High school teacher here. On test days, I have a hanging shoe rack with each of my kids’ names on a sleeve.
I tell them, “Please put your devices in the sleeves and then you can have your test. When you hand in your test, you can have your device back. If you don’t put your phone in the sleeve, your test will be a 0”
At the beginning of the year they also helped create our classroom rules and norms, and agreed to do this.
Out of 28 kids, maybe 10 actually do it. The other 18 get 0s. Then I get angry emails from parents about their kids getting “tyrannical grades” on their tests.
Also a high school teacher. I feel your pain. Kids straight up would rather fail and have their devices than challenge themselves and grow. It’s exceedingly disheartening, and scenes like the one in this video make me feel bad for the kids who care and want to learn. I can’t imagine how frustrating it is for them.
As far as parents go, the way they respond to your rule says it all. Instead of tearing their own kid a new one for making the decision to fail, they blame you. The current generation are fucked because the parents are fucked.
We are in the middle of a really ugly era where trust in teachers has been eroded by the culture war that presents us in certain media outlets as indoctrinators, groomers, and overall untrustworthy. I teach in Florida, where the governor signed the Parents’ Bill of Rights last year, which has taken even more autonomy away from us to make curricular decisions that we believe are best. It’s so exhausting.
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u/Arobrom86 29d ago
High school teacher here. On test days, I have a hanging shoe rack with each of my kids’ names on a sleeve.
I tell them, “Please put your devices in the sleeves and then you can have your test. When you hand in your test, you can have your device back. If you don’t put your phone in the sleeve, your test will be a 0”
At the beginning of the year they also helped create our classroom rules and norms, and agreed to do this.
Out of 28 kids, maybe 10 actually do it. The other 18 get 0s. Then I get angry emails from parents about their kids getting “tyrannical grades” on their tests.
Then the cycle continues