<p>My family was the same way for the most part. Only exception was if the teacher/admin/educrats completely abandoned his/her basic responsibilities* and/or was an abusive petty tyrant to his/her student**. Fortunately, they were only a minority of teachers IME. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, after volunteering to work as a Mandarin translator at parent-teacher conferences in middle/high school, I got to witness countless instances of parents heaping abuse on teachers because the grade/conduct reports didn’t coincide with their own perceptions of the child being a perfect snowflake. When I recounted this with older cousins and friends in suburban and other districts…their experiences seemed to concur with mine. </p>
<ul>
<li>i.e. Avoiding dealing with bullying problem and/or joining in the bullying/blaming the victims. Had a few teachers like that in middle school and assisted a client in finding an attorney to help his bullied daughter deal with a violent stalker…especially considering the idiotic school admins/district sided with him when they kept appealing to allow him back into school despite two judges ruling he was too violent to be allowed back into the school. Thank goodness the judges had far more sense.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>** Had one teacher like that as a 13 year old HS freshman who’d constantly putdown his students, berated us to the point several students were in tears, and attempted to deny an older classmate with LD extra time he was entitled to under state law until he was compelled to by direct order from the Board of Ed and threatened lawsuit.</p>
<p>@Cobrat–No doubt this happens, especially in private schools where some parents feel their kids are entitled to a good grade since they’re paying for school.</p>
<p>Since I am fortunate to have retired at a relatively young age, I’ve been spending a lot of time volunteering at my kids elementary magnet school. I always see troublemaker kids that (unfortunately) should not be in the same class as the kids that are better behaved and don’t monopolize the teacher’s time. The teacher has to spend way too much time trying to get a handle on the problem kids at the expense of teaching the other kids. It’s one thing to know that there are parents doing a bad job of parenting, but when you actually see and hear some of the parents and witness their problem kids, it’s a whole difference experience. I’m boggled by it all.</p>
<p>My children did not disrespect teachers; their mother is one. Nevertheless, 10-15% of their teachers were bad enough that we needed to get involved in certain cases and even there we were careful to limit our battles to issues where the guidance counselor or vice principal would support our views. Dealing with these issues were short-term annoyances.</p>
<p>On the other hand, maybe 10-15% of their other teachers ranged from totally engaging to absolutely brilliant. These teachers had a lasting impact and made an otherwise unappetizing day at school a pleasant experience. The best teachers often ended up teaching the toughest classes with the best students – getting into AP classes and select honors classes often made a huge difference.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I would say in many cases for the best students, this is certainly possible. My sons opted for a high school that was willing to work with us over the slightly-more elite high school down the road. That school took the top 2-3% based on standardized test scores and class grades from 7th and 8th. The teachers and administrators were so proud that their school’s average ACT scores were 30-35% above the median but, considering their selective process, it seems to me they were in fact slowing their students down. I am hard pressed to believe the average would have been that much lower if the students just had study hall and library all day long and the school let those who learn naturally learn on their own.</p>
<p>The issue of respect is rather complex and contradictory. Most students and parents DO like their teachers and their schools on an individual basis. Most polls show a high level of satisfaction for THEIR schools.</p>
<p>However, when polled for an opinion on the general state of our education, the results are a LOT less positive, and I am afraid closer to the reality. Perhaps, an extended view is influenced by abject displays such as could be seen in Madison and Chicago, or by the endless shenanigans orchestrated by the goons of the AFT and NEA. </p>
<p>In addition, I also think that there is an extremely high degree of sensisitivity by teachers at play, as criticisms hurled at their supposed leaders and at the system are often taken personally by the teachers, despite being as much victims of a failed system as the students. The overwhelming majority of teachers are good, hard working people who did NOT create the current system that hardly rewards excellence and dedication. </p>
<p>One could hope that the economic crisis of the past five years will bring positive changes with better fiscal responsibility and the extension of the pool of applicants to include better educated and qualified candidates.</p>
<p>Agreed. Separate the poorly-behaved and the totally clueless into their own small classes with specialists and most teachers will be able to teach those that remain to a higher standard.</p>
<p>Both the schools where I witnessed such parents were public schools though the high school was a NYC STEM centered urban public magnet. </p>
<p>However, the types of parents who’d heap abuse tend to be the same types who would have the financial means to send their kids to private/boarding schools…Upper-East Sider/biglaw partner/corporate exec/ibanker/finance types. </p>
<p>It was a major contrast to other parents…especially immigrants/first generation, old-school working/lower-middle class American, and Jewish parents where the tendency is to respect teachers’ assessments on negative grade/conduct reports unless they are convinced otherwise by compelling evidence.</p>
<p>LoremIpsum–so, every year your children have been in school 1 or 2 of their teachers have been totally worthless, really? How exactly did you intervene? What issues were you intervening in? This is just amazing that one school could have so many incompetent teachers??</p>
<p>xiggi–no I mean amazingly unbelievable that one school has so many incompetent teachers. Like I said earlier, in the 20+ years we have been dealing with K-12 education with our 4 kids, they have had 2 teachers that have no business teaching kids. I couldn’t imagine a school where 15% of the teachers were worthless. My kids would have been out of a school like that in about 3 days.</p>
<p>Regarding the comment that parents of high-achieving students seem to be lacking sufficient respect for teachers, and the suggestion that this attitude is ungrateful or misguided, since our children have apparently done well under those very teachers:</p>
<p>In our district, many high-achieving kids are being regularly supplemented in their education outside the public school system. There are dozens of thriving private and chain tutoring businesses in the area which not only tutor, but also teach credit courses over the summer. It is typical for kids to pre-take the harder math and science classes over the summer, to be sure they will learn and succeed in the high school class despite the poor teaching quality. Also, many parents like me spend a lot of time teaching our children what they aren’t learning at school. </p>
<p>I am very unhappy with this state of affairs because it masks bad teaching and allows administrators to insist the school is working well. They can point to passing grades on AP tests as proof, when in reality the credit largely goes to the kids’ self studying, their parents, or the local learning center business. Secondly, it creates a situation which is the antithesis of the mission of public education: within the public school, those with money will receive a different education than those without resources because the former can pay for tutoring. This is exacerbated further by a new policy which charges parents a fee to allow their child to take an AP class (not the test, which we’ve always had to pay, but the actual course.) Tutoring is not new, but in the past it was mostly used for remedial purposes and occasionally for enrichment. But the teacher quality in math and science is so poor now (and perhaps the curriculum has been pushed to a level higher than that for which the teachers are prepared), that tutoring is essential to succeed. </p>
<p>My children’s teachers have generally been very nice people. They passed the classes and tests they were required to pass. But that doesn’t mean they are well-prepared to teach. Not trying to be mean, but the weakest students we know among my kids’ acquaintance are the ones who are becoming teachers. My friend’s child was in remedial classes in high school, failed the state high school competency test the first time she took it, and yet now is earning straight A’s at a teacher’s college. Something is wrong with this picture.</p>
<ol>
<li>good teacher</li>
<li>an OK teacher</li>
<li>a teacher who has found a different teacher in a different state that teaches the same class and posts his lectures online, and either a) Presses play on the lecture video and does who knows what for 45 minutes or b) puts up “borrowed” powerpoints and proceeds to read straight off them. Can’t answer any questions that aren’t covered in the powerpoints.</li>
<li>A teacher whose lectures directly contradict the textbook material. And that is when he does lecture, for about 85% of the days so far we get into class and sit quietly taking notes out of whatever chapter he assigns from the book.</li>
</ol>
<p>The math article was old news to me. My kids go lots of that stuff in kindergarten and even more of it at home. Most of the math things my older son did in his early years were more play than work. Pattern blocks, Sideways Arithmetic puzzles, playing around with Fibonacci series and Pascal’s Triangle… One of the first programs he wrote did this: [Sierpinski</a> Gasket Via Chaos Game](<a href=“http://www.cut-the-knot.org/Curriculum/Geometry/SierpinskiChaosGame.shtml]Sierpinski”>Sierpinski Gasket Via Chaos Game)</p>
<p>The answer to this question is basically yes, although I would say the educational system instead of pointing the finger at the teachers. Basically, it is very common to try to slow the top students down so that they fit in the best </p>
<p>I would have been better off completely on my own from grades 1-6. </p>
<p>At MIT, a prof once remarked to me that an astounding number of undergrads there had negative experiences in the public educational system. Same thing for my academic magnet school (negative experiences before the school for the gifted, not during it.)</p>
<p>“The public educational system” is a rather broad and meaningless term, when it encompasses schools all the way from the New Triers of the world to schools in run-down neighborhoods with violence and nowhere near enough resources. Was he more specific about what types of public schools?</p>
<p>This phenomenon of private tutoring, cram schools, and the like are actually quite commonplace in countries with highly ranked public school systems such as South Korea, Japan, and both Chinas. In fact, middle and high school students’ on the college track would attend such after-school tutoring/cram schools until the very late evening. </p>
<p>Incidentally, this phenomenon is the reason the Japanese saying “Pass in 4, fail in 5” comes from which basically means if you want to score high enough on the national college entrance exams for a topflight college/major…don’t sleep more than 4 hours/night. </p>
<p>To be fair, the amount of assigned homework from the public schools tends to be much lighter than what’s assigned here…but the academic expectations/level tends to be much higher on average as well. Most “homework” on the weekends and evenings tends to be assigned from those tutoring/cram schools as they tend to focus on covering what will be tested on their respective nations’ National College entrance exams. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, a large part of this is due to the fact K-12 teaching has become such an unappealing profession due to lack of pay, unreasonable expectations such as having to pay for school supplies out of their own pocket/give all of their free time, lots of bureaucratic and other BS from being a K-12 educator, and otherwise being treated like disdained medieval serfs on the manor by many parents/educrats/politicians/mass media. </p>
<p>With the exception of the extremely altruistic, why would the best and the brightest undergrads want to pursue such a career path when they have plenty of alternatives that are not only more financially rewarding with less of that type of BS, but also have a much higher baseline of respect from society at large?? From what I’ve seen from middle/high school parent-teacher conferences as a volunteer translator…teachers were ignored by many Americans…especially the well-heeled types at best…treated like absolute garbage at worse. </p>
<p>Thus, it comes as a great surprise to me why others are surprised when few of the best and brightest end up going into K-12 teaching considering all of that and they’ll need to make up for that by hiring those in the bottom half or lower of undergrad graduating classes. Including many who struggled to complete distribution/core requirements…even when they’re allowed to use remedial courses such as 9th grade algebra to do so as was the case with a friend’s ex.</p>
<p>No, he wasn’t. However, I suspect that most of the complaints are about elementary schools for people who were in more affluent areas. I actually was in a “good” school district. I spent a year in the “normal” high school, which was good but probably not on par with a New Trier. I had no complaints about that school though. </p>
<p>It probably should be said that there are separate problems at work. For the so-called “gifted” kids, it’s very common that they won’t learn anything if they are above the top track. They’ll be asked to teach the other kids or just do nothing. And the school’s attitude is antagonistic. The other problem is that the teachers themselves or curriculum may not be any good.</p>
<p>Actually this included elementary and represented three schools, all with some degree of selective admission, across two kids, plus my own experiences in school. In several cases, my kids were temporarily parked in classes the computer assigned over the summer to best fit aggregate student requests.</p>
<ol>
<li>My #1 pet peeve: making all students in a class write “lines” like “I will not talk in class” 300 or 600 times, even those not involved, because the teacher lacked class management skills. I had a 6th grade teacher who did this all the time and immigrant parents who were more likely than not to back her up. I found an algebra book on a shelf in the back of the classroom and taught myself algebra when we were assigned writing “lines.” I turned in algebra homework problems instead, figuring what was the teacher going to do, call my parents and demand I stop doing real work and churn out her assignment instead?</li>
</ol>
<p>I’ve had this come up with my sons in 3 classes over the years. In two of them, I wrote letters/emails to the teacher that told them I had refused to let my child do the assignment, and we could discuss the pedagogic value of such assignments with the principal if they chose to penalize my child for not completing the lines. The third class we were able to transfer out of because it was still the beginning of the school year.</p>
<ol>
<li>An honors geometry teacher who was teaching my 9-year-old high schooler and repeatedly marked correct answers on his tests wrong. I asked for the grading errors to be corrected and later asked for a second opinion from another math instructor. In a meeting with the vice principal, the instructor (who admittedly knew her material) actually said that my son could not get an A in the class because he was too young to really understand the material.</li>
</ol>
<p>The vice principal intervened and my son got his A, but the teacher wouldn’t quit. A couple of times my son was sent down to the principal’s office for “fidgeting in his seat” (this is a 9-year-old, remember). She would also eye him staring out the window daydreaming and then then aha!-target him with a question. He would pause, retrieve the question from his subconscious, and answer the question with a more sophisticated answer that required knowledge of trigonometry.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>A computer teacher who would get angry when asked a question and, immediately afterwards start the day’s lesson from the beginning, like rewinding a memory tape, even if it meant 10-15 minutes of pure repetition. Creativity was punished in that class – doing more than required or doing so in a more efficient way yielded penalty points due to “not following instructions.”</p></li>
<li><p>Teachers who expected you to take notes on everything they said, no matter how obvious, and penalized you if you did not. One case that especially comes to mind is a different computer teacher who was explaining how to use a mouse, the menu bar and keyboard shortcuts, stuff my son knew around his second birthday; thankfully, my son was able to transfer out.</p></li>
<li><p>Teachers who give you hard multiple choice tests on material not taught in class or found in the textbook. Further investigation showed that these additional questions (or whole tests) were lifted directly from the Internet.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>All these teachers (except a gym teacher teaching driver’s ed) were teaching in a magnet school, lottery application school, or at the honors level or above in high school. I dare say that the kids in the regular classes fare much worse percentage-wise with poor teachers.</p>
<p>“With this head start you’d think that teachers would be respected as much as doctors. But somehow that natural advantage has been squandered.”</p>
<p>I don’t think it has been squandered. There was never a time in US history when teachers were respected as much as doctors, so there wasn’t anything to squander. A big reason, in my opinion, is that it is a historically female profession in this country. That is not true in East Asia; I don’t know about different countries in Europe. Any job path strongly associated with women gets less respect and less money in this country. Nursing and teaching are the big victims there.</p>
<p>You can see this even within a profession, like medicine. Family practice, pediatrics, psychiatry, and OBGYN have the lowest status and pay in medicine. That’s where lots of the women are.</p>
<p>They never were as highly respected as doctors, but teachers used to be much more highly respected than they are now. In the 19th and first half of the 20th century, especially in small towns and villages, the teachers were highly respected. Along with the town doctor and pastor they were often the only educated people in town - and well respected because of it. That respect has been squandered. </p>
<p>And you don’t have to go back that far to see it. I’ve seen respect for the teaching profession decline a lot in my own lifetime. There is a real downward slope. And it’s not just my opinion. Google on the search terms “teaching profession” + “loss of respect” and you’ll get a ton of hits.</p>