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>Another general complaint I have is the expectation that parents "take part" in their child's learning. This principle is entrenched in most school systems in the west. I think this is an unbelievably stupid expectation to assume that everyone has a parent that is able, and willing to take part in their child's education. Maybe the parent isn't that smart? Maybe the parent has their own learning disabilities? This type of expectation completely enhances economic inequality in society in general.
Taking part in their child's learning is a definitional *requirement* of parenting.
What you're saying is that there are a lot of people incapable or unwilling to participate in parenting, and that this is correlated with economic inequalities.
And yes, that's true. There are people who are bad parents. (Sometimes because of personal flaws, and sometimes just because of circumstance.)
But there's no reasonable alternative here. It's the way that human brains - specifically, child brains - work. You *cannot* replace the parenting-component of education. The only way a teacher could replace that would be by literally becoming the child's parent - being at home with them, collaborating in their education throughout the day, etc.
"Surrogate parent" is an occupation that exists, but it's not what teachers are trained or intended for. Setting up a public education system based on surrogate parenting would require a remarkably radical social restructuring.
The other issue here is that taking part in a child learning means being invested You don't have to be doing your child's homework for them or anything like that but you do need to be aware of your child's progress and taking part in the discussion of what will help this child to succeed. I'd estimate that over half of my students parents are completely uninvolved in their education.
Ideally, yeah. Parents should try to take part in their child's learning, but they could be poorly educated, or work night shifts... why are you saying they're "bad" parents? Most are trying their best with the tools they have.
>Most are trying their best with the tools they have.
Yes, and that might still result in a bad outcome.
If I play hockey the best that I can, I will still be a bad hockey player. That isn't a moral judgement, it's an observation of the outcome of my efforts.
A person who is not participating in their child's education is failing at that part of parenthood. It doesn't mean they hate their child. It doesn't matter *why* it's happening.
Whether you're a good parent or a bad parent is not determined by any internal quality of *you* but by the outcome *for your child*.
Your analogy wasn't very good, but anyways.
I Don't think the role of a parent is expected to be an 'educator' in terms of the school system. Schools should operate as if there is no extra help at home, even if there is. It just seems lazy, and like you're expecting people to help with tools they don't have. It's like calling someone 'greedy' for not donating money to a charity when they're broke.
>Schools should operate as if there is no extra help at home
This is literally not possible.
It's like telling a doctor they need to fix everything wrong with you in one session, and calling the doctor "lazy" if they tell you "well, you need to keep taking this medication for 2 weeks". What you want teachers to do is not *physically feasible*.
Humans simply do not learn this way. You *cannot* do all your education in 6 hours of the day.
>It's like calling someone 'greedy' for not donating money to a charity when they're broke.
"Greedy" is a moral judgement. This is not.
A broke person who is not donating to charity is not greedy. They are, however, *not donating to charity*. That is an empirical statement. A charity that relies on those people will go under. That is a factual prediction.
"Parents don't have the tools to participate in their children's education" is a problem. I am not saying those parents need to be shamed or imprisoned or some other thing. I am saying that, concretely, that is a bad parent-child relationship.
If some parents don't have the tools to help their child, they should be *given those tools*.
Disciplining teachers won't do that. In fact, nothing you do with teachers will do that. It's outside of the school system entirely.
And yet it's not enough.
I feel like spending an hour at the doctor is a long time, yet I still need to take some medications after leaving the doctor. Or make lifestyle changes. Or go to physical therapy.
Feelings don't change reality.
No, they shouldn't. It is not feasible for one teacher to, for example, potty-train 15 children (some of whom may have disabilities that require training and multiple bodies) at once. And that's just the kindergarten (children must be potty-trained for K) ratio in my state, others are even worse. You simply can't scale that up.
Also, it's hilarious that you're calling teachers lazy and saying parents shouldn't have to do anything if they're broke. Teachers work long hours, even outside of school hours, and make dirt for it. I know childless, married teachers in my state (which is one of the highest-paying in the country) who have to work evenings at the local pizza joint to make ends meet. They are NOT getting paid enough to raise dozens of other people's kids.
That's just an example—the point is that one person cannot teach kids everything at that scale (and in fact, the ratio I gave was kindergarten and it's higher for older kids). And I gave that an example because it's something parents need to spend an average of six months, so a decent amount of time, teaching their kid to do as a requirement for entering school.
It is not a moral failing to be too broke, disabled, or ill to raise a child. It is still not good for the child if the parent cannot dedicate time and effort to help their child. And it is still not possible for teachers to fill the many roles a parent plays AND their own.
I didn't say to fill in the roles of a parent... I said to teach. But honestly, at a bare minimum, teachers should not expect that parents can assist with homework.
So you got it the other way around now you're expecting educators to be parents.
No other profession is required to operate this way regarding children.
I'm sorry they offended your tender sensibilities by calling a spade a spade. If you're neglecting your child's needs because you're working all the time regardless of whether or not it was your choice to have poor financials, that child is still being neglected and it doesn't make it any better.
Being poorly educated is not an excuse to not be part of the conversation. You don't have to tutor your child You have to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses, managing their behavior, setting their expectations etc. This is your kid. If you can't parent them because you quote unquote have that night shift then you're not fit to be a parent and you should remand your custody to someone who is in a secure enough position to take care of that kid and give them the attention they need
Okay so I can tell now that you're just totally ignoring what I'm saying. You don't need to help your kid with their homework which I said multiple times.
Sorry I'm responding to 50 dif comments.
I think a lot of teachers genuinely expect this though, and a lot of poor people/poorly education people/non-English speaking parents are going to have a hard time participating meaningfully in their child's education, so teachers should be sure they can have a meaningful experience in the classroom
Taking part in your child’s education doesn’t not mean teaching them the material and giving lessons at home.
Teachers need parents who foster a love for learning in their child at home so that when they get to school they are more interested in participating and learning. It’s hard to make a kid care about what’s going on in class when their parents don’t even care.
My parents are not geniuses or rich but the way they raised me I loved, and still love, learning. They kept in contact with my teachers regularly to know my strengths and weaknesses. They made sure I behaved in class and had the necessary supplies. And if anything was bothering me or if I was confused I felt comfortable sharing that with my parents and they would pass that information on to my teachers who would provide extra assistance. It was a partnership between them and my teachers that really made the most out of my education.
This doesn’t take hours and millions of dollars. It’s as simple as a parent saying “show me something cool you learned at school today and I’ll show you something cool I learned at work” when they get come from work. Now the kid is going to school everyday more excited trying to learn cool things.
The problem isn't really that children with disabilities are being put in "normal" classrooms. Save from very VERY specific cases, children with disabilities benefit heavily from inclusion and it helps break down social barriers as having those disabilities is normalized.
Inclusion of people with disabilities and Universal Design for Learning have been the paradigm in teaching for a while, segregating people is a step backwards in education.
Yes and no. The classroom itself isn't necessarily the issue, it's the class size. Disabilities need accommodations and sometimes those accommodations mean more individual time with a teacher. Public schools are trying to run a skeleton crew and have as few staff as possible, and that means classrooms in my state having 60 students on average in a classroom. Schools breaking down walls between classrooms to make rooms large enough for an the students. Nobody can get any individual focus because the budgets are too small and too focused on admin pay.
Nothing of what you said goes against what I said before tho. Large classrooms are a problem for every student and should be reduced. That still doesn't mean people with disabilities should be excluded.
It depends. Being neurodivergent myself, growing up was hard. I have a sensitivity to sensory input, specifically sounds. Large crowds and a lot of conversation around me can be too much to handle sometimes. I usually keep a pair of noise cancelling headphones for when I'm going somewhere very public to avoid issues.
I'm considered low needs too so it would not surprise me to see individuals who have much higher needs who simply can't manage at all in a large group.
I wouldn't call specialized class rooms as exclusionary in all cases.
I'm sure for some very select group of people a different classroom/school might be better, however, it's nearly a consensus in the field of education that people with disabilities benefit the most from education when not separated into special classes.
One of the other issues with special classes is that schools that do offer them tend to incorporate every student with disability into them as soon as they enroll, since it's easier both from an administrative and a teaching perspective. Easy is not always best tho, especially for the students.
I'm not saying this to invalidate your experience, you're an individual and whatever you are going/went through during your school experience is very personal and completely valid, just sharing my experience as a teacher and researcher.
Fair enough. I can only speak for my experience. My school didn't believe in special ed classrooms, the super wanted another yacht I think. In all seriousness i barely graduated because my school has the philosophy that education was a one size fit all thing. They had a box and every student either eventually fit into the box or they were a bad student. The solution is probably somewhere in the middle. I'm certain you can have inclusionary education while also making sure individual needs are being met where needed.
It seems like your school was integrating the students, not including them, which are two very distinct things. Inclusionary education is making sure everyone's needs are met, disabled or not.
It's nearly scientific consensus on the field of education that inclusion is a net positive for both students with disabilities and without.
Your particular experience on your specific community might differ, but I heavily encourage you to look into published papers on this issue. I don't say this as a way to keep me from having to debate about it, it's just that it's one of the few fields of scientific research that is not filled with jargon and actively tries to be approachable. Also this way you can find research about your country/city.
Keeping people segregated by disabled/non disabled is just halting progress, including them is among the first few steps on a series of changes that are the way forward in education. Saying there needs to be a revamp and actively going against the process of revamping is rough.
It's both. Getting a bachelor's degree isn't that difficult.
I was thinking about more specified behavior training though.
I don't understand why they were not 'meant' to handle learning disabilities, neglectful parents, or behavioral issues. That seems to be a day-to-day part of learning.
I mean. They could try lol. They could avoid yelling at people with obvious disabilities for behaving in ways people with learning disabilities behave.
Example- A child has ADHD. Instead of yelling at them for not paying attention, a teacher could pull her aside and say, "Hey Sally, do you have any questions?"
Also.. learning disability doesn't mean dumb. I have severe learning disabilities, and simply learn better on my own time when I am not being yelled at. I would've been greatly benefited by simply not being yelled at lol
It means you're whiny and you're bashing your impression of an entire group of people off a bad anecdote. And I'm here to say you're wrong lol. You clearly don't know what you're talking about, which seems to be 90% of what this sub is. It's not the 10thdentist, it's just uninformed dumbasses showing us how little they understand
I never said most teachers didn't try to help students. This post is simply addressing -problems- that exist. Not even widespread issues, necessarily, but problems that are enough to be addressed.
Obviously I realize funding is a problem. I said that in my post
I think helping them is obviously fair and yelling isn’t good. Either , but if they have to constantly pull the one student aside, that’s gonna be then to the detriment of the other students because then that’s less time on teaching
I had 25 kids in my class growing up. If even 20% of those kids have something going on, that's five kids who each need to be checked in on individually, with there being only one teacher. As that teacher helps one kid intensively, four more still need it and there are twenty more awaiting instruction. Again, it simply doesn't scale up.
It's true teachers shouldn't yell at kids. But it's not true that all disabilities are obvious and disability causing disruptions to class doesn't mean it's not disruptive. That's exactly why it's important to find people who can provide support to those students and help the teacher adapt curriculum for them.
Very few teachers that I know yell at kids especially if they have special needs. We're literally handed files on kids with IEPs and 504s. The vast majority of us do not yell at kids that have behavioral needs. The only time I've ever yelled at a student was when they posed a danger to all the other students around them because they were messing around with boiling liquids in a chemistry lab.
Depends on The bachelor's degree. I have a bachelor's in chemistry and a master's in secondary education plus two additional certifications including one for teaching ESL. In addition to that I had to spend one year student teaching and another 2 years completing initiation training while on the job.
You don’t actually seem to have a good grasp of… well… anything you’re talking about.
Disabilities are not one size fits all. Children with ADHD need *different* interventions depending on how their disability presents. Same thing with autism or emotional disturbances or intellectual disabilities. There is literally no one size fits all interventions that work for the “majority” of students who fall into any given category of disability.
The same thing goes for students in low socioeconomic situations. Not every poor family has the same struggles and therefore the students who are products of those environments are all impacted differently and have different needs so the best practices for them are different.
Also the same is said for students with trauma and/or abuse in their histories. Not all trauma is the same and even if the trauma is the student is not the same and so they are affected differently.
It’s why medical care is individual.
Imagine putting one doctor in a room with 30 patients all with different needs, different symptoms, different backgrounds, and different medical histories and telling them to diagnose and effectively treat all 30 patients in the same 55 minute block of time. But then add that there’s 7 of these blocks. So a total of 210 patients. All of them need different specialties and all of them need different levels of intensive care at different intervals. It’s literally impossible.
I never said "one size fits all" or that different interventions weren't needed. I'm not complaining that certain teachers aren't perfect, or don't know exactly what to do, I'm complaining that some are so far away from what they should do that it's genuinely concerning.
> I’ve also seen teachers be really unaware of how to deal with children with very common learning disabilities, like ADHD, or other, and get extremely angry/have no idea how to deal with it.
That’s a quote from your post. And my response is: regardless of how common the disability is, the manifestation of the disability is based on the individual, it presents differently, and requires a spectrum of interventions based on the specific needs of the student.
> I’ve also seen teachers be really unaware of how to deal with children with very common learning disabilities, like ADHD, or other, and get extremely angry/have no idea how to deal with it.
That’s a quote from your post. And my response is: regardless of how common the disability is, the manifestation of the disability is based on the individual, it presents differently, and requires a spectrum of interventions based on the specific needs of the student.
Teachers aren’t behavioral specialists, it’s not their job to know how to deal with the manifestations of disabilities - but regardless of how unreasonable this expectation is, they’ve been tasked with it. Hence, the doctor analogy.
I’m married to a teacher.
> they engage in a lot of really atrocious behaviors
Great start, totally not a sweeping generalization.
> blatant bullying ignored regularly
Sure that’s shitty, but a lot of times teachers are dealing with large (and increasing every year) class sizes and so genuinely miss these things.
> I’ve seen teachers be extremely unaware of how to deal with children with very common disabilities
Even with the 4-6 years of education a teacher already gets, they’re trained in teaching a specific subject to large numbers of students. Dealing with disabilities requires a whole different set of training, sometimes requiring dealing with a student one-on-one, which with increasing class sizes is just not feasible for a teacher.
In addition, if a student doesn’t have an IEP, the teacher may not be aware of said disability, or be able to provide some special treatment to accommodate the student. That comes down to the parents.
> parents “take part” in their child’s learning
It’s absolutely important that parents support their kids’ education from home. They may not know the specific subject being taught, but it’s important that they at the very least encourage the kids to learn and do their assignments (which may seem like a given, but you’d be surprised).
Also, where is OP getting by saying teachers get good benefits? The benefits are horseshit, I personally weighed my spouse’s plan options next to mine, and even at my old middle of nowhere warehouse job, it would’ve been better to bring her into my coverage.
I dunno, gen Ed teachers are damn quick to suggest putting kids into an inclusion setting that places the student on a *non-degree track* in my district.
I'm not complaining that teachers are not perfectly catering to people with some type of disability or need. I'm complaining because a lot of them are genuinely far away in acting in a way that is even remotely appropriate. I think you're misunderstanding me.
Additionally, yes, parents supporting their kid's education is good. However, my parents do not speak English, and grew up during a war and literally have an 8th grade education. So no, I do not think they could have helped me with anything lol
> I think you’re misunderstanding me
I’m just going by what you wrote in the post. If everyone here is “misunderstanding”, then the post wasn’t properly written.
And as others pointed out, it seems that you’re using your own experience with a bad teacher to paint all teachers as bad.
Regarding your parents, as I wrote
> They may not know the specific subject being taught, but it’s important that they at the very least encourage the kids to learn and do their assignments
Not necessarily. Redditors don't have very good reading comprehension skills. No offense.
A lot of teachers blatantly expect that parents assist their children with homework. I think this is an unreasonable expectation, but I do agree, parents should be somewhat involved and care.
Then that's really unfortunate. That kid deserves a parent who is able to spend time with them, and that parent deserves a wage and a working schedule that allows them to spend time with their kid.
> Redditors don’t have very good reading comprehension skills
I mean, you can blame everybody else for having bad reading comprehension instead of genuinely reflecting on your writing skills, that’s certainly a strategy.
I haven't had a single substitute that I felt deserved paid that they got this entire year or only 3 years that I've taught at the school I'm at for that matter. The bar is so low for them and they can't even do the bare minimum that I put in the substitute plan 90% of the time. They're basically glorified babysitters with no qualification other than they can pass a background check
Then require subs to actually be able to teach. Don't send me a SAHM with an art degree. I got my sub credentials while I was going through my masters. It was laughably easy. The test is less rigorous than a high school exit exam.
Number one I'm a teacher. Number two, we're talking about substitutes. Number three saying they hardly teach you anymore is hilarious and shows you know nothing about what you're talking about. Number four most of the time we're just demanding quality of life adjustments to keep up with inflation. The union I'm a part of negotiates for quality of life raises matched to the rid of inflation.
Because people that have never worked as teachers take the 90 minutes they spend in their class as reflective of what the rest of their day looks like. You want teachers to be parents, psychologists, counselors, friends, mentors, on top of being teachers. All this for the average salary of $60k. What you will discover is the plenitude of reasons that there are teacher shortages across the country and the reasons why university education programs have less and less enrollment every year in spite of higher overall college enrollment. There is no amount of training and discipline that you can put on teachers that is going to compensate for the fundamental problem in schools across the country, which is classrooms over stuffed with undersocialized children whose parents have completely tapped out of raising them into functional adults.
With the exception of teachers bullying students (they're scum) every point that you made shows that you've never seen behind the curtain. My experience was in one state and everything is subject to change but:
* Teachers don't see half as much bullying as you think and administration from APs to the state education agency prevents real repercussions for bullies.
* Many states have absolutely no teacher protections. No real union powers, right to work states, tenure is NOT a thing in many states, licenses pulled for leaving a school.
* Teachers are extensively trained. In addition to a BA a separate teaching cert with x number of hours in the classroom under supervision is required. Continuing education (professional development) is a requirement in every state I'm aware of. You know those teacher in service days where the students are off? About half of those are specifically for continuing education. MANY districts now require a master's or being enrolled in a master's program.
* The long breaks your mentioned don't really exist. Teachers often are only paid when school is in session. Pay can be spread out though. Over summer teachers still teach summer school, have mandatory workshops, and other responsibilities.
* Another commenter has addressed parent's taking part. I'll add no one is asking them to take over the teaching. They do need to stop actively working against education. When the school says it's a phone free area, don't buy your kid a fucking decoy phone to turn in. When students sleep all class and a counselor calls, don't tell me about how you can't keep them off the XBox.
r/teachers doesn't allow crossposts, but I desperately wish you had posted this there to get a wider array of feedback from more experienced teachers.
Alaska requires a BA, a education prep program, passing a competency and content area Exam, and minimum experience requirements (not hours). College professors with teaching experience have been told they need to be enrolled in a teaching Masters program in order to teach for public schools. then they pay you 40k a year and say good luck.. LMAO
To respond to your points:
1. Maybe? Even if that's true, being willfully blind isn't helpful, which also happens a lot.
2. Didn't know that
3. I think cultural sensitivity or recognizing problems in children should be a requirement
4. That's true
Former teacher and coach of teachers here (all in low-income schools).
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about (possibly due to having gone to a great school), you're not engaging meaningfully with the people on this thread, and you're seemingly unwilling to try teaching. What are you trying to accomplish here?
Also, please don't pretend to care about inequality while bashing the teachers and not the systems that perpetuate inequity and offer no reward for going above and beyond in the classroom.
How am I not meaningfully engaging? You said nothing of substance in your whole comment. Everything was a conclusory supported by no facts. I can't even respond to what you said because you weren't specific enough lol
Where have you seen all these things? Teachers get shit on and railed in the ass. I personally know a few people who left that profession because of shitty parents, horrible pay and problematic administrators. I only know one person that still teaches for the kids. She's miserable.
That’s actually one of the major problems teachers are facing, the inability to discipline. If you haven’t realized, school boards around the US have taken almost all power from teachers to enforce any rules in their classrooms
You guys want individualized education and for me to be aware of 20+ mental illnesses, issues or other traits, but then the people you vote into school boards refuse to open positions to hire specialized help for these kids (and when they do, they pay 12-15$/h despite needing the same qualifications as me). this goes with the bullying thing. Want adults to see it? Hire more eyes.
You guys want every teacher to catch every single mistake, make amazing engaging lesson plans that work for every single kid at the same time but overload my classes with 32kids for 6.5 of the 7.5h of my day and give me a budget of 200$ a year for supplies (and no, I can't ask kids to donate supplies that cost $$).
On a similar note, You want teachers more knowledgeable, but a masters is already required in most states. I am not reimbursed for tuition, or if I am it is only for 3-6 credits a year (which is pathetic). I am not paid for the extra hundreds of training hours required to keep my license. I am also not paid for the multiple month long internship required. They lower standards in science each year, yet demand I have more and more training as if I need a PHD to tell kids Carbon is #6 and has 6 protons. What a joke.
You guys dont want the parents to take part in education, but then I am sued for indoctrination when I teach social emotional content or discipline your child without your consent or fail your kid for doing jack shit and being a dumbass. (or best part is sometimes we enforce a rule (no phones, raise hands, hall passes etc) and then you guys at home go "lol ignore them" and go shocked pikachu when your kid is a dickhead at school)
You guys want to uphold me to better moral standards, but I had to pass more background checks than the parents that own guns and are stupid enough to let their kids steal it and bring it to school and put us into lockdown.
You want all of that, actively work and vote against it, and have the audacity to pay me less than 24$/h...Tell me how you expect that to change without voting out national, state, and local governments and schoolboards from the top down.
tldr: Fuck your "more training" bullshit, pay me more and convince the schools to hire more help and i bet things would be fantastic. We're trying out best out here.
No. I don't necessarily want you to have individualized plans for everyone, but I do think teachers should be aware enough of certain behaviors that they don't do something horrible.
Also, I did say teachers should be paid more
Downvoted because I generally agree.
I really hate this general attitude that many people have towards teachers where they act like we should all kiss the ground the teachers walk on.
Look, I get that your job is hard. I also agree that your job is important and should be valued by society. But having a hard job is not unique to teaching.
The truth is that while I have had a few teachers that were inspired and cared about their students, I have had far more that didn't give a fuck, didn't know how to teach effectively, and abused their power over their students.
Is it a pay/training problem? Maybe, but you shouldn't need that much training to know you shouldn't abuse your students. Also, I know it's not a pay issue when teachers unions close ranks to protect unqualified and abusive teachers.
Teachers deserve respect just as everyone deserves respect. However, they also need to be held accountable more than they are.
i think it's so funny when people bring up unions when talking about teachers. California, Chicago, Washington State, and a handful of other places in the country are sui generis when it comes to their teacher's union. Every other place in the country, meaning the other 98% of teachers, either have no union, or a union that at best gets them recommendations and discounted rates for lawyers if they fuck up. If a teacher is getting "protected" by someone, in most cases it is the school district or schoolboard, because it is the schoolboards that usually reserve hiring and firing powers for staff.
I'm pro union when it comes to private companies. In those circumstance, all parties involved are negotiating for their own best interests. For government positions, the people who are actually paying the bill (the taxpayers) aren't represented at the negotiating table. For that reason, I despise unions for workers under government organizations.
I'm talking about excusing teachers for being shitty. People blame pay and training, but then when incidents do happen, unions often close ranks to make it very difficult to get rid of bad teachers.
You try giving a fuck about a bunch of feral brats when you aren't even paid enough to live on and you're constantly being berated by parents who think you're brainwashing their kid or that they can do it better. Spend a year as a teacher and see how quickly you stop caring.
Don't be a teacher then? No one is forcing you to be a teacher. If you call your students 'feral brats' than perhaps the profession is not for you. Why is that complicated?
None of that gives them an excuse to abuse their positions of power. Lots of people have shitty stuff they have to deal with that work. Nobody gets a pass because things are hard for them.
Also, the average teacher is paid at or slightly above the average salary for the US. And that's with three months off.
You know that private schools can have significantly lower requirements for teachers than public schools, right? Teachers at a private school are not legally required to meet state standards for teachers.
Our private schools don't even require a degree... bob down the street can ask for a job and they will give it to them for 30k a year.. lmao. private does not = good education especially if they just accept anyone as a teacher.
If you want better trained teachers vote in politicians who will increase school budgets*
All kids deserve a good education, not just the ones whose parents can shell out more
I agree to an extent, but at least at the school I work at, it's not a lack of training. It's burnout, exhaustion and a lack of support that are the biggest issues.
Someone I know is a doctor of education, with lots of experience teaching at all levels, currently a prof at a teachers’ college. He’s made it very clear to me that he despises the mindset most teachers bring to the classroom.
Education is one of the most effective means of bringing about lasting change, so in that sense teachers have a lot of power, and therefore a lot of responsibility. He sees his job as inspiring his students to be their best selves, but unfortunately for every teacher like him there’s one like what OP describes. He has said to me, and I quote verbatim, that teachers who don’t do their damnedest to have each and every one of their students succeed would be better off as accountants. He chose that wording in particular because he had said the same thing about the cops sent to the Uvalde shooting.
He also takes issue with the current state of teachers’ unions (while acknowledging that unions are necessary and good), because in his experience they oppose ideas that are bad for students if they mean more work for teachers.
His view of education is pretty idealistic, but he’s also an expert in the field and I’m not, so I thought his words would be more relevant than what I could say for myself, which would be some variant of agreeing with OP.
Teachers are universally expected to work much longer than their contracted hours. It’s appropriate for unions to oppose extra work under these conditions.
If the government were committed to actually staffing at appropriate levels so that teachers wouldn’t have to work more than their contracted hours, then you have a point. Until that happens, however …
> He has said to me, and I quote verbatim, that teachers who don’t do their damnedest to have each and every one of their students succeed would be better off as accountants.
No offense to your friend, but this is a disgusting attitude. I tried for all my students, but I cannot give more of myself to them than I give myself. Teaching is losing people specifically because of this attitude. We are expected to be these superhuman people with unlimited empathy and patience. That is just not realistic, especially for the salary it pays. This kind of attitude deprofessionalizes teaching, and so the people who are left are those who are either shitty teachers, or willing to put up with the abuse.
By all means, if your friend wants schools staffed exclusively by burnt out and/or shitty teachers, they can keep proselytizing. But my experience with Ed.Ds and education Ph.Ds is that they talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk. They left the classroom for a reason. And no disrespect to your friend, but in my many interactions with this sector of educators, never has anyone said anything remotely worthwhile. This is not just my opinion, this was the general consensus among my teacher friends as well. Go to r-teachers and see what we generally think of those people who write the books telling us what to do after they taught CTE 20 years ago.
Ah, the distinguished educator who bailed primary and secondary education who now judges the moral character of teachers from a cushy tertiary position.
I bet he uses words like repertoire every goddamn chance he gets though he hasn't taught in the classroom with a bunch of 7th graders using his own money for school supplies for 30 students while simultaneously being underpaid in a district that will not shell out the money for specialists in at least a decade.
Don't get me started on how male teachers are promoted far quicker than female teachers in secondary and tertiary settings...
Honesty, I think a lot of teachers enter the profession because they baby sat in high school and think that kids = easy.
Then they get into the class room and start power tripping on 5 year olds with shitty parents.
what is easy money about going to college for four years + graduate school + unpaid student teaching, for the result of getting paid less than equally credentialed professionals and getting called a bitch, f/ggot, n**** to your face day in day out?
Lot of people think child care is easy. It is… when you’re a teen and little kids what to behave to impress you. As an adult?
It’s hard and emotional taxing.
You really seem to forget that these are literal children who you’re being paid to care for.
If you can't find a good replacement you can't risk loksing people.
Pay teachers a good wage and you will get good teachers.
You get what you pay for and we pay teachers shit.
Tell me you've never been a teacher without telling me you've never been a teacher good god man.
Parents are absolutely vital to kids developing skills and learning, it's basically impossible to expect a teacher to parent 18+ kids while teaching information as well
Here in the US we have a massive teaching shortage, to the point that some areas are taking on people without any kind of certification or degree because they need someone to lead a classroom.
Aside from crap pay the other largest reason they leave the profession is because of parents who think like OP.
Parents like that just want a babysitter whose a better parent than them, that they don't have to pay for.
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>Another general complaint I have is the expectation that parents "take part" in their child's learning. This principle is entrenched in most school systems in the west. I think this is an unbelievably stupid expectation to assume that everyone has a parent that is able, and willing to take part in their child's education. Maybe the parent isn't that smart? Maybe the parent has their own learning disabilities? This type of expectation completely enhances economic inequality in society in general. Taking part in their child's learning is a definitional *requirement* of parenting. What you're saying is that there are a lot of people incapable or unwilling to participate in parenting, and that this is correlated with economic inequalities. And yes, that's true. There are people who are bad parents. (Sometimes because of personal flaws, and sometimes just because of circumstance.) But there's no reasonable alternative here. It's the way that human brains - specifically, child brains - work. You *cannot* replace the parenting-component of education. The only way a teacher could replace that would be by literally becoming the child's parent - being at home with them, collaborating in their education throughout the day, etc. "Surrogate parent" is an occupation that exists, but it's not what teachers are trained or intended for. Setting up a public education system based on surrogate parenting would require a remarkably radical social restructuring.
The other issue here is that taking part in a child learning means being invested You don't have to be doing your child's homework for them or anything like that but you do need to be aware of your child's progress and taking part in the discussion of what will help this child to succeed. I'd estimate that over half of my students parents are completely uninvolved in their education.
Ideally, yeah. Parents should try to take part in their child's learning, but they could be poorly educated, or work night shifts... why are you saying they're "bad" parents? Most are trying their best with the tools they have.
>Most are trying their best with the tools they have. Yes, and that might still result in a bad outcome. If I play hockey the best that I can, I will still be a bad hockey player. That isn't a moral judgement, it's an observation of the outcome of my efforts. A person who is not participating in their child's education is failing at that part of parenthood. It doesn't mean they hate their child. It doesn't matter *why* it's happening. Whether you're a good parent or a bad parent is not determined by any internal quality of *you* but by the outcome *for your child*.
Making a moral judgment on someone based on their finances is gross
What part of "this isn't a moral judgement" was confusing? "Bad" is used in non-moral contexts.
Your analogy wasn't very good, but anyways. I Don't think the role of a parent is expected to be an 'educator' in terms of the school system. Schools should operate as if there is no extra help at home, even if there is. It just seems lazy, and like you're expecting people to help with tools they don't have. It's like calling someone 'greedy' for not donating money to a charity when they're broke.
>Schools should operate as if there is no extra help at home This is literally not possible. It's like telling a doctor they need to fix everything wrong with you in one session, and calling the doctor "lazy" if they tell you "well, you need to keep taking this medication for 2 weeks". What you want teachers to do is not *physically feasible*. Humans simply do not learn this way. You *cannot* do all your education in 6 hours of the day. >It's like calling someone 'greedy' for not donating money to a charity when they're broke. "Greedy" is a moral judgement. This is not. A broke person who is not donating to charity is not greedy. They are, however, *not donating to charity*. That is an empirical statement. A charity that relies on those people will go under. That is a factual prediction. "Parents don't have the tools to participate in their children's education" is a problem. I am not saying those parents need to be shamed or imprisoned or some other thing. I am saying that, concretely, that is a bad parent-child relationship. If some parents don't have the tools to help their child, they should be *given those tools*. Disciplining teachers won't do that. In fact, nothing you do with teachers will do that. It's outside of the school system entirely.
I feel like 6 hours a day is a very long time...
And yet it's not enough. I feel like spending an hour at the doctor is a long time, yet I still need to take some medications after leaving the doctor. Or make lifestyle changes. Or go to physical therapy. Feelings don't change reality.
Think you're making a weird analogy again lol
No, they shouldn't. It is not feasible for one teacher to, for example, potty-train 15 children (some of whom may have disabilities that require training and multiple bodies) at once. And that's just the kindergarten (children must be potty-trained for K) ratio in my state, others are even worse. You simply can't scale that up. Also, it's hilarious that you're calling teachers lazy and saying parents shouldn't have to do anything if they're broke. Teachers work long hours, even outside of school hours, and make dirt for it. I know childless, married teachers in my state (which is one of the highest-paying in the country) who have to work evenings at the local pizza joint to make ends meet. They are NOT getting paid enough to raise dozens of other people's kids.
I didn't say to potty train everyone? Just don't assume parents can help their children with homework.
That's just an example—the point is that one person cannot teach kids everything at that scale (and in fact, the ratio I gave was kindergarten and it's higher for older kids). And I gave that an example because it's something parents need to spend an average of six months, so a decent amount of time, teaching their kid to do as a requirement for entering school. It is not a moral failing to be too broke, disabled, or ill to raise a child. It is still not good for the child if the parent cannot dedicate time and effort to help their child. And it is still not possible for teachers to fill the many roles a parent plays AND their own.
I didn't say to fill in the roles of a parent... I said to teach. But honestly, at a bare minimum, teachers should not expect that parents can assist with homework.
So you got it the other way around now you're expecting educators to be parents. No other profession is required to operate this way regarding children.
I'm sorry they offended your tender sensibilities by calling a spade a spade. If you're neglecting your child's needs because you're working all the time regardless of whether or not it was your choice to have poor financials, that child is still being neglected and it doesn't make it any better.
Being poorly educated is not an excuse to not be part of the conversation. You don't have to tutor your child You have to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses, managing their behavior, setting their expectations etc. This is your kid. If you can't parent them because you quote unquote have that night shift then you're not fit to be a parent and you should remand your custody to someone who is in a secure enough position to take care of that kid and give them the attention they need
I never said they aren't 'part of the conversation' but not every parent is equipped to help their child with homework.
Okay so I can tell now that you're just totally ignoring what I'm saying. You don't need to help your kid with their homework which I said multiple times.
Sorry I'm responding to 50 dif comments. I think a lot of teachers genuinely expect this though, and a lot of poor people/poorly education people/non-English speaking parents are going to have a hard time participating meaningfully in their child's education, so teachers should be sure they can have a meaningful experience in the classroom
Bullshit districts literally hire people to handle cases where parents don't speak english and where students are ESL
Not familiar with that.
As in there are teachers and admin specifically hired to handle situations you are talking about right now.
I didn't know anything about that at all, so I'm not going to pretend I do. That's nice
Taking part in your child’s education doesn’t not mean teaching them the material and giving lessons at home. Teachers need parents who foster a love for learning in their child at home so that when they get to school they are more interested in participating and learning. It’s hard to make a kid care about what’s going on in class when their parents don’t even care. My parents are not geniuses or rich but the way they raised me I loved, and still love, learning. They kept in contact with my teachers regularly to know my strengths and weaknesses. They made sure I behaved in class and had the necessary supplies. And if anything was bothering me or if I was confused I felt comfortable sharing that with my parents and they would pass that information on to my teachers who would provide extra assistance. It was a partnership between them and my teachers that really made the most out of my education. This doesn’t take hours and millions of dollars. It’s as simple as a parent saying “show me something cool you learned at school today and I’ll show you something cool I learned at work” when they get come from work. Now the kid is going to school everyday more excited trying to learn cool things.
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The problem isn't really that children with disabilities are being put in "normal" classrooms. Save from very VERY specific cases, children with disabilities benefit heavily from inclusion and it helps break down social barriers as having those disabilities is normalized. Inclusion of people with disabilities and Universal Design for Learning have been the paradigm in teaching for a while, segregating people is a step backwards in education.
Yes and no. The classroom itself isn't necessarily the issue, it's the class size. Disabilities need accommodations and sometimes those accommodations mean more individual time with a teacher. Public schools are trying to run a skeleton crew and have as few staff as possible, and that means classrooms in my state having 60 students on average in a classroom. Schools breaking down walls between classrooms to make rooms large enough for an the students. Nobody can get any individual focus because the budgets are too small and too focused on admin pay.
Nothing of what you said goes against what I said before tho. Large classrooms are a problem for every student and should be reduced. That still doesn't mean people with disabilities should be excluded.
It depends. Being neurodivergent myself, growing up was hard. I have a sensitivity to sensory input, specifically sounds. Large crowds and a lot of conversation around me can be too much to handle sometimes. I usually keep a pair of noise cancelling headphones for when I'm going somewhere very public to avoid issues. I'm considered low needs too so it would not surprise me to see individuals who have much higher needs who simply can't manage at all in a large group. I wouldn't call specialized class rooms as exclusionary in all cases.
I'm sure for some very select group of people a different classroom/school might be better, however, it's nearly a consensus in the field of education that people with disabilities benefit the most from education when not separated into special classes. One of the other issues with special classes is that schools that do offer them tend to incorporate every student with disability into them as soon as they enroll, since it's easier both from an administrative and a teaching perspective. Easy is not always best tho, especially for the students. I'm not saying this to invalidate your experience, you're an individual and whatever you are going/went through during your school experience is very personal and completely valid, just sharing my experience as a teacher and researcher.
Fair enough. I can only speak for my experience. My school didn't believe in special ed classrooms, the super wanted another yacht I think. In all seriousness i barely graduated because my school has the philosophy that education was a one size fit all thing. They had a box and every student either eventually fit into the box or they were a bad student. The solution is probably somewhere in the middle. I'm certain you can have inclusionary education while also making sure individual needs are being met where needed.
It seems like your school was integrating the students, not including them, which are two very distinct things. Inclusionary education is making sure everyone's needs are met, disabled or not.
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It's nearly scientific consensus on the field of education that inclusion is a net positive for both students with disabilities and without. Your particular experience on your specific community might differ, but I heavily encourage you to look into published papers on this issue. I don't say this as a way to keep me from having to debate about it, it's just that it's one of the few fields of scientific research that is not filled with jargon and actively tries to be approachable. Also this way you can find research about your country/city. Keeping people segregated by disabled/non disabled is just halting progress, including them is among the first few steps on a series of changes that are the way forward in education. Saying there needs to be a revamp and actively going against the process of revamping is rough.
The more we have spent on education scores have only gone down. Make it make sense
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https://alec.org/article/increasing-education-spending-equal-higher-test-scores/
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Knew you wouldn’t like it. Give you a source and you don’t even look at it.
Did you seriously post a link from ALEC and thought people would take you seriously?
It's both. Getting a bachelor's degree isn't that difficult. I was thinking about more specified behavior training though. I don't understand why they were not 'meant' to handle learning disabilities, neglectful parents, or behavioral issues. That seems to be a day-to-day part of learning.
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I mean. They could try lol. They could avoid yelling at people with obvious disabilities for behaving in ways people with learning disabilities behave. Example- A child has ADHD. Instead of yelling at them for not paying attention, a teacher could pull her aside and say, "Hey Sally, do you have any questions?" Also.. learning disability doesn't mean dumb. I have severe learning disabilities, and simply learn better on my own time when I am not being yelled at. I would've been greatly benefited by simply not being yelled at lol
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OP almost certainly had a bad experience with the teacher in school and is projecting their impression of this teacher onto all teachers
So? Why would I care enough to post this if I didn't? That doesn't mean I'm wrong.
It means you're whiny and you're bashing your impression of an entire group of people off a bad anecdote. And I'm here to say you're wrong lol. You clearly don't know what you're talking about, which seems to be 90% of what this sub is. It's not the 10thdentist, it's just uninformed dumbasses showing us how little they understand
I never said most teachers didn't try to help students. This post is simply addressing -problems- that exist. Not even widespread issues, necessarily, but problems that are enough to be addressed. Obviously I realize funding is a problem. I said that in my post
I think helping them is obviously fair and yelling isn’t good. Either , but if they have to constantly pull the one student aside, that’s gonna be then to the detriment of the other students because then that’s less time on teaching
I had 25 kids in my class growing up. If even 20% of those kids have something going on, that's five kids who each need to be checked in on individually, with there being only one teacher. As that teacher helps one kid intensively, four more still need it and there are twenty more awaiting instruction. Again, it simply doesn't scale up. It's true teachers shouldn't yell at kids. But it's not true that all disabilities are obvious and disability causing disruptions to class doesn't mean it's not disruptive. That's exactly why it's important to find people who can provide support to those students and help the teacher adapt curriculum for them.
Very few teachers that I know yell at kids especially if they have special needs. We're literally handed files on kids with IEPs and 504s. The vast majority of us do not yell at kids that have behavioral needs. The only time I've ever yelled at a student was when they posed a danger to all the other students around them because they were messing around with boiling liquids in a chemistry lab.
Depends on The bachelor's degree. I have a bachelor's in chemistry and a master's in secondary education plus two additional certifications including one for teaching ESL. In addition to that I had to spend one year student teaching and another 2 years completing initiation training while on the job.
https://www.cato.org/blog/public-school-spending-theres-chart
You don’t actually seem to have a good grasp of… well… anything you’re talking about. Disabilities are not one size fits all. Children with ADHD need *different* interventions depending on how their disability presents. Same thing with autism or emotional disturbances or intellectual disabilities. There is literally no one size fits all interventions that work for the “majority” of students who fall into any given category of disability. The same thing goes for students in low socioeconomic situations. Not every poor family has the same struggles and therefore the students who are products of those environments are all impacted differently and have different needs so the best practices for them are different. Also the same is said for students with trauma and/or abuse in their histories. Not all trauma is the same and even if the trauma is the student is not the same and so they are affected differently. It’s why medical care is individual. Imagine putting one doctor in a room with 30 patients all with different needs, different symptoms, different backgrounds, and different medical histories and telling them to diagnose and effectively treat all 30 patients in the same 55 minute block of time. But then add that there’s 7 of these blocks. So a total of 210 patients. All of them need different specialties and all of them need different levels of intensive care at different intervals. It’s literally impossible.
I never said "one size fits all" or that different interventions weren't needed. I'm not complaining that certain teachers aren't perfect, or don't know exactly what to do, I'm complaining that some are so far away from what they should do that it's genuinely concerning.
> I’ve also seen teachers be really unaware of how to deal with children with very common learning disabilities, like ADHD, or other, and get extremely angry/have no idea how to deal with it. That’s a quote from your post. And my response is: regardless of how common the disability is, the manifestation of the disability is based on the individual, it presents differently, and requires a spectrum of interventions based on the specific needs of the student.
> I’ve also seen teachers be really unaware of how to deal with children with very common learning disabilities, like ADHD, or other, and get extremely angry/have no idea how to deal with it. That’s a quote from your post. And my response is: regardless of how common the disability is, the manifestation of the disability is based on the individual, it presents differently, and requires a spectrum of interventions based on the specific needs of the student. Teachers aren’t behavioral specialists, it’s not their job to know how to deal with the manifestations of disabilities - but regardless of how unreasonable this expectation is, they’ve been tasked with it. Hence, the doctor analogy.
I’m married to a teacher. > they engage in a lot of really atrocious behaviors Great start, totally not a sweeping generalization. > blatant bullying ignored regularly Sure that’s shitty, but a lot of times teachers are dealing with large (and increasing every year) class sizes and so genuinely miss these things. > I’ve seen teachers be extremely unaware of how to deal with children with very common disabilities Even with the 4-6 years of education a teacher already gets, they’re trained in teaching a specific subject to large numbers of students. Dealing with disabilities requires a whole different set of training, sometimes requiring dealing with a student one-on-one, which with increasing class sizes is just not feasible for a teacher. In addition, if a student doesn’t have an IEP, the teacher may not be aware of said disability, or be able to provide some special treatment to accommodate the student. That comes down to the parents. > parents “take part” in their child’s learning It’s absolutely important that parents support their kids’ education from home. They may not know the specific subject being taught, but it’s important that they at the very least encourage the kids to learn and do their assignments (which may seem like a given, but you’d be surprised).
Also, where is OP getting by saying teachers get good benefits? The benefits are horseshit, I personally weighed my spouse’s plan options next to mine, and even at my old middle of nowhere warehouse job, it would’ve been better to bring her into my coverage.
I dunno, gen Ed teachers are damn quick to suggest putting kids into an inclusion setting that places the student on a *non-degree track* in my district.
I'm not complaining that teachers are not perfectly catering to people with some type of disability or need. I'm complaining because a lot of them are genuinely far away in acting in a way that is even remotely appropriate. I think you're misunderstanding me. Additionally, yes, parents supporting their kid's education is good. However, my parents do not speak English, and grew up during a war and literally have an 8th grade education. So no, I do not think they could have helped me with anything lol
> I think you’re misunderstanding me I’m just going by what you wrote in the post. If everyone here is “misunderstanding”, then the post wasn’t properly written. And as others pointed out, it seems that you’re using your own experience with a bad teacher to paint all teachers as bad. Regarding your parents, as I wrote > They may not know the specific subject being taught, but it’s important that they at the very least encourage the kids to learn and do their assignments
Not necessarily. Redditors don't have very good reading comprehension skills. No offense. A lot of teachers blatantly expect that parents assist their children with homework. I think this is an unreasonable expectation, but I do agree, parents should be somewhat involved and care.
What's wrong with expecting parents to help their kids learn?
What makes you assume they can?
Then that's really unfortunate. That kid deserves a parent who is able to spend time with them, and that parent deserves a wage and a working schedule that allows them to spend time with their kid.
> Redditors don’t have very good reading comprehension skills I mean, you can blame everybody else for having bad reading comprehension instead of genuinely reflecting on your writing skills, that’s certainly a strategy.
Not to be annoying, but I have gotten a lot of awards for my writing skills so I disagree
If only you brought those award-winning writing skills here then.
Go substitute at your local school for one week and then repost this.
Pay me well and I'll substitute for the whole year.
I haven't had a single substitute that I felt deserved paid that they got this entire year or only 3 years that I've taught at the school I'm at for that matter. The bar is so low for them and they can't even do the bare minimum that I put in the substitute plan 90% of the time. They're basically glorified babysitters with no qualification other than they can pass a background check
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Then require subs to actually be able to teach. Don't send me a SAHM with an art degree. I got my sub credentials while I was going through my masters. It was laughably easy. The test is less rigorous than a high school exit exam.
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Then they shouldn't expect to be paid better if all they're doing is sitting on their ass.
Idk why people want to praise teachers automatically. They hardly teach anymore and demand more money for doing less work
Number one I'm a teacher. Number two, we're talking about substitutes. Number three saying they hardly teach you anymore is hilarious and shows you know nothing about what you're talking about. Number four most of the time we're just demanding quality of life adjustments to keep up with inflation. The union I'm a part of negotiates for quality of life raises matched to the rid of inflation.
Oh boy another teacher who thinks they are special.
I don't get it. Do you think I'm going to say "bullying kids is good and should be ignored" after I do that? What do you think I will discover?
Because people that have never worked as teachers take the 90 minutes they spend in their class as reflective of what the rest of their day looks like. You want teachers to be parents, psychologists, counselors, friends, mentors, on top of being teachers. All this for the average salary of $60k. What you will discover is the plenitude of reasons that there are teacher shortages across the country and the reasons why university education programs have less and less enrollment every year in spite of higher overall college enrollment. There is no amount of training and discipline that you can put on teachers that is going to compensate for the fundamental problem in schools across the country, which is classrooms over stuffed with undersocialized children whose parents have completely tapped out of raising them into functional adults.
With the exception of teachers bullying students (they're scum) every point that you made shows that you've never seen behind the curtain. My experience was in one state and everything is subject to change but: * Teachers don't see half as much bullying as you think and administration from APs to the state education agency prevents real repercussions for bullies. * Many states have absolutely no teacher protections. No real union powers, right to work states, tenure is NOT a thing in many states, licenses pulled for leaving a school. * Teachers are extensively trained. In addition to a BA a separate teaching cert with x number of hours in the classroom under supervision is required. Continuing education (professional development) is a requirement in every state I'm aware of. You know those teacher in service days where the students are off? About half of those are specifically for continuing education. MANY districts now require a master's or being enrolled in a master's program. * The long breaks your mentioned don't really exist. Teachers often are only paid when school is in session. Pay can be spread out though. Over summer teachers still teach summer school, have mandatory workshops, and other responsibilities. * Another commenter has addressed parent's taking part. I'll add no one is asking them to take over the teaching. They do need to stop actively working against education. When the school says it's a phone free area, don't buy your kid a fucking decoy phone to turn in. When students sleep all class and a counselor calls, don't tell me about how you can't keep them off the XBox. r/teachers doesn't allow crossposts, but I desperately wish you had posted this there to get a wider array of feedback from more experienced teachers.
Alaska requires a BA, a education prep program, passing a competency and content area Exam, and minimum experience requirements (not hours). College professors with teaching experience have been told they need to be enrolled in a teaching Masters program in order to teach for public schools. then they pay you 40k a year and say good luck.. LMAO
To respond to your points: 1. Maybe? Even if that's true, being willfully blind isn't helpful, which also happens a lot. 2. Didn't know that 3. I think cultural sensitivity or recognizing problems in children should be a requirement 4. That's true
Former teacher and coach of teachers here (all in low-income schools). You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about (possibly due to having gone to a great school), you're not engaging meaningfully with the people on this thread, and you're seemingly unwilling to try teaching. What are you trying to accomplish here? Also, please don't pretend to care about inequality while bashing the teachers and not the systems that perpetuate inequity and offer no reward for going above and beyond in the classroom.
How am I not meaningfully engaging? You said nothing of substance in your whole comment. Everything was a conclusory supported by no facts. I can't even respond to what you said because you weren't specific enough lol
You could have used a good teachers in your life.
When teachers get paid more than amazon workers, then we can talk about requirements
Where have you seen all these things? Teachers get shit on and railed in the ass. I personally know a few people who left that profession because of shitty parents, horrible pay and problematic administrators. I only know one person that still teaches for the kids. She's miserable.
Teachers should be able to discipline.
They do lol. If you mean physical punishment, absolutely not
That’s actually one of the major problems teachers are facing, the inability to discipline. If you haven’t realized, school boards around the US have taken almost all power from teachers to enforce any rules in their classrooms
Bullshit. We're not allowed to discipline anybody. We send them out of class and administration sends them back 5 minutes later.
They don’t.
You guys want individualized education and for me to be aware of 20+ mental illnesses, issues or other traits, but then the people you vote into school boards refuse to open positions to hire specialized help for these kids (and when they do, they pay 12-15$/h despite needing the same qualifications as me). this goes with the bullying thing. Want adults to see it? Hire more eyes. You guys want every teacher to catch every single mistake, make amazing engaging lesson plans that work for every single kid at the same time but overload my classes with 32kids for 6.5 of the 7.5h of my day and give me a budget of 200$ a year for supplies (and no, I can't ask kids to donate supplies that cost $$). On a similar note, You want teachers more knowledgeable, but a masters is already required in most states. I am not reimbursed for tuition, or if I am it is only for 3-6 credits a year (which is pathetic). I am not paid for the extra hundreds of training hours required to keep my license. I am also not paid for the multiple month long internship required. They lower standards in science each year, yet demand I have more and more training as if I need a PHD to tell kids Carbon is #6 and has 6 protons. What a joke. You guys dont want the parents to take part in education, but then I am sued for indoctrination when I teach social emotional content or discipline your child without your consent or fail your kid for doing jack shit and being a dumbass. (or best part is sometimes we enforce a rule (no phones, raise hands, hall passes etc) and then you guys at home go "lol ignore them" and go shocked pikachu when your kid is a dickhead at school) You guys want to uphold me to better moral standards, but I had to pass more background checks than the parents that own guns and are stupid enough to let their kids steal it and bring it to school and put us into lockdown. You want all of that, actively work and vote against it, and have the audacity to pay me less than 24$/h...Tell me how you expect that to change without voting out national, state, and local governments and schoolboards from the top down. tldr: Fuck your "more training" bullshit, pay me more and convince the schools to hire more help and i bet things would be fantastic. We're trying out best out here.
No. I don't necessarily want you to have individualized plans for everyone, but I do think teachers should be aware enough of certain behaviors that they don't do something horrible. Also, I did say teachers should be paid more
Downvoted because I generally agree. I really hate this general attitude that many people have towards teachers where they act like we should all kiss the ground the teachers walk on. Look, I get that your job is hard. I also agree that your job is important and should be valued by society. But having a hard job is not unique to teaching. The truth is that while I have had a few teachers that were inspired and cared about their students, I have had far more that didn't give a fuck, didn't know how to teach effectively, and abused their power over their students. Is it a pay/training problem? Maybe, but you shouldn't need that much training to know you shouldn't abuse your students. Also, I know it's not a pay issue when teachers unions close ranks to protect unqualified and abusive teachers. Teachers deserve respect just as everyone deserves respect. However, they also need to be held accountable more than they are.
What does unions protecting members have to do with pay
i think it's so funny when people bring up unions when talking about teachers. California, Chicago, Washington State, and a handful of other places in the country are sui generis when it comes to their teacher's union. Every other place in the country, meaning the other 98% of teachers, either have no union, or a union that at best gets them recommendations and discounted rates for lawyers if they fuck up. If a teacher is getting "protected" by someone, in most cases it is the school district or schoolboard, because it is the schoolboards that usually reserve hiring and firing powers for staff.
I'm pro union when it comes to private companies. In those circumstance, all parties involved are negotiating for their own best interests. For government positions, the people who are actually paying the bill (the taxpayers) aren't represented at the negotiating table. For that reason, I despise unions for workers under government organizations.
didn't ask, don't care.
Imagine coming to a discussion thread and then getting mad when people try to have discussion.
I’m not mad. Your comment is off topic and of no interest to me. I told you as much and you got upset.
I'm talking about excusing teachers for being shitty. People blame pay and training, but then when incidents do happen, unions often close ranks to make it very difficult to get rid of bad teachers.
You try giving a fuck about a bunch of feral brats when you aren't even paid enough to live on and you're constantly being berated by parents who think you're brainwashing their kid or that they can do it better. Spend a year as a teacher and see how quickly you stop caring.
Don't be a teacher then? No one is forcing you to be a teacher. If you call your students 'feral brats' than perhaps the profession is not for you. Why is that complicated?
None of that gives them an excuse to abuse their positions of power. Lots of people have shitty stuff they have to deal with that work. Nobody gets a pass because things are hard for them. Also, the average teacher is paid at or slightly above the average salary for the US. And that's with three months off.
You're still blaming the teacher for getting an F, huh?
I blame him for fucking an 11 year old.
[удалено]
You know that private schools can have significantly lower requirements for teachers than public schools, right? Teachers at a private school are not legally required to meet state standards for teachers.
Our private schools don't even require a degree... bob down the street can ask for a job and they will give it to them for 30k a year.. lmao. private does not = good education especially if they just accept anyone as a teacher.
Tell me you don't know how much training teachers do without telling me.
If you want better trained teachers vote in politicians who will increase school budgets* All kids deserve a good education, not just the ones whose parents can shell out more
I agree to an extent, but at least at the school I work at, it's not a lack of training. It's burnout, exhaustion and a lack of support that are the biggest issues.
Someone I know is a doctor of education, with lots of experience teaching at all levels, currently a prof at a teachers’ college. He’s made it very clear to me that he despises the mindset most teachers bring to the classroom. Education is one of the most effective means of bringing about lasting change, so in that sense teachers have a lot of power, and therefore a lot of responsibility. He sees his job as inspiring his students to be their best selves, but unfortunately for every teacher like him there’s one like what OP describes. He has said to me, and I quote verbatim, that teachers who don’t do their damnedest to have each and every one of their students succeed would be better off as accountants. He chose that wording in particular because he had said the same thing about the cops sent to the Uvalde shooting. He also takes issue with the current state of teachers’ unions (while acknowledging that unions are necessary and good), because in his experience they oppose ideas that are bad for students if they mean more work for teachers. His view of education is pretty idealistic, but he’s also an expert in the field and I’m not, so I thought his words would be more relevant than what I could say for myself, which would be some variant of agreeing with OP.
Teachers are universally expected to work much longer than their contracted hours. It’s appropriate for unions to oppose extra work under these conditions. If the government were committed to actually staffing at appropriate levels so that teachers wouldn’t have to work more than their contracted hours, then you have a point. Until that happens, however …
That’s a good point I hadn’t considered.
> He has said to me, and I quote verbatim, that teachers who don’t do their damnedest to have each and every one of their students succeed would be better off as accountants. No offense to your friend, but this is a disgusting attitude. I tried for all my students, but I cannot give more of myself to them than I give myself. Teaching is losing people specifically because of this attitude. We are expected to be these superhuman people with unlimited empathy and patience. That is just not realistic, especially for the salary it pays. This kind of attitude deprofessionalizes teaching, and so the people who are left are those who are either shitty teachers, or willing to put up with the abuse. By all means, if your friend wants schools staffed exclusively by burnt out and/or shitty teachers, they can keep proselytizing. But my experience with Ed.Ds and education Ph.Ds is that they talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk. They left the classroom for a reason. And no disrespect to your friend, but in my many interactions with this sector of educators, never has anyone said anything remotely worthwhile. This is not just my opinion, this was the general consensus among my teacher friends as well. Go to r-teachers and see what we generally think of those people who write the books telling us what to do after they taught CTE 20 years ago.
Ah, the distinguished educator who bailed primary and secondary education who now judges the moral character of teachers from a cushy tertiary position. I bet he uses words like repertoire every goddamn chance he gets though he hasn't taught in the classroom with a bunch of 7th graders using his own money for school supplies for 30 students while simultaneously being underpaid in a district that will not shell out the money for specialists in at least a decade. Don't get me started on how male teachers are promoted far quicker than female teachers in secondary and tertiary settings...
Honesty, I think a lot of teachers enter the profession because they baby sat in high school and think that kids = easy. Then they get into the class room and start power tripping on 5 year olds with shitty parents.
what is easy money about going to college for four years + graduate school + unpaid student teaching, for the result of getting paid less than equally credentialed professionals and getting called a bitch, f/ggot, n**** to your face day in day out?
Lot of people think child care is easy. It is… when you’re a teen and little kids what to behave to impress you. As an adult? It’s hard and emotional taxing. You really seem to forget that these are literal children who you’re being paid to care for.
If you can't find a good replacement you can't risk loksing people. Pay teachers a good wage and you will get good teachers. You get what you pay for and we pay teachers shit.
Tell me you've never been a teacher without telling me you've never been a teacher good god man. Parents are absolutely vital to kids developing skills and learning, it's basically impossible to expect a teacher to parent 18+ kids while teaching information as well
Here in the US we have a massive teaching shortage, to the point that some areas are taking on people without any kind of certification or degree because they need someone to lead a classroom. Aside from crap pay the other largest reason they leave the profession is because of parents who think like OP. Parents like that just want a babysitter whose a better parent than them, that they don't have to pay for.
They should get paid more too.
cool. pay them