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Old 07-23-2010, 08:06 AM
 
9,803 posts, read 16,109,230 times
Reputation: 8265

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zarathu View Post
Its amazing that people cannot see that.

Right here on this forum we have numerous misbehaving disruptive troll like posters who don't want to know anything about how public and private education is structured, and who are intent on simply disrupting discussion with know-it-all attitudes wehich don't even remotely describe the teaching environment of 2010.

We have these children in the classrooms just as we have them here. But here we can use our Ignore button. In the classroom, we are expected o bring them into line and get them to listen to what is being taught. Support services spend a huge amount of time trying to deal with their "issues".

It doesn't work here with the complainers, why would it work better in a classroom environment?

Z

Since you are the one who sent me a private message calling me a troll, I assume part of your post is aimed at me.

I never said teaching in the classroom is easy.

I am speaking about teachers crying how busy they are in non school time------weekends and summer----due to their profession.


By the way, the teachers at our school must be there at 8 and leave at 4:30 ( Mon-Thursday)
Fridays they get to leave at 3:15 when school ends.

I have yet to see a teacher leave the parking lot with a car full of students heading for home .
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Old 07-23-2010, 08:43 AM
 
Location: Long Beach, California
354 posts, read 708,781 times
Reputation: 324
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zarathu View Post
Unfortunately, when you have only 22 kids, a couple of distruptors damatically increases the percentages of kids who are distrupting and it doesn't turn out to be the dream you might think it will be. If you only had two kids, and one of them was distrupting, it turns out that it is more difficult to deal with emotionally than it was when you had 33 and one of them was distrupting.

Its a strange paradox, but I've seen class sizes drop over my long career from 36 to as few as 17, and the perception of the disrupting student doesn't decrease and the teacher's ability to deal with it doesn't increase.

Z
My class sizes are supposed to be about 15 for this year, but keep in mind, I am in SPECIAL EDUCATION. The kids that I have are emotionally disturbed, for the most part. 15 of them is not going to be the same as 15 of the kids Ivorytickler might have. 22 of them is also going to be very different.
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Old 07-23-2010, 08:56 AM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,398,439 times
Reputation: 14692
Quote:
Originally Posted by mayalevi View Post
My class sizes are supposed to be about 15 for this year, but keep in mind, I am in SPECIAL EDUCATION. The kids that I have are emotionally disturbed, for the most part. 15 of them is not going to be the same as 15 of the kids Ivorytickler might have. 22 of them is also going to be very different.
I understand. I had two chemistry classes that were close to half special ed students last year. Surprisingly, they were not my problem students, for the most part. Most of them were quite eager to please. They did take a lot more coaching from me though. 22 special ed students would be a lot. I was thinkig 22 regular ed kids. Last year, I started with anywhere from 28 to 36 students in my chemistry classes and 15-25 in my physics classes. If you want to see your blood pressure go through the roof, try conducting chemistry labs with 36 students crammed into a sardine can. I am so glad to be out of that environment. I can't believe I almost signed my kids up to go to high school there. That is the one good thing about taking that job. I realized I did not want my kids in overcrowded classrooms, inadquate labs or dealing with high teacher turn over. Unfortunately, I liked the people and I liked the village feel. I really felt they connected with people on a personal level but my kids are college bound. They need a school with a real lab and they need teachers who are seasoned. While a few of their classes do have 35 students, it's not the norm and their science classes are capped at 24 students (the safe recommendation from NSTA).

I do think the charter school has it's place. It's just not the place for me and my kids. I wish I were, but I'm not that teacher who can go into an inner city environment and fire up kids to learn (many of the students in the charter I was teaching at come from the city or have left rough schools). What I bring to the table is a combination of content knowledge expertise and real world engineering experience that is more appreciated by the college bound crowd and their parents. I went into teaching hoping to make a difference in student's lives but it looks like I'm going to be the college prep teacher. That's where I seem to fit best. Might have been different if I'd gotten a job teaching math but they see a chemistry teacher when they look at me and that chemistry teacher, completely, overshadows the math teacher. At least I can teach the math my kids need for chemistry. If nothing else, my kids are better at doing science math when they leave my classroom.

Last edited by Ivorytickler; 07-23-2010 at 09:09 AM..
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Old 07-23-2010, 09:04 AM
 
Location: Long Beach, California
354 posts, read 708,781 times
Reputation: 324
Quote:
Originally Posted by marmac View Post
Since you are the one who sent me a private message calling me a troll, I assume part of your post is aimed at me.

I never said teaching in the classroom is easy.

I am speaking about teachers crying how busy they are in non school time------weekends and summer----due to their profession.


By the way, the teachers at our school must be there at 8 and leave at 4:30 ( Mon-Thursday)
Fridays they get to leave at 3:15 when school ends.

I have yet to see a teacher leave the parking lot with a car full of students heading for home .
Marmac, you spend your weekends grading papers sometimes. Also, I have been called in several times this summer, even though the school year hasn't technically started for professional development and meetings. Finally, are you kidding? Putting a whole load of someone elses kids in your car and driving off? That's just asking for trouble. Especially in my situation, on the high school level, you DO NOT put a student in your car and expect there not to be talk and implications afterward. But hey, if you want to see what might happen if you take a high school teen girl and tell her to get in your car and you'll be 'nice' and drive her home(I am assuming you are a man), then go for it.
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Old 07-23-2010, 10:50 AM
 
4,482 posts, read 9,244,582 times
Reputation: 5769
Quote:
Originally Posted by marmac View Post
When my kids were in high school, I was able to attend about 50% of my kids activities-------football, basketball, band concerts etc

My job prevented me from attending all.

I never heard of a teacher in our school district missing any of their kid's high school activities.

Yup, soooooo darn busy that they have no time for any family life-----sarc
I didn't have kids because I knew from the beginning I couldn't do both. I know that many teachers can and do, and I am amazed.

Remember that many of us are in areas different from yours. I believe you are in a small district in a rural area. Probably the teachers' kids are in the same school system. It is more difficult for those whose children attend different schools or even schools in different districts.

And it isn't just attending activities. Yes, the parent may go to the game on Friday night, but the grading and planning will still have to be done. The schedule may be flexible, but the work is always there.

Some teachers keep doing it because they need the job, but most (I hope) do it because it is an important job and they want to do it well.
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Old 07-23-2010, 05:33 PM
 
Location: Canada
3,430 posts, read 4,314,608 times
Reputation: 2186
Also when you have your own kids and you are a teacher all you basically do is discipline kids 24/7.
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Old 07-23-2010, 06:06 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,398,439 times
Reputation: 14692
Quote:
Originally Posted by lisalan View Post
Also when you have your own kids and you are a teacher all you basically do is discipline kids 24/7.
I'll toast to that...
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Old 07-23-2010, 06:35 PM
 
Location: Pittsburgh
1,142 posts, read 2,805,004 times
Reputation: 1144
I don't have an issue with teachers in general, but I do with the school districts where I live. I have three kids in school, one in elementary, and two in middle. I almost dread the kids starting school because that is when my problems start. Not with my kids, but with the teachers and school district.

One, the teachers here make 90,000 a year. Not all of them, but a large portion do. They drive very fancy cars and some spend class time bragging about their cars to the students. Not appropriate.

Two, one of my daughters teachers took off three months at the beginning of last year to go golfing. Yeah, golfing. As a result of him missing so much class time and the kids having various substitutes who didn't know the lesson well, most of the class got a bad grade for the first semester. Lovely.

Three, my kids have come home to tell me that teachers answer their cell phones during class, call people and hold long conversations, and look up lacy bras on the internet during class. One called her boyfriend all the time while she was supposed to be giving a test. Nice.

Four, teachers who decide, for some crazy reason they do not like your child. My one daughter tends to be shy and heaven forbid she gets into a classroom with a teacher who prefers only outgoing students. Not that big of a deal, but it takes a toll on my daughter's self esteem to be ignored or spoken to like she is a nobody. By the way, she is a staight A student and never gets into trouble.

These are just some examples of things we deal with in sending our kids to our school district. Good luck asking the administation to help out, they care even less than some of the teachers.

Now I understand it's a tough job. And I do think teachers deserve a good salary. But 90,000 seems excessive.

I work in social service as does my husband. We both have Master's Degrees and have several years of experience. Neither one of us come close to that kind of salary. My husband works three jobs and combined makes less than some of my kids teachers who work only one job and don't even have a Master's degree.

And I do understand the difficulty of teaching. My husband teaches at the college level part time and it's no picnic. But that is no excuse for the behavior we deal with in our school district. I'm sure a majority of teachers are very hardworking and I do appreciate the teachers in our school district who care and actually teach. I just wish the others would do the same.
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Old 07-23-2010, 06:37 PM
 
Location: Columbia, California
6,664 posts, read 30,504,538 times
Reputation: 5177
Quote:
Originally Posted by lisalan View Post
Everyone seems to think teaching is such an easy job. I am sick of hearing non-teachers whine about how you get 2 months off in the summer, tons of holidays and vacations etc....
Do you hear this alot?
Maybe you need to learn how to give some respect before you earn any respect.
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Old 07-23-2010, 06:43 PM
 
Location: Columbia, California
6,664 posts, read 30,504,538 times
Reputation: 5177
C- for spelling

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zarathu View Post
Its amazing that people cannot see that.

Right here on this forum we have numerous misbehaving disruptive troll like posters who don't want to know anything about how public and private education is structured, and who are intent on simply disrupting discussion with know-it-all attitudes wehich don't even remotely describe the teaching environment of 2010.

We have these children in the classrooms just as we have them here. But here we can use our Ignore button. In the classroom, we are expected o bring them into line and get them to listen to what is being taught. Support services spend a huge amount of time trying to deal with their "issues".

It doesn't work here with the complainers, why would it work better in a classroom environment?

Z
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