Close to Home by John McPherson for September 20, 2022

I taught him better than that.

Sadly this is probably more true than we allimagine!

If only my mom would’ve done that at conferences when I went to school.

From what I’ve heard, this isn’t far from the truth nowadays, ironically (and cruelly) enough.

I remember when I was in grade school in San Diego and a teacher told me she wonders if I have a mom cuz she never showed up at teacher/parent conferences. (She worked) I told my mom what the teacher said- ooooweeee!

This is the old semi-joke “Not MY Johnny!”

Carful Bleeb, you’re about to be covered in hot coffee. Oh, and while you’re at it, stop looking up that ladies dress!

A woman that I work with quit teaching because of this kind of garbage. She couldn’t have any discipline in the classroom because if she sent a kid to the principle’s office, the parents would come down to the school to complain. The principle would side with the parents every time. So she’d have one or two obnoxious brats disrupting a class of 20+ students multiple times a day. She loved teaching but not enough to put up with that.

My son teaches and says that some parents (too many) really are like this. No wonder there’s such a huge teacher shortage.

Yep this is more realistic than most people realize

Having worked in a behavior program in our local school district, this is spot on. Although we were the behavioral site for middle and high school students, our daughter reports the same thing at the middle school where she teaches. When I retired two years ago I told the director our our programs that I would sub, but only in the front office. Being familiar with the programs, procedures and policies it makes it easy to sub there. And the abuse that the office staff takes is similar to what the teachers and administrators take. Usually they are the first line of abuse takers. So sad that this is becoming more the norm in society, not just the schools, as a whole.

Yes, we can see where he doesn’t get it.

Most schools have a no tolerance policy for bullying! However, they know about bullies, they do NOTHING to stop them. Until the parents are involved, then they’ll expel the kids, sometimes including the kid that was bullied.

The reason they don’t get involved and don’t side with anyone is because when the levy’s show up on the ballots, they don’t want bad press and want the levy’s to pass.

It’s politics and all about money! There’s a lot of schools who misuse the funds and are extravagant…like putting a decorative water fountain outside the football stadium…and then there the new wooden gym floor, which was perfectly good, but replaced it…but the coach took the wood and redid his floors at his summer home…

What a farce! HA!

Must be the USA.

I’ll hear you better when I stick my finger in your eye.

My sister was an excellent middle-school teacher. Not only did she run into the problem shown in the cartoon, but she was increasingly restricted in what she could teach. She had two master’s degrees in different angles to teaching English, and she was teaching journalism classes (which were popular and she was good at it). The authorities decided that teachers needed to restrict themselves to what their degrees were in. My sister was limited in what and how she could teach, which took away a lot of her joy in teaching. She retired at 62, though I bet she would have continued longer without all these restraints and lack of support in disciplining students.

A friend of mine who was a teacher (quit shortly after the episode) saw three kids suddenly jump a fourth kid. When they threatened to “in school suspension” the kids, the parents of the three kids threatened legal action so the only kid suspended was the one that was attacked.

And then people complain that schools cannot retain good teachers.

Cartoon drew a lot of comments! When I was in middle school (junior high then) if you got in trouble at school you got in worse trouble at home because parents then knew that education was the way to a successful life. It still is. Kids aren’t any different today ,but the parents are!

Sadly this isn’t a comic today, this is just a fact based commentary on todays society.

Where’s the irony?

Theeeeere it is!

Well, Bleeb. Today you are in quite a spot, with a good view of a bad person and about to be showered with coffee.

With situations like this being just one horrible aspect of today’s society, I am very comfortable with the fact that I will not be alive to see how bad things are 20 – 25 years from now.

Yeeahhh, I wonder where they learned that kind of behavior…

It comes from the parents…

The crap the teachers is stupid!!! It would serve this country right if all schools were to shut down!!!

The irony of it is, if she did that with the kid it probably wouldn’t have a behavioral problem.

It all starts with the parents! They need to be involved. Kids need to take pride in themselves,their school, they have to CARE!

If my child gives you any problem, just slap the kid next to him.

That will frighten him into behaving.

I wonder what her kid looks like. Carry on, Bleeb. :)

Oh no! Karen reproduced.

Take a bully to visit a prison (scared straight) to see where their bullying will eventually wind up.

Or

Take all the bullies in the school, put them together in a fenced in space, and watch as they tear each other apart.

That is so accurate. These people never see themselves as they really are.

I’ve raised him to be exactly like me and his old man, if I can figure out who he is