This earns a chuckle.

[candyland]

My coop got this today--teacher humor can be so much fun sometimes! Almost as good as music humor :3



SCHOOL ANSWERING MACHINE

(This is hilarious - no wonder some people were offended!)

This is the message that the Pacific Palisades High School (California) staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine. This is the actual answering machine message for the school. This came about because they implemented a policy requiring students and parents to be responsible for their children's absences and missing homework. The school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their children's failing grades changed to passing grades - even though those children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not complete enough schoolwork to pass their classes.

The outgoing message:
_____________________________________________________________

"Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school. In order to assist you in connecting to the right staff member, please listen to all the options before making a selection:

* To lie about why your child is absent - Press 1
* To make excuses for why your child did not do his work- Press 2
* To complain about what we do - Press 3
* To swear at staff members - Press 4
* To ask why you didn't get information that was already enclosed in your newsletter and several flyers mailed to you - Press 5
* If you want us to raise your child - Press 6
* If you want to reach out and touch, slap or hit someone -Press 7
* To request another teacher, for the third time this year -Press 8
* To complain about bus transportation - Press 9
* To complain about school lunches - Press 0

* If you realize this is the real world and your child must be accountable and responsible for his/her own behavior, class work, homework and that it's not the teachers' fault for your child's lack of effort: Hang up and have a nice day!

*If you want this in Spanish, you must be in the wrong country.

Comments

[wish-wielder.livejournal.com]

Suing the school because the teachers have a better grip on reality than the parents? Please, those squiffs are idiots. (Which is totally redundant, but it's 1:30 and I don't really care at this point.)

Suburbia Nowhere schools need that answering machine message, mainly because that's exactly what most of our school-age population is like. The sad thing? One of the deacons at my church is a senior English teacher, and he's told us that even if it's numerically impossible for a kid to pass the year (two weeks left and he has a 15 total average for the year), he can't tell that kid he's going to fail. And it's mainly the kids' faults, and even worse it can be traced back to the long line of drug/alcohol abuse in their families. A good percentage of Suburbia Nowhere families are royally screwed just because of that. Dx

[candy--chan.livejournal.com]

Welcome to a teacher's reality--where we are all too frequently held responsible for irresponsible students and even more irresponsible parents who think their kids walk on water. In some places, if kids play sports, they're not allowed to keep score and determine a winner because "the losers might develop low self-esteem." As a result, we have an entire generation of kids who don't know how to lose gracefully, expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter, and will throw a tantrum to Mommy and Daddy if something doesn't go their way.

I honestly pity these kids when they get out into the real world. They're going to be eaten ALIVE.

[wish-wielder.livejournal.com]

Seriously.

I may be a bit idealistic (ok...a lot idealistic), but at least I was blessed enough to get a decent mum who holds me accountable for anything stupid I do. And as for not keeping score, that's a bit dumb. Sure, it may make them feel bad that they lost, but wouldn't that just help fuel their drive to do better next time? Taking that away, I would think, would harm a team more than help them. =|