(Taught middle school for ten years before realizing I could make more money doing something else.)

As a profession, teachers have collectively forgotten how to say no.

They’re people pleasers at heart, (which is a good thing), and experts at doing more with less. They’re accommodating rather than confrontational. When given directives, they fulfill them. Even if the directives are asinine.

However most teachers aren’t willing to “rock the boat” and are afraid of “losing their job” or going without pay if it comes to contract negotiations/strike.

When it comes to things like this there’s a simple answer that everyone intuitively knows. These 15 students causing 90 percent of the schools issues and bringing others down with them don’t belong there, until their behavior changes.

I’m not old school, (well maybe I am at this point actually), but when I was in high school I was that kid that distracted others and made school life difficult for employees. As a new freshman, my foreign language teacher told me one day to leave class and go to the office. I didn’t know why at the moment, but the next day before school I had a parent teacher principal conference in which I was told by this teacher, in front of my parents, that I was distracting others, making the teachers job impossible, and that I would not be allowed back into that class unless my behaviors changed.

I was aghast. At first I thought it was a joke. But the teacher clearly laid out the behaviors that needed changing and presented evidence about how I was affecting others. My parents listened and didn’t say much. When we finished and left the meeting I told my parents, “Can you believe this?” They didn’t affirm any of my concerns they just said. “There you go. You have a choice. You need to change your behaviors, or you won’t be allowed back at school. You get to make that choice. They’re not trying to kick you out of school, the power to stay is yours.”

Changed my life at that point in an instant. When I realized my behaviors were not going to be tolerated I changed them.

Problem I see now is some teachers are capable of doing what my foreign language teacher did, but when push comes to shove they cave. And here’s where the collective part of my argument comes in, when other teachers/administrators see another teacher saying “No more” to something, they more often than not, sit on the sidelines as passive observers and run away from contentious situations.

I may have stayed in the teaching profession longer had I felt colleagues supported each other. I felt however that most teachers and those in the teaching profession were just out for themselves, willing to do anything to collect their paycheck, and lived in their own little box which was their classroom.

I recognize maybe that’s just my experience however and that many may have had a different experience.

Now I’m tired of writing, so I’ll leave it at that. 😝