Teacher Criticisms...(rant)

snowkid03 · January 2012

i technically "get summers off," but usually only about 3 weeks, because the rest of my summer is spent on IEPs for new students, researching the newest discoveries in Autism, modifying curriculum from the general education students so my mainstreamed students can have access to materials, preparing my classroom for the students, and applying for grants so I can get new things for my classroom...

summers are technically off, but we do a ton of work to get ready for august!

VegesaurusRex · January 2012

You wouldn't have to do any of that if they had ability grouping. Have you ever asked yourself why they don't. Well, there really is no good reason. It is a teacher union gimmick to creater more jobs, nothing more.

chanstriste13 · January 2012

from the mouths of babes...!

kudos to you and your level-headedness and insightfulness! i wish you were one of my students. best of luck to you and your endeavors. :flowerforyou:

chanstriste13 · January 2012

alright veg - we get your point already. but are you ever going to suggest anything that teachers could do to make things better outside of completely uprooting the current system? (and don't bring up your outdated superheros again, please)

and if you *insist* on bringing up the unions some more, how about some references or citations so you don't keep beating this same poor horse that it is already quite dead.

ericalynn104 · January 2012

bump! When I get a chance I definitely want to read this one and the other one. I'm currently in school for elementary education.

Fit_Canuck · January 2012

Spoken like someone who has no clue what they are talking about. I'm sorry this whole "union is a gimmick " thing is getting old. Teachers have an extremely difficult job, it tiring and rewarding at the same time. They take the crap and abuse from parents day in and day out because they love what they do and they take care of your children!

As said above they do have time off during the summer but they spend so much time preparing lesson plans and planning for the new year that it's definitely not 2 months off of partying. Instead of criticizing teachers you should be supporting them!

VegesaurusRex · January 2012

You wouldn't have to do any of that if they had ability grouping. Have you ever asked yourself why they don't. Well, there really is no good reason. It is a teacher union gimmick to creater more jobs, nothing more.
[/quote]

alright veg - we get your point already. but are you ever going to suggest anything that teachers could do to make things better outside of completely uprooting the current system? (and don't bring up your outdated superheros again, please)

***************
You know, Chanstriste, I really do like you, but you just don't get it. THE SYSTEM DOESN'T WORK. If you don't uproot the system, you are PROMOTING DYSFUNCTIONALITY. The system is broken. It's like you're in a hospital but there is no medicine or electricity. You ain't gunna cure anyone that way.

and if you *insist* on bringing up the unions some more, how about some references or citations so you don't keep beating this same poor horse that it is already quite dead.

The citations and references are in the books by my outdated superheroes. If you want other sources, here are a few from my nearest libarary shelf:

Public Education, an Autopsy by Myron Lieberman
The Schools we Need and Why we Don't Have Them by E.D. Hirsch, Jr
Market Education The Unknown History by Andrew J. Coulson
Cloning of the American Mind Eradicating Morality through Education by B.K Eakman

I have plenty more when you have finished these.

[/quote]

VegesaurusRex · January 2012

First of all, they don't, and never have taken care of MY children, because we pulled our son our of public school after 5 weeks, and homeschooled him. My daughter has never been in grade school or high school. I do not want to go through my family history yet again, but suffice it to say that my son is 19 and in his first year of law school, and my daughter, age 16, has earned her associates degree and is going to be a junior in college next fall.

And I don't buy that summers off are used to prepare for school. No more than my weekends are used to prepare for my next week of work. Yeah, all professionals take work home, but not all of them get the summers off.

paledi · January 2012

Don't even get me srarted! I taught high school forever and I can so relate to this thread.

Fit_Canuck · January 2012

Now one other point to add and this may vary from region to region but where I live teachers are not allowed to schedule any vacation days. They have the time off when the kids do. Meaning if a teacher wants to take 2 weeks off in November for example, not possible. They have sick days like most people but no actual vacation days per say.

Also are you advocating that kids go to school year round? 12 months a year no off time. Because if that were to happen you can bet there would be other parents who would start complaining that their kids are worked too hard.

Your darned if you do and darned if you don't. You can't please everyone all the time but that doesn't mean teachers don't work hard and deserve what they have. I'm sorry your kids had a rough time at school but it doesn't negate that teachers for the most part have difficult jobs and do the best they can with what they are given.

VegesaurusRex · January 2012

Maybe in my numerous family histories on this board, I did not make myself clear. My kids did NOT have a hard time, they simply were being dumbed down, and we could see it happening. My son was reading newspapers when he entered first grade. For 5 weeks he was told to learn the letters. When my wife offered to take the kids who could read out of class and hold special reading groups where they would be challenged, we were told we couldn't because "that would make the others feel bad." My wife, by the way has a degree in Psychology and an MLS Degree.

It was clear that school would not help our kids one bit, and would probably harm them. Homeschooling was the best thing we ever did.

chanstriste13 · January 2012

i like you too, veg. and i agree with you - the system doesn't work like it should. i probably get that a lot better than you even, since i've actually worked in it. but it works well enough that roughly 69% of public school seniors ended up in college last year, and that's not too shabby considering the many hurdles that teachers and students alike have to overcome.

i don't agree with you spouting that we should all just abandon ship, which is what you basically seem to be preaching. start a mutiny. sacrifice our jobs for the cause and all that because if we really cared, we would be willing to do so. it sounds like you are a great academic on the subject, but you haven't been on the inside of all this, so your perception is a hill beside this mountain that needs to be moved somehow.

the only actual suggestion you have made is ability grouping, which may or may not work. but teachers can't make those decisions themselves. we get the roster that is handed to us. that's just the nature of the beast.

as for your experiences with one teacher at one school in one community - that's enough to do what you will with your own children, but it's hardly enough to denounce or deny the many good experiences that students and parents have had with their public school systems.

slieber · January 2012

This has been floating around FB and beyond...

"In what other profession...

August 27th, 2010 by David Reber

I’m going to step out of my usual third-person writing voice for a moment. As a parent I received a letter last week from the Kansas State Board of Education, informing me that my children’s school district had been placed on “improvement” status for failing to meet “adequate yearly progress” under the No Child Left Behind law.

I thought it ironic that our schools were judged inadequate by people who haven’t set foot in them, so I wrote a letter to my local newspaper. Predictably, my letter elicited a deluge of comments in the paper’s online forum. Many remarks came from armchair educators and anti-teacher, anti-public school evangelists quick to discredit anything I had to say under the rationale of “he’s a teacher.” What could a teacher possibly know about education?

Countless arguments used to denigrate public school teachers begin with the phrase “in what other profession….” and conclude with practically anything the anti-teacher pundits find offensive about public education. Due process and collective bargaining are favorite targets, as are the erroneous but tightly held beliefs that teachers are under-worked, over-paid (earning million-dollar pensions), and not accountable for anything.

In what other profession, indeed.

In what other profession are the licensed professionals considered the LEAST knowledgeable about the job? You seldom if ever hear “that guy couldn’t possibly know a thing about law enforcement – he’s a police officer”, or “she can’t be trusted talking about fire safety – she’s a firefighter.”

In what other profession is experience viewed as a liability rather than an asset? You won’t find a contractor advertising “choose me – I’ve never done this before”, and your doctor won’t recommend a surgeon on the basis of her “having very little experience with the procedure”.

In what other profession is the desire for competitive salary viewed as proof of callous indifference towards the job? You won’t hear many say “that lawyer charges a lot of money, she obviously doesn’t care about her clients”, or “that coach earns millions – clearly he doesn’t care about the team.”

But look around. You’ll find droves of armchair educators who summarily dismiss any statement about education when it comes from a teacher. Likewise, it’s easy to find politicians, pundits, and profiteers who refer to our veteran teachers as ineffective, overpriced “dead wood”. Only the rookies could possibly be any good, or worth the food-stamp-eligible starting salaries we pay them.

And if teachers dare ask for a raise, this is taken by many as clear evidence that teachers don’t give a porcupine’s posterior about kids. In fact, some say if teachers really cared about their students they would insist on earning LESS money.

If that entire attitude weren’t bad enough, what other profession is legally held to PERFECTION by 2014? Are police required to eliminate all crime? Are firefighters required to eliminate all fires? Are doctors required to cure all patients? Are lawyers required to win all cases? Are coaches required to win all games? Of course they aren’t.

For no other profession do so many outsiders refuse to accept the realities of an imperfect world. Crime happens. Fire happens. Illness happens. As for lawyers and coaches, where there’s a winner there must also be a loser. People accept all these realities, until they apply to public education.

If a poverty-stricken, drug-addled meth-cooker burns down his house, suffers third degree burns, and then goes to jail; we don’t blame the police, fire department, doctors, and defense attorneys for his predicament. But if that kid doesn’t graduate high school, it’s clearly the teacher’s fault.

And if someone – anyone - tries to tell you otherwise; don’t listen. He must be a teacher."

chanstriste13 · January 2012

this was great! then end was my favorite part. thanks for sharing this!

snowkid03 · January 2012

i work with an insanely different population from most of the teachers on here. with moderate to severely handicapped students (non verbal/autistic/behavior intervention)... my district mainstreams EVERY student, and legally I HAVE to have them reaching IEP goals from general education classrooms... so for my 12 students I have to coordinate with the general ed benchmark binder, find how everything works with my CAPA binder, and manipulate the materials so my students can reach their IEP goals (which are legally binding (activists are frightening)) while mainstreamed for more than 50.9% of the day. Like i said, i take 3 weeks off- party, have fun, travel, do my thing, but after july 4th it gives me 6 weeks to plan for the rest of the year. ability grouping is a thing of the past... FAPE, free and public education, equal access to everything. I am in california, maybe it's different where you are?

iHEARTcardiacnurses · January 2012

My mother is a teacher. She's been teaching math to high school students for 30+ years now. She gets up at 4 am, goes to bus duty or prepare for class, she incorporates so many different learning styles into her curriculum that she won Teacher of the Year for Tennessee. She gets "off" work at 2:15, then tutors struggling students for FREE until eight or nine at night. Saturdays she will go to the public library to help students prepare for the SAT/ACT. She's taught over 10,800 students and can still recognize most of them years later on the street (grocery shopping takes HOURS). I've had people come up to me and ask if she is my mom (we look incredibly alike) and then tell me how she would pick them up in the projects at five in the morning, drive them to school, never gave them an inch to slack off, and because she believed in them they're now lawyers, social workers, and even a doctor for Doctors Without Borders.

She is a single mom who put two kids through private school, college, and helping pay for cars and insurance by spending every single summer teaching summer school. She raised a nurse, and another teacher.

She is the reason why I treat my teachers with respect. Spend a day with a teacher, see all the bull**** they have to go through, then decide. Nothing infuriates me more when a parent comes in and yells at the teacher for their kid failing a class. GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE. My mother has helped send over 7,000 kids to college. I rarely find that a teacher is failing a child as opposed to when a child is failing the teacher.

FitLink · January 2012

My mother was shocked and angered when I was in high school when my chemistry teacher sent home a note "congradulating" me on an award I'd won. I was proud of the award and wanted to show the note to my grandparents, but my mom was so embarrassed that my teachers couldn't spell she refused to let me show my grandparents the note. She felt as I do now, seeing you write of the "nuckleheads" who criticize teachers. If a teacher doesn't bother to spell correctly, why should I believe they're qualified to teach?

BTW, it's "knucklehead" and "congratulations."

VegesaurusRex · January 2012

Ability grouping works. Period. I know because I have been a student in an ability grouped school. Ability grouping, however, does not favor any particular group, but treats all equally. That is one of the reasons the Teacher Union hates it. It goes against their liberal political agenda. Ability grouping would take the bright kids and separate them from the non-bright, and that is intollerable for those with a political agenda.

The idea of multi-ability classes is that the bright kids can be used as a role model for the the non-bright. Wonderful. However, I just don't feel like having my kids used as teaching tools. I send them to school with the naive expectation that they will actually learn, and not be utilized. Bright kids have a right to an education too. We realized that, and that is why we pulled our kids out of public school early on, and why we are very happy we did so.

If you want to see the results of public school education look at some of the debates on different boards. (I am not referring to this board, which for the most part is the best debated board on this discussion group. You can actually have an interchange of ideas.) On some boards if you disagree with someone, they immediately call you a "racist," and start swearing at you. They have no knowledge of history. They have know knowledge of how to tell a good study from a bad study. They are frankly stupid people with no real eduation who think they know everything.

Yes, I also think I know everything (! - beat you to it!) but I put my money where my mouth is. I raised my own kids the way I think they should be raised, and so far, at least, it has worked fine. I really have fears for the fate of America when our school system is turning out drones who can't think, who know nothing and who are arrogant. We really need a revolution in eduation.

VegesaurusRex · January 2012

Honestly, I don't know any of the acronyms you used, but they sound like a lot of bureaucratic bull crap. Why do they need to mainstream these children who sound like they need individual care rather than being in a classroom where "normal" kids will laugh at them and make fun of them? Do you as a teacher find that mainstreaming is worth anything? If so, why? If not, why not?

Bytheway, it does sound like you have enough work to do to keep your summers full.

chanstriste13 · January 2012

this argument should only be reserved for those who have never made an error when writing or typing. most people do at some point, and i'm sure you have too. did your chemistry teacher consistently make spelling errors? did they teach you enough of chemistry that you passed? did they effectively teach the content? it's pretty sad when someone will use a typo to make judgement calls on an entire population of workers. it's too bad you adopted your mom's mindset instead of keeping your own.

ps~ you know you can be banned from mfp for calling out typos and grammar errors, since this is a discussion forum and not school, right?

Teacher Criticisms...(rant)

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