An alarming number of teachers in my high school all echoed the exact same line “the bell doesn’t dismiss you, I do”. Somebody must have been teaching that to new teachers because nobody ever said “Please don`t leave when you hear the bell if I’m still talking, wait for me to dismiss you.” It was alway “the bell doesn’t dismiss…”
I always hated that policy. I realized at the time that it was technically rude to stand up and leave while someone is trying to continue their class, but really they’re mistaken - the bell *should *dismiss class. That’s why they have a bell.
I went to a high school large enough to have two administration offices - one on either side of the school, to keep a principal and his assistant and the rest of the administrative staff never too far away from anyone. I figured once the interior walking distance between the two main offices was over 1/4 mile. So if you had classes far apart you could easily consume the entire 3 minutes between classes walking briskly through a heavily crowded hallway.
I still think it’s thoughtless and bad planning for a teacher to try to keep their class after the bell rings, at least in a larger school like the one I went to.
Funny thing about this issue: students always complain about not having enough time, no matter how long you give them. The school I did my student teaching at added a minute between classes the year I did my student teaching. Since tardies were tracked, and since three tardies to any one class resulted in an ISS, they were interested to see if it would make a difference. End result? No significant difference in frequency of tardies. :smack:
This last year, the school here in Indian Land in which I teach started the year off with individual teachers taking care of the chore of writing up students for habitual tardiness. The result was predictable: some teachers didn’t get around to it, some teachers did it incorrectly, students generally were ignoring the issue, etc. About five weeks in, they had the attendance secretary take care of the write-ups for habitual tardiness (four to any one class, followed by another every third tardy to the same class). After about three weeks, when the write-ups started kicking in, and students realized they really were going to get in trouble if they didn’t make it to class on time, the number of late students to class dropped dramatically. I went from averaging three or more each block each day to having no more than two or three in a week, total. :eek:
Amusing anecdote:
During my methods semester in college, which slowly works you into the same teacher’s room in which you will do your student teaching the next semester, I was required to shadow a problem student the whole day. This was to help understand the student, giving insight so that a plan of action for dealing with the student could be developed. The girl I shadowed was a nice enough student most of the time, but really acted out at times. Didn’t help that she had had one eye shot with a firecracker earlier that year, and was dealing with having gone blind in one eye, needing a prosthesis, etc. One of her issues was habitual tardiness, which my coordinating teacher was having trouble convincing her to stop. So I was interested to see what her issue was, since she of course asserted it was Not Her Fault.
Have you watched kids today walk? They do not hurry when walking. Ever. They will run if need be, but they saunter when walking. They don’t seem to understand the idea that walking can happen at more than one speed. This was true of her. So despite having one situation where she had to make it all the way across the school in her 7 minutes of passing bell time, she walked slowly. Then, of course, she stopped three times for extended chats to friends she happened to see along the way. Eventually, she made her class, late, of course, and when questioned by the teacher, said it wasn’t her fault, the hall was crowded. Which was true enough, but had nothing to do with her lack of timely progress. :rolleyes:
Anyway, the point is this: Yes, a teacher who is keeping the students significantly after the bell is being rude, and disrespectful to the other teachers (who says YOUR teaching is more important than the learning I planned for the first few minutes of my class?). But even 30 seconds of time after in most cases is not hampering a student from truly achieving their objective. If it becomes important enough to them to be on time, they will be on time.
Me? I went to one of those snooty schools for rich kids where everyone looks and acts 28 and dresses like Brooks Brothers models. We had a pretty good circle of about 6 or so friends and a few randoms who would hang out for a few weeks but then either move or just iinexplicable disappear. There was one guy who was like the richest asshole ever, another guy who was kind of a dork, this tough transfer from the poor school and three typical rich hot preppy chicks (although one was a bit bitchier than the others). Everyone kept sleeping with each other’s boyfriend/girlfriend and we always tried to pin the blame for everything on the poor kid. Come to think of it, I can’t figure out why we all hung out together for like 8 years.
Do you teach a different subject to the same group of kids each year until they graduate? (this really confuses me)
What is your student load like at any one time?
Talking to exchange students, another big difference I have noticed between UK/European schools and American schools is the degree to which the curriculum is standardized–here it varies from state to state, district to district, campus to campus, and classroom to classroom. In my case, my English curriculum is entirely up to me–I have certain skills I have to teach, but what we actually read is totally under my control–my kids have to take an AP test, but they will not be asked any specific content questions about any particular literature–it’s all “take this passage you’ve never seen and analyze it”. Math is somewhat more regulated, but it’s far from lock step–teachers write their own assessments and activities. My impression is that things are more centralized in the UK–is that true?
Really, though, in this thread I wasn’t expecting to be asked exactly what UK school experiences were like. This wans’t a thread about UK schools. I was only asking about real school basics vs. movie high school basics, not trying to compare school systems - I wanted to listen to what other people had to say about their real experiences.
If I’d wanted to start a thread comparing school systems, then I would have done it when I had a lot more time to reply in detail rather than read the posts and write short responses.
Anyway, to answer your questions: I teach English too, not maths. I do remember that comment about maths teachers; maths teachers here are general maths teachers, not specific algebra, calculus, geometry or whatever teachers. They teach everything that comes under the general heading of maths.
Generally you’d have the same maths teacher for 3-5 lessons per week up till the age of sixteen (how many lessons depends, mainly, on how long each lesson is). You’d have the same maths teacher for every maths lesson for a full year. The year after, you might have a different maths teacher or the same one again. Odds are that, in five years, you’ll have a repeat maths teacher at least once, unless your school doesn’t hold on to teachers well.
For question 2: I’d have about 20 hours of teaching time per week, but planning, assessment and paperwork (including meetings and so on) adds another 30 or so hours (more in the first couple of years). Class sizes vary a lot. The average in the schools I’ve taught in is about 28; when classes are set by ability, however, the sizes vary more - for some reason I nearly always got given the lowest set or the next lowest, and they’re usually very small - 8-12 students - but they were much more effort than the larger classes.
The curriculum is fairly highly regulated in England and Wales (I don’t know about the rest of Europe, and Scotland has a different system). No texts are compulsory at GCSE level (there were compulsory texts at SATS level - year 9/age 14 exams - but those exams have been banished now, hurrah!). However, you, the teacher, only have a limited choice of texts, except for the media coursework, where you have pretty much free reign. Within a school, you might not get completely free choice over which texts to teach; it depends on your head of department, the departmental scheme of work, how many copies of those texts they have in stock or can afford to buy, etc etc. Still, it’d be wrong to say that you have no choice at all.
There’s a lot more freedom in text choice in the first three years of secondary school, but they’re before high school age, if we’re making comparisons.
The problem is, scifisam2009, that you started this thread by saying that British schools are completely different from the American schools you see in TV and movies. When you do that, you’ve got to expect that we will want to know what British schools are like. You can’t expect to keep the subject of a thread restricted to just the questions you want answered, especially when there are closely related questions that other people want to know about.
It sounds to me like many of the differences you see between British and American schools are just ways in which schools have been changing over the past (approximately) sixty years, although they may have been changing faster in British schools. Sixty years ago it was pretty standard to have the desks set in rows. It was pretty standard for the teacher to just lecture to the class. It was pretty standard for a school to be open so that it was (theoretically) possible for outsiders to wander into it.
Teaching styles have slowly been changing over those sixty years. It’s now more common to do less lecturing and more of other teaching activities. It’s possible that this has changed faster in the U.K. than in the U.S. It’s hard to tell though, since we have only your experiences. Why should we expect your experiences to be any more typical of all British schools than ours are of all American schools? Similarly, the pattern of desks in classrooms has changed over the past sixty years. It appears that it has changed faster in British classrooms than in American ones, but again it’s hard to be sure. In the U.S., it has become more common to attempt to make sure that there is no unauthorized people wandering the halls. This has meant more locked doors on schools, more security guards, and more use of hall passes.
I’m not sure if there is any consistent difference in how classes end. Do British classes end with bells or buzzers at all? Do British teachers have problems with students trying to get out of classes fast?
When the subject of the thread changes to something different and questions are asked that aren’t on the same subject, it is a bit odd to expect me to answer those questions, and get narky (‘I’m still waiting’) if I don’t answer them within a day (actually, less than a day!)
I’m not asking about movies and TV made 60 or even forty years ago - I’m asking about current shows. If they’re out of date due to being based on the show makers’ childhoods, they won’t be 60 years out of date unless everyone on the show is ancient!
To answer your question: yes, British schools do pretty much always have bells or buzzers - I’ve taught in one school that didn’t. There are only problems with kids trying to leave before the teacher tells them to if, as I said, the kids are particularly badly behaved or the teacher’s particularly terrible.
It seems there is a general consenus emerging on this thread, which says that:
[ul]
[li]It’s rare for new kids to have to introduce themselves in front of the class[/li]
[li]It varies a fair bit about whether non-students can easily access the school and that’s become more difficult over the last few years[/li]
[li]Chalk and talk was still common when the respondents went to school (which doesn’t mean it is now, of course, but it wasn’t common when I went to school in the UK myself) [/li]
[li]Chairs in rows, like movies, were still common when the respondents went to school[/li]
[li]The ‘running out of the room as soon as the bell sounds’ stereotype really is true.[/li][/ul]
I was the unfortunate one to be tortured and tormented from 3rd grade on. When the verbal teasing didn’t work any more, it turned to physical bullying.
They didn’t have too much time between classes to do it (though they did try), nor during regular classes, so I was targeted during gym class.
Hmm, let’s see what I can remember (of those years I desperately try to forget): I was kicked, volleyballs and basketballs aimed at my face – one made contact (I wasn’t fast enough to get out of the way. A friend of mine got whomped good in the face with a volleyball, as well) and when we went to the driving range, the kids who finished their bucket of balls first, went up to the stand got another large bucket and pelted me with golf balls for the rest of the class. The teachers (there were two) thought this was hilarious and let it happen. I’m sure there was more, but I have done my utmost to block that stuff from my mind.
It didn’t matter the age group, I was equally bullied by peers, overclassmen, and underclassmen.
I saw this kind of thing all the time (and was frequently a victim of it as an freshman). I went to three different high schools (one Catholic, one public, and one private American school overseas), and it wasn’t my experience in any of them that there was any kind of code, or necessary expectation of respect between fellow seniors. This may have been a parochial or idiosyncratic phenomenon in your own school.
I got slammed into lockers in hallways as a freshman. I got books knocked out of my arms, I got physically assaulted in locker rooms. It happened to me because I was a very shrimpy kid – short and underweight, as well as a classic, four-eyed nerd. I remember one time in chem lab a couple of guys finding and subsequently playing “keep away” with the copy of The Hobbit that I’d been hiding behind my lab book. The teacher thought it was funny. There was no disapproval for bigger kids picking on smaller kids. The smaller kids were just supposed to acept it as part of life. I was occasionally encouraged tofight back, though, which I always did to the best of my ability, but with mixed results. It didn’t generally save me from getting my ass kicked, but I found if I could get one good shot to the face every time, it began to discourage their enthusiasm.
One thing I do agree with you about is that the Hollywood image of schools have specific, designated “bullies” is pretty much horseshit. The way high school bullying really works is not that there are individual bullies who seek victims, but that there are designated victims who are singled out for varying degrees of harrassment, mockery and marginalization by the majority of other students. Some of it’s mild, some severe, according to the individual temperment of the students (there’s always at least a couple of really sadistic assholes), but no one individual is usually perceived as a classic “bully.” They’re just perceived as maybe “going a little too far” with one of the designated school punching bags.
I mostly agree with Justin_Bailey. In these two respects:
> Chalk and talk was still common when the respondents went to school (which
> doesn’t mean it is now, of course, but it wasn’t common when I went to school
> in the UK myself)
>
> Chairs in rows, like movies, were still common when the respondents went to
> school
the only generalization true of the responses in this thread is that both of those things are disappearing in the U.S., just like they did in the U.K., although more slowly in the U.S. In so far as American movies still show them, it’s partly because the writers and directors of the films went to school a long time ago and partly because (as I’ve tried to explain to foreigners many times) American movies are utter lies.
Justin_Bailey quoted you in post #91. I was quoting him because I was agreeing with his point, which was that your claims in those two cases were incorrect.
