<p>What we ran into frequently were teachers who had the kids grade their own work. They’d have them swap papers, then the teacher would copy the answers from the Teacher’s Edition onto the board. This would generally take the entire class time.</p>
<p>Occasionally, it could be characterized as a good learning tool, now and then. Every single day in math class, including for tests? It’s just a teacher avoiding grading anything herself. And it is costing the kids a meaningful education.</p>
<p>Yes, sewhappy, and lots of “collaborative” work, which also takes the teacher out of the equation too much, IMHO.
Some collaboration is fine- learning how to work in teams is crucial in this world and good for character development. But when it is relied on constantly, the teachers do not know who is doing the work, and certain kids get lazy/are not learning, etc. etc.</p>
<p>Anyway, a teacher would not value my feedback on this, because I am “just” a parent (with an Ivy undergrad degree, a post-grad degree, a career in sales, experience with schools in two other countries…)</p>
<p>BTW, as to “training” of teachers, my understanding is that there are two tracks: one is subject-area based, ie, you take lots of History courses, so you teach History.
Then there are the Education degrees which teach curriculum and teaching skills?
And there is Accreditation by state, right?
Private school teachers have less secondary teaching education that public school teachers, right?</p>
<p>My take is that experience is probably one of the best trainers for teachers. </p>
<p>I also wonder about the things taught in Education programs- the spiral Math curriculum was such a bust for my kids and their friends, I cannot tell you!</p>
<p>Anyway, the specific curriculum problems are a whole other thread, but my point is that parents have a different perspective from teachers, and I think it has some value: seeing things from an individual child’s perspective, seeing things across more than one child in the family with different styles, seeing teachers do things differently, seeing how classroom experiences translate in the home, … I also really want the teacher’s perspective- very useful to me as a parent!</p>
<p>I do not want the teachers to work FOR me, but for my kids, and for society, and to respectfully include my parental input in serving that common goal, so WITH me.</p>
<p>Most of us are speaking anecdotally – anti- and pro- teacher parents, anti- and pro- parent teachers. Personal stories are helpful (and I like reading them!), but I don’t know that we know that a significant number of young teachers spend classroom time talking about their boyfriends, or that a significant number of teachers plan silly field trips or group projects to get out of doing more meaningful work. Certainly we know that teachers have precious little input on curriculum. The New York Regents (no one will mind if I bash them, right?) have messed around with the high school math curriculum forever, and the teachers I know are even less pleased with the constant re-jiggering than the parents. And, at least in my district, field trips are closely related to the curriculum, and difficult to get permission/funding for. </p>
<p>Everyone would like experienced, well-trained teachers for all children. (Though apparently we’ll never agree on what “well-trained” means.) But anyway - how do we get them to start? How do we get them to stay? It’s a profession that receives little appreciation or respect in many quarters, as this thread bears out. And you can’t have experienced teachers until they’ve got … well, experience, which takes time.</p>
<p>Somewhere many pages back, Hunt suggested an ombudsman to work on resolving parent-teacher conflicts in each school. I think this is an excellent idea, but I suspect that communities would never be able to come to agreement on the qualifications for such a position – nor on whether, how much, and how to pay for it.</p>
<p>" public school teachers "work for " the parents in their school system because they are tax payers. How do yo feel about this and how much accountability is appropriate in regard to the teacher/ parent relationship. Should the parents have more say in the hiring/ firing of teachers? "</p>
<p>-Yes to everything, including public and private school teachers and all government workers, including person in White House. All of them are employees of the people. People are employers (in case of private schools, parents of kids in this school, who are still employers of all public schools. so this group has a voice in both deciisions for private school of their children and public schools that they still paying taxes for). No tax payer $$ should be spent without tax payers’s permission.</p>
<p>The curriculum is so key and I fear getting overlooked in all the focus on teacher quality.</p>
<p>I’d say a horrible teacher could still impart a reasonable classroom experience to kids given a superb curriculum. The greatest teacher can’t do much with a lousy curriculum. The motivated kid will take the curriculum and often self-teach.</p>
<p>"The curriculum " is not up to a teacher in many cases though. For example, it is absolutely impossible to teach physics in one year, teacher does not have an option to streach it to 3 years which would give him a reasonable chance of being somewhat successful at it. More so, in many other countries, physics is taught starting with 6 th grade all thu graduation from HS, Teachers in the USA certainly do not have these choices. This is just one example. There are very many of them. k -12 program is not accomplishing the goal of education at any school in USA and kids do not perform well compared internationally. Yes, teacher does have limited impact though, but it is very limited. For example, D’s physics teacher at Private HS realized that it is not possible to teach physics in one year, instead he presented only part of it - mechanics. It has helped my D. a lot in college, since she knew the most difficult part very well. but again, she had to work much harder on other parts, but there are prof’s office hours after all.</p>
<p>While I appreciate that anecdotes aren’t viewed as “facts” on here, I doubt parents simply make up these anecdotes to entertain their CC friends. Those of us in the trenches know how bad it is, and we see it getting worse. I have seen an alarming decline since my oldest entered the system 19 years ago. At least some of his teachers were the old school variety who were dedicated, smart, competent, and professional. They reminded me of some of the really superb teachers I had growing up. They have since retired. </p>
<p>There are indeed “facts” such as international test results that show that our educational system is weak compared to that of other industrialized countries, and one of the primary reasons cited is teacher quality and professional development. In the United States, unlike in countries like Singapore, the best and brightest young people don’t tend to become teachers. There have also been studies that show that the average IQ of public school teachers continues to trend downward. Plenty of parents no longer trust our public schools to educate children in math, hence the proliferation of Kumon centers.</p>
<p>I actually think that the dumbed down curriculum goes hand-in-hand with poor teacher quality. Untalented and/or unmotivated teachers would go crazy with a truly good curriculum. The lousy curricula opens the door to the wrong people teaching. There’s a synergy there – and not a good one.</p>
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<p>Sorry for kind of going off topic, but does anyone know how much control teachers have over things like textbooks, lesson plans, homework, tests, etc.? I’m thinking about possibly being a high school teacher, but I’ve heard stories about how teachers don’t have control over many of these things. I’m not sure if I’d want to deal with that.</p>
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<p>When I was trained there were requirement in place to ensure that I was well versed in my content area as well as child development, classroom methods and management, educational philosophy, philosophy of art, etc.</p>
<p>Now, many states, mine included will allow someone in the classroom if they pass the teacher exams (emphasis content) with an initial license (good for five years). When I heard this I could not believe it. I guess it is based on the idea that they want to attract more “talent” from the private sector. These might be the people mentioned who are inappropriate, disorganized and lack resourcefulness. </p>
<p>And no, teachers have very little say in curriculum choices. They do design and write their lesson plans, etc and the good ones share the successful lessons with each other.</p>
<p>** TheGFG**:
I pointed out that we were speaking anecdotally here and didn’t imply that any of these incidents - which I said I enjoyed reading - were “made up.” My anecdotes, and those of the other pro-teacher parents posting, aren’t made up either, you know. I don’t know if I can still consider myself in the trenches, but I’ve sent three children through the public school system between 1989 and 2008, and I simply don’t share your assessment of the teaching profession. I’m surprised to find so much unmitigated negativity here. </p>
<p>My school system is doing something very right, obviously. My children benefited from the talents of many excellent teachers. We worked cooperatively and I couldn’t have asked for better results. I’m not going take the fact that one brand-new teacher, hired as a last-minute replacement in a medical emergency, was completely incompetent and screwed up one of my kid’s writing skills for a few years, and extrapolate that to mean that the profession is rife with incompetence and that it’s difficult to find good teachers anywhere. She in no way represented a majority, or even a noticeable minority, of the professionals who taught my kids.</p>
<p>So whom do we blame for a lousy curriculum? In New York, the Board of Regents gets to micro-manage even home economics. Thanks to those posters here who see the difference between teachers and what they are required to teach.</p>
<p>
You don’t think that she, alone, was a noticeable minority? I don’t think many, if any, people here have said that a majority of their kids’ teachers were bad–certainly, the vast majority of my kids’ teachers were at least good, and many were excellent. But as you note, the one bad teacher can mess up your kid. You take notice of that. </p>
<p>The parents whose kids have mostly bad teachers aren’t posting here.</p>
<p>The fact that she was so completely at odds with the high quality of my kids’ other teachers made it noticeable, I suppose. But (guessing here) - my kids, between them, had more than 35 different teachers in middle school. One is not a noticeable, or perhaps I should have said significant, minority in a group of 35.</p>
<p>I must be especially sensitive to posts like #247, which, even upon re-reading, seems to suggest a majority of bad teachers.</p>
<p>I wonder if schools can do a better job matching students to certain teachers. I know my daughter did better with certain teachers than others.</p>
<p>frazzled-the NATIONAL stats for US student testing vs other nations are pretty scary.That is not an anecdote.
So, please let is know what is working so well in your school? It would be wonderful to spread the good stuff!
Thanks!!!</p>
<p>Are those test scores a comparison that is apples to apples? For example the US attempts to educate all students and they are all tested. Is that the same in every country or do they cull out students at a certain stage or in fact even leave entire groups out of the educational system? I remember years ago reading about how NJ had SAT scores lower that certain States that spent significantly less money but in reality a much higher % of NJ students were tested. In fact only the top students from the other State even took the SAT test. So a comparison was faulty at best.
Now the facts may be that our system is inferior but I like apples to apples comparison- so tell me how the data was determined.</p>
<p>Oh yeah- I can also see US parents accepting a Chinese or Korean style school and the treatment of the kids.</p>
<p>Crosslink to Race to Nowhere thread:
[watch</a> Sir Ken Robinson](<a href=“http://sirkenrobinson.com/skr/watch]watch”>http://sirkenrobinson.com/skr/watch)</p>
<p>How current paradigm of educational system is inhibiting creativity and failing</p>
<p>
There’s a lot of parental involvement in and community support for our local schools. In the past several decades, the school budget has only been voted down twice - once when it included funding for an indoor pool, and a few years ago when there was a battle over making improvements to our sadly run-down athletic facilities. But taxpayers are happy with student performance here because standardized test results are always strong, and that happiness shows at budget time for academic needs. Incidentally, the teachers in our union made concessions in last year’s contract and willingly accepted half the raise they’d been promised. There’s an atmosphere of cooperation here, at least occasionally, and mutual respect between parents and teachers is not unusual. </p>
<p>Many pages ago, I mentioned the site-based team at each school, consisting of teacher, administration, and parent participants (and students at the high school). I’ve had friends who’ve served on these teams and put in as much time and effort as a challenging part-time job requires. It’s a way for parents to have significant input on the life of each school, but it’s an elected position and it does mean a lot of the parent’s time.</p>
<p>I am not going to hold teachers solely responsible for US student performance vs. that of other nations. I share tom1944’s concerns above - I would need to know more about the assessments, testing methods and requirements for testing in those other nations.</p>
<p>I am just catching up with this thread - been concentrating on my students who are taking IB exams and end-of-course exams this week.</p>
<p>Some very interesting posts, but I do think post #247 is a generalization without specific data (some studies?) and a tad insulting. </p>
<ul>
<li>There have also been studies that show that the average IQ of public school teachers continues to trend downward.</li>
</ul>
<p>Well, I don’t think my IQ is on file with the Department of Education, but I remember my mom telling me that when it was measured 40 years ago it was quite high! ;).</p>
<p>I do know that we have had teachers from other countries come to our school to teach, and just last month, we had a team of German teachers visiting American schools for a week. With the foreign teachers I’ve met, it isn’t their American colleagues that they are shocked by - it is the American student. Several teachers have said in their country, students stand when the teacher enters, and sit when the teacher tells them to. One of the recent German visitors was just appalled at how students would talk in class when a teacher was trying to teach. But in Germany, many of our troublemakers or lower performing kids would not be continuing with high school anyway. Of course you can get better academic results with a class of obendient children, and only those who were allowed to go to high school & not trade school. I agree with Tom1944 - I don’t think we are comparing apples to apples when we compare American schools to foreign schools - and certainly not all foreign schools can be compared to each other.</p>
<p>Sure, the other countries are producing uncreative robots, yada yada… Fine, but the United States is not performing as well compared to our own country in the past. In 1980 the SAT had to be normed down 100 points (and the MENSA requirements changed accordingly). Why was that? I recently came across a fifth grade reader that had been my mother’s. The level of vocabulary in that book was what would be considered 8th grade level now. Why are we graduating kids who can’t read? Why all the recent exposes about education? The problems are not just the teacher’s fault, to be sure. However, the profession is in decline and the unions are preventing the reversal of that decline because underperformers can’t be fired.</p>
<p>I would say that of the 6 or 7 teachers of core subjects my children had each year, 2 were poor, 3-4 were passable, and 1 was very good. As for great, I’d say there were 3 or 4 in my S’s career, 1 my D1’s career (one of the same 3-4 my S had), and 1 to date in D2’s career.</p>