<p>I’m not going to get into the tenure or union issue. That’s another subject, and too big a hot button anyway. </p>
<p>The administration does have control over your music teacher if he is decimating the program; tenure, union, or not. Do you know if they have taken any of the necessary steps for his removal? </p>
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<p>Yes, as an aside. But do you see anywhere near as many specific examples of the good teachers as you do the bad?</p>
<p>Edit: responding to momofthreeboys</p>
<p>pageturner:
As I said, my kids have had some wonderful teachers. I have acknowledged them here and where it counted, at their schools, on several occasions in writing. I was very involved in their schools; in fact, I served on hiring committees–including for the superintendent and a couple of principals as well as teachers for several grades.
But your original post seemed to suggest that all parents do on this forum is to bash teachers. Just as you focus on the negative things parents say about teachers, so do you about what is posted on CC about teachers. Just remember that if things went on swimmingly, posters would not come to CC for a lot of advice or to vent.</p>
<p>Actually, over the last decade or so, we’ve had a very good teachers union leader who worked together with the district to get rid of bad teachers who were “re-assigned” to do nothing but draw a salary. The resources thus saved have been plowed back into actual classrooms. I am not into union-bashing.
I know a teacher who managed to turn off most of her students from math by making it absolutely joyless (she described geometry as “boring” and said the only way to master it was doing lots and lots of problems, making no mention of her own role in explaining things clearly). Not a huge amount of harm, in the scheme of things, I suppose. And there are some teachers I remember with fondness and admiration for the incredible energy and creativity they brought to their teaching.
Epiphany: My gifted nephew who was described as “possibly ■■■■■■■■” has two Ph.D.s in science for parents. They are not the sort to accept such a consequential diagnosis without further evidence, especially when it flies in the face of what they know about their son (a five year old who could read on his own). So the damage was limited. Thank goodness.</p>
<p>Point taken, Marite. Probably human nature, huh?</p>
<p>There’s always homeschooling…</p>
<p>Yes, as an aside. But do you see anywhere near as many specific examples of the good teachers as you do the bad?</p>
<p>no, not on a support board for parents and children interested in higher education and what they encounter along that path.</p>
<p>What would be the point of repeated examples of parents ( or students) going on about what a fabulous wonderful dedicated teachers they have?</p>
<p>Many schools/districts don’t have that- it would seem a lot like
;)</p>
<p>Complaining that some parents don’t acknowledge that their child probably does have a good mentor or three someplace , when they are trying to get encouragement and support for not just throwing up their hands in despair
reminds me of the special education administration directors in my district,
when meeting with the parents supposedly about changes in programing, made sure to make an big announcement first saying that they worked really hard and they knew not everyone was going to be happy, but that they did their best and it was * really, really hard* :(</p>
<p>This is before anyone had even heard what the directors had to say and we were passing out the agenda for the evening.
( incidentally- the directors were a few of the people in the district who make $90K+., not including benefits - the group of special education parents they were addressing, may have even made more than that at one time, but because their kids required 24/7 care and supervision not only did they have to change jobs or quit in many cases, but the bulk of their money went to various therapies and providers- but the directors wanted us to * appreciate* them. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I would also agree that there are hundreds more decent teachers than bad- unfortunately, you only need to be bored/ill-trained or lazy to damage the momentum a class has for learning and it will take more than one year and one teacher who is amazingly wonderful to get back on track- of course no guarantees they will have that teacher next.</p>
<p>Some of the most influential people in my life have been teachers. In fact I can say I would not be where I am today if not for the support of some incredible teachers in my life. And my kids have had some AWESOME teachers!! Tough job, not enough thanks, and the ones that go the extra mile just blow my mind.</p>
<p>And then of course, I, my daughter, and the rest of us, can all think of crapass teachers who should have been fired long ago that give the dedicated ones a bad name. I think its those few (what, 20%?) that bring the rest down with them. And it is such a shame. </p>
<p>I can say the same about my own profession (as a professor). Many are good, some are fantastic, and some are memorable for simply how bad they are (ones that should have had their ass fired a looong time ago). They ruin it for the rest of us. </p>
<p>The sad and simple fact is most kids are stuck with these crap teachers (and professors), and they impact their lives and remain in memory forever…and, yes, I DO think a bad teacher can and does cause irreparable harm in some cases. If all teachers only had a CLUE how their words and actions can impact someone into adulthood, they might not be so irresponsible. Anyway…from here is the negativity you see. It’s not fair to the rest, but so it is. </p>
<p>I wish elementary and HS teachers were paid A LOT more, as the good ones sure deserve it. But I also wish there was a system of evaluation and accountability that got rid of the bad apples too.</p>
<p>I agree with starbright-
I might even say that the amazing men and women who give their home # to students so they can call any time with ?'s, who chaperone graduation parties every year, who use their vacations to take students on educational trips, who give exciting lectures and are obviously thrilled and energized by young people and it is reciprocated by those who passed through their doors ,
also by comparision make those teachers who " forget" to correct or handback homework and tests except to tell you the grade in the gradebook, who are proud that they haven’t changed anything in twenty years of teaching and who allow high school students to make a poster in lieu of a research paper and watch unrelated movies every Friday in class, even more noticable.</p>
<p>Is it the general agreement on this thread that 20% of your child’s teachers have been mediocre at best?</p>
<p>And, now that I think about it, when your child has a <em>expletive deleted</em> teacher, can they learn something from that experience? </p>
<p>I’m not excusing bad teaching, but from my own school memories I know I learned some valuable people skills when I had a bad teacher. I also learned a lot about my own learning style.</p>
<p>I do walk around wearing rose-colored glasses, though :)</p>
<p>I hate it when people compare teaching jobs to those in the “real” world and talk about how people in corporate jobs work 80+ hours and are held accountable and let go if they don’t show results. What is wrong with us that we allow corporations to work people this way? (“Results,” by the way, always mean sales or bottom line, goals that are now set each quarter – no long term goals anymore, each sales quarter is the “most important” there has ever been to satisfy stockholders.)
My husband worked for awhile for a German software company and spent lots of time at corporate HQ in Germany. There, they have mandated work hours and mandated 6 weeks vacation. The very same company, here in the US, gets away with 80 hour workweeks and 2 weeks vacation and the whole “Be thankful you have a job so slave away for us please” mentality.</p>
<p>S1 had three mediocre teachers in k-12.<br>
S2 had three mediocre teachers in k-11, plus two who were otherwise great (and had been fabulous for S1) but not suited to S2.
This was in a k-8 school that we chose and in which we were massively involved
The rest of the teachers ranged from good to fabulous.
They also had to contend with two principals who were awful. One seemed to terrorize teachers; another introduced reforms without the support of the poor teachers who were expected to implement these reforms.
We did not have to contend with truly bad teachers. However, when I served on a panel hiring a new superintendent, the re-assigned teachers tried to preserve the status quo under which bad teachers were re-assigned to the central office so that they could continue to draw their salary. We are in a district that pays well. I’ve just received the school budget. The average class size is said to be 18.</p>
<p>About once every other year, each of my daughters has had a spectacularly awful teacher–ranging from abusive to just NOT teaching the material.</p>
<p>About once every other year, each of my daughters has had a fantastic and really inspirational teacher–ranging from charismatic and involved to just phenomenal at teachng the material.</p>
<p>Other than that, the teachers have been okay to good. </p>
<p>But they aren’t underpaid and they aren’t overworked and even here the elementary public teachers have breaks and don’t teache music or spanish or art or kw, and class size is an average of about 18-20.</p>
<p>Teachers are paid to do a job and we are all grateful when they do it well. If it weren’t impossible to get rid of the abusive ones, or even to have a child removed from an unsuitable classroom, we’d probably all have less effusive frustration and more peace about it.</p>
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<p>My experience has been that it was far less than 20%. I still have 1 coming through through the system so we’ll see what the next 3 years bring. Mediocre is hard to measure because sometimes it is the kid/teacher dynamic. But there have been a couple that all three kids had that probably should find another occupation.</p>
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<p>One can’t possibly know the extent of the damage caused. Kids turned off from math at that age often don’t become enamored of it later – the damage is done, and it’s hard to re-engage turned-off kids in math. Who knows where one or more of those kids could have gone, what they could have done, what they might have invented, developed, discovered, if math had continued to be an interesting subject for them? Many fields require math; for the kid turned off of math, those fields are closed. Could be quite a bit of harm being done there.</p>
<p>To see where a kid not formerly interested in math can go with it when something sparks his interest, and that interest is nurtured, encouraged, by a teacher, read Rocket Boys, the inspiration for the movie October Sky.</p>
<p>I think poor administrators use tenure and unions as an excuse. I manage government workers with a very strong union and we have terminated plenty of poor performers.</p>
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<p>It is NOT impossible to get rid of an abusive teacher. It is the ADMINSTRATION’S job to listen to issues brought forth and to properly evaluate and document teachers’ performances.</p>
<p>Abuse is one of the criteria that actually CAN be used to dismiss a teacher without much ado. BUT it has to be properly documented.</p>
<p>I’ve talked to both of my adult children in recent years about the three clunker teachers I thought they had. Oddly, neither of my kids seemed to care at all about these teachers and had VERY different recollections and perceptions than I (the parent who complained to the admins) did about these folks. I’m not saying that some kids aren’t permanently scarred…but in my house, it was the PARENTS who really couldn’t stand the teacher or felt they weren’t teaching…not the kids!!</p>
<p>Most teachers aren’t overpaid. However, some seep in through the cracks, make it to tenure, and then proceed to be horrible at teaching students, but the school can’t get rid of them. On the other hand, older teachers with experience that students love are often encouraged to retire so that the school can hire non-tenured teachers. And then good non-tenured teachers often fail to make tenure because the school wants to save money. Of course, the last two are probably worst in public schools, where budget is a major problem.</p>
<p>thumper–I said in an earlier post that I really think, for the most part, the problem is with the administration.</p>
<p>And, it was my KIDS who couldn’t stand the teachers. In my house, we always stand with the teachers, regardless of whether we agree with them or not. We never discuss our feelings of a teachers failing with the children and we always back the teacher.</p>
<p>Since my oldest is now in college, we did discuss a few elementary teachers with her this summer, and told her how we’d felt at the time. But she never knew then. “If the teacher says you have to do that, then that’s the rule. End of story.”</p>
<p>But…you cannot complain to the school to get an abusive or mediocre teacher removed if your child is still in that classroom, or if you have another kids coming up through the same system. The punishment will be too insidious for the kids. </p>
<p>At one point, we did have to hire an attorney to get one of my children removed from a classroom with a teacher. Fortunately, all we had to do was to have the attorney call up to set up a meeting. Once that happened, she was removed. Before that, we were told that “Yes, the teacher made a mistake” (I won’t go into it, but believe me, it was a lawsuit if we were lawsuit people), “but we don’t remove kids from classes here.” End of story. </p>
<p>It’s not cut and dried, and it should not be so impossible. We spent months on it. SHE spent months on it. Didn’t learn a darn thing.</p>
<p>edit: but not everyone can afford an attorney, and so not everyone can get results. You should not have to hire a lawyer to get your child into a suitable set of circumstances, let alone to get them away from someone who is actually damaging to them.</p>
<p>Gosh, I must live in a fantasy-world (or at least Lake Woebegon), but I can honestly say that every single one of both of my sons’ teachers in K-8 were exceptionally fabulous. My kids were treated as individuals, well-taught, challenged, encouraged and inspired. In high school, I can only think of one teacher who proved to be less than stellar and she did not return after her first year with the district. I have gone to Parent Open Houses now for 16 years (S1 in college; S2 a senior) and have never met a teacher I didn’t like; and other than the one hs teacher cited above, my kids have both also liked and had success with all of their teachers. What are the chances?</p>
<p>We moved to the town we live in when S1 was starting first grade, precisely because of the reputation of the public school district and we have been extremely satisfied with our choice. Even when we no longer have children in the school system, we will continue to support the teachers and the district through our votes on the school budget.</p>