‘Touch His Freakin’ Heart,’ Student Rants at Teacher in Viral Video

[NinjaPoodle]

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headline...n-viral-video/




By ABC News
May 11, 2013 6:00am

ABC News’ Stephanie Mendez and Lawrence Dechant report:

A Texas high school student’s rant against his teacher has gone viral on YouTube, prompting the district to look at its teaching procedures.

“If you would just get up and teach us instead of handing ‘em a packet, yo. There’s kids in here that don’t learn like that. … They need to learn face-to-face,” Duncanville High School student Jeff Bliss said on the YouTube video recorded by a classmate. “You want kids to come to class? You want them to get excited? You gotta come in here, you gotta make ‘em excited. To change him and make him better, you gotta touch his freakin’ heart. You can’t expect a kid to change if all you do is just tell him.”

[NinjaPoodle]

This made me cry. This is a testament of how our educational system is FAILing our kids.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by NinjaPoodle

This is a testament of how our educational system is FAILing our kids.

Really? This one video is a testament about the failure of the entire system? I don't see it.

And I don't care if the student was completely right about how that particular teacher teaches. He was rude and disrespectful. According to the article, he seems to realize that at least.

[arrowlady]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

Really? This one video is a testament about the failure of the entire system? I don't see it.

And I don't care if the student was completely right about how that particular teacher teaches. He was rude and disrespectful. According to the article, he seems to realize that at least.

While he was on the disrespectful side, the part this article failed to mention that local news casts covered. The teacher was rude to him prior to the video being taken...

And this teacher is on administrative leave..

[StealthMode]

Originally Posted by arrowlady

While he was on the disrespectful side, the part this article failed to mention that local news casts covered. The teacher was rude to him prior to the video being taken...

I figured. Kids don't just start ranting in this kind of manner for no reason. Yes, creative teaching takes way more energy and resources than most teachers have but when he said, "All I've done since I got here was packets," I felt disappointed.

[sigmadiva]

I'm can see both sides of this issue.

From the student's side: Yes, there are teachers who live by worksheets, and worksheets alone. That can be very boring for students.

Also, I have to say that it seems as if many people entering K-12 education today do not come with the training and background that a K-12 teacher once had to have.

When my mother started teaching she had a strong background in education in addition to her subject area, which is math. She took both math and education courses to complete her BS degree.

Today, a lot of people in K-12 education can go through an Alternative Certification Program (ACP), pass the test and become a teacher. I'm not knocking it, it just seems as if ACP teachers may not have enough education courses to really be prepared to teach.



From the teacher's side: This is a teacher who could be under a lot of pressure to produce students to pass standardized tests issued by the state, the school district, and the school itself. This is what is happening in Texas and HISD now.

At a high school here in Houston where one of my friends is a science teacher, the students take some type of standardized test about every 3 - 4 weeks. And they are different standardized tests measuring slightly different outcomes for the same subject. In her case, science.

This particular teacher has probably gotten burned out.

Also, at my friend's hs, there are a lot of people who are going through the Teach For America program. These are people who are going to be at that school for a year or two, then move on. So, they may not be that invested in teaching.


Overall, there is probably more to this than we know.

[Kevin]

We're so caught up in being able to objectively quantify what goes on in the classroom that we've forgotten about how important subjective matters which aren't going to translate well across the internet are. There's a happy medium somewhere. Administrators and teachers can both be held responsible. There are also the higher up statewide and federal standards setters who are expecting miracles in failed schools and failed school systems which are just heaps of incompetent, burned out administrators who are fine examples of the Peter Principle.

[Xidelt]

And what about kids who come to school expecting the teacher to entertain them the entire class period, day after day? I see more and more of that in my classes with each passing year.