I just did my grades for this 9 weeks. I have more D's and F's than ever before

[greenbriar]

I had these same students last year and they seemed more on top of it then as 7th graders.



This year as 8th graders, they seem to whine and cry and act like they do not know anything, I know better and I don't let them get away with it, but the other teachers on my team are even more frustrated than I am.

I don't think 8th is any harder than 7th but we are getting them ready for High School and maybe they are freaked out about that.

[knitter4democracy]

1. As a sub, I'm seeing that this year, too.

I'm up here in MI, and I can't believe how the kids are this fall. I think the depression here is starting to really affect the kids.

[greenbriar]

2. Wow, I am sorry but at the same time, glad it isn't just my kids

I told my team at the beginning of the year, they would like these kids, but my team thinks maybe I was crazy.


I am wondering if they baked too much this summer.

[knitter4democracy]

6. Part of it is hormones, but I'd bet part of it is socioeconomic.

That seems to be what I'm seeing up here, anyway.

[timeforpeace]

18. What irony. You were their teacher and now they're getting D's and F's.

[knitter4democracy]

20. I've been subbing in many different schools this year.

One day here, a couple days there. I'm seeing and hearing of lower grades across the board from other teachers.

With a snotty response like yours, I don't have to respond, but I'm trying to be fair and hope that you had a question in there somewhere.

[csziggy]

8. I think you are right about the depression affecting them

My father worked in a cyclic industry. The periods when business was good and money was more plentiful, my parents had more time to spend with us kids and help us. Plus, even though my parents did not discuss finances and business with us, we knew damn well when things were not going well and responded to the tension, sometimes with poor grades and sometimes by acting up.

The other part may be the general unrest in the country. Even if no one in the family is involved in politics, the general sense that there are problems in the larger society can be hard for kids to deal with. My grades fell during the Cuban Missile Crisis and again in 1968 with the MLK and RFK assassinations and the riots that followed. :shrug:

[greenbriar]

9. interesting, thank you

that is really good information to know

[knitter4democracy]

21. I have to be careful with political discussions in class.

Being just the sub, they're more likely to act up anyway, but whenever Obama's name comes up, I have to shut it down fast. The kids are really on edge about all politics these days (and reporting all kinds of Faux News crap as gospel truth), and there have been several fights (different schools with different kids). Maybe the kids are just picking up on all the tension, too.

[csziggy]

24. I can imagine - I know that in our schools the teachers avoided current events

With JFK's assassination when I was in elementary school, I was too young, but then with full integration in high school and then the later assassinations, the teachers just didn't dare stir things up.

This period does remind me of the 60s - the political dichotomy, the social stresses and the fear that something could happen to endanger our civilization. I just hope that the political killings will not be a part of this time like they were then.

And kids today are probably more plugged into world events much more than we were back then, which would just increase their stress levels.

[exboyfil]

25. My daughter is in 8th grade and is a good student

My complaint is that today they had the EXPLORE assessment (think early ACT). They took four periods to do this test, and, while two classes were not impacted (they are all 8th graders) the other two are 9th grade classes (Algebra and Physical Science which went on as usual). I am not a happy camper right now as my daughter came to me at 10:00 pm because she could not do her Algebra homework (she missed the lecture, had homework in three other classes, and had Girl Scouts for 2 hours). She was falling asleep as I tried to explain it to her. I will try to work with her in the morning.

She has gotten more plugged into technology this year, and it is a battle given the amount of time she spends with it (particularly editing videos for YouTube).

I don't know about other schools, but my daughter spends a significant amount of time every night doing homework (far more than I did at her age). Granted she has one extra academic subject (Physical Science) than a typical 8th grader, but I can't imagine, given the level of disinterest of many of her classmates, that they are getting much of their homework done. I know many failed to turn in their insect collections in 8th grade Science. My wife, who has helped out in 7th grade Home Ec last year and this year thinks this year's 7th graders are more focused and mature than last year's 7th graders.

[monmouth]

3. Home life in these bad times do affect the kids. Hope things improve....n/t

[greenbriar]

5. yea AYP looks impossible at this time

we made it two years ago but not last year

if we miss it this year we restructure next year

[ecstatic]

4. Between the internet, all the social networking sites, and cell phones/

texting etc., I think you might start to see grades taking a nose dive. I didn't have all those distractions when I was in junior high school! I don't know what the solution is except for stricter parenting and a more challenging classroom experience from pre school on up.

[kestrel91316]

7. Kids today don't have time to study. They are too busy fooling around

on the phone and internet with friends. And the parents clearly don't care.

[ohheckyeah]

10. I had straight A's in the 7th grade

and my first 6 weeks in 8th grade I had D's and an F. I think 8th grade was the hardest year of school for me.

[greenbriar]

11. can you think of reasons why?

something we can do differently to help?

[Maru Kitteh]

26. I had a similar experience,

For me it was a combination of things?

1. I took up with a friend who did me no favors. She wasn't "bad" she was just like a tornado of how to be happy and have fun when you're really poor. She didn't expect her life to amount to much socioeconomically, so she didn't really emphasize studies.

Before I met her I was pretty much straight A's. Ironically we both went on to become nurses. I took a little longer than she did but that's another story.



2. BOYZ.

I was interested in males long before I took an educational nosedive, it's just that they were so easy to ignore before. Previously they all looked like dweeby little kids. Now they were starting to look like GUYS. Very distracting.



3. This is a little cohort specific, but it could be generalized to other situations. I came to realize that my depression-era father didn't see the point of investing in higher education for a female child. I began to understand that I was not expected to attend college. I was merely expected to graduate high school with some semblance of respectability.

[ohheckyeah]

38. I can relate to the expectation thing as well.

At that time girls were asked if they wanted to be nurses, teachers, secretaries or stewardesses. None of which appealed to me.

[ohheckyeah]

37. In my case

in my area high school started with the 8th grade. I went from a very small elementary school into a large high school and I was scared. I got teased a lot because I was so tiny and people called me little bit or shorty or whatever popped into their heads. I just wasn't ready to deal with the big kids I guess.....some of the upper class men looked HUGE to me, especially the guys. I was just plain intimidated and scared. I was constantly getting lost trying to find my classes and that made me feel stupid.

It wasn't a happy time for me.

When we moved into the local town and I started the 10th grade at the small city high school I did quite well...made the honor roll every time. The school wasn't so big and I didn't get lost and I had grown and blossomed a bit so I didn't feel like a 10 year old kid amongst all the teenagers.

One other thing. I suffered from insomnia then as I do now and school started to early for me. My dad was an alcoholic and night time was the worst. I was constantly on alert! He got in at midnight and the drinking started.

[w8liftinglady]

12. we have "no pass,No play" here-half the football teams all over

my area of Texas are sitting out this 6 weeks.I blame some socioeconomic factors,but a LOT of it is puberty.I see such a difference between 7th grade and 8th grade boys.

[Kceres]

13. Just want to say THANK YOU, THANK YOU to all teachers.

As a parent of a middle and high school boys, can't tell you how much I admire what you do for a living. Thanks for being there, thanks for caring, thanks for putting up with our kids. If it were up to this tax payer I'd triple your salary.

[Fumesucker]

14. +1, I'm a grandpa of three and I agree with this.. Thanks..

[renate]

15. ditto that!

Teachers are Da Bomb!

:loveya:

[Arugula Latte]

22. Definitely!

I've got a 7th grade boy (and a 4th grade girl). He is a very good kid, but, still, I take my hat off to all who teach in middle school -- and high school and elementary school, for that matter. I've volunteered in the classroom to know it is incredibly, incredibly demanding work. Exhausting, really. So, thanks to all! :applause: :yourock:

[Spike89]

16. Some contradictions coming into focus possibly

Assessing students with standardized testing is at odds with what many schools of education are teaching their preservice teachers. Basically, new teachers are being encouraged to use project-based learning and student-centered methods, as well as to differentiate lessons, but none of these is particularly effective at raising test scores. (although the arguably are effective at creating better learners). Old-fashioned drilling is the most effective method of raising scores, but can also bore the hell out of some kids and leave others with self-image issues.
Perhaps an even bigger contradiction is in electronic devices and how they are perceived. Even though plenty of people play Solitaire or pointlessly surf the Web at work, figures and common sense show that information technology has been a huge boon to productivity in the workplace. How many businesses do you know that have successfully avoided or dropped becoming digital? Yet, in schools, we're still debating whether kids should use the tools they basically depend on nearly every minute outside the school walls. It has always been a struggle to convince 8th graders that school is relevent to their future, and enforcing a 50's era digital-free zone kinda reinforces their complaint.
Don't know if any of these things are in play in your school, and they probably can't account for a 1-year changeover like you describe, but I know they are contributing factors to problems in education nationwide.

[msongs]

17. maybe all your exams should be given and answered by texting? nt

[greenbriar]

19. My end of unit assessments are all project based

they really haven't even taken a true test in my room, just quizzes

"sigh"

[FirstLight]

23. First of all...thank you for your work in these tough times with our kids!

and second...I totally agree with those upthread that say this is a result of hard times socioeconomically. It was the first thing I thought of, and it probably goes through all grades and all neighborhoods...
I would not be surprised if many children are doing worse this year as a result of worry about their parents. Anf how many tens are looking for work to help the family out, so that have less time to study...?

those who say it;s all about texting and internet and gaming are really out of touch. Most kids really DO try hard to do well in school, and parental support is crucial. I have worked as a Teacher's Aide and know about the exhausting nature of the work, emotionally AND even physically. As a single mom with 3 kids, I am telling you, its not easy to keeo up with the schoolwork at home either... I feel like SUCH a drill sargeant!! (But they are doing better this year, even if we are struggling more as a family.)

[tonysam]

27. If you're failing too many kids,

well, let me say this: More than a few teachers have lost their careers because they refused to give in to their principals' demands to change grades.

It's very, very dangerous to fail too many kids.

[SmileyRose]

28. Are they hungry?

[freeplessinseattle]

30. That is a great question n/t

[politicat]

29. It's not just you, or your students.

My sister's a middle school teacher, and last year, was a sub. She got a long-term sub contract for basically the second half of the year, teaching social sciences (history, civics, et cetera) for 7th graders. This summer, they offered her a full time position, same school, teaching 8th graders -- the same kids.

Kids who finished last spring doing GREAT are in free fall this year and she's at a loss to figure it out. The material is not significantly more difficult, the school environment hasn't changed, and in her area, very few kids have cell phones or internet connections that let them "waste their time" (the latter's actually bad for a lot of her students, since they can't hit wikipedia or do online research). She sent me a few data sets with non-identifying information to see if I could pull some correlation out of free/reduced lunch rates, job loss rates by zip code, grades... and the trend kind of looks like it might pan out, but without better data, I can only say yeah, maybe. It's intuitively correct, just not provable.

Anecdatally (yes, that's not a misspelling), I'm seeing something similar with my student workers -- my lab employs several new sophomores every year on work study -- filing, gophering, nothing really impressive, but good resume material and a work study paycheck. This is my third year with the newbies coming in, and this year's crop seems really... distracted. More so than the previous years. Kids on work study are coming from the same socioeconomic conditions, most are living in the dorms, and most are committed to their field of study, so they're not just a bad match for the job. (And no, I'm not suffering from old-fart-itis; I'm not that much older than my student workers.)

I think there's just an underlying current of social distress and anxiety that is surfacing in various ways throughout the society. I'd bet domestic violence calls, suicide hotline calls, and petty violence calls (bar fights, et cetera) are up, though we won't have that data for a few more months. I know the local public mental health clinic is overwhelmed, and since they're operating on a short budget, that's not good.

[GaYellowDawg]

31. Same here at a Tier I university...

The freshmen this year are significantly poorer students while being more demanding, whiny, etc. I am working harder than I did last year to teach well and I'm getting worse results. It's not just me. My TA coordinator has noticed a big difference. The students are less apt and act like they're more entitled. One of the things that is a real downer is that I've been able to get classes to at least somewhat enjoy the labs, but not as much this year.

For the first time I can recall, one of my labs, as a class, absolutely refuses to take any joy in the learning. They're very up front about how much they hate being in class, and for the first time ever in my teaching career, I had to sit a student down after class and explain to her that open disrespect is not a good strategy for a college student. The only way to keep them on task is to quicken the pace a little so that they have the opportunity to get out of class early. That's all they care about. It's so strange. I've always been able to establish a rapport with my classes, and I've already felt that click into place with another lab section, but the only thing that this section is interested in is getting out early. It's unusual and frustrating for me to not be able to reach a class. I still do a lot of probing questions with students to make sure they understand the material... and I don't save it until the end of class when they act like they're a wolf in a trap that has to gnaw its leg off to escape. But the only way I can get them to focus is to let them know that if they lock down and work hard, they get out early. It's going to really suck next week because the topic is one that I'm very fond of, we've got great materials for it, and seeing this class not give a flying fuck is going to be very irritating.

On edit: And my job doesn't even begin to approach middle/secondary schools for difficulty.

[harun]

32. I wonder if it is because they can't see the point of it anymore.

Motivating them with letting them out early shows them there is a point to their hard work. They see a reward of getting out early and get very motivated by that.

With what is going on in the business world they are looking forward to no jobs, huge debt and unaffordable housing. If they want to eventually have kids (or get old) they don't see how they will ever pay for their medical bills either.

So maybe a massive plague of "what's the point?".

[GaYellowDawg]

33. I don't think that's the case.

There are two other lab sections that are motivated and, at times, enthusiastic. This is just a crappy group.

[greenbriar]

34. that sounds like my students

I know that many of our students get the friday "backpacks" full of food

[Hekate]

35. I wonder how many come from families suffering new economic stress and insecurity?

It's frustrating for teachers to have this happen, I know. Best of luck with the rest of the year.

Hekate

[Bonobo]

36. And some say Obama is wrong to consider lengthening our school year.

Clueless if you ask me.

Either shut the borders or you have no choice but to compete with the rest of the world.

We are losing. Badly.

[greenbriar]

39. lengthening the year does not add quality

just more behavior issues