<p>I posted this in the "College Life" thread but I want some parents' opinions.</p>
<p>I do believe sometimes it is the teacher’s fault. You can only learn what you are taught. I really do think there should be more monitoring than few days spent in the class room evaluating the teacher. </p>
<p>Not everyone is good at their job.</p>
<p>Absolutely! There are good and bad teachers; if teachers didn’t make any difference we’d not need them! And there are good and bad professors too (it doesn’t stop when you get to college and no matter what college you go to you’ll find some amazing professors and some crap professors). </p>
<p>But one can assume that over many dozens of teachers and courses over many years, the actual student’s performance shows up in the average (that is why students are evaluated, usually, across an entire diploma or degree, and not on the basis of a single course performance).</p>
<p>Depends on the age and the circumstances. </p>
<p>Greater possibility of being the teacher’s fault at younger ages when students need more guidance…less by late high school and certainly by undergrad when students are near/full adults and IMHO should be expected to take most of the responsibility(~90%+) for their own education. </p>
<p>A reason why I have much less sympathy for an undergrad who blames his/her Profs for his/her poor academic performance barring extreme circumstances such as deliberately ignored learning disabilities and/or abusive/woefully neglectful instructors/staff. </p>
<p>One concern I have had with the increasing trend of emphasizing the teacher’s culpability in student academic performance in discussions about education is the surprising lack of corresponding emphasis on the parental and especially the student’s responsibility for his/her own academic performance. Even in K-12, the majority of that responsibility IMHO rests with the student. After all, if the student is really unmotivated or develops an antipathy towards learning/academics…there’s little parents or teachers could really do to change from what I’ve seen and experienced from K-12 and college. That is…unless that student has an internally motivated attitude adjustment.</p>
<p>IMO teachers get a bad rap. Are there lousy teachers? Sure, but far fewer than education critics would have us believe. Teachers are overworked, underpaid, disrespected, and scapegoated for everything that is wrong with not only education, but youth in general. With few exceptions, D’s public school teachers were dedicated professionals who worked long hours after class was dismissed, paid for classroom supplies out of their own pockets, were available for any student who needed help, and did their very best to educate, encourage, and inspire.</p>
<p>One more problem has been thrown at teachers in the last 10 years: the testing mania. Sadly, a teacher’s most important duty now is prepping students for standardized tests. Funding for the school depends on it; the teacher’s very job may depend on it. Of course, this comes at the expense of what many of us – and I daresay, most teachers – would consider to be “education,” but that’s how the deck is stacked now. We can’t blame teachers for that.</p>
<p>LasMa-</p>
<p>I agree completely with your post.
As the mother of a newly minted education major, I find the landscape disheartening.
“Teaching to the test” is the standard I guess.</p>
<p>I teach professional students in a healthcare setting. Very different from public school setting I know. But I also find myself focusing toooo much on covering the content in my various ‘checklists’ for each topic rather than following my student’s curiosity on the subject at hand. time is precious and limited.
Of course, the students do want to pass the credentialing exam at our program’s end so…what to do, what to do?</p>
<p>I think that if many students in the class are having troubles, it can be pretty evident that it is a teaching problem. When my daughter was in high school the class average in her Physics class with a new teacher out of college was a C, and my kid had a D. The teacher agreed to be mentored by a Physics teacher from another district, and grades improved in following years.</p>
<p>My Mom was a teacher for 25+ years, I love teachers…
BUT when an entire high school class of 32 kids receives a C or below on the final, like this year in Spanish 2, then there is either something wrong with the students or something wrong with the teacher. I pick the teacher.
This kind of stuff happens all the time and is passed off as “oh well, guess he/she just got a bad teacher.” Tell that to the kids really working on their GPA, it doesn’t help one bit.</p>
<p>I think that while teachers can be partially blamed for a student’s not comprehending the material fully, it is mostly the student’s fault. The student has a responsibility to either ask for guidance or to investigate the material more closely. I’m a high school student, and I’ve had my fair of share of teachers over the years, and many times I’ve practically had to teach the material to myself. But I’ve held great grades in those classes… part of a student’s role as a student is taking initiative in their education.</p>
<p>This might be a more extreme case but I had a class in my junior year of college (required for my major) where the teacher was a terrible lecturer (the fact that English was not his first language and his spoken English was questionable didn’t help). Fortunately, he taught directly from the book and didn’t grade for class attendance. I ended up cutting most of the classes, learned what I needed from the book, made sure I did my homework assignments correctly, and just showed up for the midterm and final. Still got an A- in the class.</p>
<p>Just about everyone will get at least one bad instructor in their school and college years…it just happens. Bottom line IMO is that it’s up to the student to deal with the situation and if they fail the class it’s ultimately their fault.</p>
<p>LasMa writes “IMO teachers get a bad rap. Are there lousy teachers? Sure, but far fewer than education critics would have us believe. Teachers are overworked, underpaid, disrespected, and scapegoated for everything that is wrong with not only education, but youth in general. With few exceptions, D’s public school teachers were dedicated professionals who worked long hours after class was dismissed, paid for classroom supplies out of their own pockets, were available for any student who needed help, and did their very best to educate, encourage, and inspire.”</p>
<p>The frequency of lousy teachers is going to depend upon the school system. All are going to have a few and some unfortunately are going to have a lot. We are in a very strong school system and I’m still shocked when our kids have to deal with the behavior of some of the lousy ones. For example, refusing to provide any help to kids after school even though their contract requires them to do so. </p>
<hr>
<p>LasMa writes “One more problem has been thrown at teachers in the last 10 years: the testing mania. Sadly, a teacher’s most important duty now is prepping students for standardized tests. Funding for the school depends on it; the teacher’s very job may depend on it. Of course, this comes at the expense of what many of us – and I daresay, most teachers – would consider to be “education,” but that’s how the deck is stacked now. We can’t blame teachers for that.”</p>
<p>In additional to all the required standardized testing some school districts have their own sets of tests and reporting measures that they require of teachers. Unfortunately, as the good teachers are all maxed out for work time (late at night, 7 days/week) all of the extra reporting comes at the expense of actual teaching.</p>
<p>Two scenarios:
- brilliant scholar who can’t relate or communicate ideas to anyone (had a couple of those). Everyone loses.
- teacher who has no imagination and less confidence and only follows rules (had some of these too–more in high school). Everyone loses.</p>
<p>My first thought was “performs poorly” measured by what? Kids can perform fine on testing even with a poor teacher. Where I might buy into the “performs poorly” is a standard test where the material was simple not assigned or lectured, but most often one student’s “bad teacher” is another student’s “good teacher.” With the exception of learning abcs and multiplication tables and simple rote memorization most learning is self directed and requires some effort on the part of the student.</p>
<p>
I had a dreadful experience with a Graduate physics course where the professor</p>
<p>a) chose a book beyond the level of the (intro) course
b) lectured from a mass of handwritten, barely legible notes whipped past on the overhead
c) assigned the class ALL the problems at the end of each chapter
d) didn’t grade any of the homework until November
e) gave an intractable mid-term and didn’t grade it until Thanksgiving
e) told the class they couldn’t have any notes or equation sheets for the final and then AT THE FINAL said he changed his mind and they could have notes and books.</p>
<p>I ended up taking an incomplete on the day of the final and trying again the following year with someone else. It was the single worst experience I have had with ANY course. There are courses where teaching it to yourself is next to impossible for all but the Einsteins among us. I would respectfully disagree that my failure to pass his course was my own “fault”.</p>
<p>The right teacher can make all the difference in the world between getting an A and a B. The right teacher won’t make a D a B, but the bubble students are much more likely to be impacted (be it grading policy, grading ‘hardness’, teaching style, et cetera.</p>
<p><<i’m still=“” shocked=“” when=“” our=“” kids=“” have=“” to=“” deal=“” with=“” the=“” behavior=“” of=“” some=“” lousy=“” ones.=“” for=“” example,=“” refusing=“” provide=“” any=“” help=“” after=“” school=“” even=“” though=“” their=“” contract=“” requires=“” them=“” do=“” so.=“”>></i’m></p>
<p>ChrisTKD, I’m a high school teacher and in my district the time teachers spend after school with students is donated time; we are not paid for it. Even though there are late buses, our contract hours end just after school gets out, so we volunteer all our after school time. Parents don’t realize that.</p>
<p>Growing up, I was taught that the fault is first that of the student, next that of the parent, and the residual is minimal.</p>
<p>^That’s the Indian way of thinking lol. My parents are the same.</p>
<p>^ Is this in India? Where it now seems famous for any parents of means to outsource the education to tutors, even at IIT? </p>
<p>It seems a shame so many on this thread seem to think the end-all-be-all is the grade you receive. Well that IS determined by a teacher who may or may not grade fairly, or curve everyone to make hte average 50%. Who knows. </p>
<p>But what should be the focus of the conversation is how much LEARNING is related to teachers. No question in my mind great teachers create exceptional learning opportunities, average teachers create okay learning opportunities, and bad teachers undermine learning. I had professors in highschool through graduate school who hugely impacted my ability to learn. Likewise I had ones that actually added zero value. </p>
<p>If teachers are so irrelevant, why have one? I mean that quite seriously. I for one think teachers are extremely valuable and important…and its why you will find I will hold them responsible for how well they can make a difference to a student (holding constant the students’ actual abilities).</p>
<p>I have one kid who is a complete people person, a great teacher really can be all the difference for her. If she has a great teacher, she will learn more than anyone else in the room. She has teachers she still emails with from several grades, going as far back as 3rd grade. A bad teacher, someone she percieves as unfair, or cruel to other students, or some sort of thing, and she will tune out. She’s gotten better about doing the work, now that she is older, but she really can’t listen to someone she finds abhorant.</p>
<p>I have one who is so intellectually curious, she would probably learn with just the right library and wise librarian to point her in the right direction. </p>
<p>So, yeah. Do teachers matter? yes. and particularly to students to whom teachers really matter.</p>
<p>Interstingly, the one to whom teachers matter, also makes her own gifts for them, and never needs prompting to write the thank you note, and the teachers adore her. The one to whom teachers do not matter still has been befriended by several of her professors since starting college.</p>
<p>Really great teachers think students matter. I think that’s a distinguishing characteristic.</p>