<p>I wrote in the past( a month or so ago) regards to a teacher one of my kids have who really doesn’t teach the kids a darn thing. Teacher has the advanced kids, assigns chapter work kids told to do it, no teaching of material is done. Teacher misses at least one day per week or every 10 days due to absences. Spends time on computer when should be teaching. Review for finals just started. Teacher told the kids if they are on a sport team, their first responsibility is to attend sport practice not the review sessions. Review sessions are two days a week right now thru the first week of June.
Is this right? Am I being ****ed off at this new idiocy for no reason? Tell 13-14 y/o to attend practice versus school work whatcha think the kids are gonna choose? ME thinks teacher doesn’t even WANT to be there to do this so giving the kids a pass from attending, if the kids don’t show up, doesn’t have to do the session. I am on the verge of blowing a gasket, it is costing me $$ for private review because I knew any review would not be done, but this takes the cake.</p>
<p>I would have complained a long time ago, and would have enlisted other parents to complain with me.</p>
<p>Why do you need to pay someone for help in reviewing (ie why can’t child do it on their own)? Why doesn’t your child approach the administration with this issue? When my son had a teacher issue he went to the school official and they handled his complaint well- he approached me and I said I would intervene if he was unable to get results, but they listened to the students. You should teach your child to act like an adult and take on the job of approaching the school administration himself- you can only be a middleman, repeat what you have been told. Learning how to problem solve like this is part of growing up. Hopefully your school treats students with respect, listens to their complaints and follows up with finding out both the teacher’s and other students views to substantiate any claims. If they won’t, write a letter to the principal, superintendent and school board with your complaint (knowing the school principal’s boss and school board get the message makes sure you aren’t ignored)…</p>
<p>my kid is 13 years old, not 17, a bit much for a kid to take on the “system”, yeah when 16 not 13/14 year old. Im paying because I want my kid to learn something, this class grade will be on HS transcript as an 8th grader thats why. behavior has gone on all year. It was brought up to higher chain, nothing changed, now this suggestion not to attend came out of teachers mouth.</p>
<p>My kid graduated from HS at 16, he wasn’t that much older (barely 15 perhaps) when he had the teacher he complained about. It is good practice to let any HS student take charge of their school issues, some of that would have already been taking place in middle school. He is not taking on the system, he is learning how to make the system work for him. I presumed he was in HS and used to being treated with even more autonomy than middle school kids. If your superintendent and school board find no problem with this teacher or the principal letting the teacher teach like this you may want to find out if this is usual for that HS and consider how to get a better education for your son. Don’t worry about a grade for a course taken as an 8th grader too much- some schools (eg Stanford) won’t even count freshman year in HS grades. By senior year in HS your son will likely have plenty of credentials to offset any single course grade taken in 8th grade. A final thought- students shouldn’t need after school review sessions with the teacher (AP test reviews may be an exception) and it seems reasonable to tell HS freshmen not to feel they have to give up after school activities to be successful in the class.</p>
<p>It’s possible that the teacher told the kids to not skip their sports practices because the review sessions are optional and the teacher didn’t want the kids to feel like that would get marked down if they did not attend. I can understand that logic. Secondly, what I’ve told my kids since they were little is there are good teachers and bad teachers, good bosses and bad bosses, people they will get along with and people they won’t get along with and that the kids need to make the best of every situation they are in. While you may think this is the most horrible teacher ever, the parent next door might think this teacher is a gem. My advice would be that if you are going to complain, do it in a couple weeks after the school year has ended and your child is no longer in the class. Also, what does your child think about this teacher? What would your child say if you complain and the principal stops your child and asks them for their opinion? Before you do anything stop and think about the situation from all three perspectives: teacher, principal, student as well as your opinion. You will have a much sounder argument should you decide to elevate this.</p>
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<p>That’s not a call for the teacher to make. That’s for the parent and student to decide. Not sure why you’d let this teacher dictate your child’s schedule.</p>
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<p>Two days per week, that’s pretty good! Why pay extra $$$ for outside review?</p>
<p>There are a lot of bad teachers out there. My kid has had her fair share. The only thing they have taught my kid is how to deal with incompetence…she is going to encounter it all her life. We’ve complained in the past and tried to make things better…if it ever works, it doesn’t work soon enough to make a difference for my kid. The one thing that helps is to find out who the bad teachers are for the NEXT academic year, and to try and avoid them. That helps a lot.</p>
<p>I agree with momofthreeboys</p>
<p>While there are some genuinely bad teachers, I have also found that some are great for some kids and not for others. I have a friend with 2 Ds who consistently loved the teachers my S couldn’t stand and hated the ones he loved. By high school I learned to stay out of it. I do think kids need to start learning to deal with these things themselves, but 13 is maybe young.</p>
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<p>Hmmm, look at it a different way. If the teacher is reviewing 2x per week and the reviews are not mandatory and attendance will not impact the grade, then the teacher is telling the students not ot let their obligation to the team they chose interfere. The team is a commitment and an obligation, the study sessions are optional. She was helping those kids who get all bent when they have two things scheduled at the same time to prioritize. The choice is ultimately yes, the students choice to make of course. As a parent if my child was pivotal to a particular team I’d advise to not go to the study session. If my child were failing the class and pivotal to the team, I’d tell them to go to the study sessions. If my child were a benchwarmer I’d let them choose if they are doing OK in the class. If my child were a benchwarmer and failing the class of course I’d advise the study.</p>
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<p>Of course! You’ve picked every possible combination and permutation of situations, and in the end, you advise your child based on what you know is best in your child’s particular situation.</p>
<p>That’s exactly why I originally said “That’s not a call for the teacher to make. That’s for the parent and student to decide. Not sure why you’d let this teacher dictate your child’s schedule.”</p>
<p>no not one parent would agree this teacher is a gem. I have run into that before, someone thinking a teacher was terrible, I found them wonderful. </p>
<p>Teacher does not teach anything to class AT ALL.</p>
<p>Chapter work 18 thru 27 was done on their own, no explanation of material at all. When a sub fills in, and has been absent 2 days in a row most times when absent, never leaves work for them to do, so on lab days they will sit there for 2 entire periods with nothing to do.
I have never in 14 years of kids in school multiply that by 4 kids EVER been so annoyed because of a bad teacher, never met one like this. </p>
<p>Today once again they graded the other classes work that was their lesson.
I need to vent.</p>
<p>Is there a way to switch out to another teacher or is this the only option? If it’s the only option then I think you need to keep doing what you’re doing - make sure the kid gets the knowledge of the material somehow. You can complain about the teacher, and probably should, but it’s unlikely the teacher will change and especially if it’s a public school, very unlikely the teacher will be fired or severely reprimanded. </p>
<p>I went down this whole path before and after complaining to the principal and having the principal essentially tell me (in so many words) she agreed with my assessment of the teacher, she also told me essentially that there was nothing that could be done about it. This is unfortunately the way many/most public schools operate. After it was apparent to me that nothing would be done I wrote off that class (kid still had to go though) and taught my kid that year of history myself. The kid ended up performing extremely well so in the end, it all worked out okay regardless of the frustration we had to endure.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>And I have seen so MANY times when kids interpret something that is said one way, when it was meant in another. Find out from the teacher what she meant, and you just might agree with her. It is incredible what kids can take and twist into something different - just a matter of interpretation.</p>
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<p>This is excellent preparation for college, where work will be assigned in the same way.</p>
<p>But it’s too much to ask of a 13-year-old. </p>
<p>When my daughter, at the same age, had a geometry teacher who didn’t teach the material, we used to work through the book together, trying to figure out the material and explain it to each other (I didn’t understand it any better than she did). She would also do all the sample problems in the book, and if her answers didn’t agree with the book’s answers, we would analyze the situation together and try to figure out why. This seemed appropriate at that age; it would have been too difficult for her to do it on her own. But with a partner, she could handle it.</p>
<p>Later on, students can manage this sort of thing alone, though. That same daughter is now a sophomore in college, who just completed an advanced economics course where the teacher simply flashed slides at the students, without actually teaching anything. But fortunately, the course content closely followed the textbook. My daughter was able to teach herself the material from the textbook and got an A. I think her long-ago experience with geometry helped.</p>
<p>My DDs attend one of the best public highschools around, but there are teachers just as you have described that the administration is not able to get rid of. For the most part in hs my DDs have had good teachers, but there are some that are known to be a problem. For that reason my younger DD did not do advanced Geometry this year since we knew the teacher was not good. Next year she will do advanced Algebra II since the same bad Geometry teacher teaches the regular Algebra II.</p>
<p>Older DD (hs junior) has had a terrible AP Chem teacher this year. Much of what she has learned has been from studying the AP Chem test book and asking a family friend with a PHD in Chemistry.</p>
<p>My son and his brilliant best friend insisted their AP Calc teacher taught them nothing and I believe them, but they were seniors and were able to teach themselves from the book. S got a 5 on the AP test. But Marion is right; this approach is tougher for a 13 year old. Is this how homeschoolers learn, if the parent doesn’t know the subject?</p>