Do you ever think about how teachers are often portrayed as villains in cartoons/shows that are aimed at children or teenagers? In fact, it's so common of a trope that it actually catches me off guard when nice teachers show up on screen. When I first watched Degrassi: Next class, one of my first thoughts was "Damn, why are the teachers so understanding, and how do they find the time?". The teachers in that school pick up on things that most teachers wouldn't even bother to look into. Speaking of Degrassi, in Next generation there was an episode where a student reported a teacher to the principal for bullying students. That episode always stuck out to me, because looking back on my school experience I'd say most of my teachers acted like that teacher, so it actually surprised me when they got reported, since I was just sort of used to that kind of behaviour from teachers. If I were to write a good teacher, I'd probably have a difficult time since my experience with school has mainly been a negative one, so it would be hard for me to remain impartial, as I still hold resentment towards certain teachers. Sometimes I have dreams where I prove certain teachers wrong, teachers that said I'd never succeed and crushed my confidence. There are times where the hurt cynic in me laughs at how unrealistic these shows are. I remember getting my final school report, and how it said I was "optimistic, cheerful and ever enthusiastic", when I was actually heavily depressed to the point when I would break down in tears everyday in form. It changed to a different name mid paragraph, so it was clear to me what had happened. Teachers were given a list of default responses that they could pick from (sometimes I watched my drama teacher write reports, so I had seen this list before). They could also write freely if they wanted to. Chances are, my form tutor just picked a bunch of default phrases, and accidentally posted some of the report that was meant for another student (makes me wonder if mid paragraph their report changes to my name, lol). Selfish as it is, it almost hurt me seeing the report, because it just goes to show how little some teachers care. Having default responses just feels so insincere, reports don't really mean anything when people don't even proof read what they write (or rather don't, because they're just clicking options and inserting names into it). It's just the same generic statements on all the reports, (insert name here) is a hardworking, cheerful, blah blah blah *insert comments that show how happy your child is at our school here, even if it's not true* and I wish them the best in their future education. (Teacher's name goes here). I understand that teachers have a lot of students to write reports for, but I have to wonder why I even bothered reading those generic things because they just say such bland, vague, and insincere things that you just use as a reference if asked. At College, I had to show a bunch of documents I received at school when I did a generalised extra time assessment (to see if I was entitled to the extra time) and I talked to this woman and she found it funny because she read the documents, and they had made so many typos in it that it was laughable. My date of birth is incorrect on it, however the age is correct, and the gender switches depending on the paragraph. Some of it reads "she" but parts of it say "he". At least the name and age is correct (but not the date of birth weirdly enough, which says the wrong year, month and day). My happiest school memories involve me talking back to teachers, and winning debates with them, because it's so satisfying to prove that a teacher you hate is wrong. Inspection scores are just misleading, really what inspections test is how well a school can act, rather than how good a school actually is. It was always weird having horrible teachers act nice to us during inspections, it was just so jarring to see them be kind and understanding when typically we would dread lessons, but inspections gave us an easy pass because we knew that they couldn't yell, be homophobic, throw books at our heads, or insult us during inspections, so it made us feel a lot more at ease. Don't even get me started on my primary school experience, the school was left unattended by teachers regularly, which was definitely illegal, and my parents regret not reporting it to the authorities. Whoops, went on a bit of a rant there. So...what do you think makes a good teacher? What do you think of the evil teacher trope? I definitely understand it, there are plenty of teachers that made me feel miserable at school. I know that there are good teachers out there though, unlike ones that teach you the wrong damn syllabus for a whole school year, so you end up having to redo a whole year of work whilst doing the work that you have to do for the current school year. *cough* Business studies *cough*. I could rant all day about school. *sigh* One time we had an IT teacher, and she said "You'll have to excuse me, I don't know much about computers, haha"....Why are you teaching IT then?
Sorry to hear about your experiences at school, that must've really sucked. I understand that there is very real pressure on teachers but the ones that aren't that good should take into consideration that kids spend over a decade in compulsory education so they need to get teaching right. There are so many factors in teaching like where the school is, general attainment of pupils, finding the right skills mix/experience of teachers, teachers workload, stress levels etc that sadly it's highly unlikely that teachers will be consistent across the board. But one thing that sets teachers apart is whether they care or not. In my experience, the teachers that are in it for the wrong reasons won't be able to hold up when things go awry and that's where you tend to see the narrative of villains both on TV and at school. Of course it also goes both ways because there are some children's behaviour that can be challenging too and that can be really testing for teachers to deal with. When I look back, I would say I was mostly lucky because I didn't have many bad experiences. In secondary school, most of the teachers were from the 'old school' so I almost had a private school experience without the price tag. My form tutor always looked out for me and if I had any problems I could always go to her and things would be resolved. The teachers that stood out as exceptional were my English, Psychology, French, Biology and Geography teachers. They were all amazing at teaching their subjects, they had passion for their subjects and students and they went the extra mile. Classes weren't always a bed of roses but generally they were much better than the rest. My English teacher was like my best friend I got DVDs to take home when we studied Romeo and Juliet and Psycho, he would email me to check up on my progress with essays and he definitely wrote all reports himself as he did them in his unmistakable handwriting and had funny quips to boot. He could also follow his reports up at parents evenings too. I remember a time when he told the whole class that I was his favourite pupil (he really wasn't joking) and a girl told him he couldn't say that so he said if I was allowed a favourite! All the other subjects were similar too. I can't really put psychology in there because by the time I got to my A-levels, my enthusiasm for school reached peak level. I would explain concepts to others in my class all the time and help the teacher to make her lessons more understandable for everyone. Despite some children's dislike of subjects (particularly Geography and Biology), teachers put in the effort so in the end even those that didn't like it could see the passion they had and it encouraged them to try more. The teachers that didn't do particularly well were History, Maths and Child development. The history teacher couldn't be bothered. She would never remember what topic we studied from one week to the next, she was really lacklustre and the lessons descended into bullying matches on her and other kids. In Maths the teacher boasted about being in Spain and wishing she was back there. She made no attempt to simplify anything if kids didn't understand and she was hardly even there. When I went to parents evening she was sat like it was totally beneath her, waiting to go home. She knew nothing about my progress and was so disinterested. Understandably, most kids came out with rubbish grades. The show piece really was Child development. I came to the lesson because I knew I wanted to work with children in some way but I wasn't sure how yet. But I didn't know the culture and apparently, the subject was only for kids who didn't have much aspiration and only did it to pass the time. So when I came to class, she actually took a dislike to me because I wasn't like the other kids. The only thing I remember from her lessons was how she derided the same children she wanted in her class. Kids didn't like her and I'm certain she had a few disciplinaries from kids complaints. She rabbited on about her own children, touching wood and how much work she had to do. I had a long assignment to write and about 2 months before the deadline she asked if I needed help. I said yes but no help was given. I banged on doors and was so frustrated I cried for weeks. I told everyone what happened and when parents evening came, she had to justify why my grades were lower even though I got A's all along. She told my parents that I never asked for help, which she knew was a lie. She actually took me aside and told me that she didn't like my parents and the whole thing got out of hand. Fast forward a year or so later. She was using my work as an example for A-level students (I did it for my gcses) and she told them that's the level of work she expected from them. She told everyone that my work was an A. My friend told me and so I had to go back through why I didn't want to hear the story and why I thought she should have been sacked. So if teachers get it right and are there because they want to be there, then generally speaking that will rub off on students. But teachers that don't want to be there stand out because the passion and genuine gusto isn't there. They don't usually have the same good practice as other teachers do and kids can sense that as well and make their life a misery.
The first primary school I went to was fantastic and I was in the smartest group for every subject. When we moved to Ireland my education went downhill and I started to hate teachers. In secondary school I struggled a lot. My school had less than 200 students no more than 23 a class yet still I had trouble. I also hated my teachers. I would of happily punched some of them repeatedly for the torment they put me through. The only reason I didn't is because I didn't want to get expelled or arrested. I did get suspended at one point for calling a teacher a fool. This same teacher regularly told girls to stand by the dustbin " where you belong" and he made deeply inappropriate comments about him and our mothers on parent teacher night. I feel secondary school failed me. I finally made it to college and they couldn't be more helpful. I was having trouble with an essay so the professor gave me a list of points to write about. No one else got these. I still wish I could have quit school due to the teachers. When a teacher can make more than one teenage girl cry then maybe they shouldn't be teaching.
My college professors have always been amazing, but my high school and grade school teachers just plain sucked. Students remember the bad teachers more. I had such a terrible experience in high school that I assumed college would just be terrible, and I'm glad to have been proven wrong.
I have had several teachers who I have loved, but then several who were just terrible. Some of my teachers were good people and terrible teachers while some others were the opposite. I had this one chem teacher who was incredibly racist towards South Asians in our class, but everybody did really well on the exams because he was very good at instructing us in chemistry. Honestly, I'd have rather had a teacher who never taught anything but was still respectful and polite to all their students. Meanwhile, my computer science teacher is literally the most socially awkward person I've ever met, and while he's really good at comp sci, he's so bad at human interaction that many people don't learn as well as they could. At the end of the day, I have so much trouble interacting socially with my peers that I often end up hanging around my teacher's classrooms before and after school to just discuss random shit with them, so I often end up having good relationships even with teachers who other students dislike. At the end of the day, like everyone else, some teachers are suck while others are great, but I feel like it's especially terrible when a teacher is bad because of how much of an impact they have on their pupils' lives.
Canterpiece....I was a junior high and high school teacher in the U.S. for 41 years. That would be grade 6-12, 11years old to 18 years old. I loved "My Kids". I never understood people who became teachers but didn't like children. There were times when I would confront other teachers when I found that they had mistreated My Kids in any way. I was not all that popular with the other teachers but My Kids and I got along very well. When I retired My Kids gave me a retirement party and over 900 former students came...I was in tears the whole evening I loved them, they loved me. Learning is always easier when you actually enjoy what you are doing in a safe and caring environment. .....David
Yeah, I always wondered about the teachers who hate children, and just constantly complain about the fact they have to deal with children. I knew a few teachers like that, they would often joke "I used to like children, but then I became a teacher". That was one of the main things that put me off becoming a teacher. Don't think I could deal with young kids anyway, or secondary school teenagers for that matter. Almost baffles me how some people manage to be teachers, and not go crazy. Then again, I saw school as a place of chaos and hatred, a place where it wasn't exactly uncommon for members of staff to have mental breakdowns. Some people just aren't cut out to be teachers. I remember this teacher who taught year 5 who complained to the head teacher that his entire class was bullying him, and he couldn't control his class at all. Granted, I know it's not the exactly the easiest job out there. But, if you're that much of a pushover.... then maybe you shouldn't be a teacher. The school's therapist had a mental breakdown as well, yelled at me for not saying the answer she wanted for a question she asked, then started pulling at her hair and murmuring to herself...just generally making weird noises and acting strangely, then she said she'd be right back, walked out the door and power walked to the exit, and not long after I heard a car engine. Since she didn't come back that day, I can only assume she drove off and had no intention of coming back. To this day I wonder what on Earth happened in her life to get her to act like that, why did they just leave me? Surely I wasn't that bad, was I? I remember one maths teacher I had told us that she wanted to teach the A level students, and made it clear that she didn't want to be there teaching us GCSE revision. Mainly because the revision classes got a bad reputation of being hard to teach. Yeah, I didn't like that teacher much. Mainly because she liked to make fun of my mistakes in front of people. I know I'm bad at maths, you don't need to rub it in my face. Yes, I sometimes wrote the questions down wrong, but that doesn't require you to point it out to people, complain about me, and then laugh about it. I'm trying my hardest here, despite some of the possible issues I may have.
Personally, I discovered an interest for subjects that I was never interested in at school not long after I left. Sometimes horrible teachers can ruin a subject for you, to the point where you dread learning about something you once loved to learn about...it's sad really.
Exactly, and some teachers just simply don't care. My old business studies teacher told us outright that he didn't care if we passed or failed because he was retiring that year, since we were "no longer his problem". We had to redo everything he taught us, because he taught us the wrong subject material, and the faculty only discovered this in the second year. 20 or so pages per pupil had to be completely scrapped. Our entire class had to start from scratch, which wasn't great because I had to take time out of my other lessons, in order to catch up and complete the work that needed to be redone, as well as work on the current year of business studies' work. Thankfully, I just about managed to complete two years worth of work in the space of one year. In fact I managed to get a distinction, so hey at least it wasn't all bad. My other subjects suffered a little though, but I got a decent amount of GCSEs so it was OK.
I teach elementary school, and there aren't any teachers in my school who are out to ruin the lives of their students. It's hard to manage a class of 20+ unique personalities, especially when those personalities do not mix well together. Ideally, all kids would respond well to positive reinforcement and redirection, but the unfortunate reality is a lot of kids do not. I don't yell at my kids, but there are some kids I have to use my "teacher voice" with, or they will make it impossible for the rest of the kids to learn - which isn't fair to them. That being said, I love my kids. Some of them test my patience very frequently, but they are my kids, and I want to see them succeed not only academically, but socially and emotionally. I believe those two pieces are even more important than academics. There is one boy who I have made a very strong connection with this year, and he is one of my biggest challenges. At the beginning of the year, he would scream and yell over any minor frustration and throw things across the room; he didn't know how to express his emotions in a healthy and acceptable way. It's taken a lot of time and energy, but it is paying off tremendously. He rarely yells and screams anymore, and he rarely throws things. I love that boy, even if other teachers he's had in the past have told me how he got under their skin, and they couldn't stand him. He is one of the reasons I love going into work every day. Most teachers are trying their best. Most teachers, especially at the elementary level, love their jobs and their kids. We are not villains. I'm sure there are things that I don't know about my students, even significant things. And if I knew what those problems were, I would no doubt set out to help them, or find someone who can help them. I'm an advocate for the kids in my building, despite all the headaches they give me. Often times the things that concern you and give you the most problems, are the things that matter the most.
Thats interesting...surely it would make more sense for him to put just as much time into his last class and finish his career on a good note! And it's great that the extra time you had to put into redoing it paid off.
