re: Prediction: within 10 years the shortage of teachers will be a crisis

Amen to your advice. I never had discipline problems while I taught at that majority black school, because I exploited their weaknesses. I found out that after my first week, these eighth graders were highly superstitious. I used their outmoded beliefs to my advantage. They would tell me crap like they had a witch riding their back the night before. Several told me that they once saw a ghost. I told them I saw ghosts all of the time and I could tell that the classroom that we were in was haunted. I lied and told them that a student hung himself in the room, because his girl friend rejected him. I even rigged books to fall off the shelves by using white fish line. You people might call me crazy, but I was hired to do a job, which was to teach. How can you teach if the assholes are running around and cursing you? I was known to be the Hoodoo man and I had perfect silence in my classroom. I may have scared them, but at least I taught them. BTW, the kids were crazy about me. In fact, my stories were so popular, that at my last year there, we had a haunted house. If a kid in my class got out of hand, I would stare at them then they would put their head down on the desk, and plead with me not to put a spell on them. There are some posters on this board who will definitely know me. My motto was it's either them or me, and being me, I won that game.