Can High School Teachers & Students See Eye to Eye? | Middle Ground

I've definitely had experiences where it's like teachers could care less about what's going on you know what that's a huge misconception because I know like I'll talk to the students and they'll go oh sudden misses and such' starts you know she hates my guts I'm like she doesn't she speaks highly of you hi I'm Douglas I'm an English teacher specifically I teach American literature and poetry and I'm also poet hi I'm Chris and I recently graduated high school I'm Ainsley and I have been teaching for eight years and I teach math I'm Miranda I'm a rising senior and I'm looking forward to the college process my name is Arthur I teach algebra and Santa Monica my name is Joelle I am a rising senior in high school and I founded an organization that focuses on educating teens on sexual harassment and assault that's not in their health class it feels like scores are more important than learning I definitely think as a math teacher data is like extremely important and I know that when I was teaching in the Charter system it was to the point that I think as teachers we would almost be like pitted against each other based on like how successful our classes were and I started to realize that if I didn't care about the students learning and their well-being it didn't matter what they scored because it it was kind of like the score wasn't always representative of what the student knew was his scores of sports everyone is a human it you can't just put a number to that person it just doesn't make sense it's amazing because I can understand the topic completely but when it comes time to take the test it's gone it's so hard to feel like I understand this like what's wrong with me am i stupid like why don't I get like I get this one time a day but then when the other comes around it's like yeah I mean quiz gonna save my life it's my life I use Quizlet I use Khan Academy when I was stressed out when I was feeling as if I need I was gonna break down I used it it was a good resource for me this year I took the CASP I don't know if you guys it was the stupidest thing I've ever taken inside it was like Microsoft like 2008 like and I was just saying they poured so much time and money into this test that isn't indicative of anything at the end of the day they're doing SAT ACM AP every year and it's just bombarded on them and it's not even representative success because how many kids are spending thousands and thousands of dollars on prep for that right and then not everyone has a privilege to afford that I feel like we feel the same way in regards to a lot of the you know the statewide tests and you know the schools have to stay accredited so they have to have these certain scores and the rankings and things like that I also believe that they don't pay a lot attention to the achievement gap and we have like the achievement gap consists of mostly african-americans students with special needs now they're focusing on these different tests to make sure we have these scores but not putting the resources in place to make sure those students are successful as well so contribute to those scores I work harder than people think I have to really think about that I pretty much worked my ass off for all my senior year and I I really wish that my teachers would actually see that when I had Anna Simon turn in I would BAM I would do it right away I agree with that I think like it's it's not visible the amount of work that goes on behind it like if I would like maybe complain talk about workload of what I had to do it would be like the response from my parents like although they're very understanding it's like I came to this country with like this amount of money like I work three jobs and I understand that but we also need to understand that the college admissions process has changed dramatically right like the choices you make out age like 13 are indicative of what happens where you go for me like on a daily basis or school life my day consists of after school when school is out I do home instruction for the district for kids who can't make it to school I also have like a private tutoring service then I have a six year old and a three month year old so then I'm up to like you know 12:00 1:00 in the morning just returning emails talking to parents and when parents call they want to talk it's like our conversation so everyone works so hard and you know people they don't see they see the fruits of it but they don't see all the hard work that you put into it you know I've been using social media to kind of interact with my students so I have like Instagram live tutoring for kids who can't do tutoring after school but I never realized that open a whole door of like interactions and like them reaching out to me that is much harder than the basic just them coming after school and then they go home and literally like in my PJs in tutoring the math over Instagram life I sense that a lot of my teachers were just there to teach and I didn't want to be that teacher and I think I've put a lot of pressure on myself to be different but that's definitely increased my workload even though my kids don't see that so our department as an English teacher is notorious for how much we do so I think people are always trying to take things off of my plate and I swear every call I get from a parent or email they always preface it I know you're busy but do you mind and I think I'm just very visible about how much I'm running around and whatnot and so they really understand this is like the first time that I'm actually hearing like the teacher side like I couldn't like fully understand what it'd be like to be on call 24/7 like that's insane to even think about it's hard when you're in school and that's all you know that's cyclical like every day and this is what you're gonna do it's so hard to kind of like step back to like realize that sometimes this is unhealthy like you drink kids on Instagram live seems like a super super cool like thing like none of my teachers would do that and I promise but at the same time it's kind of like I wonder what that's like for you being kind of on-call 24/7 and invading student space sometimes not staying saying that you oh I'm thinking about doing some cool thing on snapchat my son was like no let your students alone teachers should care about more than academics I really agree with that I think something that I have come to learn is that when I'm working with students mental health is a huge thing that I think as teachers we have to take into consideration especially because I see it more prevalent like the struggles you know success is such a relative term and we have to understand it together and collectively it's not just like an A and B a grade doesn't determine that so I totally agree with that the first time I actually like got to see a therapist and I think it's really important to provide these resources in schools especially for students of color where this topic like mental health is a taboo in homes like the first time I saw a therapist was because my English teacher referred me to one and I was able to see it on campus but that's because I had the privilege of having one in my school in the first place I definitely had experiences where it's like teachers could care less about what's going on they don't like to acknowledge the fact that I'm taking six of their high level classes and those all come with two to three hours you know what that's a huge misconception because I know like a bunch of teachers they're phenomenal and they like to really care about the students but I'll talk to the students and Oh Sud missing such a start she know she hates my guts I'm like she doesn't she speaks highly of you miss mrs. Sutter such as gives tons of work for some reason you know it's not necessarily about the amount of work but it's also like that teacher-student relationship that you were talking about is for me or at least in my own experiences it's been such a strong divide I think like the harsh reality is for some people it's a job and it's your 10-year and it's this job security and like your benefits right all of these other things put together in at the same time like students are people too and I felt like just plain old like no one cared about me my senior year was just like the most stressful thing in my entire life because I was I would say like I was up to like two am trying to get assignments done and study for tests and just trying to pass because I was I would say like the last two months when I seen you here I generally thought that I wasn't gonna graduate and I didn't know how I was gonna tell my parents that their youngest kid their baby is not gonna graduate high school because I know it would break their hearts I deal with a lot of anxiety only because teachers would stack up assignments after assignments after assignments and you know they would you would think that they would realize that like you said we're people we have life like we deal with a lot of personal stuff on a daily basis yeah I know what you saying I know you saying cuz I came up the same way you know I didn't I didn't have a like I got home and it was more like oh we had to go I'm gas to get food you know put food in the refrigerator and things like that so I'm trying to do my homework on the bus you know before I didn't make it home so it was that whole sense as as well that school wasn't my first priority so I try to I try to understand that especially students that our city would be struggling behind on assignments and things like that I try to do stuff like modify or excuse and I'm that teacher though like I'm real big on making sure they all have their materials my mother worked at my school so I could go there so I'm real big on your parents put in so much so you the least you can do is just come in prepared right so this kid was like he didn't have his stuff so he wanted to talk to me outside and I was just going in on him you know the rules does this he's like mr. brown my father died yesterday I'm here because I can't be at home but I wanted to tell you that I didn't have your stuff I just we both just broke down and and it just broke me because it's like Here I am trying to tell him what's important for my class and the only reason why he was there because of how he felt about me and he knew he would feel good in my class way better than being at home and it just taught me so much detention is not an effective form of punishment I kind of think of a joke about the breakfast clever so I remember as a student numerous times being in detention just feels like I could have been in the classroom learning I think it you know takes the student away from the learning at school we we don't even do the detention anymore we have like circles and things like that so there if there is a problem with a restorative restorative justice yeah what kind of like talk the problems out well we can do next time lunk to making long story short I was caught cheating on tests she straight up just called me out in front of the whole class and I was so embarrassed but I feel like the more efficient way she should have done it is just after class she should have just been like hey you know I saw what you did I what you did was wrong you're gonna get points taking away from your grade I just want to understand why you did it she kicked me out of class like immediately I went from Honors Chemistry it's a regular chemistry yeah yeah like right away yeah it's stupid yeah I just felt like she had given up on me and that's not something I feel like teachers should do what you say really matters and it really impacts us been hearing how you would like champion a student or make sure that they're being heard yeah that's super important and I think that word or at least in my experience I've lacked teachers like that I work with a lot of freshmen that they struggle with the most is application I'll go why you didn't talk to you know your teacher about this great there's you know they're scarier like she's mean I always tell kids at the beginning of school year your parents trusted me enough to drop you off here yeah for seven hours so just like my kid you know I gotta teach you like my kids so our relationship is important I love the fact that you have like a one-on-one relationship with your students with you to like I think you guys are being the issues we are yeah it helps me reflect on what I've done this year and my relationship with my students and usually I only get to do that in my head so to be able to talk to sharp students caring students who really care about like you said the learning environment has really helped hearing your guys's perspective moving forward I have a little bit more insight as to like how to interact with students and I really appreciate it and also hearing the things that you guys said I'm like really impressed with you guys so thank you for sharing seriously very well-spoken everyone thank you for watching the episode follow us on Instagram that's where we have a lot of behind the scenes and that's where we can submit prompts and ideas for episodes and stay tuned we got more episodes right thanks guys [Music]

Channel: Jubilee

Views: 2,048,080

Rating: 4.956389 out of 5

Keywords: jubilee, jubilee media, jubilee project, live deeper, blind devotion, love language, middle ground, spectrum, middle ground jubilee, high school teachers vs students, high school students vs teachers, students vs teachers, students versus teachers, do teachers get paid enough, is detention effective

Id: rD4YAUt0_TU

Length: 13min 48sec (828 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 07 2019