Apparently I am not alone in getting very frustrated with the quantity and quality of disrespect I endure from some students on a daily basis. To be clear, most students are pretty well behaved, but the sheer volume of sneers, snide remarks, and forthright refusals to work from a handful of students is starting to get to me.
Re-entering the American public school classroom in January of 2021 after nearly a decade away from it, I was never sure if the disrespect was rooted in A) my own classroom management skills being rusty after 7 years of very small classes of generally well-behaved Haitian students, B) my advancing years taking a toll on my patience, or C) the natural immaturity of 8th graders.
Today a long-time junior high teacher brought up a possibility I had not considered: she wondered if the prominent disrespect was a result of the pandemic. According to her, teachers were not subjected to this level of disrespect before the arrival of 2020.
She did not have a theory as to the exact mechanism(s) that might spur such a problem and neither do I.
But if it's a trend, it's an ugly one and I hope it is reversible in time.
Who knows yet what sort of cultural fallout there might be post-pandemic, especially among the young people?
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