Comment by maxklein | Hacker News Reader

Comment by maxklein | Hacker News Reader

I come from a family of educators & private school owners, and if a teacher cannot handle a disruptive class, then we change the teacher. Children are ALWAYS disruptive. It's the natural state of things. Some teachers can solve the problem, and some can't. If a teacher cannot solve the problem, it's not the fault of the Government, or the Community, or the Principal or the Students. It's the fault of the teacher. It's her job to learn the techniques to handle such situations.

In our private schools, we simply swap out the teachers. In such schools where the teacher cannot be changed, one can ask an assistant to sit in, or send the teacher on more training courses.

A teacher is to train students, and part of that is making the students respect education enough to sit down and listen. If the teacher can't do that, then sorry, but that's not a good teacher. If the teacher realises that a particular class constellation does not work, then he or she should do something about it, not blame an invisible 'system'.

Your disruptive is most likely different from this teacher's disruptive. Unless your private school has the same requirements and policies of the public school system I find it difficult to see how your comparison and opinion holds any water whatsoever.

Most private schools that I have visited don't admit or will expel any student that is disruptive on a regular basis which would mean the teacher has a way to enforce policy and rules which is different from what the author of the post has to deal with. On top of that most kids that go to private schools have a much different home life than urban schools. It's just not a valid comparison.

Apologies if I'm mis-reading your post but you sound incredibly confident that its always the teacher's fault for failing to handle unruly students.

Because, when I use the word 'unruly,' I'm including the 6'0" seventh grade 15 year old male student with behavioral issues physically threatening the 5'4" 22 female new teacher in my definition.

If a teacher is supported by the government, community, and the principal they can do their jobs effectively. If they still have disruptive class, then that is fault of the teacher.

But even the best of teachers will be helpless if the system doesn't support them. I highly doubt that criminally disruptive students are allowed to stay in your family's private schools -- so you're quite likely already doing exactly what this teacher thinks you should be doing! Your whole argument is disingenuous; the system isn't invisible, your family of private school owners are one such system.

I'm sure lots of people here has worked in a job that changed management and went from having a productive department to unproductive chaos (and vice-versa). The people doing the work on the ground didn't change.

Kicking a kid out of class is a teacher's nuclear option. If the students know that being kicked out of class will have no repercussions, then you remove not just that option, but the threat of it.

In a classroom, the teacher's authority derives from the school. If the school does not backup the teacher's authority, then the teacher has none. (Within reason - I don't want schools to backup teachers who make poor choices as to how to wield their authority.)

How many students in private schools throw rocks at teachers, and threaten to break their cracker ass in two?

Two part question, if I may - how many students have brought knives to class?

Most good private schools have very little time for disruptive pupils - they know that there is nothing like a "problem" kid for upsetting the classroom and they usually have a long queue of parents desperate to get their kids in.

Which ironically means that the private schools get to bleed the public schools of their positive influencers and can shove all the discipline problems right back on the public schools.

From what I've seen kids who have a problem in private schools tend to either simply get shuffled around to another private school or end up in very strict boarding schools (often ones with traditional connections to the military).

You are correct though about private schools taking positive elements from the state school system - when you look at who typically attends a private school here the parents are typically successful, extremely motivated people who tend to pass these values onto their kids.

A big difference between private schools and urban public schools is the level of parent involvement. I've seen both up close and personal. It's not just involvement in school functions but involvement in their kid's education before and after school as well. The kids that are acting out in school probably don't have parents who can/will be involved in their homework, who can take the call during school hours or come in to meet their kid's teachers.

If the kids are raised by single parents, parents who have to work long and underpaid hours or parents who have substance abuse and/or crime issues the best teacher in the world will not, in most cases, be able to have impact. Yes, there are exceptions. And teachers need to be accountable for what they do in their classrooms. But the pervasive problems can't just be blamed on the teachers alone, the problems need to be addressed by promoting family support systems, promoting teachers who care and school systems provisioned with resources.

In a private school, that's probably a decent solution. Generally, people willing to send their kids to a private school are probably the parents who (a) put a premium on their kid's education and (b) make their children behave at least somewhat civilly most of the time. That cuts out a lot of the problem cases of children who face no consequences at home and who have no incentive to learn. Private schools also get to select on competence in many cases. You're not going to have someone who's reading on a 4th grade level in your senior English class, as happens at public schools. And you can refuse hard discipline cases and/or expel them, which they can't do in public schools.

In that environment, a teacher should be able to control the students. But you can't expect a system that works in those conditions to work in non-optimal conditions.

I do not think it is as simple as you put it; there are situations in urban public schools where student behavior would be beyond the control any teacher or any single person really.

That being said I love your point about not blaming an invsibile system. Every teacher I talk to blames someone else for all the problems in his or her clasroom. The public school system in this country is far from perfect but I believe many of the problems brought up in the original article arise from teachers who are unwilling or unable handle their students appropriately. Stop blaming everyone else and start solving the problem on your own.

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