Sorry, I haven’t figured out how to quote.
“From what I know about public schools in the US, It would be a miracle if this Math teacher is actually qualified to teach Math, much less to teach Band or Orchestra…” Lanaana quotes an article from the Chicago Trib which cites three examples of teachers teaching outside their area of certification, and from there extrapolates that “it would be a miracle” if the teacher were certified.
The reality is that the teacher most likely IS certified to teach Precalc. The teachers who get courses like Precalc aren’t the new hires. Those are the courses that everyone wants. The courses that teachers wait to get. IF somehow, the OP’s district has any non-certified teachers, I can promise you, they’re not teaching Precalc. I spent 5 years as a SAHM, and have been teaching grades 7-10 since, even though when I left my job before kids I was department chair and was teaching Calc. There’s a pecking order; that’s no newbie teacher, no uncertified teacher teaching that course.
And let’s address, for just a moment, the mytical “teacher shortage.” The reality is that it doesn’t exist in most parts of the country. Recent years have seen layoffs of thousands of certified teachers. In most parts of the county, there are hundreds of applicants for every job. (In some parts of the country, like the NYC metro area, that number is far higher.)
So there’s no need for a miracle. We can assume the teacher is certified in math.
Extra curricular activities are another matter. It can be hard finding teachers who have time to take away from extra help, from going home to make dinner or pick up their kids after daycare, or from working a second job, to do extra curricular. The OP’s math teacher was willing to do so as a favor for a friend.We have no way of knowing whether or not the teacher is dual certified, or was a math minor in college or has played in an orchestra since he was 16. We do know that the principal allowed him to give from his afterschool time to run the activity, as opposed to having it come crashing to a halt. And apparently he did know enough of the material to teach it-- at least from the limited example of what he was explaining before the OP chimed in with his claim of expertise.
Here’s how the teacher would likely see it:
- He was teaching, and was rudely interrupted mid sentence by someone who “likes to joke around in class.”
- In all likelihood, that interruption caused laughter which further interrupted what he was in the process of explaining.
- I would love to hear his version of the conversation which followed; I’m guessing it would differ significantly from that of the OP.
- After the conversation was over, in all likelihood he forgot about it. Yet he now finds that the OP has gone to the principal to complain. And has posted online the fear that the teacher would be so unprofessional as to confuse a disciplinary action with an academic one... the two are totally different parts of teaching.
The OP was disrespectful, in his comment, in his complaint to the principal, and in his choice of comments here.