
You simply don't agree with me, so you want to ensure I have no opportunity to show that my ideas work. And then you will point to how no one else uses my ideas as "proof" that you are right. Well of course no one will use my ideas if I don't have an opportunity to try them out!
Ideas can be proved/disproved through trial and error, but apparently the psychologists already know better, for the great reason that they say so.
You could try elaborating as to what SPECIFICALLY you disagree with?
So, you are looking to infiltrate schools, ingratiate yourself to social cliques, keep private burn books of how students are cruel to one another, consider yourself to have an "in" that gets students to really trust you and let you in, groom teens based on your personal observations of their interpersonal interactions, and then, in the final step that shows the true ulterior motives, cull from the herd of followers you have developed, a group of underling employees.
No, that doesn't sound at all creepy or cultlike at ALL. I can't imagine why this "business model" wouldn't work, nor why school districts wouldn't be willing to pay you more than they pay executive level administrators to perform this role. Seems like a no-brainer.
This is something that really bugs me about older adults.
You mock things by portraying them in the worst possible extreme and then act like as if that is the average result.
You wouldn't happen to be a journalist, would you?
It's like the headline that says, "Huge snowstorm coming this weekend" and then finding out that we're getting 2 inches of snow, but areas over 10,000 feet are getting 2 feet. Yeah, that's not a huge snowstorm or a big area. But the journalist can coyly say, "Well I didn't define huge, did I?"
Burn books? No, those are designed to help understand the situations from each student's perspective. Each student has their own knowledge of what THEY know VS what everyone else knows VS what is unknown to everyone, but the individual. You would come to different conclusions based on different sets of data, even if one approached the situation with the same process. But it would be cumbersome to have a student go through EVERYTHING they know about each person involved every time, so it is more efficient to just keep track of what each student knows. That way you could analyze the problem in advance and try to form a plan as to what you think the student should do, before they approach you with a concern. That's called being prepared.
You have to build trust! Would you confide your whole life story to a perfect stranger? I don't think so. Based on the attitudes of many people on this board, there's no way they would trust the majority of you. I have to prove that I'm different and my word means everything. Too many adults think it's OK to lie to the student, promise they won't tell anyone, let the kid tell them what they want to know, and then tell anyway, saying it's "for their own good." You mean YOUR own good. It is never acceptable to lie under any circumstances. While I think that should be common sense, it isn't practiced consistently, so I have to work hard to prove that is the case with me.
The personal observations of their interpersonal interactions is just meant to be a predictive factor into how they will react in the future, both within the school and in a potential work setting. What other factors would you like to use? Would you base a hiring decision on what the person says in the interview? Oh, I'm sure that is a highly honest setting! I'm sure the person wouldn't say just anything in a 20 minute interview to be hired! It's fairly impossible to act so calculated though over a 3-year time period, so you can be more assured that the signs you are receiving are genuine, even if they are negative. If a student is a jerk to his peers consistently for 3 years, that's a lot more predictive than the prospect trying to flatter you for 20 minutes.
And underlings? Really? Because parents aren't worried about their kids' futures and would be outraged to see their 14-year old receive a contract offer? Really? You really believe that?
And the idea would be to employ all of them that have any value at all. No, I'm not going to hire a chronic liar just to pretend everyone is equal. But all of them that have value, sure. Of course, I'll run into resource limitations, so I would just hire as many as I can afford to. And my superior information would allow me to cluster them in the ideal way to maximize the chemistry they have with each other. Maybe ten years out, I could afford to employ them all. For the ones, I cannot hire myself, I would advocate for them throughout the city, trying my best to get something for them, if they or their family wanted them to take a part-time position. If showing loyalty to your community is cult-like, then yeah, I guess it's a cult. However, I don't see how the logic I listed in this post demonstrates what I want to do is a cult?
And why would the business model not work? Most adults think kids their age are "useless" as demonstrated in this thread. Maybe you didn't use the word "useless" but that is your attitude towards them. So I would be the only one giving them a real opportunity, so they should naturally want to give me 110% effort in whatever basic role I place them in. You might say that since they are so young, they might be unreliable, but if I know them so well in advance, shouldn't that not be a problem? (And college students aren't very reliable either.)
I told you what I believe the position is worth. Just because school districts underpay other teachers or administrators doesn't mean I should lower my expectations. And I acknowledged that almost all districts couldn't afford me, but showed you how I could make back the difference in the future.
So why do you continue to mock this idea for? If it were not a forum, I would hypothesize at this point that you have a personal problem with me and that is why anything I say is automatically labeled as stupid, but that cannot be the case here.
I am literally staring at your "proposal" with my jaw agape because I can't believe what you are suggesting as a means to combat bullying in middle school. This violates every ethical boundary that I can think of, let alone that even if you put that aside it comes across as very creepy.
The best ways to combat bullying come at young ages. You have to integrate through education and community programs that bullying is wrong and inappropriate. I get disgusted with adults who think that bullying is acceptable because "it teaches kids that life is hard and it instructs them on how to deal with conflict." This Neanderthal viewpoint can't come to and end soon enough.
And I think punishment towards bullying needs to be harsher. When I was in elementary school (mid 20s now,) the administration and teachers didn't care if students were being bullied or not, and outside of being told "just ignore him," I got next to no help. Bullies need to be punished, and severely.
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