Just Your Everyday Witchy Mom Friend

I don’t know how to word this but I feel like a lot of complaints about the way schools treat children tend to… overlook. A lot of things.

Like I see a lot of posts about being careful how you talk to kids, how saying “I don’t care who started it” encourages abuse, how it’s wrong to make kids ask to use the bathroom or ask to get food. And I’m not saying these are inherently wrong, but I also never see anybody on those posts offer… alternative solutions to any of these critiques?

Let me break this down for y’all: I’m a TA at my first “official” year at this school. It’s severely underfunded. A lot of the kids are raised in poverty and surrounded by drug usage and gang violence. A lot of them have trauma they’re not equipped to deal with - which has, for some reason or another, gone undiagnosed or untreated. Maybe the parents don’t care, maybe caseworkers cases are too full, maybe the system is behind on paperwork. But they’re not getting treatment. You are in a room with approximately 20 of these kids, if not more. Over half the staff has either been moved, retired, quit, etc. Most of the staff are new, some even fresh out of college. We have no security cameras. We have one security guard. Many of these students come from broken homes - teachers and staff have been physically assaulted by unstable parents (and unstable students, if I’m being honest). Gunshots go off outside the school, this is a regular occurrence. Most of the new staff will quit before the year is over.

Teachers are not required to be experts in child psychology. They absolutely should be, but they’re not. They take.. maybe a few child psych courses.

As a teacher, it is your job to create structure for kids. You have to create a semblance of order.

I don’t wanna be the person to assume the worst in somebody, I would never do that. But we have a real issue of girls in the 4th and 5th grade levels skipping class to go to the bathroom or go to the nurse, when they’re actually just meeting up with boys in the hall. We’ve had kids leave classes and just walk out of the schools and into the city. We’ve had kids start fights who both claim the other student started it, and we have no way to tell who’s lying.

I’m not saying it’s not wrong to control a child’s bathroom schedule, or to dismiss their feelings - it ABSOLUTELY is. But the criticisms I always see for this are lobbied at.. the teachers. And not the institutions that push them to that point. Your school is in a dangerous neighborhood and you have 20+ kids to protect and watch over, you can’t have them walking out of the class to use the bathroom whenever they want - especially when some of them are flight risks. You can’t drop everything to help two students talk out a problem in-depth.

The district I am in is trying this new thing called “restorative circles” - where, whenever a student acts out or makes a scene or gets into a fight, you stop the class and you all talk about it as a group. It’s not a bad idea. The problem is, teachers also have a certain quota they have to meet. They have to teach for a certain amount of time, they have to fit in lesson plans and they only have so long to do it - because they have to fit them in in time for tests. The education system LOVES tests. It feeds off them. It uses them to measure how good of a job a teacher is doing, even when that’s a horrible form of measurement because not every kid tests well and all kids learn differently. They don’t have time to stop the entire class to talk out problems with the students, as wonderful of an idea as it is. And the system will not bend on this, it will not sacrifice one for the other. You have to find a way to make both work.

I’m not saying there aren’t bad teachers - oh my god there are. I STILL think the whole “no eating in class” thing is ridiculously stupid and controlling and I will take this to my grave. It is well known that abusers flock to jobs that give them positions of power over vulnerable people - and teachers are not exempt from this critique. But the problem, the whole problem, is not teachers - it’s a system that doesn’t care about people. Not just students, but people. A few days ago I went to a professional development training all about how to help disabled students that was run by our districts “autism specialists”, that refused to compensate for me, a disabled adult, multiple times. It is an unspoken fact among many teachers in our district that the district does not care about our mental health and well being.

You want school to be better for kids?

Make it mandatory that teachers have a minor in child psychology. Fund schools. Pay teachers better. Lower class sizes. Provide free lunches for students and vending machines with snacks in them, provide free GOOD lunches for students cause I have seen school lunches and a lot of them suck ass. Stop making teachers pay out of pocket for their own supplies. Advocate for every classroom to have its own bathroom.

Every school I have ever been to has been a poorly maintained wreck that’s falling apart at the seams. And it’s not because the people working there don’t care - it’s because they care so much, for a cause that they will receive no funding for and no compensation for, that they’re just too burnt out to do anything anymore.

Pinned Post witchytalks like I’m not disagreeing but most of these problems aren’t teacher specific they’re perpetuated by a system that does not care about teachers AND students if you work in or are involved in a school district you will be neglected teachers and students alike idk what schools y’all have been going to but my city is fucking poor top 10 poorest cities in America poor our buildings are falling apart we are MASSIVELY underfunded and critiques that frame teachers breaking points as teachers problems are ignorant and neglectful you can care about both groups without putting one down the system itself is flawed and needs to be rebuilt just like many systems in America

spongebobssquarepants

thememedaddy

nickioeste

USPS was completely self-sustaining until 2006, when Congress inexplicably began requiring it to pre-fund retirement health benefits for all of its eligible employees and retirees, 75 years in advance. This unprecedented requirement cost USPS more than $5 billion per year for 16 years ... which is almost exactly the amount they were in debt.

And still, USPS maintains First Class mail delivery to every household in the country within 5 days for less than a dollar. No private carrier comes close to their price point (which USPS actually doesn't control), and many of them actually use USPS as their "last mile" carrier in rural areas where it's too costly for them to operate.

unkillablemonsterqueen

destielmemenews

two panel image of the destiel love confession scene. cas is saying "i love you." the image has been edited to show dean replying "The Federal Communications Commission is planning to restore net neutrality. The proposed rules would reclassify broadband as an essential utility like water or electricity."

source 1

source 2

riftclaw

just so it shows up in the notes: this is an extremely good thing, which is why you will see the internet/cell companies revolt against it-- it will prevent them from selling your data to spamcall companies and selectively throttling their competitor's sites, among other things.

also remember that the internet has basically replaced phone service entirely now, with most phones now simply operating via VOIP. legislating the internet the same way as landlines were is really a no-brainer, it's the same service in a slightly different form.

elfwreck

What we need, long-term, is for Congress to make a law about it, so the definition doesn't change every few years when a new FCC is in place.

lesbianraggedyanne

xtec

My cat sounding like Marge Simpson

roach-works

you're laughing. marge simpson got turned into a cat and you're laughing. how is she going to get groceries like this

derinthescarletpescatarian

She is going to go on a journey of self-discovery and learn that her value is not tied up in her ability to get groceries. She will be forced to grapple with the unfamiliar sensation of being cared for and appreciated by a family who loves her for her and not out of the expectation that she can contribute in return. She might run away to cease burdening them, only to realise (watching them stay out all night looking for her) that they love her for her, and accepting that she has inherent worth and mutual love with her family is the key that changes her back.

I know how this goes, I read fanfiction.

roach-works

derrin im gonna sue you for emotional damages

derinthescarletpescatarian

I didn't invent the tropes mate.

cat-boy-cunny

sadhoc

i understand that this is the "disabled people know our own limitations" website, but ime, if you are the kind of disabled where everyone around you knows about it and has known you as a weak, incompetent, subhuman creature your entire life: it is important to learn how to make the distinction between "i can't" and "i'm not allowed to."

"i can't hold fragile things without breaking them" vs "my housemates won't let me do dishes anymore."

"i can't manage my own finances" vs "my family won't let me make my own financial decisions"

"i can't ever learn how to drive" vs "the state has decided that people with my disability cannot be allowed to drive."

also "what would need to happen for it to be possible for me to be able to do dishes?" or "what would i need if i were to ever move out?" or "what kinds of supports would i need if i did try volunteering?"

even if the answer to these you come away with is "i actually cannot do the thing, no matter what supports or accommodations i'm given" that's fine! they're still useful questions to ask!