Not All Teachers Are Heroic
One of the things we like to do to make us feel better about the fact that good teachers aren’t paid what they’re worth and they have a crappy work environment is call them heroes.
Such platitudes make us feel a lot less guilty and more than a little relieved that we don’t have to do a job that is so difficult and pays so little.
It’s a lot like how we’re grateful that there are garbage collectors to do the dirty job of picking up our trash because, let’s face it, we don’t want to have to do it.
Of course, garbage collectors make more money than teachers do.
The “good” teachers are good enough to realize when they are in a no win situation and get out of the profession pretty soon after they enter it. The ones that stay behind, well…
Here is what my son has to contend with in middle school:
- He gets C- grades in science because he doesn’t have all of his pages properly inserted in his binder. Never mind that he knows more about general relativity than I do (not really, but he’s pretty darn good. Thanks to Sean, I figure he’ll pass me up sometime next week.).
- He gets zero credit if he writes 99 words in a 100 word paragraph about the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in language arts. She actually spends all night counting the words. There had better be 100 words. Not 99. Not 101. 100 words, else you get a zero. I asked her if she actually read the content of the paragraph, she says yes but I’m left wondering if she’s telling me the truth.
- His math teacher has the following system for homework: you hand in the homework when it is due, he stamps it and hands it back. The student is supposed to put the homework in the binder (I know, binders again!), and then the teacher checks the binders several times per quarter to actually give you credit. If you lose the paper with the stamp in the meantime, no credit.
Three different teachers, three different ways my son is set up to fail. I understand the need for organization and following directions, but the above policies have nothing to do with measuring my son’s knowledge and everything to do with making the life of the teacher easier (except for the strict adherence to the 100 word thing, she has to count all those paragraphs, I’m not sure why she’s giving herself all that extra work).
Kids are notoriously bad at organizing and keeping track of things, they lose things all the time. Knowing this and setting up policies that punish them for it sets them up for failure, there is simply no need for it.
When my son spends more time counting words than thinking about what he wants to say, formulating his ideas and choosing his words well, he is not becoming a better writer or a critical thinker. All he’s doing is mindlessly following directions.
Let me add that I am not a grade nazi, if that C- was a result of his not doing the work, or knowing the material, then I would have supported it. That wasn’t the case though, all it measured was his organizational skills.
I am probably the only parent at my son’s school who doesn’t give a shit what his grades are (high school is different, they matter then). I know perfectly well that there isn’t a correlation between the grades and what my son has actually learned.
But that science class grade DID matter to my son, he’s very conscientious. He thought it was an actual measure of how good he was in science. I spent a lot of time reassuring him that he knew so much more than his teacher that he could teach that class.
These teachers are like politicians. In politics, no one good ever applies for the job because they know better, it’s why we never have any good choices for president. Smart people are smart enough not to put themselves through that abuse. In education, the teachers that remain behind are the ones that seem to lack imagination and just want to get through the day.
The small minority of ‘good’ teachers that remain in the field are heroic because they remain in a thankless job in spite of it all.
It appears the chances of my son getting one of those is exceedingly small.
Technorati Tags: education, homeschooling, homeschooling science
Hearing this sort of thing always infuriates me. This is the reason that we are getting students coming to college totally unprepared to learn. When teachers’ jobs become record keeping rather than teaching, then school becomes a waste of time and money for everyone involved. Unfortunately, when politicians or school administrators hear about this, their solution is to add more paperwork.
“When my son spends more time counting words than thinking about what he wants to say, formulating his ideas and choosing his words well, he is not becoming a better writer or a critical thinker. All he’s doing is mindlessly following directions…” somes it up completely. I had the same problem. In the end I didn’t do very well at school at all. Still went to University but had to work my way up doing a diploma, night studies while working full time etc. Now, i’m following other passions such as astronomy, philosophy, global warming etc while managing a medical health centre and can understand do all that without difficulty – far cry from school when I was taught not HOW to think but WHAT to think…something needs to change in our philosophy of education. It’s a consolation your son has you as his father.
What you have identified is an assessment issue. You are absolutely right that your son is being assessed on his work skills and not on his knowledge of science. As difficult as this is to say, it may not entirely be the teacher’s fault. If they have not been properly trained in assessment techniques, and many teachers are not, they may not even realize what they are doing. If they are not allowed to collaborate with their peers about best practices and assessments, and they probably are not, they are trying to reinvent the wheel all by themselves. This is a school that is ripe for the development of Professional Learning Communities. Encourage the school principal to investigate the ideas and concepts of Richard DuFour and check out http://www.teacherleaders.org/. If he is not interested, start suggesting it to teachers.
Hello, I was on this site to look up some new information to present to my students in terms of astronomy myths and I happened to come across a bigger myth. The one where teachers are idiots and that students know more than them. I am not exactly sure what point you were trying to make with your post. Possibly, it was that teachers do not care whether students know the material, or possibly it was that students have absolutely no need for organizational skills ie. keeping a binder , in their future. Or it could even be that it is important to teach your son that they know more than their elders. Or it could be that teachers stay in their job because they like to be thought about as heroes. or it could also be to point out that grades dont matter “until you get to high school” which is my personal favorite. All I have to say to that post is one phrase that my students taught me to use whenever I disagree with what some one is saying. WHATEVER oh and GET A LIFE!
@AstroProf: I agree completely, paperwork and administrative tasks take up a disproportionate amount of time in education. Perhaps that’s why they make the students do what they do.
It is also true that the skills a student needs to succeed in college are, for the most part, not developed because they are too busy worrying about how many words their paragraph has than its content.
@Randy: There is definitely not much in the way of training for teachers, and I agree that they would benefit from more collaboration and I will forward that on to the principal.
@CFritz: Hit a nerve, huh? I have a life, thank you, and it’s a good one, although I’m spending more and more of it educating my sons.
My point in the post was that not all teachers should be teaching and that it appears that the majority of the teachers at my son’s school are more interested in making their lives easier than teaching.
My son succeeds in school in spite of his teachers, not because of them. I realize I’m not being entirely fair, not ALL of his teachers are bad. He speaks glowingly of several of them (and I agreed after I met them), so I realize I’m being a little harsh.
Still, there’s a pattern with some of these teachers. They don’t listen when a student tries to work out an issue; they provide an alarming amount of homework that is just busy work (my son made about three posters a month on different things, lots of cutting a pasting of pictures); have become so entrenched in what they do that they become unimaginative and simply want to get through the day.
Admit it, there are some bad teachers out there. It may not be entirely their fault, they may be just trying to survive in a bad environment, but that doesn’t change the fact that the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in college are for the most part, NOT being taught.
I never said that teachers were idiots and the students know more than they do (not all of them anyway).
Another point I was trying to make is that while there are good teachers, they don’t last. They get out when they realize just how thankless the job is. The one’s the remain behind are the teachers that are comfortable with teaching standardized tests and filling out forms.
This wouldn’t be a very big problem if we had a education system designed to keep the best and brightest minds (and pay them accordingly), and a public that valued them more.
BTW: When I told my son about the post, he wanted me to know that he REALLY likes his math teacher. He tells me he is learning a lot from him, and that he (the teacher) is engaging and interested in them.
He also says that homework is only 10 percent of his grade, so it isn’t catastrophic if he loses his stamped homework. This makes more sense to me, not like last year’s science teacher who put 80 percent on the the binder checks.
I also feel the need to point out that while I have been complaining a lot lately about the quality of my kid’s education, I really do value GOOD teachers and education.
It’s because I care so much that I have little tolerance for the bad ones.
Teachers need all the help they can get, and one of the ways we can help is become more involved parents. Don’t just sit around and complain, do something about it.
All of my kids teachers know me and I’ve talked with everyone of them. It’s amazing what you pick up when you see a person face to face.
There are many good teachers at my kid’s school. There are bad ones too, and if I can’t change the system, then I’ll take responsibility for my own son’s education.
After all, I want my son to take AstroProf’s astronomy course one day. And I want him prepared.
I am appalled at this kind of grading. I’m practically just outta high school, and I never saw anything like this in middle school. However, my brother is now of high school age, and he’s getting hit for things like this in a couple of classes. It infuriates, but there’s hardly anything I can do but encourage my parents to help him out and go to bat for him, which they are hesitant to do.
It’s a sad state of affairs, but without a simple solution from a parent’s or student’s standpoint.
I am not quite sure what your point is beyond getting a better grade. Does your son enjoy science? If so, what about it? You turned the issue into a personal attack on a teacher and by doing so, you extrapolated it and assumed that all teachers in Colorado care only about the standardized test students take every year. Is that scientific? Not really. I don’t understand your frustration, keeping a science notebook equals the process scientists follow to track experiments, report changes, and devise theories, which defines the scientific method!
Because you get mad, you solve the problem by pulling your kid and others out of that class and move on to teach them astronomy. Are you serious? What curriculum are you following and what criteria did you use to make such decision? Again, is that scientific?
Finally, the lesson for your son here is: life is hard, but mom or pop will fix it for you, you just wait there and do nothing. I am sure, that given the chance, your son could have found a way to improve his organizational skills and if science is his thing, move the teacher to go far and beyond the required curriculum.
i graduated from the colorado school system in 99 and i had good teachers and bad (like everyone else). we always would put things like “mr. teacher, if you read this i will buy you a beer” and they were never noticed. we even turned in papers that other friends had written for the same class just weeks before, usually with comments like “great job” “good point” and other generic grading phrases.
I hate to break the news to you, but our system of “government education” is broken. If you thoroughly examine what is and is not being taught in all subjects, you you will find yourself teaching your son more than science. Students are being “taught tests” 3-4 months of the year in Texas as well, then a month of “recovering from the test” then, “well its too late to start anything now.”
Taking your children out of school doesn’t tell your children to give up or to quit, or to run away from problems. In fact , it teaches them the exact opposite. As a parent, their education is your responsibility and you are going to get the job done with excellence, rather than mediocrity. Homeschooling tells your child you are willing to take responsibility and that he and his education are worth whatever it takes. Government schools must, by their very nature, teach to the lowest common denominator so that “no child is left behind”. We’ll just keep them all together down there.
As for curriculum, there is so much curriculum available to parents who would avail themselves of it, it is mindboggling. Run away from textbooks, excellence is out there! Did you know that the NEA is now pushing for teachers to ALL be education majors. No more scientists as science teachers, mathematicians as math teachers, and heaven forbid we have art or music anyway.
Well, I need to go gather up supplies for our homeschool lessons tomorrow (5th, 7th, and 8th graders) and besides, I’m certain I have exceeded 100 words (but I won’t bother to count.)
Sincerely,
Mother of 3 inquisitive, thinking, questioning, respectful (mostly), well read, overachieving, proudly homeschooled, social butterflies.
Tycho Brahe: that is one of the most ridiculous things i have read recently i’m afraid to say. It is every parents right and responsibility to provide all the opportunities within their means in order to prepare their children (emphasis in children, not adult) for the future. If a teacher is failing a child in their education, sometimes you have to grasp the nettle. You don’t sit back and say ‘O well, i’m sure he’ll learn another lesson here’. The lesson in this class is astronomy, not just oranisational skills. Granted, organising work in a folder is part of it, but only one part of it, not the majority of it. Sometimes we have to take our blinkers off and realize that one size does not fit all, and that schooling isn’t a perfect institution. Neither is life, granted again. But as a parent, you have to step in when things get so bad that it begins to have a seriously negative effect on your children. This isn’t a case of “mom or pop will fix it for you”. Its about doing what’s best for your child and sometimes you have to step in, otherwise you are in danger of failing your responsibilities as a parent.