Classroom incivility

A new Canadian study suggests that classrooms are becoming less civil. Covid, technology and generational issues are cited. Are classrooms seeming less civil in other countries or have recent studies been done?
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/kids-ruder-classrooom-incivility-1.7390753

Comments

  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited November 2024
    I've been hearing complaints about the relative lack of civility in classrooms since I was in junior-high in the early 1980s. And, in fairness to the complaining authority figures, I did at that time witness a student yell "You C-word!!" at a teacher, with no repercussions whatsoever.

    All in all, while I'm prepared to acknowledge that covid might have changed things a bit for the worse(*), I'm always a little wary of "Golden Age" thinking when these types of complaints surface.

    (*) I'll also note a certain irony, in that during the pandemic, it was the opponents of social-distancing who were portrayed as selfish and unwilling to heed legitimate authority. But now, at least in regards to the youth, the thought seems to be that social-distancing itself made people selfish and unwilling to heed legitimate authority.
  • Seems like this is an age-old problem,
  • I have been around education as a student or teacher for 56 years. I don't think there was a golden age during that time at least. Maybe the definition of acceptable, civil behaviour has changed. What interests me in this study is that it uses self-reported data of student from two times, 2019 and 2022. The students seem to be reporting more instances of the behaviour that the researchers have labeled to be incivility.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Seems like this is an age-old problem,
    Not necessarily as age-old as that article would suggest. The importanr word in that piece is “attributed,” where it says “attributed to Socrates.”
    It could more accurately say “Falsely attributed to Socrates.” See here.
    This quote is not really a direct quotation from any ancient writer at all, but rather a loose paraphrase of a passage in the book Schools of Hellas, a doctoral dissertation written by a student at Cambridge University named Kenneth John Freeman first published in 1907. Freeman did not present the passage as the exact words of any specific ancient writer, but rather as his own summary of the general attitude towards young people held by many people who lived in Athens at the time when Socrates was alive.
    So age-old, sorta-kinda-maybe. But there’s no record of Socrates saying that about youth. As that article point out, “Socrates—far from being one of the people sitting around complaining all the time about the youths being corrupt—was actually convicted and sentenced to death for supposedly having been the one who corrupted them.”


  • Are there forms of modern classroom incivility that have only arisen lately?
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    My best friend teaches English at a community college, and reports that some students spend class time looking at their phones and then want her to answer questions after class that they wouldn't have if they'd been paying attention -- not a problem I had when I was teaching English in the 90s.
  • Anecdotally, I've heard that being away from school during Covid caused difficulties when pupils returned. Which would hardly be surprising. I invigilated a written exam just after university students returned and quite a few had forgotten to bring a pen. They were just out of the habit of doing anything which wasn't online, on a computer.

    Historically, I have read a lot of Victorian school log books, and bad behaviour is not a new thing. I came across one account of a girl in Aberdeen who had returned to school after being very ill with something - measles, I think. Her mother had sent her in with a note saying that little Florence was still delicate and must not be punished for anything. Delicate little Florence spent a merry day sticking her tongue out and making faces at her classmates, and then jumped onto a chair so that she could wave to people and make faces out of a window.

    By recollection a report of her behaviour was sent home to her mother, who was told that any punishment-amnesty for Delicate Florence would not continue into a second day of classroom disruption.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited November 2024
    “Socrates—far from being one of the people sitting around complaining all the time about the youths being corrupt—was actually convicted and sentenced to death for supposedly having been the one who corrupted them.”

    More exactly, Socrates was corrupting aristocratic youth, by telling them how unfair it was that they had to follow Athenian democracy like everyone else, and wouldn't it be great if they could lord it over everyone again like their ancestors had.
  • ClimacusClimacus Shipmate
    edited November 2024
    Ruth wrote: »
    My best friend teaches English at a community college, and reports that some students spend class time looking at their phones and then want her to answer questions after class that they wouldn't have if they'd been paying attention -- not a problem I had when I was teaching English in the 90s.

    About 50% of my current class (I'm a student) at a college (not uni) are doing other things (watching football on their device, doing assignments, doing personal projects...) while the teacher teaches. They also ask questions after class that were clearly spelled out (I understand there can be confusion; I've asked clarifying questions... I'm taking about what Ruth mentioned about paying attention) or when a question is asked of them they didn't hear it and have no idea despite the fact the answer was given 10 seconds ago (again, we all have moments of inattention: this is repeated constantly).

    I don't know why they turn up.

    I've been doing my placement at a primary (first 7 years) and high (secondary; 4 to 6 years) school the last two months. I am impressed with the kids. You have the troublesome ones, and some language is used I don't recall (I wasn't in stetson's class 😉), but overall there is respect (and I am at public (state, not UK public) schools where I live, a low socioeconomic and low formal education area where many kids don't want to be there (65% attendance rates or lower in some instances)). The classroom is very different from my experience last century, and this is only my very limited experience. But I thought I'd share. Staff have told me the mobile phone ban has improved things.


    edit: clarified possible Australianisms
  • There's a game I like to play at big conferences. I stand at the back of one of the sessions, and count what fraction of the audience have their email open on their laptops. It hasn't changed much in the last 20 years.
  • Even in my choral society several people are using their phones during rehearsal.
  • There's a game I like to play at big conferences. I stand at the back of one of the sessions, and count what fraction of the audience have their email open on their laptops. It hasn't changed much in the last 20 years.

    I do similar at staff development and the more senior the staff the more likely they are to be checking their phone, looking for opportunities to interject or sneaking out early and less likely they are to be making meaningful notes. Although I do doodle a lot around my notes!
  • This article contains four suggestion for dealing with classroom incivility.
    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/classroom-incivility-teachers-experts-1.7399126
  • stetson wrote: »
    “Socrates—far from being one of the people sitting around complaining all the time about the youths being corrupt—was actually convicted and sentenced to death for supposedly having been the one who corrupted them.”
    More exactly, Socrates was corrupting aristocratic youth, by telling them how unfair it was that they had to follow Athenian democracy like everyone else, and wouldn't it be great if they could lord it over everyone again like their ancestors had.

    Even more exactly, this was an argument advanced by Plato using his dead friend Socrates as a literary device. We have no surviving words of Socrates that aren't second-hand accounts.
  • Golden Age Thinking aside, I think there are a lot of factors contributing to environmental difficulties in the classroom. (I'm into my second stint as a teacher, halfway through my 23nd year overall). I'd say the slide in public civility is merely continuing. This school data is just registering it in a different way. It's no less distressing, but hardly surprising.
  • As an aside: I suspect that Xenophon's account of Socrates may be a better guide to the man than the writings of Plato.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited December 2024
    Crœsos wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    “Socrates—far from being one of the people sitting around complaining all the time about the youths being corrupt—was actually convicted and sentenced to death for supposedly having been the one who corrupted them.”
    More exactly, Socrates was corrupting aristocratic youth, by telling them how unfair it was that they had to follow Athenian democracy like everyone else, and wouldn't it be great if they could lord it over everyone again like their ancestors had.

    Even more exactly, this was an argument advanced by Plato using his dead friend Socrates as a literary device. We have no surviving words of Socrates that aren't second-hand accounts.

    My understanding(cribbed mostly from I.F. Stone's book on the trial of Socrates) is that it's pretty well-established that Plato and his circle were of the aristocratic party(offspring or associates of the Thirty Tyrants, if I'm not mistaken), and that Socrates' ideological incitement of these kids was likely what turned Athenian democrats against him.
  • stetson wrote: »
    My understanding (cribbed mostly from I.F. Stone's book on the trial of Socrates) is that it's pretty well-established that Plato and his circle were of the aristocratic party (offspring or associates of the Thirty Tyrants, if I'm not mistaken), and that Socrates' ideological incitement of these kids was likely what turned Athenian democrats against him.

    Indeed. The reason for Socrates' trial was likely that he espoused a philosophy that produced people like Alkibiades, Kritias, and Charmides. But under the amnesty that was passed following the fall of the Thirty Tyrants that wasn't something he could be charged with. Hence the rather vague charges about corrupting the use and promoting new gods.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited December 2024
    Crœsos wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    My understanding (cribbed mostly from I.F. Stone's book on the trial of Socrates) is that it's pretty well-established that Plato and his circle were of the aristocratic party (offspring or associates of the Thirty Tyrants, if I'm not mistaken), and that Socrates' ideological incitement of these kids was likely what turned Athenian democrats against him.

    Indeed. The reason for Socrates' trial was likely that he espoused a philosophy that produced people like Alkibiades, Kritias, and Charmides. But under the amnesty that was passed following the fall of the Thirty Tyrants that wasn't something he could be charged with. Hence the rather vague charges about corrupting the use and promoting new gods.

    [hobbyhorse galloping in]

    One thing that's always kinda irked me is that civics-class portrayal of Socrates as "someone who just wanted to discover the truth". Mostly because of his aforementioned role as the leadership-coach for resentful rich kids, but also because it probably shortchanges the technical philosophy underlying Plato's original discussion of Truth.

    Nietzsche considered Plato to be somewhat, shall we say, outdated, but somehow manages to work in quite a bit of admiration for Socrates. Something about provoking the arrogant youth of Athens to weep in shame. And Socrates' manner of death was way cooler than Jesus'.
  • Read the book. Bought the t-shirt.
  • @stetson said
    And Socrates' manner of death was way cooler than Jesus'.

    Less painful, certainly, but also with less effect on the world, as I understand it.
  • Good and bad.
  • The_Riv wrote: »
    Good and bad.

    I don’t think we can blame Jesus for the bad actions of people doing things in His Name. The good—ultimately transcendent and redemptive good that affects all of Creation—is still massively more than that, regardless, in my understanding.
  • I wasn't suggesting that. And yet, the fact that there's nothing inherent within Christianity that more effectively inhibits those bad actions is a pretty substantial weakness. Especially relative to how many Christians describe it.
  • The_Riv wrote: »
    I wasn't suggesting that. And yet, the fact that there's nothing inherent within Christianity that more effectively inhibits those bad actions is a pretty substantial weakness. Especially relative to how many Christians describe it.

    It’s the wheat and the tares, basically. It would be more convenient if people who did terrible things in His Name just… wouldn’t, but we still have that free will, and of course doing things in His Name doesn’t mean having Him in one’s heart.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    The_Riv wrote: »
    And yet, the fact that there's nothing inherent within Christianity that more effectively inhibits those bad actions is a pretty substantial weakness.
    I don't know that any of the control groups do any better.

  • stetson wrote: »
    Nietzsche considered Plato to be somewhat, shall we say, outdated, but somehow manages to work in quite a bit of admiration for Socrates. Something about provoking the arrogant youth of Athens to weep in shame. And Socrates' manner of death was way cooler than Jesus'.

    Philosophical “discussion” between Plato and Nietzsche.
  • Dafyd wrote: »
    The_Riv wrote: »
    And yet, the fact that there's nothing inherent within Christianity that more effectively inhibits those bad actions is a pretty substantial weakness.
    I don't know that any of the control groups do any better.

    That's my point, albeit in reverse.
  • Crœsos wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    Nietzsche considered Plato to be somewhat, shall we say, outdated, but somehow manages to work in quite a bit of admiration for Socrates. Something about provoking the arrogant youth of Athens to weep in shame. And Socrates' manner of death was way cooler than Jesus'.

    Philosophical “discussion” between Plato and Nietzsche.

    I think Nietzsche evinced a certain degree of self-awareness of his own status as a "nerd". I think I recall discussing this some time ago on the Ship, so for now I'll just cite the bit about philosophers knowing as much about Truth as they know about women.

    Granted, his academic field was other than philosophy, so I guess we can wonder if he meant to include himself there.
  • I think there is a general (not confined to school students) decline in attention span. I blame this, in part, on the decline in reading and practical hobbies.

    As to the 'Golden Age' thing, it's a fantasy. I recall reading a log book from a local school in the 1920s. A fascinating document. Among other things, it recorded a parent hurling a house brick at the headmaster. You might argue, at a stretch, that for short periods of history, England was a more orderly and civil place than now, but anyone who has studied any kind of social history knows that there has always been an underlying current of violence. Whether it was 19th-century machine-breakers or 15th-century attacks on Flemings and other foreigners.
  • EirenistEirenist Shipmate
    My mother, who taught in a school in East London in the 1930s; once had to be rescued by a male colleague from an irate docker who was annoyed because she had kept his younger brother behind after school for some extra tuition. The young man was about to use his belt on her.
  • My grandfather was a teacher, and had a similar experience in the same sort of era with an irate parent upset about some discipline meted out to his child. The parent ended up in court facing charges, and poor old grandad was most embarrassed that he was required to repeat the coarse language used by the irate parent in mixed company in court. "Well sir, first he called my parentage in to question" was not acceptable, and no amount of "but there are ladies present in court" got him out of having to repeat the words used.
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