Failure

[Crankin]

I am not familiar with the series, but I did read the above posts on the link from Amazon. I want to say, "Here we go again."
Of course, it is not good that kids are obsessed with any book or series and use that as an excuse to not do their work. That's what I think Veronica is saying. I mean, I had kids do that with Harry Potter! I know I am the only living person who hasn't read that series, but I hate fantasy, so I was honest with my students.
I had many YA books in my classroom library that adults objected to. The most censored book in America is The Giver. As one of the best books, I've ever read, that was hard for me to take.
One of the young teens on the Amazon posting said a very astute thing: Adults don't give kids much credit. Most of them understand sexual stuff by the time they are in 5th/6th grade. Some could care less about reading graphic things and others find it has too much of an "eew" factor, so they skip those parts. I don't think reading a book ever caused anyone to go out and have sex. Maybe I am wrong?
If a kid chose a book with "mature" content for independent reading, I told them. And then I said, "What would your parent do, if they found that book in your bag?" Sometimes they put the book back, but most of the time it didn't stop them. I had a few books in the closet that I only let mature 7th graders read. I would recommend them to these kids, usually gifted readers/writers who could handle anything.
In 30 years, I only had one parent object to a book a girl was reading. I had her come in after school and talk to me about it. I told her, that it was up to her as a parent to make a final decision, since it wasn't required reading.. the kids had total choice for their IR books. She decided to read the book with her kid and it was fine. Of course, I had the backing of my boss, who was a former English teacher.
I hate censorship. My own kids read whatever they wanted to; of course, they were good readers and had good emotional intelligence and I knew they could handle it. So far, they haven't turned out to be ax murderers as adults.

[Veronica]

It's the titiillating conversations that my students are having about the Twilight series in class that bother me. I've read bits and pieces of each of the books. I think the material is too mature to be in the classroom. Maybe it's because I've got some boys who are just kind of "icky". They are conversations girls should have when there aren't boys around and definitely not in the middle of math!

I don't like the jealousy issues that are in the books. Werewolves and vampires both liking the same chick. Female vampires lusting after Edward and wondering what he sees in a human.

Today I read part of the last book. Edward leaves Bella with bruises on the first night of their honeymoon. No, it wasn't terribly graphic, but I don't want my ten year old girls thinking that sex is violent. Frankly, I don't want them thinking about sex at all yet.

So parents are letting kids read books like this, go to R rated movies and play Grand Theft Auto. But they won't let me take them on a field trip on a research vessel - because it's a boat and they might fall off. Yeah...

Oh and I'm not banning the book.


Veronica

[Selkie]

I'm late to the game here (busy week) but I wanted to say that you are a wonderful teacher and person, Veronica. If you make an impact on one student, you're making a difference. It's a shame that some students take up 90% of your energy (I've found that as a manager---just one POS employee can suck you dry, but you have to still focus on not short changing the good ones).

Crankin - I have not read Harry Potter and I have no interest in doing so. Just not my bag (no offense to those who read and enjoy those books).

By the way, as a 7th grader, I discovered Jacqueline Susanne's books, but they were my "dirty secret." My parents, however, didn't let me or my sister date until we were 16 or even wear make up. I was a "good girl" in terms of my behavior when it came to boys --- I was raised to respect myself in that regard.

[Crankin]

I understand exactly what you mean about the conversations.
They won't let the kids go on a research vessel? Oy!!!!

I saw a thing on the news last night about the state of education and the budget crisis in CA. I think you are working under very horrible conditions. One of the things that helps you deal with horrible kids is the support of other adults. People like school counselors, psychologists, special ed teachers. It sounds like you don't have much of that.
You are doing the best you can in a very stressful situation. Don't beat yourself up over it.

[uforgot]

Support from special ed, school counselors and PSYCHOLOGISTS! hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

First of all, special ed is now politically incorrect. It's resource in our school. We don't have aides anymore, they're "paraprofessionals". Our resource teachers have their own set of problems and the paperwork they have to do...unbelievable. Who has time to support each other? The day is full and the only time I touch base with my co-workers is after school. As for psychologists, are there schools that have access to those? I'm curious now. We certainly don't, but we are small.

We are under-funded, under-staffed and making more cuts next year. When the bell rings and the door shuts, believe me, I'm on my own. No one wants to hear from me unless it's really serious.

BUT- guess what, I love my job and my students. Go figure.

[Crankin]

Well, I had access to all of those. I did not work in a rich district, either. Sure, MA has more acronyms than anywhere for all of those services! Here, it's special needs and we have various types of teachers, called various things. Our aides are called assistants or paraprofessionals. I think this started when the word "aides" had other connotations. I don't have an issue with that. When I moved here and was interviewing (I was still a spec. ed. teacher then), someone asked me what my "prototypes" were. I was like, huh? I figured out it just meant what was my caseload...
What I really meant by saying that having access to other adults like I mentioned above, is that the #1 thing that alleviates teacher stress and burnout is collaboration with other adults. I am not saying this as a pie in the sky academic. I taught for 31 years and I know this is true.
One thing that saved me is that I was a middle school teacher for most of those years. Middle school teachers work in teams. We eat together and have a team meeting time together to discuss issues and plan things. Yes, I was very lucky at my last school that this team time was in addition to my prep period. But even when our planning time was the same as our prep time, there was still a brief time we could talk. Elementary and high school teachers are extremely isolated. This leads to a culture of distrust in most places. I have worked in all 3 settings and the differences are quite amazing.
In my last school we shared our school psych. with the HS. But, we had 2 school counselors for 450 kids. Every team had a special ed. (inclusion) teacher and 1-2 assistants. One team was attached to the resource room, with more severely disabled kids. We also had a more separate program for PDD/ behavior disordered kids. A few of those came to my LA classes with a 1:1 assistant. Before that, I worked in a 1-5 school in a different district. We had our own school psych and 2 inclusion teachers, who each worked with 2 grades. Each grade had 2 assistants.
I think this just shows how much schools vary from place to place. I really feel for you all. Just having difficult kids is bad enough, but not having the support to deal with them is not fair.

[Veronica]

Our schools are tremendously underfunded.

We have no resources like that here. I am very lucky to work with two other great teachers at 5th grade. We don't have a common planning time other than our lunch. The three of us all have tough classes this year. Mine is acknolwledged as the worst of the bunch. Well that is until one of the others got a kid expelled from another school in the district. We're constantly perusing each others' test scores and sharing ideas. But I do see that lack of trust at other grade levels in my school. That's one reason why I stick it out at 5th grade.

Our kids only get to see a counselor if it is in their IEP. My resource kids aren't the ones who need the counselors.

Veronica