If you have a High School diploma and a training class you can be hired as a Teacher now in Oklahoma.

[BillM]

4. Electronics need to be left at home. Alternatively, they can be turned in at the office or left in a locker. If it comes into the classroom and is discovered, its immediately taken and the student can pick it up in the office.

After my teaching career crashed, and before I found a better job, I had a lot of spare time on my hands. I was also recovering from multiple surgeries, so couldn't do a great job of looking for a job, so when my two younger kids started High School, I wound up as the PTSA President at their school. My kids had to catch a bus around 5am to be at school on time for class to start at 7:30am. Their school absolutely forbade phones and all other electronics. I wanted my girls to have phones. Ours is not the greatest neighborhood, and the school was on the edge of an even worse neighborhood. Took over 3 years, and the retirement of the previous principal to get that to happen. Some of the teachers would keep phones for the kids, others would not. The school admin absolutely refused to allow phones even after the district approved them. I got so tired of trying to get things improved with no effect that when oldest daughter graduated, we allowed my youngest to drop out. She took the GED test a few days after her 16th birthday, and started classes at Rose state a couple of weeks later.

My kids were in what is supposed to be a technology school. They were taking science classes. There are no microscopes in the classrooms. It's all bookwork and reading. They have a lab, but there is no equipment in it for doing actual science. No dissections, no test tubes, no litmus paper, no nothing. No advanced math courses, no calculus based sciences, either.

Eldest daughter finished 4 years of JROTC, got an appointment to the USAF Academy, and turned it down to enlist in the USN. Got selected for Nuc school based on her scores. Of 38 students in her class, 8 graduated. She was the 8th. Anyone needs a way get an education for their kids, Khan Academy is what got her through that class. How she managed that and her class, I couldn't tell you, but she got a letter of commendation for it. 1st student that badly prepared that actually graduated.

 

[Gunbuffer]

Any of my teachers who were still alive would immediately have dropped dead upon learning that I'd become a teacher, even for a short time. And the ones who are dead, I expect they're spinning in their graves like a jet turbine!

You and me both. I wish I could resurrect some of them, just to watch them die again after I tell them. Lol!

 

[Gunbuffer]

After my teaching career crashed, and before I found a better job, I had a lot of spare time on my hands. I was also recovering from multiple surgeries, so couldn't do a great job of looking for a job, so when my two younger kids started High School, I wound up as the PTSA President at their school. My kids had to catch a bus around 5am to be at school on time for class to start at 7:30am. Their school absolutely forbade phones and all other electronics. I wanted my girls to have phones. Ours is not the greatest neighborhood, and the school was on the edge of an even worse neighborhood. Took over 3 years, and the retirement of the previous principal to get that to happen. Some of the teachers would keep phones for the kids, others would not. The school admin absolutely refused to allow phones even after the district approved them. I got so tired of trying to get things improved with no effect that when oldest daughter graduated, we allowed my youngest to drop out. She took the GED test a few days after her 16th birthday, and started classes at Rose state a couple of weeks later.

My kids were in what is supposed to be a technology school. They were taking science classes. There are no microscopes in the classrooms. It's all bookwork and reading. They have a lab, but there is no equipment in it for doing actual science. No dissections, no test tubes, no litmus paper, no nothing. No advanced math courses, no calculus based sciences, either.

Eldest daughter finished 4 years of JROTC, got an appointment to the USAF Academy, and turned it down to enlist in the USN. Got selected for Nuc school based on her scores. Of 38 students in her class, 8 graduated. She was the 8th. Anyone needs a way get an education for their kids, Khan Academy is what got her through that class. How she managed that and her class, I couldn't tell you, but she got a letter of commendation for it. 1st student that badly prepared that actually graduated.

And cell phones are the worst thing that’s happened to schools in the last decade. So thanks.

 

[Roadking Larry]

one of my kids is a teacher in Tulsa school system. The stuff they relay to me is absolutely insane. Kids threatening teachers, kids assaulting teachers, kids assaulting other kids and they can't do a damn thing about it. they just move the problem kid to another school in the district. Then when they cause problems there they just move them to another school. God forbid if a teacher was to actually defend them self from an attack.

 

[BillM]

And cell phones are the worst thing that’s happened to schools in the last decade. So thanks.

In a technology school, you should be teaching them how to use technology responsibly, not banning it for being evil. Turn it off when you go in, on when you come back out. And keep it on your person in case you need to call 911. Pretty much the same thing I had to do at work, until I became one of the maintainers, and they needed to be able to get ahold of me where ever I was, and what ever I was doing. Didn't volunteer to get me a phone on their dime, either. What you're complaining about is another failure of the school admin folks.

 

[rawhide]

one of my kids is a teacher in Tulsa school system. The stuff they relay to me is absolutely insane. Kids threatening teachers, kids assaulting teachers, kids assaulting other kids and they can't do a damn thing about it. they just move the problem kid to another school in the district. Then when they cause problems there they just move them to another school. God forbid if a teacher was to actually defend them self from an attack.

Teachers do not relinquish their right to defend themselves from imminent serious harm when they are at work. However, some districts, like Tulsa, are probably reluctant to back a teacher that does so. Lots of factors are involved like the age of the child. And, if the child has a documented disability, the rules change significantly. By rules I don't mean district or SDE policy. I mean the law, mostly federal, strongly favors the student, and requires special training to be able to put hands on a student in a defensive, non harmful way. Just a couple of years ago an administrator in OK was convicted by a jury for putting hands on a student that he acted to protect and the child attacked him.

 

[John6185]

Some of us have a bit of a temper problem and wouldn't last 30 minutes before we grabbed some smart guy by the collar. I don't have a lot of patience with rebellious young kids whether they are 8 or eighteen.

 

[BillM]

one of my kids is a teacher in Tulsa school system. The stuff they relay to me is absolutely insane. Kids threatening teachers, kids assaulting teachers, kids assaulting other kids and they can't do a damn thing about it. they just move the problem kid to another school in the district. Then when they cause problems there they just move them to another school. God forbid if a teacher was to actually defend them self from an attack.

While I was doing ISR, I had one of the young ladies trying to attack another. I told her to do that she was going to have to come through me. And if she started that, I was going to put her down hard. I guess she believed me. On another occasion, and I don't know if it was before or after that one, had one of the guys ask what would happen if a bunch of them jumped me. I told him I'd probably wind up in the hospital. But I wouldn't be the only one. I guess they believed that one, too, since not one of them tried it.


I did have a kid throw a desk across the room once, and tell me I was lucky he didn't throw it at my F-ing head. I even understood why he was angry. He'd been there for the time he was supposed to be there, and done all the work they sent him. And they didn't let him out. Turns out his teacher had called in sick, and the sub didn't know anything about, so didn't ask to get him back to class. He was also on and IEP. Had a meeting about it with his folks and the administrators. In that meeting, I asked him what would happen if he had just gotten up and walked out? And he knew the answer. He'd have been suspended for the rest of the day. As it was, he was suspended for the rest of the year. I asked him why he didn't just walk out, and he said he forgot that it would just be the rest of the day. Too upset to think, I guess. I wasn't privy to his IEP, so don't know what his disability was.

Had another student who was a frequently visitor to ISR, and he was there sometimes two or three times a month for all 4 years of high school. Except about the last 4 months of his senior year. He'd come in, sit down, and start to work while I did the roll and passed out work, and when I was done, he'd get up, gather his stuff, and walk out, saying "Bye, Mr. M, see you next time. Then about two weeks before graduation, he was back on a Monday morning. Except that he stayed the 4 days he was supposed to be there, and completed all his week's work before lunch the very first day. I had to order new work for him every day at lunch time. And the day he was supposed to get out, he was there, too. When I was doing the paperwork to send him back to class Friday morning, I asked what had happened to the Mr. C- I used to know and love. He said his GF was pregnant, and he'd gone through Basic Training the previous Summer, and was reporting for duty after graduation, and it was time to grow up. Last I heard about him, he was in special forces, and had made SSGT only two or three years later. He graduated in 2003.

 

[BillM]

You and me both. I wish I could resurrect some of them, just to watch them die again after I tell them. Lol!

The only teacher I would do that for is the guy who supposedly taught me Algebra 1 & 2. I did not get it. Way too concrete operational, ATT. And when I asked him why I needed this algebra crap, he said "So you can graduate from high school." Being more than a bit of hard head, I said "Oh, yeah?" This was 1970 & 1971. IF he'd told me I needed to become an Astronaut, I'd have worked my butt off, and probably actually learned something. I'd spent much of 1969 and 1970 glued to a television whenever there was a moon shot going up. I wanted to be an Astronaut!!! ****tard couldn't be bothered to explain it to me so I could understand, and he did not even know what it was used for!!! Or couldn't be bothered to explain that, either.

I should not have passed either class. By the time I had found out what Algebra was good for, I was a "grown ***ed man," as one of the Rapper-types said recently. That is probably THE first time that I'd like to go back and kick my younger self's tailsection up around his ears for his stupidity. And explain to him why. He still might not have been bright enough to figure things out, but maybe I could also kick the teacher's tailsectioin the same day. Pretty sure that even at my current old and broken down stage of life, I could take the algebra teacher unarmed and bare-handed. While I was there, I'd also stop by and thank the English teacher and the Typing teacher. Both did me great good service! Considering that I flunked every class but one my freshman year of HS, and only passed it because I aced all the tests even though I didn't turn in a bit of homework. That was Health 1-H, California's first Sex Ed class. Mom and step-Mom both made sure my brother and I knew what caused pregnancy. Both got preggers out of wedlock with my dad.

 

[Lightsluvr]

To Joy and that interim dean, all I can say is the Legislature only allows you to hire candidates without degrees, it doesn't mandate that you hire them.

Of course, if your playbook is to allow something before you mandate it, I can see why that would concern you.

You nailed it. I hope that "interim dean" never becomes the permanent dean, because it appears he's already sold out to the teachers' unions. JMO