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Old 01-14-2011, 02:11 PM
 
2,307 posts, read 3,820,169 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JetJockey View Post
I had an English teacher in HS who was so well organized that she didn't need to teach the class at all. She had handouts with comprehension and essay questions for every chapter of every book we read, along with worksheets for everything else. She had a set date and even time (to the minute) when things needed to be completed. There was no 'waiting', there were no late assignments accepted, EVERY SINGLE THING was scheduled. If you had a question, you had to schedule an appointment because she refused to answer during class due to 'time constraints'.

I hated that teacher. When you had to do a 3 page worksheet (with multiple essay questions) on every chapter of A Tale of Two Cities you start hating life. Basically she sat and stared at the class while we sat and did our worksheets.

two perceptions here. 1.) the teacher is on his or her game and has aligned everything they hand out to the standards / curriculum and well has made their classroom evaluation proof from that end. 2.) in an english class if you don't have debate or discussion of any kind thats sad. my father taught high school english for 30 years, 20 of those he taught AP and his classes were always 75% discussion / 25% lecture.

the teacher is actually creating more work though for themselves. as a teacher myself the number 1 thing i despise is the grading. passing out all those worksheets must keep that teacher plenty busy on the weekends. no life. haha
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Old 01-14-2011, 02:17 PM
 
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Originally Posted by TabulaRasa View Post
Depends on if he has tenure.

This is basically how a relative of mine ran his "recent U.S. history" and current events elective in his final years of teaching. Pitiful.

i had a us government and economics teacher my senior year who basically spent the first half of class going over last nights homework which were questions from the book, then spent the last half lecturing on what that nights homework would be. he always had that nights assignment up on the board before we even got in so while he lectured probably 90% of the class did the homework. no current events discussion and this was during the clinton sex scandal!!!! this guy was on his next to last year. can't imagine what the last years classes got. haha.
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Old 01-14-2011, 02:19 PM
 
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Originally Posted by jasper12 View Post
That is frustrating. My daughter's fourth grade teacher was using up all of her sick leave the year before she retired, so basically, there were subs in the classroom almost every day. It was a joke. I went to complain to the principal, and the teacher came in for the meeting, that day, at 3 pm, because she had taken the day off. Something needs to be done to change that...if you are taking more than 30 sick days, time for you to take the year off...and let someone in who can teach.

some school districts have collective bargaining agreements that allow teachers to keep their sick days forever. for instance when i student taught in Toledo Public (Toledo, OH) my co-op teacher retired the very next year a year early because he submitted his accumulated sick / personal days into the district which amounted to an entire school year. so he got his last year he needed for retirement and technically retired early. now the school did hire a long term sub for the whole year who was certified so class went on as usual i guess but still that amazed me that someone could save up all those days over a career, cash them in and retire a year earlier than expected.
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Old 01-14-2011, 02:25 PM
 
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Originally Posted by tvdxer View Post
One thing I first imagined in middle school and have been laughing at ever since:

You take a Political Science class with so-and-so. Every day, he briefly (1-3 minutes) talks to the class about some issue, sometimes not related to the subject (e.g. weather) and often becoming a personal rant. He then proceeds to dim the lights and turn on C-SPAN (or sometimes C-SPAN2) until class is out. During the hour, the teacher accesses Facebook or City-Data or leaves the room for extended periods of time. He only occasionally reprimands a student for talking or texting when they "should" be watching C-SPAN. The only thing he assigns his students is a one-page paper each day discussing what they saw on C-SPAN, for which he gives each student an "A" if they have completed it, and a final paper at the end of the semester, which is graded solely according to length (he counts the amount of pages and gives each student with 4 pages or less a "C", 5 pages a "B", 6 or more pages an "A").

Has anyone ever had a teacher like the one I described? I have had teachers and professors that I thought maybe should be a bit more prepared for class, but never to that extent! I wonder how long he'd last?

you took poly sci in middle school? damn!! haha
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Old 01-14-2011, 02:34 PM
 
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one thing you have to remember is for some teachers especially high school, the teaching component may only be 50-75% of why they're there. the guy who was our schools head football coach the last 5 years taught Math and kids use to talk about how he was only in the classroom probably half the time and when he was in the room he spent probably more than half the period talking with the football players who had him as a teacher as well. this guy like probably the other 99.9% of high school football coaches out there in this country are hired first as coaches then teachers second. its just how it is. i always see job postings across my state for coaching positions that then list what teaching positions are open within that school or district. obviously the priority is coaching first / teaching second. i've never seen it the other way around where the school lists the teaching job first then says oh by the way we need this that and the other coaching wise.

a head football coach may be perceived as a lazy teacher but, and its kinda ironic, even though they get most of their income from teaching they're job security is based on wins on the field. so IMO they're simply committing to their professional priorities.

now that doesn't mean that every single coach in america who teaches does this. i had and know some guys and girls who are amazing at both. they're committed to teaching and coaching on an equal level.

the issue though for coaches is, you'd be better be really good at one or the other or both or else you're really up poop creek. better win a ton of ball games and be a horrible teacher or if your teams get waxed you'd better be an amazing teacher.
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Old 01-14-2011, 03:34 PM
 
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Who is more influential to a young student a football coach or an English teacher? What activity will the student get excited about the most? What lesson plan or test will this student remember( a real game or a mutiple choice test)? Is the physical health of a student just as important or more important than a five paragraph essay? I think both are important, but I remember what happened on the field more than I remembered some lesson or any curriculum. While we have an English course requirement of 4 years or regular English (no electives), we have dropped the PE requirement from 4 years to 2 years ( California high school). Many students are being tested to death in subjects that may not matter. We do require 1/2 semester of Health class for freshman only.
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Old 01-14-2011, 03:57 PM
 
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I had an Algebra 2 teacher in college that would constantly make mistakes when adding and multiplying. She would copy examples of problems directly from the book onto the board when teaching us. If a student asked her to elaborate or give more examples, she began messing up since she couldn't copy it. When the equation wasn't working, students would point out the step where she went wrong. It was painful to watch.
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Old 01-14-2011, 08:06 PM
 
Location: St. Joseph Area
6,233 posts, read 9,452,750 times
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Quote:
Originally posted by slowbill
Who is more influential to a young student a football coach or an English teacher? What activity will the student get excited about the most? What lesson plan or test will this student remember( a real game or a mutiple choice test)? Is the physical health of a student just as important or more important than a five paragraph essay? I think both are important, but I remember what happened on the field more than I remembered some lesson or any curriculum. While we have an English course requirement of 4 years or regular English (no electives), we have dropped the PE requirement from 4 years to 2 years ( California high school). Many students are being tested to death in subjects that may not matter. We do require 1/2 semester of Health class for freshman only.
English, math and science--the tested subjects--are important. You go to school to learn those skills. Extra curriculars are important. They help you be well rounded, but a student's first priority has to be academics. If you can't read or do math, then you won't make it. Period.
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Old 01-14-2011, 08:20 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by slowbill View Post
Who is more influential to a young student a football coach or an English teacher? What activity will the student get excited about the most? What lesson plan or test will this student remember( a real game or a mutiple choice test)? Is the physical health of a student just as important or more important than a five paragraph essay? I think both are important, but I remember what happened on the field more than I remembered some lesson or any curriculum. While we have an English course requirement of 4 years or regular English (no electives), we have dropped the PE requirement from 4 years to 2 years ( California high school). Many students are being tested to death in subjects that may not matter. We do require 1/2 semester of Health class for freshman only.

i coach boys swimming and wrestling myself so i'm not putting down the profession by any means. and yes ask any of my former athletes and they'll recall anything from any season at the snap of a finger, but ask them about something from class and it may take them a minute. i totally get what you're saying.
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Old 01-14-2011, 08:22 PM
 
Location: Middle America
37,409 posts, read 53,273,112 times
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Originally Posted by sidrah View Post
Stinks for your daughter, but obviously the teacher was there long enough to earn those days. WHy should she lose them? What is to say they should let someone in who can teach thereby implying she cannot teach??
In the district I grew up in, you don't lose unused PTO days when you retire, you cash them in and can retire that much earlier. If you quit, you just lose them.

The worst instances of lazy teaching I see are when the teachers have been around a decade-plus and don't EVER update their curriculum/materials/assignments...they just trot the same tired-ass stuff out of their file cabinet every year and make some copies. This is especially evident in small town districts where multiple members of families (and even generations of families) may have the same teacher. If my cousin who is four years older than me was getting assignment X from Ms. Z who teaches fourth grade, and I get it when I go through her class, my brothers two years younger than me get it when they have her, and our younger sister gets the same one seven years later, something is wrong. Even if you did a thorough job on designing your units ten years ago, it's been ten years...do you honestly think you're doing your job by never updating anything? They want to do it once and then just sit on it...they call actual dynamic teaching "reinventing the wheel."
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