Association of Teachers and Lecturers Lectures Parents

[Dastardly]

Remember when shit parents were blamed for being shit parents?

Pro-fucking-tip: The solution for getting little Timmy to stop playing GTA4 at 3 in the morning is to kick the little git off the console, not create leglisation to achieve the same effect.

But this is an association of the teachers asking for this. The problem is that the parents aren't doing it, and seem to not even be aware that it needs done. I guarantee you (as a teacher) that these teachers are letting the parents know exactly why little Timmy is failing... but they're not listening, because they don't have to.

This isn't parents asking the state to do the job. This is teachers asking the state to make parents do the job.

 

[Dastardly]

snip

From my reading, the "not playing outside" is a small side-issue. The bigger issue is kids coming to school tired because there's no one making them go to bed (and they've got TV and games in the room). Or homework isn't done, because they'd rather play games.

These are things the parents can definitely exercise control over. In fact, the parents are the only ones who can. A teacher has 0% responsibility for making sure a kid goes to bed on time, or that he chooses to do homework rather than Mario Kart.

If I don't do my job as a teacher, I get fired. And people would probably tell me, "Well, you shouldn't have become a teacher if you don't want to do the work." And I'm telling parents the exact same thing.

 

[Erana]

Association of Teachers and Lecturers Lectures Parents

It's a very understandable desperation move.

As an American teacher, I'm held accountable 100% accountable for the behavior and performance of my students. My job security is tied to those scores, while our school's funding is tied to enrollment -- meaning the school will do nothing to get rid of even the worst kids, because that's lost funding.

But I've got these kids strolling in late every morning, chugging down energy drinks, bleary-eyed because they've been up on the computer or console, or even just TV, unable and unwilling to get any work done. And when review time comes around, guess who gets put under the microscope? Not the parents.

Until there are measures in place that allow us, as teachers, to be shielded from punishment for these factors that are far beyond our control (I have yet to see an end-of-grade test that asks the child whether he/she ate breakfast that morning), you can expect that we'll do our best to bring the system down on the right folks.

If we're going to bear the responsibility, we need to bear the control. If the parents want the control, they need to shoulder the responsibility.

This system of test obsessed grades really are unfair to teachers, but it does really irk me that video games are what is being targeted here. Even among the gamers I know, what usually keeps them up is the internet in general; they're only up at 3:00 AM for a big binge with an exciting new game or major event in the game. If anything, I'd be more concerned with social networking sites and such.

It also bothers me that the BBC article seems to be putting a spin to this and saying kids are up playing violent games specifically, when it seems to me that these are two separate video game issues relating to poor parenting. M rated games for kiddies is bad. Kids playing games up are bad. The ATL guy didn't actually link the two, and is blaming the parents for not monitoring them properly. That's what I've always hoped for in the general public's understanding.
If they weren't going about this by claiming that video games are the only distraction and calling for some kind of legislation presumably against games, I'd be all for this.

But they're not, and that really makes me uncomfortable, because teachers calling for people to give a damn about their kids really isn't something I want to argue against.