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Since we have a contingent here that wants to blame the woes of education on crappy teachers, I'm wondering what percentage of teachers are crappy teachers. I really only had two crappy teachers when I was in school but have no idea whether I'm typical or not. Most of my teachers, by far, were adequate but nothing to write home about. Not bad but not great. I think that's pretty typical for most professions.
Define "crappy?" Are teachers who are frustrated with the system and try to subvert the system crappy? Are teachers who teach to the test better teachers? Teachers who use the text X% of the time and supplement lessons with real world experience the other % closer to a 9 or closer to a 4? (Scale 1-10, with 10 being best and 1 being crappy).
Or are we talking about teachers who NEVER should have been allowed to have a license to teach?
Define "crappy?" Are teachers who are frustrated with the system and try to subvert the system crappy? Are teachers who teach to the test better teachers? Teachers who use the text X% of the time and supplement lessons with real world experience the other % closer to a 9 or closer to a 4? (Scale 1-10, with 10 being best and 1 being crappy).
Or are we talking about teachers who NEVER should have been allowed to have a license to teach?
For this exercise, everyone uses their own definition but it could be interesting to define what each of us thinks is a crappy teacher. Crappy would be inadequate. Unable to do the job. Does more harm than good. Not just below average. Below average may very well be adequate as they may be able to get the job done. Below average would be compared to everyone else and that would depend on who everyone else is and I would expect, roughly, 50% to be below average.
I've had two I'd define as crappy. One who had no idea what a gifted child looks like. In her mind a child who scored as high as I did on my IQ tests should have all the answers and no questions when I actually had all the questions and no answers. To her, my questions were proof I wasn't paying attention. After, repeated, punishments for asking questions, I quit asking. It didn't take long before the notes home read that I wasn't working up to my ability instead of not paying attention. She, single handedly, turned an A student who had been described as "an intellectual sponge", by her previous teacher, into a floundering D student in two short years (If I'd had her only one year, I would have been ok but something died that second year in her class.) I'm convinced she became a teacher becuase she hated kids. She once gave the entire class gum for having been so good for the substitute the previous day and then lined us up at the end of the day and paddled anyone who didn't have their gum because chewing gum on school grounds wasn't allowed.
The other bad teacher was just biding time until retirment and determined to see how much he could get away with. He'd come to school dressed inappropriately. Give students Passes to "Get lost". Mark us present if he saw us at any point during the day whether we showed up for his class or not. He never did anything on topic. He read the paper during class. We did things like putt putt golf into glasses for points for our grades....he was a piece of work.
With the exception of a half dozen good teachers I had, the rest just kind of blend into the woodwork as being neither good nor bad. Given I did manage to actually get an education, I'm going to hazard a guess and say they did their jobs. My experience working with teachers, now that I am one, has been that I have not met any crappy teachers. The charter school wouldn't keep them and the district I'm in is very selective WRT who they hire. Now, I did have classmates when I was getting my ed degree who shouldn't have been let in the program, however, I don't know if they actually found jobs teaching.
My definition of a bad teacher would be one who doesn't teach the material they are supposed to and/or one who tries to crush a child's spirit.
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 08-01-2011 at 02:16 PM..
I am sorry, but the 3 who voted 41% and higher are in la-la land. I want to see their PROOF of this fact. I think they are just anti-teacher, to be honest. It is like when I ask my students if they think man is basically evil or good, most say "evil". I then tell them to look at me and all of their peers in the eyes and say it again. It never fails that they recant their initial reaction.
I am sorry, but the 3 who voted 41% and higher are in la-la land. I want to see their PROOF of this fact. I think they are just anti-teacher, to be honest. It is like when I ask my students if they think man is basically evil or good, most say "evil". I then tell them to look at me and all of their peers in the eyes and say it again. It never fails that they recant their initial reaction.
Lol the teacher who must have been "crappy" for those three had to have included their statistics teacher. Even a basic understanding of distribution puts the lie to the idea that more than 41% of teachers are "crappy".
Lol the teacher who must have been "crappy" for those three had to have included their statistics teacher. Even a basic understanding of distribution puts the lie to the idea that more than 41% of teachers are "crappy".
Darn....I have to spread some rep around before I can rep you again...I think I owe you about two dozen rep points by now.
In all of my years of schooling and all of my kids' years (one in college, two in high school) I can think of 3 teachers that were "crappy" as in didn't teach us anything crappy. There were maybe a handful of teachers that weren't very good but we still learned and the rest have all been good to excellent.
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She, single handedly, turned an A student who had been described as "an intellectual sponge", by her previous teacher, into a floundering D student in two short years (If I'd had her only one year, I would have been ok but something died that second year in her class.) I'm convinced she became a teacher becuase she hated kids. She once gave the entire class gum for having been so good for the substitute the previous day and then lined us up at the end of the day and paddled anyone who didn't have their gum because chewing gum on school grounds wasn't allowed. 
