Pa. teacher strikes nerve with 'lazy whiners' blog

I don't think she's out of bounds in terms of rights and laws (future or else). However, society snared her in a trap, and it may scar her career. Such is the way of humanity.

Oops, I meant them collectively.

Still. I'd freak out if my report card contained something along the lines of "pineapple you."

I dont believe she actually wrote that in report cards. She was most likely just simply venting - something we all do.

And If I have the time I'll look at more blogs, but I'm just saying that her blog - the one in question - definitly doesnt seem "profanity-laced" as they claim. It just seems like the media is exaggerating, again.

I'd reckon someone of the older generation would call anything with 1-3 curse words as "profanity-laced."

First, I love how the article does not link us to the blog or at least a copy of the blog so that we could read it and decide for ourselves. Instead, they cherry pick quotes that dont give us the full picture. For example, I would like to read the blog to see if this blog is as profanity-laced as they claim.
As the article only cherry picked the quotes and information, I can only comment on the two major issues this article covers.

First, its a shame that this woman was fired for expressing her First Amendment right to Free Speech. We all know that free speech can be rude, but how would you like to be fired or punished just for a little venting?
The second issue is that she complains about student behaviors. Well, the system has failed the students.
[video=youtube;Bx4pN-aiofw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx4pN-aiofw[/video]

That video makes me feel stupid and I'm probably one of the most intelligent kids in my school. Only thing that I really suck at is spelling. Looking for a spelling class in my school.

Well I can say the reason I'm not motivated in school is primarily because of the teachers.
I try in the classes I enjoy being in, I say pineapple it and just try to maintain an acceptable grade in the classes with whiny ass teachers that would be out of a job if the teachers unions weren't such whiny collectives of bullpomegranate and papayagotry.

I honestly wouldn't give half a pineapple if one of my teachers posted something like this about me, gives me even more reason to not try in their class, and just try to piss them off that much more.

I'm going to break my lurker status and, as a teacher, say something.

It makes me want to throw up when someone tells me that it's my job to just deal with this pomegranate. I get cussed out, yelled at, fought with, and ignored... And I'm supposed to just be okay with it? Let's look at another job that's much simpler... Say, retail. You get paid to be there. Is it your job (and an acceptable part, nonetheless) for you to tolerate rude and unappreciating customers, especially when you go out of your way to help them? No, it isn't. We do it anyway. Do we like it? No, we don't. Do people complain about it? Yes, they do. I can't count how many blogs there are where people are crying about what a crap day they've had while working at some place like JCPenney or Sears or Kohl's... So what makes it different for a teacher?

Because we're supposed to "set an example" that you have to tolerate so much crap from kids who are unappreciative of the time you're spending every day to help them? That we should smile through all the terrible comments and abuse? That we should be HAPPY that they don't care enough to learn?

Oh, right... We should, because it's "our job." No where in my job description does it say "tolerate being treated like garbage" or "deal with getting cussed out, just keep a smile on your face while it's happening." I'm sorry, but that's the degrading and disrespectful. Teachers are humans; we have feelings, and we can only put up with so much. We have lives outside of work, which also come with the possibility of having stressful times (family issues, divorces, sickness, car accidents, legal issues, marriages, and so on). So when I see people, especially like one of the comments that was posted here from one of her ex-students, it makes me want to punch them in the face.

Here's another thing. My job description DOES NOT say "provide motivation to your students." Guess why! Because I can't. I'm not full of motivation. I can PROVIDE the environment for education, but I cannot provide that motivation to acquire it. It's your duty to yourself, not mine. If you're not motivated to try, I am not going to go out of my way when other students are showing me they are. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to TRY to help make things better for you, but it does mean that you have to give feedback and actually make an attempt. Providing motivation != to providing an educational environment.

For me, I also run a tutoring class. If you're not understanding something, it is up to you to make the effort to come to me. Guess what! If you ask me for help, I'll help. If I don't know the answer, I find somewhere and LOOK IT UP with my student; we learn together. I'm sick of students who want to be spoonfed everything.

That's MY rant about students, which I have a lot more. Ask Rick, he knows that I hate how unappreciated the brats make me feel.

But I will address one other thing. I also believe that the current school model is WELL OUT OF DATE; it has been for many, many years. There's a good video that illustrates this (see here). We continue allowing bad things to perpetuate, and they don't work; they only continue to split people up, and it makes some of us feel undervalued (example: how do you social science-minded people feel when you're being shoved into maths or "hard" sciences?).

So there are problems with poor educators, too. I had a lot of them growing up, and I still get them in college. I get people who throw a holier-than-thou attitude in my face because they studied this crap for ten years, not realising that things can change or students aren't as stupid as the educators seem to think. The whole system is broken.

But I just had to wall-of-text say... I think this teacher was, in no way, wrong. We all need our place to complain, and we need a place to actually feel like someone is listening to us. Unless I'm calling out specific students BY NAME, I don't see why it even matters if I go posting something like... "One of the boys cussed me out when I asked him to do his work. He walked out of class, told me he didn't give a damn, and punched a wall. He won't make it through flipping burgers, let alone getting a college education." It's not like I walked up and told him he was a moron; I didn't tell anyone else that he, specifically, was a moron... But maybe, for those kids, it's a guilty-conscience thing. You know, when you've done something but you don't want to admit it... And now she's having to pay for it.

ALSO, I saw this comment:

If it was another teacher that wasn't a Caucasian their jobs would be up the creek and if they were suspended they would not be suspended with pay.

And I call bullshit, because that's what it is.

I'm going to break my lurker status and, as a teacher, say something.

It makes me want to throw up when someone tells me that it's my job to just deal with this pomegranate. I get cussed out, yelled at, fought with, and ignored...

It's certainly not just teachers taking crap from teens, but their parents too. And the parents have no more control over teens than the teachers do. Once kids hit puberty respect for parents turns to ridicule. Grades can plummet within a span of a few months, and no amount of arguing or badgering can change that. Peer pressure is everything. If a parent tells a teen he should maybe not always skip breakfast and lunch because its not healthy or that he should wear a coat because its cold today, the suggestion is ignored or mocked. A friend tells him he should shave his head -consider it done.

I know every generation of parents thinks their generation of kids are the worst ever, but in this case I think there really is something going on. The degree of apathy, laziness and foul temper seems to be off the charts. Kids routinely mouth off, lie, and so on in ways their parent's generation wouldn't dream of doing at that age. I wonder what the cause of this is. Too much depressing news? Over stimulation from too many hours of TV and gaming? Lack of exercise and bad diet or some common food additive causing laziness, apathy, irritability, insomnia (as well as obesity and diabetes)? Or maybe just spoiled rotten. Wish I knew.

I'm going to break my lurker status and, as a teacher, say something.

It makes me want to throw up when someone tells me that it's my job to just deal with this pomegranate. I get cussed out, yelled at, fought with, and ignored... And I'm supposed to just be okay with it? Let's look at another job that's much simpler... Say, retail. You get paid to be there. Is it your job (and an acceptable part, nonetheless) for you to tolerate rude and unappreciating customers, especially when you go out of your way to help them? No, it isn't. We do it anyway. Do we like it? No, we don't. Do people complain about it? Yes, they do. I can't count how many blogs there are where people are crying about what a crap day they've had while working at some place like JCPenney or Sears or Kohl's... So what makes it different for a teacher?

Because we're supposed to "set an example" that you have to tolerate so much crap from kids who are unappreciative of the time you're spending every day to help them? That we should smile through all the terrible comments and abuse? That we should be HAPPY that they don't care enough to learn?

Oh, right... We should, because it's "our job." No where in my job description does it say "tolerate being treated like garbage" or "deal with getting cussed out, just keep a smile on your face while it's happening." I'm sorry, but that's the degrading and disrespectful. Teachers are humans; we have feelings, and we can only put up with so much. We have lives outside of work, which also come with the possibility of having stressful times (family issues, divorces, sickness, car accidents, legal issues, marriages, and so on). So when I see people, especially like one of the comments that was posted here from one of her ex-students, it makes me want to punch them in the face.

Here's another thing. My job description DOES NOT say "provide motivation to your students." Guess why! Because I can't. I'm not full of motivation. I can PROVIDE the environment for education, but I cannot provide that motivation to acquire it. It's your duty to yourself, not mine. If you're not motivated to try, I am not going to go out of my way when other students are showing me they are. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to TRY to help make things better for you, but it does mean that you have to give feedback and actually make an attempt. Providing motivation != to providing an educational environment.

For me, I also run a tutoring class. If you're not understanding something, it is up to you to make the effort to come to me. Guess what! If you ask me for help, I'll help. If I don't know the answer, I find somewhere and LOOK IT UP with my student; we learn together. I'm sick of students who want to be spoonfed everything.

That's MY rant about students, which I have a lot more. Ask Rick, he knows that I hate how unappreciated the brats make me feel.

But I will address one other thing. I also believe that the current school model is WELL OUT OF DATE; it has been for many, many years. There's a good video that illustrates this (see here). We continue allowing bad things to perpetuate, and they don't work; they only continue to split people up, and it makes some of us feel undervalued (example: how do you social science-minded people feel when you're being shoved into maths or "hard" sciences?).

So there are problems with poor educators, too. I had a lot of them growing up, and I still get them in college. I get people who throw a holier-than-thou attitude in my face because they studied this crap for ten years, not realising that things can change or students aren't as stupid as the educators seem to think. The whole system is broken.

But I just had to wall-of-text say... I think this teacher was, in no way, wrong. We all need our place to complain, and we need a place to actually feel like someone is listening to us. Unless I'm calling out specific students BY NAME, I don't see why it even matters if I go posting something like... "One of the boys cussed me out when I asked him to do his work. He walked out of class, told me he didn't give a damn, and punched a wall. He won't make it through flipping burgers, let alone getting a college education." It's not like I walked up and told him he was a moron; I didn't tell anyone else that he, specifically, was a moron... But maybe, for those kids, it's a guilty-conscience thing. You know, when you've done something but you don't want to admit it... And now she's having to pay for it.

ALSO, I saw this comment:


And I call bullshit, because that's what it is.

And that's exactly why I would never become a teacher. Its a job that's overworked, underappreciated and just seems like hell too me. When it gets down to it, teachers who become belligerant are simply teachers who no longer love their job, and simply can't run and get another one.

People have become so naive and lost any type of compassion towards anyone. Teachers say pineapple the kids, knowing they are probably going to fail, Parents blame the teachers because they can't put pity on said kid which gives prejudice.

Disengaged lazy whiners sounds like a punk band's name.

Well I can say the reason I'm not motivated in school is primarily because of the teachers.
I try in the classes I enjoy being in, I say pineapple it and just try to maintain an acceptable grade in the classes with whiny ass teachers that would be out of a job if the teachers unions weren't such whiny collectives of bullpomegranate and papayagotry.

I honestly wouldn't give half a pineapple if one of my teachers posted something like this about me, gives me even more reason to not try in their class, and just try to piss them off that much more.

Yeah, because that proves you really care for your education. To me you're just one lazzy idiot who thinks treating teachers like pomegranate and pissing them off is the coolest and best thing to do at school. If you really cared for your education and your classes were really boring you'd read a book but you don't and you won't. And yeah, this kind of comments really piss me off because they remind me of how I used to be. An idiot blaming others to justify my failures (grades and lack of motivation).

And I must agree with nikki, specially with this:

Guess what! If you ask me for help, I'll help. If I don't know the answer, I find somewhere and LOOK IT UP with my student; we learn together.

It's true that most teachers will do this with you. I didn't ask for help that often because I was a lazzy idiot, but I remember that the few times I did they really tried to make everything understandable or enjoyable for me. Even if one specific teacher won't help you there are others that are always available for you. Blaming teachers is not a smart thing to do, even if you're only trying to justify yourself.

At college this is great. My teachers are wonderful persons that know a lot of stuff, that are educated and that are always willing to help me with my projects or researchs. Seize school and stop beign a rebel jerk.

When I saw Seth's comment I thought of this and I knew I wrote this some time ago but I couldn't find it 'til I checked my blogs:

On the other hand if conversations are about real life stuff I'll get bored for two reasons: (i)most maplers are too young and (ii) I've already done/know most things they talk about. I finished highschool at least 3 years ago, I was already a lazzy, horny, kind of stupid rebel and hearing these stories told as the coolest things ever is just.... meh. Having an ocational conversation about a book, tv show, news... I don't know, but there are many fun things in real life to talk about instead of the same stupid tales about people being a jerk to teachers or the time when they got sooooo drunk that... I already have the same problem in real life and I have to deal with my "friends" at university telling me the same story with few different details every pineappleing week.

Well I can say the reason I'm not motivated in school is primarily because of the teachers.
I try in the classes I enjoy being in, I say pineapple it and just try to maintain an acceptable grade in the classes with whiny ass teachers that would be out of a job if the teachers unions weren't such whiny collectives of bullpomegranate and papayagotry.

I honestly wouldn't give half a pineapple if one of my teachers posted something like this about me, gives me even more reason to not try in their class, and just try to piss them off that much more.

You're doing it wrong.
You do know that it is your life the one that is at stake, not your teacher's. He/she already graduated and got a job, you haven't.

[video=youtube;Bx4pN-aiofw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx4pN-aiofw[/video]

Nice watch.