I say hello with a big smile every morning as you shuffle in the
door, but I secretly seethe with hatred for almost each and every one
of you. Your stupidity and willful ignorance know no bounds. I have
seen a lot of morons in my 10 years of teaching high school, but you
guys take the cake. Your intellectual curiosity is nonexistent, your
critical thinking skills are on par with that of a head trauma victim,
and for a group of people who have never accomplished anything in their
lives, you sure have a magnified sense of entitlement. I often wonder
if your parents still wipe your asses for you, because you certainly
don’t seem to be able to do anything on your own.
A handful of you are nice, sweet kids. That small group will go on
and live a joyful and intellectual life filled with love, adventure,
and discovery. The vast majority of you useless fuckwits will waste
your life and follow in the footsteps of your equally pathetic parents.
Enjoy your future of wage slavery and lower-middle-class banality.
Amazing how teachers are blamed for the state of education in this
country. Look what you give us to work with. I am done trying to teach
the unteachable.
I feel for I, Anon. I taught high school for two years, then got hired as a college teacher. Like night and day. Nothing could drag me back into a high school again. Those two years of hell have made me all the more grateful for the five years which followed.
just an fyi. i teach 6th grade English/History in a middle school. this week, just as a “brush up,” we review nouns. not anything special, a review of common, compound, and proper nouns. almost half of the students in both my classes failed the quiz on nouns at the end of the week. all they had to do was look for nouns in sentences.
…6th grade. (i do work in a very low-income, at-risk youth driven school, but still…)
this is what we teachers are dealing with nowadays. just so you who don’t teach have an idea.
wow I thought I Anon was a place where someone could blow off steam about stuff on their mind. Some comments are less than positive toward this person. I feel sad for them…I mean they went into teaching to make a difference and encourage/mentor young minds, have any of you been around a kid lately? Or for that matter remember BEING a sullen teen–gawd! oh and I’m sure you ALL have perfect jobs and lives with no complaints…shit no! Let them vent for crissakes.
Welcome to America, Kiddo.
Oh, and, hey! I was one of those really interested kids who had a couple of really, REALLY great teachers one of which convinced me to go on to college when I was ready to give up on our crappy system of Ed. So keep on trying, Teach. You never know whom you’ll inspire.
I always suspected some teachers felt this way. I definitely would and for that reason I know I’m not cut out to be a teacher!!
If you really hate your job, just find another one.
A couple things.
1. Teachers aren’t really lower-middle-class wage slaves anymore (although kudos to those willing to do the job for even less). I’m a first year teacher, and with a Masters degree my starting salary is around 50K. That’s a lot more than the starting salary of some of you corporate whores out there.
2. I love my job, but with that said some days it can be so demoralizing! Your entire job is about helping students have opportunities in life, and it is incredibly frustrating when some of them refuse to respond no matter how many fucking strategies you try! Similarly, it is also frustrating to see students you know are completely fucked just because of their fucked up parents. Sure some of those kids will surprise you and turn things around, but most of them won’t so don’t kid yourself.
3. At least by the time I get them (8th grade), students are not all little charming, innocent blank slates. Some of them (whether by environment or genetics) have began to show themselves as selfish, disinterested, shallow, and hateful individuals. It’s interesting that some of you think teachers are to blame for this. Actually, I’m almost flattered that you think we have this much power. Trust me, we don’t. The formation of a person’s psyche is much more complicated than that.
4. Part of the problem with the public education system is the antipathy and hostility it has to deal with from the general populace. Some of you need to fucking get over your angst-riddled adolescence (how old are the people commenting on here anyway?), and realize that the majority of teachers are doing the best they can in spite of shoddy funding and little community/parent support.
5.The majority of my students are totally awesome.
Anonymous is right on the money. I am a college instructor and I can tell you they don’t change when they get here. The only skill they have acquired is a much greater ability to scam the system to support their illiteracy and bloated sense of entitlement.
It is true that some of the screw-ups may shine when they get out of high school, but the problem here is that screw-ups have become the norm. There is no way to reach them because a bullshit entitlement system provides them with an excuse for every situation, nothing is their fault.
What lends more credibility to the post is that studies have demonstrated that the “Millennial” generation were just the tips of the iceberg of a generation of idiots. Each successive wave of youth entering college seems to be much dumber and less capable than the last. However, if you talk to them you would think they are Rock Stars! Some of my students cannot even read or write, yet I am not allowed to say you shouldn’t be in college, because somehow that would infringe upon their rights (read socialist “esteem”). Everytime you give a student a bad grade, you get challenged, even when it is abundantly clear that they are in the wrong. This is where you get to hear a regurgitation of a lifetime of brainwashing and bullshit manifest itself as excuses and social justice.
Good job Anon…Just know it doesn’t change in college either.
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.” – Socrates
All I ask of public school teachers is they identify the ones that want to be taught and that can be taught, and try to keep the others from sending cell-phone videos to YouTube of their after-school gang rapes and happy slapping parties. For the peanuts we pay them versus the actual hours they have to work (i.e. 60-ish/week, and that isn’t ‘three-months off’ they get each summer, it’s ‘three-months where you don’t get paid’), I’d be pleased if they could do even that.
@8 & @10 are SPOT ON!!!!!!!
To every disaffected teacher posting in the thread: start teaching AP classes. Seriously. We’ve still got some fuckwits but at least the concept is that you’re teaching the ‘best and brightest’ so most of the weeding is done for you.
That said, even AP kids will be pompous and entitled bastards, but that’s where you have to knock them down a few pegs. I loved my World History teacher, she excelled at doing that so much that whenever you actually got a compliment from her, it felt that you were either king of the world or walking into a trap. It was usually the first.
@62 and now that I think about it, if you’re able, encourage those bright little seeds to start taking Honors/AP courses as well. My teachers never did that for me. I got so sick of regular classwork just two years ago I had to start demanding that I get pushed up to AP about halfway through the year.
Demanding? I guess. My teachers loved me from the start. I was, obviously, there to learn, and wasn’t a routine Honours student that just got placed there automatically. BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE. Two more years of sitting through classes that are equal to intellectual wastelands and I’d have probably murdered myself. The last regular history class I took, we had a test. I got a C- because I didn’t study and could only remember a few basics from the book. It was the top grade in my class. That was the tipping point for me.
In AP World History, on our semester final, I got a C+. My teacher told me that, for someone in my position (missing half a year’s worth of knowledge, did not take the honors prereqs), the grade was amazing and that I should take AP classes for the rest of my high school career.
Again, I stress: SO. WORTH. IT.
@30
Right on!
STFU, all of you, unless you’ve tried to teach American teenagers. Teachers have every right to vent about their jobs and the people they deal with on a daily basis the same way you do about your pointless-ass desk job that adds NOTHING to to society, you pencil pushing fuckwits!
@20
You’re likely one of the pointless-ass piece of shits this teacher is talking about. How’s your banal 9-5 existence treating you now, fuckwad? Maybe you should have listened to and respected your once-motivated teacher before you fucking broke her soul with your fucking idiocy and obnoxiousness.
I like the logic that if you are frustrated with your students, you can’t possibly be a good teacher that so many of these negative posts imply. Are you bad at your job because you get frustrated once in awhile?
I am a student teacher right now, and I love it, but I also know that sometimes, I will feel exactly the way Anon feels. It is an inevitable part of ANY job. It doesn’t mean you aren’t good at it, or that you don’t care. It means you’re a human.
@10 If teaching is such an easy job, with great benefits, 3 months off, and no adult co-workers and customers that you don’t have to fight for, why don’t you try it? We clearly need bitter office workers that think they’re hot shit. You couldn’t hack as a teacher, not for one damn day.
There is only so much a teacher can do. If kids have not been instilled with a desire to discover and learn at an early age… the teacher can’t force them to care. They are there to guide and support learning, not cram it down kids’ throats.
Schools should just tell kids to leave if they aren’t interested in learning anything. They can go walk the streets, hang out in malls and text friends all day. See where that gets them.
@#15 WORD UP!
I love all the “you are not a teacher, so you could not find your own asshole with a map” posts on here. I am a teacher, so I can say this: that sounds like a person intent on being a victim to me, who refuses to listen to some valid points. And 64: noted your mentioning of “American” teenagers. Have to say though, I think things are probably similar up here. We definitely have douchebags like you, so how different can the students be?
@65: congratulations on your student teaching, I hope it’s going well. Your line: “I also know that sometimes, I will feel exactly the way Anon feels” gave me pause. Will you have days where you’re exhausted, angry and want to quit? Yes. Will you have days where you “seethe with hatred” for your “fuckwit” students, whose “stupidity and willful ignorance knows no bounds”? God, I hope not. I’ve never had a day like that, and I don’t know any teachers who have either.
The fact is that teaching is a constant choice between looking to the positive and looking to the negative. Another brutal truth is that it’s not for everyone.
That said…before you jump ship, Anon, watch the Dead Poet’s Society. Do you remember why you got into teaching? You might also look at moving. One fabulous thing about teaching is you can work all over the world. Ever considered an International School? How does Paris grab you? Thailand? I’m sure the children of diplomats would be fantastic students.
Seriously, STOP TAKING IT OUT ON THIS TEACHER! Trust me, I have no delusions about what high school students were like in my day. I was the nerd who watched it all like an outsider – the kid who baffled everyone in the school and school-related-psychiatry field because they were a cynical little adult who still managed to function extraordinarily well. I enjoyed the company of my teachers more than any classmates simply because I couldn’t hold an intelligent conversation with them no matter how hard I tried. I loathed them. They questioned nothing and parroted the opinions of everyone who had a stranglehold on their attention at that millisecond.
And here’s the important part: KIDS ARE WORSE TODAY. Even from my standpoint. If I, remembering the worst of my classmates, am still horrified at behavior today, DOESN’T THAT SAY SOMETHING?!
Please, all you rose-colored-lens-wearing adults and just-out-of-high-school-bitter-teacher-haters… Stop taking it out on this teacher. When I was 13, maybe a handful of my classmates (even at a large school) would even THINK about spitting on adult strangers walking by with their strollers or grocery bags. Now I witness it about once a WEEK in my neighborhood!!!
Parents are lazier and lazier. AND – recognizing the ones who AREN’T lazy – this shitty economy forces parents to spend less and less time with children… Dumping the sole responsibility of rearing them on public servants like this teacher! IT IS NOT THEIR JOB!!!
AGAIN, FOR THE CHEAP SEATS IN THE BACK – IT IS NOT THEIR JOB TO SHAPE THESE CHILDREN IN ANY WAY!!!
Children learn human interaction from mimicking parents’ reactions starting from…oh, let’s see here…BIRTH. When parents breeze by, too busy to be bothered to even have a sympathetic word to say when thousands are killed in an act of genocide or a local family is gunned down, is it any wonder these kids can’t be bothered to care about anything but their own petty, immediate concerns? They pass judgment without considering anyone but themselves.
Also, if you ask any psych professor worth their salt, he/she will tell you that adolescence is a completely fabricated phase that grows years in length with every generation. It is unnecessary and completely the creation of the society charged with the rearing of the next crop of malfunctioning creeps. It has no basis in physiological development whatsoever. Our brains are done developing by 21. Is it so much to ask that we start to learn ANYTHING before that? When we delay and delay and delay giving/teaching young adults any responsibility, is it any wonder they can’t handle any until they’re 30?! REALLY?! I mean, really?!
Just look at the mean for getting married and starting a family!!! No, not everyone DOES that route (not everyone starts a family at all and that’s fine), but it’s a good measure of the maturity of the generation! STARTING A FAMILY AT THE AGE WHEN FERTILITY STARTS TO FAIL?!?! Fine for the individual, horrific when it becomes an accepted norm. Seriously, birth defects? I was offended when people berated me for having my daughter at age 23. Should I have waited until 35? Should I have waited for a graduate degree, 10 years or more of paying down student loans, or even longer on a mortgage? At 35, every woman has at least a 1 in 270 risk of having a Downs Syndrome baby. Every woman over 35 – no exceptions. So we’re sheltering/neglecting these kids more and more until that’s the soonest they even consider having a family of their own! Doesn’t that seem a little… ODD? It’s all connected, people!
Stop blaming teachers and start f***ing parenting!!!
as the school year goes on, we want to get better and better. it’s no accident that we’ve been winning and winning. teacher gave us a little time off, but we did this on our own. you’ve got to put the vice grip on people, you can’t back down. you mentioned something earlier, it brought a lot of pressure. just getting the looks and understanding what’s happening, is what we are about.
This rant reminds me of the music teacher in Liverpool in the early 1960s who had George Harrison and Paul McCartney in the same class and never noticed that either one had any talent.
i am loving all of the crybabies whose feelings are hurt by the fact that maybe everyone didn’t love them when they were precious babies full of deep feelings!
really, if you think all responsibility is always on the teacher, if you think that a job title should require the ability to surmount the personalities of every person you work with, you are exactly the kind of lazy, naive, entitled, assclown this person knows the students will grow into.
will it be their teachers’ fault when they vandalize your lawn, your car, or whatever else? or will you blame the parents?
are you all just so immature that you think that everything wrong in your life is your mommy’s fault? if the answer is yes, you are pathetic.
the anonymous poster of this, if it is true, is pathetic. students can easily identify when their teacher hates them/hates teaching. stop bitching and quit your job…i’m sure your students would be much much better off without you in their lives.
“That small group will go on and live a joyful and intellectual life…”
Will that “small group” jointly live the same “life”?
The subject does not agree with the object, dear learned teacher of children.
What’s up with all the “maybe you should change jobs if you can’t handle it?” comments. This is I, Anonymous, and someone that actually gives a shit about their important job is doing some venting.
A-hole!
I had a high school Algebra teacher- I’ll call him Mr. Burnout- who met up with me and my Math mental block and decided I was a real waste of space. At first, I’d stand in line next to his desk, for help with the assignment. He’d help everyone else in line, then when it was my turn, he’d pick up a newspaper and ignore me. I started sitting in the front row and then going to sleep when he started talking.
Once, I was called out of class to pick up my ACT scores. Nobody takes the ACT anymore, but I think the highest possible was 36, and 16 was the required score for most colleges. I had a 24, and that was with a 2% math score averaged in. I came back to class with a print-out, slapped it down on Mr. Burnout’s desk and pointed to the score.
For a long time, he just stared at it, with a look I can’t describe on his face. Then he’d look at me, then back at the paper. He’d seem to be about to talk, then close his mouth again. Finally, he handed it back. As I walked off, I heard him mutter, kind of under his breath- “I made a 19.” Then he sat staring into his coffee cup for the rest of the class.
After class, he offered to stay and show me the lesson, but I had an FBLA meeting. So he offered to come in early the next day. He came in early every day after that for the month or two that was left. I think I made a D.
In retrospect, I sympathize with Mr. Burnout- one of my friends explained Algebra to me for a college course and it was jaw-droppingly simple. But in highschool, it was like learning to speak Martian. I acted like a zombee and was probably impervious to instruction. But still, I like to think that was a little attitude adjustment for Mr. Burnout.
I teach college, which is a totally different ballgame, not only because of the students and their level of maturity or motivation, but because the administration stays out of teachers’ way and lets us work. I like the idea of teaching high school, but will never try it, because I don’t want to end up like I, Anon, and it happens to the best of ’em.
I had a high school Algebra teacher- I’ll call him Mr. Burnout- who met up with me and my Math mental block and decided I was a real waste of space. At first, I’d stand in line next to his desk, for help with the assignment. He’d help everyone else in line, then when it was my turn, he’d pick up a newspaper and ignore me. I started sitting in the front row and then going to sleep when he started lecturing.
Once, I was called out of class to pick up my ACT scores. Nobody takes the ACT anymore, but I think the highest possible was 36, and 16 was the required score for most colleges. I had a 24, and that was with a 2% math score averaged in. I came back to class with a print-out, slapped it down on Mr. Burnout’s desk and pointed to the score.
For a long time, he just stared at it, with a look I can’t describe on his face. Then he’d look at me, then back at the paper. He’d seem to be about to talk, then close his mouth again. Finally, he handed it back. As I walked off, I heard him mutter, kind of under his breath- “I made a 19.” Then he sat staring into his coffee cup for the rest of the class.
After class, he offered to stay and show me the lesson, but I had an FBLA meeting. So he offered to come in early the next day. He came in early every day after that for the month or two that was left. I think I made a D.
In retrospect, I sympathize with Mr. Burnout- one of my friends explained Algebra to me for a college course and it was jaw-droppingly simple. But in highschool, it was like learning to speak Martian. I acted like a zombee and was probably impervious to instruction. But still, I like to think that was a little attitude adjustment for Mr. Burnout.
I teach college, which is a totally different ballgame, not only because of the students and their level of maturity or motivation, but because the administration stays out of teachers’ way and lets us work. I like the idea of teaching high school, but will never try it, because I don’t want to end up like I, Anon, and it happens to the best of ’em.
I used to teach high school. Those of you who used this feedback to belittle teaching and “scold” Anon would not last ten minutes in a high school classroom. Anon, do your best and reach the few you can reach. Maybe a few of the entitled jerks will come around if they see other more motivated students having fun and learning at the same time. I wouldn’t hold my breath, but it could happen.
I had a student once who was in one of the worst classes I ever taught, but she was always bright and motivated. She was pretty bored because she was more focused than the rest of the class, so she always finished before the other kids. I encouraged her to write poems and draw in her journal after she finished her assignments. In addition I suggested a few poets that I thought she would enjoy reading. Because of some strange circumstances in the district I only taught that class for 8 weeks. I recently ran into that student at a restaurant. She started crying when she saw me. She said that my teaching helped inspire her to be the first person in her family to go to college. All I did was encourage her, and it changed her life.
So do what you can for those you can, and hope that next year the fuckwit / potential ratio is a little better.
Slack jawed self entitled teens and bitter, jaded, angry, go-nowhere teachers. Sounds like public high school.
One group could still grow up and better itself.
The other is forever the dregs of society, over educated but under achieved, beholden to and dependent on Unionism in order to remain employed.
Check with the kids in 10 years, once they’ve paid a few bills and lost a few jobs, see how they’re doing. Most will be fine, a few won’t.
The public school teachers? Same bunch of embittered, angry, seething cynical losers that couldn’t hold a job anywhere else.
The only rung lower than they — the school administrators.
I’m grading insipid student papers with vodka in hand. Thank you, Anon, for reminding me I’m not alone! (I’m a college teacher, btw.)
I think everyone should lay off this teacher. I work in a college dining hall, and I can tell you that about 50% of the kids are the most self-absorbed, rude little assholes you’d ever want to meet. I could tell you some horror stories about the way they treat us lowly dining-hall workers. All I can say is if I’d have pulled crap like that in front of my parents, they’d STILL be kicking my ass. This teacher is venting, leave him/her alone.
Going to public school in the ’60s and 70’s was hell. I was paddled, tied in my chair, not allowed to use to restroom untill I peed myself, bullied by teachers and other students and ignored by those who were supposed to help me. For 11 years I was forced to endure this treatment in school after school from New York to Washington State. The abuse didn’t stop untill I went to a private school where the teachers and fellow students were decent human beings. To this day I have an irrational distrust of educators. This just confirms my worst fears. No way will I ever vote yes for the public schools. I resent every penny the state charges me for this bullcrap, knowing as I do that it funds apathy and abuse
I was one of those apathetic losers in high school in the late 70s. The only things I cared about was getting stoned, going to rock concerts and scoring with the chicks. My girlfriend’s dad said I would never amount to anything and forbid me from seeing her. I spent my sophomore year in three different high schools before dropping out.
A few years later, however, I got my GED and had a successful career in the entertainment industry for 15 years, attending community college off and on. In my late twenties I went to night school full time while working full-time during the day, learning a new career in IT which I’ve been doing ever since. I’ve never really quit going to school, or learning new things. I read one or two books every month. It is one of my favorite things in life. I have also run into several old friends from school who are just like me, late bloomers.
I don’t really blame the teachers in the Edmonds School District of the late 70s for failing to reach me back then. I was pretty unreachable. I DO place some blame on the idiot parents of Snohomish County who failed the school levies year after year, reducing the high school experience to a miserable, soul-sucking, bare-bones existence. I was not allowed to leave school campus early to go to a job. Instead I was forced to sit through three study halls in the cafeteria, since my electives were all filled up, other than band.
Thank god for band. It was the one thing I was good at back then. And my band teacher, Margaret Dezell, is probably one of the greatest teachers of her time. She didn’t take any crap from her students at all and ruled the band room with an iron fist. And yet, she inspired so much respect from her students, because we knew that she was the real deal. She actually cared. We did not want to fail her, and as a result, she instilled in us a desire to be better, to try harder, and to never stop developing as a person. It just took me a while, that’s all. The seed was planted. That is exactly what a teacher’s job is, to plant seeds. And unfortunately, they rarely see the end results. I believe that’s where the cynicism comes from. So, take some time and visit your old teachers now and then. They need to see that their efforts weren’t wasted after all.
@25 You sound bitter and hateful. Just because you drive a beat up old Datsun while the children of wealthy, successful people roll a BMW 135i. Newsflash: kids grow up, go to college, and become successful in spite of the worn down old hippies in the high school teacher’s lounge. Oh, and if you think that as a high school teacher you’re in some great service to academia, wake the fuck up. You want to be an academic? Go to the university. Now shut the fuck up and teach or quit stealing my tax dollars and go dig ditches.”
I thought this teacher was unduly bitter and cynical, then I read your post and thought, “Oh”.
@ 17
What. The. F*ck.
“teenagers are ignorant brats”? Really? God, I’m glad YOU aren’t a teacher. It’s called ageism people. Please, don’t be such a hypocrite. Because of a few *ssholes in the generation, you blame all of us? I agree that we’re not saints, in fact, a lot of us are annoying gits. But when you generalize us, it only helps to make us feel bitter. It’s discrimination, just you think it’s justified because you’re a few years older, which of course, means you MUST be superior.
Forgetting the abundance of ignorant brats that exist in all generations? A great example off the pot calling the kettle black.
At the writer of this I, Anonymous:
The exact same, adding on that maybe the reason some of the teenagers in that class despise you is because you treat them like crap.
But, I admit that probably, there are some real f*ckwits there.
Well thank fuck this bitter twat is finished “teaching.” The taxpayers don’t want to continue to fund the salary, GREAT dental, vision, medical and retirement plans (plus a 180 day/year work schedule!) of a teacher who’d make the comment, “the vast majority of you useless fuckwits will waste your life and follow in the footsteps of your equally pathetic parents” Seriously, I’ve met less bitter jail janitors. I’ve encountered lazy, stupid teachers like this, unfortunately. My son, who aced the SAT and got in to his top college choice, had a math teacher who was on IM through each class, giving the kids packets and telling them to teach each other. She should have been jailed for theft taking a salary for the crap she produced. If this ass thinks her students are dumb, I have a novel idea: teach! Idiot.