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A relative of mine is a teacher at a big city school. The stories he tells me about the terrible discipline problems that go on with the mostly minority and lower income students scares me to death. As I travel in rural and small town America I drive by schools in low income but country locations. I wonder if the problems with discipline and kids not wanting to learn are just as severe in rural and small town poor neighborhoods as in the inner city big cities? Anyone know?
Yes they can be bad. We lived in the country for 10 yrs and I was a homeschool mom, then substitute teacher. It was a low income area, and many of the parents had drug, alcohol, and divorce problems. Two kids came into kindergarten not even knowing their own name! The special ed dept was quite full, considering the size of the school, and with my limited experience I estimated that half of them were there because of motivational problems due to the situations at home, rather than a genuinely low IQ. On the other hand, the people are more of a mixed bag, meaning that you have all types in one school, rather than in the city, where the schools are more homogeneous. Most of the horror stories I heard were about the parents, not the students, and most of the problems are with them not wanting to learn. Many of the kids at that school hated to read. I mean Hated it. I still think it would be better than an inner city school though.
My wife taught in an inner city school in Springfield, Mass., then a rural county regional voke/tech school in Franklin County, Mass., and back to the same inner city school.
She found more student drug and alcohol use, more classroom behavior problems, more school wide behavior problems, more family social problems in the rural Franklin County school.
Her inner city students are functioning at a higher level academically. I've seen and compared papers from students at both schools. I was amazed at the difference in the quality of work.
The inner city students were functioning like 12th graders in 12th grade. The rural students were functioning more like low achieving 5th and 6th graders in 12th grade.
She finds the inner city kids to be engaged, charming, funny, inquisitive, interested in the subject matter and respectful of her. She found the rural Franklin County kids to be dull witted, disinterested, mean spirited and rude.
She did mention a higher absentee/truancy rate at the inner city school but they managed to do much better work when they were present.
My wife taught at a rural school. The discipline problems manifested themselves in different ways than in an urban setting, but they had the same basic roots:
Parents who believe their precious darlings shouldn't have to live by the rules and are therefore entitled to show up late, not turn in homework, swear in class and still get As
A culture of anti-intellectualism ("Why should our kid have to read Shakespeare? What's he ever gonna do with it?")
Closely related to above: culture that valued athletic achievement over academic achievement ("I don't care if Billy skipped 20% of your classes. If you don't give him at least a C for this class, he won't be able to start on the varsity basketball team this season!")
A disciplinary system that refused to support the teacher's classroom authority. Every time she sent an unruly brat down to the principal's office, their response was to say, "Now, don't do that again Little Johnny" and send the creep right back to her classroom.
It didn't take her too long before she said "to hell with this." So she went to the private sector where her talents were actually welcomed and appreciated, and she is now a corporate trainer and process manager. Same basic skill set, only she no longer has to deal with a disinterested, captive audience. Not to mention they actually pay her what she's worth.
My wife taught at a rural school. The discipline problems manifested themselves in different ways than in an urban setting, but they had the same basic roots:
Parents who believe their precious darlings shouldn't have to live by the rules and are therefore entitled to show up late, not turn in homework, swear in class and still get As
A culture of anti-intellectualism ("Why should our kid have to read Shakespeare? What's he ever gonna do with it?")
Closely related to above: culture that valued athletic achievement over academic achievement ("I don't care if Billy skipped 20% of your classes. If you don't give him at least a C for this class, he won't be able to start on the varsity basketball team this season!")
A disciplinary system that refused to support the teacher's classroom authority. Every time she sent an unruly brat down to the principal's office, their response was to say, "Now, don't do that again Little Johnny" and send the creep right back to her classroom.
It didn't take her too long before she said "to hell with this." So she went to the private sector where her talents were actually welcomed and appreciated, and she is now a corporate trainer and process manager. Same basic skill set, only she no longer has to deal with a disinterested, captive audience. Not to mention they actually pay her what she's worth.
We live in a semi-rural area, I guess. I'd like to comment on the low academic standards that have been put in place so that those in sports can be "eligible". High school students (at our schooll) need only a 1.5 GPA in order to play sports.
A few days ago, our 9th grader was at a Junior Varsity's baseball game as they were made to go; sat there with the rest of the freshmen watching them play. They were there until almost 8 at night. Finally, he called to be picked up. I asked him when will he have time to do his homework? If he's not playing (the whole freshmen team), then why do they need to be there all night (from 3:00 in the afternoon until 8:00 p.m.?)
I want our kids doing homework and excelling in school. The 1.5 GPA B.S. is not going to fly here at our house. P.S. - we have 7 children, ages 24 to age 6. The two oldest are getting ready to graduate. One is graduating this Spring with a degree in Education (Chemistry/Biology), the other one is graduating next Spring with a degree in Spanish; he is going for a Master's after graduation. The younger ones are in K-8 Catholic school and the one (above) is at a public high school. He is enrolled in AP classes. We have our own expectations of our children, and if the coaches get in the way with their jock stuff, there will be big trouble ahead. How dare they dumb down the kids by lowering the GPA to 1.5. Do they honestly think that a 1.5 GPA will get these kids anywhere in life?
We used to live in a rural community and the schools were good, no real discipline problems. Yes, there were a few kids but nothing bad at all. The community we were in supported education and most people expected their children to do well in school. Now we are in a suburban district and the school and I see no difference in the level of misbehavior here then in our rural district. The quality of education is better but mainly because we are now in one of the top rated districts in the nation and top in our state. Our old school is comparable to most of the suburban districts here though.
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