Students and parents disrespect teachers, complained Julie Marburger in a Facebook post that went viral. She teaches sixth grade in a suburb of Dallas.
Administration always seems to err on the side of keeping the parent happy, which leaves me with no way to do the job I was hired to do … teach kids. . . . People absolutely HAVE to stop coddling and enabling their children. It’s a problem that’s going to spread through our society like wildfire. It’s not fair to society, and more importantly, is not fair to the children to teach them this is okay. It will not serve them towards a successful and happy life.
She spends her own money to buy supplies, which are then “damaged or destroyed” by her students, Marburger wrote.
Half her students are failing because they haven’t turned in assignments, yet most students and their parents don’t seem to care, she charged.
Most parents can’t stand to spend more than a couple hours a day with their kid, but we spend 8 with yours and 140 others just like him,” Marburger wrote. “Is it too much to ask for a little common courtesy and civil conversation?”
In an update, Marburger praised her “many amazing, hard-working, respectful students who show up every day and give their best and also many supportive, loving parents.” But he added that children should be held to a higher standard. “Inflating their success doesn’t raise self-esteem. If it did, we wouldn’t have the highest teen suicide rates in history right now.”