BF2S Forums EE Chats 2142

i'm not going to contradict your reading of that situation, being the school teacher who no doubt is very familiar with similar setups, but i was actually quite impressed with the maturity and composure of the youths. do 'troubled' youths act like that when confronted with bald disrespect? considering their age and the dynamics in the room, i'm very surprised that they seemed to assume the upper position there and just let the guy play himself. someone in their mid-teens saying quite calmly 'i'm not sure i can respect you anymore' doesn't exactly scream to me 'hood rat with poor impulse control'.

SuperJail Warden wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Still waiting on mac's comment.

The mismatch between the demographics of teachers vs the students they teach in America is extreme and worsening. An old white guy probably shouldn't be in front of a class of young minority children the same way I wouldn't make a black guy a kindergarten teacher in New Hampshire. It irks me when they put 22 year old white girl teachers in charge of ghetto high schools. It isn't good for anyone involved but the amount of people qualified to do that job is already a small selective group.

...


It isn't good that the primary experience many black and white Americans have with the other is through school. It is fine among the students but it makes me wince knowing there are schools of black kids whose only experience with a white person is with the cops and teachers. Also makes me wince knowing there are schools of white kids where the only successful black person they will ever get to know is the gym coach.

So what's the solution? Fire the white teachers and hire dumb black ones?

uziq wrote:

i'm not going to contradict your reading of that situation, being the school teacher who no doubt is very familiar with similar setups, but i was actually quite impressed with the maturity and composure of the youths. do 'troubled' youths act like that when confronted with bald disrespect? considering their age and the dynamics in the room, i'm very surprised that they seemed to assume the upper position there and just let the guy play himself. someone in their mid-teens saying quite calmly 'i'm not sure i can respect you anymore' doesn't exactly scream to me 'hood rat with poor impulse control'.

Kids have their ups and downs like adults too. Some days my "At Risk" kids are calm and want to just sit there. Other days I need to physically break up their roughhousing and get them to sit down.

The fact that the kid said to the teacher "I am not sure if I respect you anymore" is the sort of the "without filter" that a lot of disruptive and troublesome kids have. Some kids knew to just sit there and let old man say his whatever and collect a good grade later. The other kid decided to challenge the guy and essentially escalated the situation.

I mean it is good that the kid didn't slap the guy or break out into obnoxious yelling but still the whole dynamic of the situation is obvious. Part of life is getting along with disrespectful people, making peace with authority, and learning how to to stay quiet. Getting the guy fired and replaced with a perm sub I think sends the wrong message to the students. But whatever.

Dilbert_X wrote:

SuperJail Warden wrote:

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Still waiting on mac's comment.

The mismatch between the demographics of teachers vs the students they teach in America is extreme and worsening. An old white guy probably shouldn't be in front of a class of young minority children the same way I wouldn't make a black guy a kindergarten teacher in New Hampshire. It irks me when they put 22 year old white girl teachers in charge of ghetto high schools. It isn't good for anyone involved but the amount of people qualified to do that job is already a small selective group.

...


It isn't good that the primary experience many black and white Americans have with the other is through school. It is fine among the students but it makes me wince knowing there are schools of black kids whose only experience with a white person is with the cops and teachers. Also makes me wince knowing there are schools of white kids where the only successful black person they will ever get to know is the gym coach.

So what's the solution? Fire the white teachers and hire dumb black ones?

Train and hire more minority teachers, aides, guidance counselors, etc. No school has an overabundance of teachers and support staff.

We don't have to kick white people out of college to make room. We can expand higher education access. Increasing teacher pay and benefits to lure people away from more lucrative college majors will probably make the whole demographic mismatch worse. "There are no solutions, only tradeoffs."

...

The mismatch between the leaders and workers of American institutions and the Americans they serve is a big area of interest for me and also a huge blindspot in America. Do you remember when the U.S. government had Army and Marines out directing traffic and providing basic services in Iraq because we fired and banned all of the Arabs who did those jobs just fine before the occupation? Remember how the Iraqis felt about that? Same situation taking place in many parts of America and bound to get worse.

Government jobs will be the few "good jobs" left and multigenerational white Americans will still try to setup their friends and families into these jobs. It would be remiss of them not to. More educational barriers will be put up between the jobs and workers while higher education access is curtailed. Meanwhile the population of minorites keeps increasing, and the population of whites keeps decreasing and pretty soon the place looks like Brazil.

That's my prediction.

uziq wrote:

so black kids should put up and shut up and be talked down upon by a guy who thinks they are genetically inferior? how does that work.

even in my non-troubled posh school there was a clear need for reciprocal respect between teacher and student.

I am not saying that. I am just saying there is a time and place.

It is the same thing I would tell a black kid when dealing with the police. Don't fight them and instead just comply. Record, and report. Don't try to fight the system at the first point of contact.

mac wrote:

I mean it is good that the kid didn't slap the guy or break out into obnoxious yelling but still the whole dynamic of the situation is obvious. Part of life is getting along with disrespectful people, making peace with authority, and learning how to to stay quiet. Getting the guy fired and replaced with a perm sub I think sends the wrong message to the students. But whatever.

What bothers me about this paragraph is the non-mention of the engagement the teacher also has with "life." Another part of life are consequences (easily predictable consequences) for screwing up in the manner he has.

I don't think Dilbert has the right response, "oh the poor man, all the brown people are going to ruin him." NAACP didn't force him to sit down and have a KKK heart-to-heart.

Putting the burden solely on students to stolidly receive this kind of treatment in a way reminds me of blue lives arguments faulting police victims for not acting calm with jittery, armed, badged, ("trained," lol) thugs screaming at them.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2022-11-15 18:38:47)

I would probably be one of the students with their heads down like that one in the foreground. Cannot comprehend what neurons were firing to trigger an algebraic war dance. It's haunting

You're probably right that just letting the teachers go like that might be knee-jerk even if they should have known better. So it would be nice if students were consulted in these cases. Like you say, they're going to be adults eventually, so why not engage them in this process and give them a vote and a voice. It could be educational. And, after all, students and teachers spend a lot of time together.

A unanimous "stay" could get the teacher back on the job with a stern warning and whatever else administration decides needs done.

IIRC it was a poorly conceived attempt at passing along a math mnemonic? Make of that what you will.

STEM, folks.

e: I've read that she'd been doing this for awhile (like years), so it's not as if it was like a one day breakdown or something?

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2022-11-15 21:12:33)

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

"smart white teachers. dumb black teachers." -dilbert, 2022

If there's a surplus of white teachers and a shortage of black teachers then inevitably if you want an even balance, or of course ideally all black teachers, then the acceptance standards are going to have to be lowered.

The whole idea is stupid, I thought choosing the best person for the job, regardless of race, was the whole argument of the anti-racists.

How far do you go? Shouldn't asian students have an asian role model teaching them? Hispanic students? Eskimo students? Obviously we're not going to worry about the white kids.
Maybe there's a reason there aren't many black role models to hire as teachers?

i don't really think that people should have same ethnicity or same religion teachers or whatever. that seems unnecessarily prescriptive to me. the idea should be to transcend and get over those (largely constructed) barriers, and the classroom is a very good place to start it, i.e. before people grow old and bitter and fearful and develop a suite of presentiments and resentments like our good man dilbert here. children are largely unencumbered with this stuff and classrooms should be pot pourris of culture and views.

the problem is racist teachers. i do think here is something very obviously wrong about an adult in a position of responsibility, acting in loco parentis, telling his minors that he thinks they're inferiors, closer to animals than human. that is all sorts of wrong. an education system can do better than to employ a paleolithic maths teacher.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Ask mac, I don't agree with pursuing like to like. I do agree that maybe putting an inexperienced teacher into a challenging classroom is a little cruel, though.

Expand access to higher education if admission caps are an issue.

I know you're in your 50s and are probably irked by stuff like potatohead's renaming, but 'eskimo' is probably a word better to avoid these days.

I don't think people should only be taught by their own race. That's exactly what bothers me.

SuperJail Warden wrote:

It isn't good that the primary experience many black and white Americans have with the other is through school. It is fine among the students but it makes me wince knowing there are schools of black kids whose only experience with a white person is with the cops and teachers. Also makes me wince knowing there are schools of white kids where the only successful black person they will ever get to know is the gym coach.

Ideally both schools would have a reasonably
diverse staff.

No one needs to lose their jobs or get denied access. We can increase the number of seats and classes and teachers. Anyone framing that idea as "white people losing out" has an agenda or messed up frame of mind.

The "judge not" stuff may be one of the most befuddlingly abused biblical quips ever. It makes zero sense that the intent was to bar judgment from society. Isn't it supposed to mean only judge others by the same standard you would wish to be judged? And with humility? Book of Matthew wasn't big on hypocrites, I guess.

Out of necessity, a teacher like that should be judged.