Why so much praise for teachers when so many of them suck so much?

[notfred]

People have this attitude where they treat teachers as if they're angels descended down from heaven to do the holy work of educating poor, innocent children. I don't know about the rest of the country, but most of our teachers out here in California suck.

In elementray school, I had 1 good teacher out of five.

In Junior high I had 1 good teacher out of about 14.

In high school I had 2 good teachers out of 26 or so.

I'm not even going to talk about college.

The rest of my teachers have ranged from utterly horrible to kinda ok.

A lot of them don't even TRY. I had a 4th grade teacher who showed us stupid educational movies at LEAST 3 days a week in class. Why? It kept him from having to do any actual teaching.

My second grade teacher THREW THINGS at the students if they talked in class. They're 7 year olds!

I had a teacher for a computer class (typing/office kinda thing) in high school who was a football coach. He knew nothing about computers, but they had no one else to teach the class.

I had a teacher for an AP statistics class that didn't know jack sh!t about statistics. She gave M&Ms to us and had us find the stanard deviation of number of different colored M&Ms in the bags... and she had to look up the formula for standard deviation!

Where are these places with teachers that are intelligent, passionate professionals who devote thier lives to the better of children? When I have kids, I'm moving there.

What we have here is mostly a bunch of people who didn't realize until too late that there's not much you can do with a liberal arts degree.


* Disclaimer: If you'll read carefully, I didn't say that all teachers suck. If your wife/husband/son/daughter/mother/father/aunt/grandma/friend/etc is a teacher, it's entirely possibly they're one of the few people that actually does a good job. It's also entirely possible that you're biased because you only hear the point of view of your family member and don't hear the students complaining behind his/her back about hos incompetent he/she is. But yes, there are a few good teachers out there. Maybe outside of california there are even a lot of good teachers, but I jsut haven't seen it.

 

[DougK62]

An elementary education degree is about the easiest degree you can get at a university. People know this. They also know that places are looking for teachers.

That said, it's a crappy job that I could never do.

EDIT: And if you want the good teachers head to private schools. I'm far from a Christian, but if I decide to stay in the area to raise children it's a no-brainer to send them to a Catholic school. They're the best by far around here.

 

[gopunk]

people praise workers in jobs they don't want for themeselves to keep the workers happy, because those jobs, however undesireable are important to society or a company. so you don't want the worker to think that it's really crappy and leave. this is why we have things like secretary day and boxing day, etc.

 

[shopbruin]

what district were you in?

most of my teachers were awesome. i had some in high school that were counting down til retirement but on the whole mine were great.

i also went to school in "nice" districts with "nice" test scores and students that actually paid attention and didn't act up in class. you'd have one student goof around in class.

even when i went to a "poor" school in kindergarten and first grade, they actually looked for advanced students. they had me taking extra classes after school and so on so i could get ahead. afterwards we moved to a nicer part of the district, where the teachers were all nice and the kids were either spoiled brats or overall nice kids. jr high was the same. high school, well if you do AP the teachers care... its the kids who know high school will be the end of the road for them that its horrible. also look at the quality of the students...

people here rag on teachers because they have a lazy rep and the bad ones get the publicity. but never ever any for the good ones. NEVER. you get a local mention, that's about it. maybe a little disney channel "teacher of the year" award. but who gets the nat'l attention? teachers who feel pressured to meet the demands of the district who want more and more money from the state and want to survive.

its a question of... do some teachers teach because they have nothing else to do? are we unfortunate that some of the best are out somewhere else trying to make their money? why do parents not care about their kids education, only when they get bad grades they automatically blame the teacher but don't respond to the requests for conferences or try to make sure their kids do their homework?

there's a lot of blame to pass around. you can't pin it solely on teachers.

 

[Kadarin]

Well, the number of bad teachers vs average teachers vs good teachers probably follows a bell curve. So your next exercise will be to calculate the odds of having a continuous curriculum of teachers who are at least one standard deviation from the average in the plus direction...

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: notfred
People have this attitude where they treat teachers as if they're angels descended down from heaven to do the holy work of educating poor, innocent children. I don't know about the rest of the country, but most of our teachers out here in California suck.

In elementray school, I had 1 good teacher out of five.

In Junior high I had 1 good teacher out of about 14.

In high school I had 2 good teachers out of 26 or so.

I'm not even going to talk about college.

The rest of my teachers have ranged from utterly horrible to kinda ok.

A lot of them don't even TRY. I had a 4th grade teacher who showed us stupid educational movies at LEAST 3 days a week in class. Why? It kept him from having to do any actual teaching.

My second grade teacher THREW THINGS at the students if they talked in class. They're 7 year olds!

I had a teacher for a computer class (typing/office kinda thing) in high school who was a football coach. He knew nothing about computers, but they had no one else to teach the class.

I had a teacher for an AP statistics class that didn't know jack sh!t about statistics. She gave M&Ms to us and had us find the stanard deviation of number of different colored M&Ms in the bags... and she had to look up the formula for standard deviation!

Where are these places with teachers that are intelligent, passionate professionals who devote thier lives to the better of children? When I have kids, I'm moving there.

What we have here is mostly a bunch of people who didn't realize until too late that there's not much you can do with a liberal arts degree.


* Disclaimer: If you'll read carefully, I didn't say that all teachers suck. If your wife/husband/son/daughter/mother/father/aunt/grandma/friend/etc is a teacher, it's entirely possibly they're one of the few people that actually does a good job. It's also entirely possible that you're biased because you only hear the point of view of your family member and don't hear the students complaining behind his/her back about hos incompetent he/she is. But yes, there are a few good teachers out there. Maybe outside of california there are even a lot of good teachers, but I jsut haven't seen it.

Notfred - this is why property values are so high in good school districts...

 

[Ronstang]

Originally posted by: Mwilding
this is why property values are so high in good school districts...

Uhmmm.....sorry but you have that backwards.....good school districts exist in areas with high property values because of the available dollars, not the other way around.

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

While working for T-Mobile, I had a teacher tell me "You know what? I am uh EDUCATOR and irregardless of what you think, I did not go over my minutes!"

I laughed.

 

[Ronstang]

An educator using the nonword "irregardless".....comforting, no wonder the kids of today are mostly illiterate.

 

[pulse8]

Probably because they have to put up with so many bad students everyday.

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: Ronstang

Originally posted by: Mwilding
this is why property values are so high in good school districts...

Uhmmm.....sorry but you have that backwards.....good school districts exist in areas with high property values because of the available dollars, not the other way around.

Actually it's recursive

 

[Mo0o]

I think mostly its the long hours and the crappy pay. Plus they have to deal with annoying students that couldn't care less about what they did in class. I think someone noted that teh best teachers are all in the private schools that can afford higher salaries.

 

[Amorphus]

Originally posted by: Ronstang
An educator using the nonword "irregardless".....comforting, no wonder the kids of today are mostly illiterate.

Shut the fck up, btch!

 

[EmperorIQ]

Originally posted by: Astaroth33
Well, the number of bad teachers vs average teachers vs good teachers probably follows a bell curve. So your next exercise will be to calculate the odds of having a continuous curriculum of teachers who are at least one standard deviation from the average in the plus direction...

looks like he got a good stats teacher

 

[huesmann]

Because teachers are poorly-paid and overworked and get crapped on by everyone.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: huesmann
Because teachers are poorly-paid and overworked and get crapped on by everyone.

Pretty much says it all. You'd have to pay me at least a quarter mil a year to babysit the idiotic little demons raised by modern-day "parents".

 

[Jzero]

Around here, private school teachers generally get paid less and the teachers don't even have to be certified.

There are some great private schools and there are some great public schools. You have to pick according to your needs and where you are.

 

[StageLeft]

It's the in-thing to do. "Teachers,firemen,soldiers are never paid enough" is another one.

 

[Entity]

Originally posted by: gopunk
people praise workers in jobs they don't want for themeselves to keep the workers happy, because those jobs, however undesireable are important to society or a company. so you don't want the worker to think that it's really crappy and leave. this is why we have things like secretary day and boxing day, etc.

Boxing day? Um, gopunk...

The day after Christmas, the Feast of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, is better known as Boxing Day. The term may come from the opening of church poor boxes that day; maybe from the earthenware boxes with which boy apprentices collected money at the doors of their masters' clients.

Nowadays, we often see, in certain families, gifts (boxes) given to those who provide services throughout the year.

 

[Entity]

Oh, and to answer the OP, because it's a job that not many people would want to have -- at least where I am, there's a teaching shortage, and school districts are constantly "broadening" their requirements to allow just about anyone to teach; consequently, those who can/want to teach are highly valued as doing something that most people wouldn't want to do, for relatively low pay.

Rob

 

[MacBaine]

Why so much disdain for police when so few of them suck so much?

 

[Descartes]

I've had two fantastically passionate teachers in my life: My grammar school music teacher, and my high school biology teacher. The rest of my teachers were either coaches masquerading as teachers, or alcholics that were too drunk to teach (seriously), or those that simply didn't understand their material well. My trig teacher was a coach, and I spent more time programming my TI-82 than actually doing the work; he didn't care. It's because of this that I am a much more efficient learner when simply given the books; I don't need someone to pontificate for hours on end to explain something.

I will definitely be more involved with my children's education.

 

[StageLeft]

people praise workers in jobs they don't want for themeselves to keep the workers happy, because those jobs, however undesireable are important to society or a company. so you don't want the worker to think that it's really crappy and leave. this is why we have things like secretary day and boxing day, etc.

Not sure why you put boxing day in there, but otherwise I agree that that is indeed a lot of the reason. The collective public does the same with the military all the time referring to them as heroes and everything and the same for teachers and other public servants, yet interestingly most of these same people never tried to enter in to such a position.

This quack on the radio always says "God bless you and thank you so much for your service" when a soldier calls in or an ex-military person. So if they're so special why didn't this DJ ever join the military? Some soldiers are heroes, and some teachers are excellent. My experiences with them were like Descartes, though unlike him I've got NO great memories of a single one that I had. The most notable memory, in fact, is of a physics teacher who was so bad that after several schools he was fired and ended up working the desk in the local gym (yes it was bloody depressing to see him there, since he was a nice guy).

So many talk about how teachers and military are underpaid, but I don't see many of them trying to push bills through to jack up teacher/military pay, and so instead they pay them with praise, because praise is free and doesn't take much time to give it.

 

[hdeck]

sounds like you grew up in a bad school district. i've had lots of great teachers. sucks for you.

 

[TheNinja]

I remember when I was in high school. It was a really tough school with a lot of gangs, violence, and drugs. Then we had this pretty hot looking substitute teacher for a little while. We all made fun of her at first but then realized she was really tough and was and ex-marine who could fight too. Then she taught us so much stuff it was just plain ridiculous how much this lady completely changed our lives. Then we all sang "Gangsta's Paradise"

So if you've never been a teacher, or never lived with a teacher and see how much crap work they have to do while getting paid in circus peanuts. As well as put with with stupid parents and kids then you shouldn't complain about how bad they "sucked". Maybe you just sucked.