Teacher Criticisms...(rant)

I_give_it_2_u_str8

theres really one easy way to find out:

get rid of publicly funded education, and make it a private school system. the market will determine what your worth is.

so i guess the question is, why is public school that much different than private school? if you are a good teacher (like you say) then you will have no problem getting the kind of kids you want to teach.

The difference between public school and private school is: private schools choose the type of kids that come through their doors....public school has to take whoever comes through the doors. We don't get to choose the best students with the best home lives. We also don't get to remove a student who isn't working out for our programs. It's a totally different animal.

so if you dont like the public school teaching environment, and believe your value is higher - than you can teach at private school, no?

Actually, I make more money as a public school teacher than I would at a private school. I love my environment and the students I teach or I wouldn't be doing it. I'm a licensed attorney who chooses to teach because I love it.

so you're getting paid more b/c you dont get to choose the kids you get to teach, and you're complaining because...?

chanstriste13

so i guess the question is, why is public school that much different than private school? if you are a good teacher (like you say) then you will have no problem getting the kind of kids you want to teach.

are you kidding me?

hey, im just bringing up a point here - i have no quarrel with you. in fact my SO is a teacher. heres the facts:

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/10/assessing-the-compensation-of-public-school-teachers#_ftn3

have a read, and then let me know what part you're confused with.

you already posted this article.

your 'solution' is wrong on a lot of levels. public school is not a sparring match for the best students. we get who we get.

if you took the staff of a renowned private school or a very uppercrust public school and transplanted them to a low socioeconomic school, and vice versa, testing scores and the general makeup of those schools would stay exactly the same, because of the students there. by your theory, all the 'good' teachers from the rich schools would now be 'bad' teachers, and all of the 'bad' teachers from the poor schools would now be 'good'. it is simply not that simple.

the 'good' teachers are the ones who work with those students who live in poverty and have crack addict/prostitute mothers and never give up on them despite that their test scores are always crap. any teacher interested in teaching *only* the highest level learners should not be in the public school setting.

someone else posted the article, and i thought it was interesting that you conveniently overlooked it.

why would someone with more credentials be teaching in a 'low socioeconomic school' ? thats like making the CEO of Apple teach grade 10 computers. total miss-allocation of value. youre probably right tho' that they private school teachers wouldnt make much of a difference - but its not because they're not good teachers its because the students dont want to learn. so maybe we have a problem of forcing some students to learn about crap they have no problem learning. why teach violin to a student that wants to learn how to fix cars?

interesting that if private school teachers are shipped to a low income school, they are still considered good teachers. but public school teachers who are already in that situation are considered bad teachers. yikes.

there are only so many credentials to get. once you get a phd, you go teach college. but there are plenty of teachers with masters and national boards under their belts that *choose* to teach at low income schools because they want to make a difference. and most of these teachers that i know don't have beef with their students, they have beef with people with your same mindset that because they want to try and make something better, they are belittled.

as for letting students learn what they want, you need to take that argument to washington. that would be 'no child left behind', in all of its glory, that made every student college bound and took trades out of the curriculum. boo. but that is also something not in individual teacher's hands.

iuangina

I'm not complaining. I actually really like my job. My response was about the difference between the types of schools. I don't think I could handle teaching in a private school environment. I don't like working with children who feel they are entitled to everything just because of their family name.

chanstriste13

I'm not complaining. I actually really like my job. My response was about the difference between the types of schools. I don't think I could handle teaching in a private school environment. I don't like working with children who feel they are entitled to everything just because of their family name.

well said!

DannyMussels

From my experiences, everyone thinks they work very hard, are underpaid and they're the best worker at their job.

This applies to every field of work on earth, and most on mars.

VegesaurusRex

Really?!?!?!?!?!? WTH, Kids that live in bad neighborhoods can't be educated? Get a clue. Some of the most motivated kids I've ever seen have come from the worst situations.

Okay, we have an interesting situation here we have two teachers, one of whom made the above comment. The other said that kids in poor neighborhoods are only in school to get a hot meal.

Now I do not know which one is right and which one is wrong, but it would seem they both can't be right. Unfortunately, when I brought this up both teachers avoided the subject and went on to something else. I would be delighted to have an answer as to which picture is accurate. And if there are highly motivated inner city kids, why are the records of districts like Hartford so dismal. Also, if this were true, what is wrong with taking these kids out of the inner city and using vouchers to send them to good schools in the suburbs?

candykay0605

i just saw on another post the mention of teachers 'snivelling' for more money when they are not getting results. this kind of thing burns just burns me up.

i can't stand it when people who have never stuck a toe in the education field go on about how teachers are lazy, get paid for nothing in the summer, and are only babysitting anyways, so how hard can it really be?

then you have the people who want to run education like a business, and if you don't get the results, you don't get the pay. if education was a business, teachers could fire and hire the students based on their performance. but no. we don't get that option.

we teach *everyone*, no matter what. even if they only show up to school once a week. even if their parents cuss us out on the phone and tell us that *their* child is *our* problem when they are at school. even if a student consistently refuses to lift a finger because they just do not care. and we are still held accountable for a student's testing scores even if they were expelled from school for 150 days out of 180.

there are always going to be teachers who drop the ball and don't do their part, but the majority of us never give up on those students who have already given up on themselves. we keep hoping that one day they might open their book, write something down and learn something.

boo to people that criticize the general educator populace without ever having taught. if you haven't stood in front of a class of 20 to 30 students and taught, you really have no idea. :grumble:

BUMP LIKE LOVE whatever else i can say about this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I would like these people to TRY and live off of a parapro's pay or even teacher's pay (if you cant tell im a parapro) and another FYI I am going to school full time on the side AND work another job!!! I was going to be a teacher but after 5 years of seeing how much teachers have to go through I have changed my degree to do somthing so i can still work with children but in a different settin!!!!

loopybec2002

so i guess the question is, why is public school that much different than private school? if you are a good teacher (like you say) then you will have no problem getting the kind of kids you want to teach.

are you kidding me?

This statement actually makes me really angry. I teach the children at the bottom of the scale that when they arrive at our school at 8-9yrs old they cannot read they leave our school with GCSE grades normally E and above what happens to these children they don't get taught because they are not the best of the best? We have some amazing teachers at our school who put in the hours and are here teaching these students because they love to make a HUGH difference. These children would be in jail if they didn't have the distraction of school. They need help and support and thats what they get. I am actually fuming that you actually suggest shutting down pulic education so there are only good students and good teachers AND WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE STUDENTS WHO DON'T MATCH UP TO YOUR STANDARDS?????

chanstriste13

I hear you. I told you my solution to the problem. In my Latin class, those who didn't want to do the work to keep up were asked to leave. I gave tests. I flunked people. That is the only answer to the problem. However, you owe it to yourself to alert the parents when you see this coming. When I went to school, if I had ever come home with a note from my teacher saying I was a screw up, I would have been physically beaten. If you notify the parents and they don't care either, then c'est la vie. Their little darling flunks.

as it doesn't seem as if you have ever taught children in a public school setting, i can see why you are so determined that this would work. unfortunately, government has money for schools directly tied into graduation rates, and when you start failing *every* student who deserves to fail, in many cases, you end up with administration breathing down your neck who in the end just change the grades as they fit - sometimes this goes all the way to the superintendent or school board. it's sad, really. i hear what you are saying about failing students. i see why high school diplomas are becoming so invaluable as school systems hand them out like candy. but you are quite mistaken to say that all of this is in the hands of individual teachers.

And PLEASE don't say you are not allowed to flunk anyone. Others have said that on this board, and I believe they believe it is true. However, I know a very good calculus teacher who has no problem flunking kids even though she is "not supposed to." She says there is a huge amount of paperwork involved, but she does it anyway. Eventually she got the reputation that if you take her course, you better want to work.

see above. unless you have been in a poor public school system grasping at straws to find money to purchase basic text books, you would have no idea. teachers are not put off by paperwork. we're put off by administration making our decisions for us.

Please if you want to attack my ideas, feel free to do so. Do not attack me, saying I am not a professional teacher so I don't know what I am talking about. I have two kids that I and my wife homeschooled. My son, as I have said is a first year law student at age 19, the youngest student ever admitted to that law school. My daughter at age 16 has already earned her associates degree from Community College. She is presently taking more courses at Community College since we do not want to send her off to live in dorms until she is at least 17. She, bytheway, is working on her second novel.

I think I have some idea of what works in education.

if you feel that this was an attack, you may need to develop a thicker skin. it was only natural to ask if you had ever taught, seeing that you seem to have all the answers but were only siting movies. also, while you are surely a professoinal teacher, you are still one of a different breed. post-graduate students, imho, don't even really count in this discussion, since they are most likely enrolled in your classes of their own accord and paying for their own education. and students being homeschoold for latin seem that they have parents very much involved and interested in their children's schooling.

you are certainly entitled to your opinion, but so am i. i think your idea of what works in education would only work for a very small percentage of privileged individuals. but that's neither here or there, really, because if there was a simple answer, the system would be fixed. and you should be very proud of your children and sing their praises, but i'm sure your results would be quite different if you were teaching 30+ chilldren who weren't your own whose only motivation to come to school was to get their free lunch because that is the only meal they receive each day.

your teaching experience sounds wonderful, but kind of in a small pond.

Oh, but I have. Both young kids and adults. I enjoy it. It is fun,and I wish I were doing it now.

same here. amazing we can see things so incredibly differently. it almost scares me.

We do see things differently, and I kind of wish I could wrap my mind around your point of view, but our experiences are so radically different, I can't. I am very seriously thinking of writing a book about my homeschooling eperiences. (One of our local homeschoolers already did - I think it's called "But What about the Prom?." ) I will certainly admit that the problems I faced educating my kids and in teaching homeschool Latin are very likely radically different from those faced by teachers in, for example, inner city schools. I have no solution to how to educate a starving, beaten down kid who lives in a neighborhood where guns and killing are normal. To be honest with you, I don't think they can be educated. I certainly don't think that if I lived in such a neighborhood, I would be interested in anything but staying alive. The only solution may be to live long enough to join the Service.

Having said that, the unfortunate conclusion is that money spent trying to educate these kids is probably wasted. Those, who despite their environment want to learn should be allowed to attend decent schools. The voucher system would probably work best. Allow them to spend their education dollars where they can get the most benefit. Those who don't care enough to exercise their voucher option, well, they got what they got.

Sadly, every progressive idea, like vouchers or ability grouping is opposed by the teachers' union. It is not a misperception that they only care about jobs and money. Education for them is an afterthoght.

i see where you're going with this, but it's not like all the students that don't want to learn can just stay home. it's illegal.

and there are some really intelligent, hardworking, kind and caring teachers that knowingly take on those students, even though they know there is no chance in hell that their classes will be making 'expected growth' on the end of course tests that will be reported to the state and then sent back in form letter, graphs and charts stating what a crap teacher they are.

and this was the whole point of my original post - *not* pay, which i'm not really sure how that ever really entered this thread. so many people grew up in a charmed location with upper crust everything, and now they are adults thinking that every school in the country is like that. they are sorely mistaken, and can't even begin to imagine some of the conditions that these students live in and that teacher professionals work at everyday to try and make it a little better, only to be crapped on by their administrations and given the stink eye by the general public.

it's really kind of a bummer.

I_give_it_2_u_str8

interesting that if private school teachers are shipped to a low income school, they are still considered good teachers. but public school teachers who are already in that situation are considered bad teachers. yikes.

well its hard to argue that - but its very good use of a circular argument, cheers!

i never said, btw, that teachers teaching at low-income areas are bad teachers. as iuangina pointed out, its a personal choice she has made.

all im pointing out, is that, all of capitalism is about efficiency and trying to find areas of waste. your beef isnt with people like me, its with the whole system. cuz afterall, we're all packaged into tiny little boxes and sold as a package in our own rights (i work in the private consulting business, i know this all too well)- but i can easily find out what i'm worth on the market these days by looking at the surveys. publicly funded programs are a different story, and everyone and their brother has a say :P

chanstriste13

Really?!?!?!?!?!? WTH, Kids that live in bad neighborhoods can't be educated? Get a clue. Some of the most motivated kids I've ever seen have come from the worst situations.

Okay, we have an interesting situation here we have two teachers, one of whom made the above comment. The other said that kids in poor neighborhoods are only in school to get a hot meal.

Now I do not know which one is right and which one is wrong, but it would seem they both can't be right. Unfortunately, when I brought this up both teachers avoided the subject and went on to something else. I would be delighted to have an answer as to which picture is accurate. And if there are highly motivated inner city kids, why are the records of districts like Hartford so dismal. Also, if this were true, what is wrong with taking these kids out of the inner city and using vouchers to send them to good schools in the suburbs?

*sigh*

you and your blanket mentality. there is no such thing as all or none, so i'm not sure why you are making arguments on technicalities. i never said that all kids in poor neighborhoods are in for a free lunch, though many of them are. my point in that statement was that you would find your teaching experience drastically different if you had some of those types of students.

edited to add: ps ~ please enlighten me on the topic of yours that i have avoided...

KimmieBrie

I'm not complaining. I actually really like my job. My response was about the difference between the types of schools. I don't think I could handle teaching in a private school environment. I don't like working with children who feel they are entitled to everything just because of their family name.

UM ok - I went to private school because my parents scraped and saved and went without to put me there. We were far from wealthy... very far. Few of my classmates had the attitude you are describing. Everyone seems to feel entitled these days - just look at the occupy movement, so let's not get started on that.

Stop generalizing about students and maybe we'll stop generalizing about teachers.

rdzilla

I wasn't going to comment on this topic because I'm pretty strongly opinionated. Unions were created in the 1890's to protect uneducated workers from being taken advantage of by company higher-ups. Now that we've come 120+ years into the future and America has moved away from being an industrial and manufacturing country there is absolutely zero need for unions any longer. If I went on strike I would be fired from my job. Easy as that. Once a teacher is tenured they have to do something completely stupid in order to get fired. From there teachers become apathetic to the needs of their students and no longer care about making sure the child is receiving a fair and justifiable education. You could apply the "you can lead a student to a classroom but you can't make them learn" argument but as a teacher your job is 50% educator and 50% motivator. If you didn't realize that before you got into teaching then that sucks. Hiding behind a union for protection is absolutely ridiculous considering 99% of teachers in America are college graduates who should be able to think on their own without being taken advantage of by a district. Besides, what was the last valuable thing a union did for you? Be honest. Do I think teachers are paid correctly? Absolutely. If I had 3.5 months off a year, incredible benefits, guaranteed pay raises and the ability to almost never get fired I'd be ecstatic.

chanstriste13

I wasn't going to comment on this topic because I'm pretty strongly opinionated. Unions were created in the 1890's to protect uneducated workers from being taken advantage of by company higher-ups. Now that we've come 120+ years into the future and America has moved away from being an industrial and manufacturing country there is absolutely zero need for unions any longer. If I went on strike I would be fired from my job. Easy as that. Once a teacher is tenured they have to do something completely stupid in order to get fired. From there teachers become apathetic to the needs of their students and no longer care about making sure the child is receiving a fair and justifiable education. You could apply the "you can lead a student to a classroom but you can't make them learn" argument but as a teacher your job is 50% educator and 50% motivator. If you didn't realize that before you got into teaching then that sucks. Hiding behind a union for protection is absolutely ridiculous considering 99% of teachers in America are college graduates who should be able to think on their own without being taken advantage of by a district. Besides, what was the last valuable thing a union did for you? Be honest. Do I think teachers are paid correctly? Absolutely. If I had 3.5 months off a year, incredible benefits, guaranteed pay raises and the ability to almost never get fired I'd be ecstatic.

not all states have teacher unions.

loopybec2002

Really?!?!?!?!?!? WTH, Kids that live in bad neighborhoods can't be educated? Get a clue. Some of the most motivated kids I've ever seen have come from the worst situations.

Okay, we have an interesting situation here we have two teachers, one of whom made the above comment. The other said that kids in poor neighborhoods are only in school to get a hot meal.

Now I do not know which one is right and which one is wrong, but it would seem they both can't be right. Unfortunately, when I brought this up both teachers avoided the subject and went on to something else. I would be delighted to have an answer as to which picture is accurate. And if there are highly motivated inner city kids, why are the records of districts like Hartford so dismal. Also, if this were true, what is wrong with taking these kids out of the inner city and using vouchers to send them to good schools in the suburbs?

*sigh*

you and your blanket mentality. there is no such thing as all or none, so i'm not sure why you are making arguments on technicalities. i never said that all kids in poor neighborhoods are in for a free lunch, though many of them are. my point in that statement was that you would find your teaching experience drastically different if you had some of those types of students.

edited to add: ps ~ please enlighten me on the topic of yours that i have avoided...

I work as a learning support assistant in nottingham for boys who have behavioural problems they come to us like one step before jail when all other schools cannot cope. We have students who come to us aged 8 and 9 who cannot read aword. We work on their self esteem and trying to convince them that there is more to life than crime and aggression. When they leave us they almost all have grades in subjects in GCSE's if only at grade E and above sometimes as high as a B. Some students come for a hot meal but some just need to know that they aren't worthless.

iuangina

Really?!?!?!?!?!? WTH, Kids that live in bad neighborhoods can't be educated? Get a clue. Some of the most motivated kids I've ever seen have come from the worst situations.

Okay, we have an interesting situation here we have two teachers, one of whom made the above comment. The other said that kids in poor neighborhoods are only in school to get a hot meal.

Now I do not know which one is right and which one is wrong, but it would seem they both can't be right. Unfortunately, when I brought this up both teachers avoided the subject and went on to something else. I would be delighted to have an answer as to which picture is accurate. And if there are highly motivated inner city kids, why are the records of districts like Hartford so dismal. Also, if this were true, what is wrong with taking these kids out of the inner city and using vouchers to send them to good schools in the suburbs?

I think both statements are true. It depends on the student. There is no way to generalize about the kids in bad neighborhoods. I never said that ALL students from bad neighborhoods are motivated. I simply said that I've had many students who are extremely motivated that come from very bad neighborhoods. To say that none of them can learn is ridiculous (which is what prompted my response). I don't agree with vouchers because you are taking money away from schools that are already struggling. Just because you get a voucher does not mean that your parents are going to be able to pay for a private school. It's not that simple. I'm not going to get into that debate right now.

As far as the entitlement comment, that's been my experience (for better or worse). I'm glad that the OP didn't behave that way, It's not a generalization when that's my experience with almost all kids I've taught in a private school environment.

chanstriste13

I work as a learning support assistant in nottingham for boys who have behavioural problems they come to us like one step before jail when all other schools cannot cope. We have students who come to us aged 8 and 9 who cannot read aword. We work on their self esteem and trying to convince them that there is more to life than crime and aggression. When they leave us they almost all have grades in subjects in GCSE's if only at grade E and above sometimes as high as a B. Some students come for a hot meal but some just need to know that they aren't worthless.

props to you!

VegesaurusRex

Really?!?!?!?!?!? WTH, Kids that live in bad neighborhoods can't be educated? Get a clue. Some of the most motivated kids I've ever seen have come from the worst situations.

Okay, we have an interesting situation here we have two teachers, one of whom made the above comment. The other said that kids in poor neighborhoods are only in school to get a hot meal.

Now I do not know which one is right and which one is wrong, but it would seem they both can't be right. Unfortunately, when I brought this up both teachers avoided the subject and went on to something else. I would be delighted to have an answer as to which picture is accurate. And if there are highly motivated inner city kids, why are the records of districts like Hartford so dismal. Also, if this were true, what is wrong with taking these kids out of the inner city and using vouchers to send them to good schools in the suburbs?

*sigh*

you and your blanket mentality. there is no such thing as all or none, so i'm not sure why you are making arguments on technicalities. i never said that all kids in poor neighborhoods are in for a free lunch, though many of them are. my point in that statement was that you would find your teaching experience drastically different if you had some of those types of students.

edited to add: ps ~ please enlighten me on the topic of yours that i have avoided...

I am not making an "argument on a technicality," I am trying to understand the facts. One teacher paints a very dismal picture of starving children, and another implies that there are at least some highly motivated students in that population. Assuming both are correct as you are now implying, it would seem then number of highly motivated ones is very low. Why not take them out of their dismal environment then, and use vouchers to put them in an environment where they can thrive?

And yes, I get that the inner city population is different from the population I have taught.

iuangina

I

We do see things differently, and I kind of wish I could wrap my mind around your point of view, but our experiences are so radically different, I can't. I am very seriously thinking of writing a book about my homeschooling eperiences. (One of our local homeschoolers already did - I think it's called "But What about the Prom?." ) I will certainly admit that the problems I faced educating my kids and in teaching homeschool Latin are very likely radically different from those faced by teachers in, for example, inner city schools. I have no solution to how to educate a starving, beaten down kid who lives in a neighborhood where guns and killing are normal. To be honest with you, I don't think they can be educated. I certainly don't think that if I lived in such a neighborhood, I would be interested in anything but staying alive. The only solution may be to live long enough to join the Service.

Here is the post about not being able to learn.

ChitownFoodie

My boyfriend is a teacher, and I see how hard he works. Aside from teaching his normal classes every day, grading and prepping for those classes, he does a ton more. He volunteers to tutor after school...VOLUNTEER, unpaid. He does Freshman Recovery so kids who failed classes their freshman year get caught up and graduate on time....UNPAID. He is the NHS coach, unpaid. He teaches a hip hop class after school to keep kids off the streets, unpaid. He brings in school supplies, like pens and pencils because parents don't give them to their kids or the kids just don't bring them...unreimbursed. He runs the academic decathlon and coaches the kids on other subjects aside from History (he's a history teacher).

I could keep going, but I think you get the point.