You know, I’ve been in urban education for ten years. And it has its challenges. But I would never say that one of them was that the kids have too much access to institutionalized power, or really power of any kind. If you want to find kids that know how to manipulate the system to do an end-run around the teacher, go to the suburbs.
In my, albeit limited, experience, you are correct. Although it tends to be more from the parents than from the students. If from the student, it’s because mom or dad has the student’s back. And sometimes it continues after the students have gone to college. :eek:
This thread popped up in my user CP and I wondered why, so I went back and skimmed the conversation. I’m kind of rude.
Although my background attitude towards teachers is somewhat negative as a result of labour negotiation demands , my experience with the public school teachers who have taught my children has been extremely positive, mostly because they have demonstrated a love of teaching and have had a good handle of my child’s progress.
If it wasn’t for parent-teachers night, I might have been perceived as unappreciative.
I went to German high school, so I missed a lot of the fuss about standards and whatnot… Thank god. In Germany, people respect teachers. What’s more, complaints about grades are, save for the very rare occasion that the teacher did, in fact, demand something that could not reasonably be done by the average student, directed at the student, not the teacher. Teachers can be wildly different, but damn if they don’t usually work out. Yeah, you get duds, but they usually end up leaving. You know why? Because we can tell the fucking difference. Because in a system like this, without standardization, where students and teachers are both treated as responsible for the results of education, we’re actually able to spot when a teacher is truly screwing the pooch. In the first school I went to, our physics grades in 7th grade dropped like a rock because midterm, our old professor quit and they brought in a new guy who was completely and utterly incapable of gaining the students’ respect, and completely and utterly incapable of teaching the subject matter in a reasonable way. We showed that the material he tested us on just wasn’t taught in any adequate manner, and he hit the road that year. In the other school I switched to, our 10th-grade math scores were abysmal. But do you know who people blamed? Us. Because our teacher was known to be good (and he was!), and we were a grade of drunk absentees with the combined responsibility of a kindergärtner. And because we were blamed, we got better.
Christ. The very idea of blaming a teacher because they didn’t give you full credit on an assignment you didn’t hand in. Holy shitballs. What the fuck is wrong with these people?
Sorry I missed this back in 2011 (and I only skimmed the 9-page thread), but I agree wholeheartedly with the OP.
I actually taught chemistry and physics at a military academy for 7 years. As a new teacher, I worked a phenomenal number of hours, especially the first year teaching each subject. I routinely worked 70-80 hours/week the first year, and 60-70 hours/week thereafter. I spent normal daytime working hours with students (either in the classroom or office hours or study sessions), and the remaining hours (usually at home in the evening) preparing for class, preparing exams and quizzes, and grading. In the summers, I taught summer school classes.
I was a very good teacher (I was told), and was honored as “Science Instructor of the Year” twice, and overall “Instructor of the Year” at my institution once. As a navy officer, my compensation was entirely adequate.
When I left the military, I contemplated a career in teaching. However, I was literally looking at twice the teaching load for half of my military pay. I had also hear the horror stories about how difficult it was teaching in a typical public high school (as opposed to highly motivated military academy students).
So I took my engineering degrees (B.S. and M.S.) and went into an engineering career instead. I now make about 75% more then the average teacher salary here in Connecticut (which is one of the higher-paid states for teachers), and I work far fewer hours.
Nevertheless, I do miss teaching. It was one of the most rewarding jobs I’ve ever done. I just wish the pay was higher, and like the OP, I wish that teachers were more respected.
I spent the better part of a decade teaching in the US. I never once felt hated or disrespected for it. I routinely was told I was doing something admirable and praiseworthy, as if I were some sort of volunteer. Students, parents and administrators were, IME, no more prone to assholedom than most customers and/or bosses of analogous age and maturity level. The hours were long and the pay unremarkable, but you’re a fool if you don’t know that beforehand.
YMMV.
I do think you get a lot of “Oh, my kids’ teacher? She’s great. Intelligent, dedicated, loves my kid, has taught him a ton. A real treasure. But teachers in general? Lazy, unionized, parasitical do-nothings. The key to education reform is getting rid of all those bad apples”.
As a teacher, I always feel respected. And I agree, the kid and parents and administrators aren’t worse than any other professional contacts. But education reform in this country has taken a sharp turn in recent years toward putting all the responsibility for learning on the classroom teacher, stripping them of autonomy, and responding to any counter-arguments with “you’re just lazy and making excuses to cover up your laziness”.
Ah, but I’ve gotten the attention of many an unruly class by slapping my hand on a desk and announcing “Hey! I took a pay cut just so I could be here, and so you possibly maybe might just learn something. Page 47!”