Middle schoolers can be little assholes

[ex-khobar Andy]

A story in the NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/06/tech ... vania.html about 5th to 8th graders wh set up Tik Tok accounts in the names of their teachers and had them saying racist etc things.

Seventh and eighth graders in Malvern, Pa., impersonating their teachers posted disparaging, lewd, racist and homophobic videos in the first known mass attack of its kind in the U.S.

O brave new world, that has such people in it!

[BoSoxGal]

Hey newsflash, it starts much earlier for many kids these days. I spent a few months this past winter working with elementary schoolers, many of whom were by second grade already savage bullies to peers and teachers alike, inclusive of physical attacks on a fairly frequent basis.

The dynamic in the public schools these days is deference to parents out of fear of lawsuits and little is being done to address disruptive behavior because in and out of school suspensions make the stats look bad for the school and/or district. There is always threat of lawsuits from nonprofits and DOE/DOJ alike if there is any hint that certain groups of students are being targeted for discipline.*

I gave up my plan to teach in the public schools after seeing what I saw and realizing the tone of administration these days - there is no support for teachers and few protections, it is no wonder to me the rate of dropout from the profession that we are currently seeing.


*One of the worst school systems in Massachusetts, a commonwealth which has held the distinction for best public schools in the nation for decades, is a system near me in Fall River. It was sued by various entities and ultimately ended up in a consent agreement with the DOJ, whose investigation held that there was no evidence of bias in the application of disciplinary framework to the student body even though minority kids made a larger than proportional share of the kids getting in and out of school suspensions. Despite the lack of evidence of bias, the district agreed to revamp the procedures such that the rates of in and out of school suspension dropped dramatically - but there was no such concurring drop in disruptive behavior. The brave new world of public school education is that some kids are allowed to be feral no matter how much is disrupts the education of the majority of kids because . . . racial justice.

[MajGenl.Meade]

The brave new world of public school education is that some kids are allowed to be feral no matter how much it disrupts the education of the majority of kids because . . . racial justice.

And people vote for Trump because they are sick and tired of interfering do-gooders screwing up the world with their "we're right and you're wrong" self-inflated righteousness.

[BoSoxGal]

Here’s the awful story about what these shitty conscienceless kids did to their teachers from a news site without paywall: https://www.boston.com/news/national-ne ... ostpopular

I would be mortified if I raised a kid who behaved this way, but from my recent experience I can attest that some of the worst kid behavior is laughed at by the parents of those kids when administrators try to intervene. We had one 4th grader who was constantly calling teachers and aides pedophiles, and every time she was written up her mother would just laugh it off. I’m sure they went shopping and out to lunch on the days she got suspended from the program.

It’s a brave new world indeed. No thanks!

[Jarlaxle]

This is why libel and slander should be felonies.

[MajGenl.Meade]

This is why libel and slander should be felonies.

34, 35, 36, 37. 38, 39, 40, 41 ad infinitum. Poor bastard would never be out of court.

[BoSoxGal]

The school district where this mass TikTok attack on teachers took place has the following demographics: White (82.1%) followed by Asian (12.6%) and Hispanic (3.3%).

Let's please not fall into any racist traps in this discussion - I recognize I opened the door so let me clarify. Part of the problem in public schools today is race related - the same populations of kids who have always struggled are still struggling and that is due to larger systemic factors than just what is happening in schools, and there is definitely misguided thinking in some of the leadership that the way to address racial injustice is to ignore the problematic behaviors of minority students rather than discipline them.

But the larger issue is some kind of perverse disconnect between parents and schools - a highly adversarial relationship that bears little resemblance to what I recall experiencing as a kid in the public schools, when parents and teachers were for the most part aligned 'against' bad behaviors of students, regardless of the race or SES of the student. Not always, of course - there have always been kids who were overlooked or ignored by certain teachers and administrators and whose parents could not get much help even if they knew to ask for it, and certainly there have always been kids who were neglected and overlooked by parents.

But today's atmosphere is something else entirely and with so many parents and administrators failing to step up and support teachers, I am unsurprised at the rising rates of early retirement and abandonment of the profession altogether. I was practically begged to take a position teaching this coming school year in a Title I district with troubled schools and students. I decided I wasn't up to the challenge primarily because having witnessed students assaulting staff members at the out of school program where I worked and facing few if any consequences, I didn't want to find myself physically assaulted by a child, possibly badly hurt, and for there to be no real consequences for it other than my injury and disillusionment. I was treated with greater respect by most of the aberrant actors in the criminal justice system that I worked with than I was by some of the students I worked with.

[MajGenl.Meade]

BSG, I hope that no one on this board mistook your remark for any form of racism. (OK, well one might but not the rest of us).

The moral atmosphere of schools and indeed the entire nation is toxic. Trump is a symptom, not a cause. Enshrining personal "preference" above society is a symptom, not a cause. Ruling by feelings and not by reason is a symptom, not a cause. The slow collapse of the ability of people to remain in charge of "the system" is a symptom, and not a cause.

IMO the cause is bigness. Empires expand and then die of of sheer size. It's always relative to the ability to expand and the simplicity of rule. The Roman or Spanish empire could never "govern" as many people in as many places as the British empire - and all fell from their own over-growth and inability to master the increasing complexity that went along with it.

The American empire has always been one of ideas, compared to the physical land occupations of previous hegemonies. [Yes, yes - there's Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Philippines and some twiddly bits but those are not the same scale as Gaul, India and Brazil]. The USA did not need to spread itself as owner of the world because of the sheer vastness of the West and the unequaled economic power waiting to be unleashed at home.

But like all Empires, America has reached the boundary of its ability to rule. The natives are restless. Those in charge are increasingly unable to reign-in the open and hidden machinations of the (rats and fleas) ones who have found themselves increasingly free of any societal inhibition.

In this environment, only totalitarianism appears to offer a "cure". Russia (a collapsed empire), North Korea, China - all maintain control by state-military/police terror. Symptoms and not causes. And here's Trump - offering to solve many problems of drift by stamping on things that many would like to see stamped on.

They don't particularly want ALL of the stomping to happen. But he is going to stomp on SOME things I don't favor. And although I could never vote for him, there are others who, to get their unfavorite thing(s) stomped on (and it may well be violence in schools), are willing to allow a bunch of other things they don't much care about to get trashed.

Racism is not the cause of 8th graders +/- being little shits. It's not even parents (though they have a lot of blame). It's the failure of the experiment of empires. Or in Christian terms, human sin.

[Jarlaxle]

This is why libel and slander should be felonies.

34, 35, 36, 37. 38, 39, 40, 41 ad infinitum. Poor bastard would never be out of court.

Are you intoxicated?

[MajGenl.Meade]

This is why libel and slander should be felonies.

34, 35, 36, 37. 38, 39, 40, 41 ad infinitum. Poor bastard would never be out of court.

Are you intoxicated?

No good sir. Merely pointing out that Trump's 34 felony counts would be exponentially increased were libel and slander to be felonies. Clearly imagination and wit (no matter how poor) can be perplexing.

[Jarlaxle]

So...you dropped trou and shit all over the place. Figured.

[MajGenl.Meade]

So...you dropped trou and shit all over the place. Figured.

Well, your abuse is not felonious. Tedious and self-demeaning but not indictable.

If slander and libel were felonies, kindly explain why it is unreasonable to believe that Donald Trump would regularly be in court defending himself against felony charges - considering that almost every word out of his mouth is slander and much of what he writes is libel.

The rest is childish twaddle and lies but those should not be felonies, I'm sure you agree

[Jarlaxle]

More shit from you.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Thanks for the Boston.com link, BSG. I posted the NYT story on FB so my friends (many UK) could see the sort of things that go on over here. I just gave them the Boston.com link so they could read the story if they can't get onto NYT.

[MajGenl.Meade]

More shit from you.

So, you have nothing. Not a sliver of an argument. Just abuse. As expected.

[Jarlaxle]

More shit from you.

So, you have nothing. Not a sliver of an argument. Just abuse. As expected.

You poster your usual irrelevant bullshit. My response is "fuck off."

[MajGenl.Meade]

You poster your usual irrelevant bullshit.

Thank you. If slander and libel were felonies, kindly explain why it is unreasonable to believe that Donald Trump would regularly be in court defending himself against felony charges - considering that almost every word out of his mouth is slander and much of what he writes is libel.