‘They remind me of muppets’: Teacher's viral rant on 'helpless' high schoolers

 “I screamed at the top of my lungs to get out the frustration and rage.”

Educating teenagers has always been a tough gig, but one high school teacher says she’s finally reached a “new low” in her classroom of kids and their behaviour.

Posting to a popular teachers forum on Reddit, the post has over eight thousand upvotes and hundreds of comments so it seems her sentiment has hit a nerve.

And it is not because these high schoolers are badly behaved, rather they suffer with ‘learned helplessness’.

The teacher describes an incident with a high school student that encompasses her frustrations.

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Image: iStock

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"He just stared at me"

“If I didn’t think it could get any worse,” she writes in the forum.

“A student had a paper assignment in front of him and was staring off into space. I asked him why he wasn’t doing his work and he said, ‘I don’t have a pencil’.

“When I asked him if he’d asked anyone for a pencil he just stared at me. I finally asked, ‘would you like to borrow a pencil?’ He nodded so I gave him a pencil from my desk.

“I walk back around a few minutes later and he’s still staring into space. I asked him again why he wasn’t doing his work, and this time he said, ‘the pencil you gave me is broken’.

“The pencil was not broken folks, it needed sharpening.”

The frustrated teacher who later wrote she had to go home that night and “scream at the top of my lungs to get out this frustration and rage”, gave another example of what she believes to be a widespread issue in this age group.

“The principal came on the school speaker this morning and told us all there were problems with internet connectivity but he would let us know when it was fixed.

"I then had a room of 30 students all saying ‘my computer isn’t working Miss’, ‘It’s not working Miss, my computer has a blank screen’.

“It reminded me of those muppets that only said ‘meep’ in rapid succession.”

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"My head exploded slowly"

Of the more than 600 replies to the post, most came from other teachers who could relate to her plight of trying to teach ‘helpless’ teenage students.

“I called a student to my desk the other day and there was an empty chair pulled out from the table that somewhat blocked her path,” another frustrated teacher wrote.

“There was space on either side. She stopped when she got to the chair. I looked at her. She looked at me and gestured to the chair and said ‘I can’t’.

“My head exploded slowly as I explained to her that she could push in the chair or walk around it.”

Many teachers describe how this helpless behaviour starts in much younger years and that parents aren’t always helpful.

“The learned helplessness starts in first grade,” a primary school teacher chimed in.

“It drives me crazy how these kids don’t do things for themselves. Also that their parents get frustrated with me because of it.

“On one occasion, a parent, knowing I was nine months pregnant, got mad at me for not tieing her son’s shoes. First of all, I don’t tie shoes, second, I am way too uncomfortable to reach down and do that at this stage of pregnancy. Third, I suggested he get a friend to help him so problem solved!”

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"Sometimes failure is the best teacher"

One teacher suggested the best way to combat this issue is simply to resist helping kids until they learn better.

“I stopped helping the helpless this year,” she wrote.

“I used to bring in extension cords, extra computer chargers, paper, pencils etc. But I would find broken pencils all over the place like they wanted to complain about not having anything to write with. Two months ago I collected all of my spare chargers, took away my extension cords and removed any spare pencils.

“All of a sudden they have chargers and pencils and do the work because I stopped caring or bending over to help them.

“Sometimes failure is the best teacher.”

One enlightened parent posted in support of the hard working teachers doing it tough.

“Please know that there are parents out there who appreciate teachers not babying our kids. I made mine FULLY aware that their teachers aren’t servants and to respect their time.

“If my kids want to dick around and not do the work, they’re taking a zero for all those assignments. They can fail and repeat ninth grade at this point.

“ If that’s what it takes to finally learn, so be it.”

Originally published as ‘They remind me of muppets’: Teacher's viral rant on 'helpless' high schoolers