School Children of the Corn

You know what?  When I became a teacher eighteen years ago, it was because I wanted to change the world. I had broad visions of helping kids learn that they are better than their circumstances.  I wanted to teach them to love life, and literature, and the idea of their future.  As the years go by, I have seen that the futures of the students in my charge are at times questionable.  I say that to mean at times it seems that NOTHING I do will ever help that child.  That is a sad feeling.

Increasingly, I am seeing a world in which the children are running the show (and doing a piss-poor job at it).  Any time a parent turns to a student and asks them what THEY want to do about their education, that is a parenting fail.  If a child has been skipping school, failing all subjects, refusing to listen to you when you ask them to do basic chores, and yet they still have an iphone? Fail.

When did our society become such that parents are afraid of their children? Many of the children I meet have learned that they can do whatever the heck they want, and there will be no consequences. They yell at their parents, curse, and even argue with them.

Example: Just the other day I was meeting with a woman and her grandaughter, trying to get the background story so I could determine if she would benefit from attending the school where I work. Well, the young lady didn’t like my queations, so she yelled that she was “f-ing tired of this” and told her grandmother to “f-ing come on, f-ing now,”  all the while slamming a door against a bookshelf repeatedly.  Grandmother tried to explain it away, saying “She has anxiety…”  Mentally I was shaking my head. That’s a little more than anxiety…

Summer break is in ten weeks. I’m counting the days, the hours, the minutes, even the seconds. It won’t come soon enough.

These children of the corn have me tired. Bone weary, sit in a rocker, and listen to the blues, tired.