What teachers face in real life

The Oakland Tribune article New Instructor Struggles in Oakland School that I posted here the other day prompted quite a discussion on the Tribune's Inside Bay Area blog.

Posters want to know why teachers aren't more aggressive about taking away students' distracting electronics — cellphones, iPods and such.

An anonymous teacher posted comments in response, and I'm reprinting them with his/her permission. As usual, it all sounds so easy.

Simple prescriptions sound great. Practice is more complicated.

• Many children want to be thrown out and look for a “soft” confrontation in order to do so. We want them in class so they can hopefully learn something; a blind eye is thus turned to some minor infractions (i.e., having ear plug cords dripping out of a backpack.)
• Many children don’t care about grades and aren’t afraid of suspensions, so it is hard to gain leverage. Since public schools are committed to teaching EVERY child, expulsions only shift the problem kids around.
• Some kids are mainstreamed who have what amounts to oppositional disorder and other behavioral disabilities. Special ed folks are usually overwhelmed and can’t be in every room..
• Teachers will be dinged if they send too many kids to a swamped office. We are told that if we can’t control our class without referrals, we are not doing our job well. Teach better and we will have no problems is the message.
• Schools and administrators are punished by the system if they have a high rate of suspensions and expulsions. The pressure is thus systemic to lower the rate of both, whether the behavior of the students improves or not. Many Oakland schools have seen their rates drop, which is then trumpeted as improvement whether it was warranted or not.
• Parents are often extremely enabling, and sometimes have more pull with administrators than teachers do.
• Some teachers are afraid of their students. Direct confrontations over valuable electronics in front of peers is a serious escalation which can eat half a period. Security is often not available to remove a student who refuses to comply OR leave. If the student only receives a warning from the school, the teacher now looks weak in front of the whole class, which can damage the whole year.
• If you send a kid out in the middle of class, there is no guarantee they will go to the office. Now you have a troubled kid wandering the school — or leaving school to face other dangers. If you walk them to the office, your class will go off the rails while you are gone — and you will be breaking the rules by not monitoring them.

I’m not saying any of these are VALID excuses for laxity. Successful teachers generally are pretty strict but fair. Some teachers run their own afterschool detentions and find every parent who can help. But giving advice from the cheap seats is pretty easy and not really that helpful. The situation is a lot more messy and at its root is a basic fact: Unless they committ a serious crime and are locked up, children over 5 are REQUIRED to be at school all day.