A teacher has written an impassioned open letter to parents on Facebook, lamenting the “bizarrely lenient attitude toward disciplining children” so many parents harbour.
Erin Axson, a teacher from South Carolina, said she feels “exhausted”, “frustrated” and “ill-supported” by her job and the perils of trying to communicate to parents about their troubled children.
“Not all of you are going to agree with what I’ve written. Some of you will be downright mad after you read it. As with anything, this doesn’t apply to every parent out there. I do have those of you that support me and work with me – you know who you are and you know how immensely grateful I am for you,” she clarified before she began.
“This all started as I stared at myself in the mirror one morning, wondering if I should look and feel THIS exhausted.
“Lately, it seems that many parents have adopted a bizarrely lenient attitude toward disciplining children as well as bending over backwards to accommodate their children’s every demand. It’s unclear what’s causing these parents to believe that children should be subject to no limits, no discipline, and no stringent requirements at school. Whatever the cause, these parents are, in fact, doing a terrible disservice to today’s young people and to society as a whole. And, they are leaving their children’s teachers feeling frustrated, ill-supported, and utterly exhausted.”
Ms Axson made note of the “sky-rocketing” rate “good teachers” are leaving the profession as proof that things can’t continue as they are going.
“If things continue at this pace, no one will be willing to go into teaching at all. The average new teacher these days is lasting a whopping four years before calling it quits. Those seasoned teachers that have witnessed this strange, cultural shift firsthand are dropping like flies, realising they don’t have the energy to fight this uphill battle. But, perhaps the saddest thing is that these schools are turning out children who are ill-suited to being constructive, productive members of our society.
Top Comments
Times sure have changed. When I went to school, parents would automatically believe the teacher if the kid was misbehaving, not fight it with the teacher FFS...
Why are parents siding with the kid over the teacher these days? Is it because the parents are defensive about their lazy parenting, which has turned the kid into a little brat?
Theres now too the umbilical cord of the mobile phone and parents getting upset when they can't contact their kids at all times,even in lessons
My kids left high school a while ago now but I still believe I'm right about one thing. The class sizes in High Schools are far too big.
Now , I realize this probably isn't possible at the moment but I think there should be aprox 16 in each class. ( My actual ideal would be 10 ).
Comprehension & communication in every subject would improve dramatically. Each child would receive some valuable "one-on-one" time with each teacher each day. No child would be able to "hide up the back of the class " (like I used to ) and here's the big one - DISCIPLINE would dramatically improve.
3 times the amount of teachers means 3 times the amount of classrooms
An added emphasis on literacy, general knowledge, science / biology , maths , history (modern and ancient ) geography, drama , the arts and critical thinking.......oh, and a brief practice of meditation each day.
'Sounds expensive doesn't it ?
Education (public and private) is our country's future.
I'm afraid you get what you pay for.