How long have school kids been so damn loud/bad?

I have taught in public schools for over 30 years. Student behavior is different than it was when I started. Students are more demanding, they have a sense of entitlement that they did not have before. I attribute this attitude to parents and the pedestal they place their children on.

However, bad behavior has always been a problem for teachers. My uncle who lived to be 101 taught school in the early years of his career in a rural one room school house. He told a story of the students locking him out of the school during lunchtime one day. When they refused to let him in, he grabbed the ax from the wood pile and chopped the school door down. They didn't try that stunt again! The school board was not happy with him by the way, but he didn't lose his job over it. Now days, teachers are not allowed to handle problem situations as they see fit and if they do, they are often threatened with litigation as a result. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to chop any doors down, but it would be nice to have some authority again.

I've been teaching for about 20 years.

It was always this way. We have a tendency to remember it being better, but when I look back at my teaching journals I see that they always had a sense of entitlement and always had the same behavioral problems. When it wasn't texting and iPods, it was chewing gum and passing notes. It's a well-documented psychological phenomenon that we tend to idealize the past, and it only gets worse as we get older.

Kids today are more inclined to try to negotiate everything, but other than that it hasn't really changed much in my experience.

You are correct in saying the schools are "getting bad" or worse as time progresses. Many factors come to light, among these a disrespect for authority and/or doing the right things - morals cannot be taught in schools, they are called "character" lessons; parental involvement thought originally to be a good ting has hindered professional educators in the performance of their jobs; the fact that everyone believes teachers are losers, that is to say they are teaching because they cannot find work anywhere else, and in general our society because it values things other than education.

On a personal level I believe the problem in the United States began with the removal of spiritual values in the name of equity from public schools, the huge numbers of students each teacher is expected to manage in their average day of teaching, and the promotion of test standardization.

I was a principal of a large international school overseas, my mother-in-law was named "teacher of the year" for a county other then the U.S., and my nephew attends school in Great Britain so I have traveled a lot and seen a lot of educational facilities. The United States and Russia rank with each other and Russia considers this an insult, "...U.S. students consistently performed below average, ranking 8th or 9th out of twelve at all three grade levels. These findings suggest that U.S. reform proposals to strengthen mathematics instruction in the upper grades should be expanded to include improving U.S. mathematics instruction beginning in the primary grades.

“The conventional wisdom is that U.S. students perform above average in grades 4 and 8, and then decline sharply in high school,” says Steven Leinwand, principal research analyst at AIR and one of the report’s authors. “But this study proves the conventional wisdom is dead wrong.” http://www.air.org/news/documents/Release200511mat...

I personally hold that the guilty parties are the parents because they expect the schools to raise their children, Congress and the Judicial Branch because they want to twist the words of our fore-fathers like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, etc. who warned us what a nation without an educated populace would be as they gazed into the future, and the public schools must also accept blame for unsuccessfully trying to be all things to all people.

Until children, parents, government, and society in general accept the fact that the schools of the United States of America are functioning at a lower level than the educational system in any of the other "industrialized nations" in the world, and education stops being a trillion dollar a year business in the United States, and professional educators are seen as the conduit by which the societal heritage, learning, and the means by which the citizenry are taught to build a better world our schools, at least those in the United States will not improve and neither will the educational system

Case in point, Texas last year (2007) said in 2009 Algebra as a subject would be required to be taught in the 7th grade. It has been taught in the "7th" grade in over 100 countries for the last 50 plus years.

I am sorry but when I compare our children, the number of attacks on professional educators by our children, the level of apathy observed in parents, the voting public, etc. I see no real hope. We are as one historian pointed out at the same point as Rome was with the Circus where spectacles became more important than anything, especially education ... enter the Dark Ages!

The problem is that no one cares anymore and we are the only ones left caring. The parents are either too concerned with themselves, too young to be parents, or they have given up on their kids and no longer care if they do well. Plus, many teachers get into the mundane way of teaching and have given up on the students too.

I have found in my classroom that the more I get to know the students and they learn that I won't put up with their behavior, they back off. If the students do not like and respect you, then you will have a bad class. I have heard students say that they purposely make the class bad because the teacher is rude and disrespectful towards them.

They do not come to school to learn, they come because they have to and it is our job to motivate them and create a good learning environment. Problems with the classroom start with the teacher, not the students.

I am a teacher in a "bad school" but I have learned that if students are talking at full volume while you are giving instruction, then you missed something when you set up the class rules. Either you arent enforcing them (the rules) or you are trying to compete with them (the students). There must be clear consequences for breaking the rules. There also must be rewards for following the rules. It is easier to enforce good behavior than to correct bad behavior.

Try this:

Post the classroom rules in 2 places in your room. Be sure to print large enough that they can be read from the center of the room.

Post the consequences for breaking the rules (sequential: 1st time, 2nd time, etc.)

Print copies of both of these and hand them to your students. Give each student 2 copies of each and have them sign one and return it to you while in class. Have them take one home for their parent/guardian to sign and return to you the NEXT DAY. If they fail to return the signed paper, have the student have lunch with you until they return it. If there is one thing students HATE it is having lunch with the teacher.

Now, the easy part. REWARDS. I will walk around with candy in my pockets. When I catch a student following the rules, they get a piece of candy and they are told why they are getting the candy (specifically: for raising your hand, for not talking when I am talking, for being prepared for class, for being in your seat and ready to learn, etc)

Lastly, dont give them the opporturnity to get out of hand. Have an assignment on the board when they enter and only give them 15 minutes to complete the assignment. Collect it and grade it. Make sure the students know this is part of their grade. It can be as simple as a review of the day before. They will catch on.

college directors have become extra and extra forced to insure that each and one and all educational time is definitely crammed with guidance. while a instructor chooses to take the class on a field holiday, he/she could finished some particularly long types describing in super element the objective of the holiday. the academic standards and targets could be nicely defined. Now that the faculties are under fireplace for extremely nearly each and every component they do, possibly this instructor needs to make advantageous that fogeys are attentive to the academic fee. or perhaps she has had her fill of all this ridiculous place of work work and is merely being a smarta**!

We're being taught right now (I'm a student teacher) that a constantly too quiet classroom means not good teaching.

but your school does sound like a really bad one. I think maybe you should move to another school if you can- I'm sure they're not all like that.

It started to be this way when the took GOD out of schools, and also spanking, which they call 'corporal punishment'.

The kids KNOW they can get away with being bad.

It's horrible. They stop the spanking and then wonder WHY the kids are so bad?

Lots of parents here in US don't care about the kids, don't make them behave.

Schools also have to follow the NCLB law and part of it states that school with the least discipline problems will get more money.

Seems like all schools would be broke, right?

Well, what happens is the schools don't punish the bad kids, so there will be no record of disclipline problems, so the school can get the money.

It is horrible. Thank God for homeschool.

I'm quite sure teaching has one of the most worn out revolving doors known to man and that is mostly due to behavioral issues. That's a big reason I left the field.

I reject it all.

I am constantly surprised at the answers who are willing to take any assumption at face value.

kids are kids. My classroom is nothing like what you describe - however... read this page describing issues in the 1800's:

http://books.google.com/books?id=MDzOs6_GVeAC&pg=P...

times have not changed - you get what you give.