Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The majority of teachers are teaching because they really love children, and love teaching, ....
This isn't true. I went to college as an adult, not fresh out of high school. I went for elementary ed/hearing impaired. During one of my teaching classes, we were asked why we wanted to be a teacher. Out of about 30 in the class, only three of us were there because we truely wanted to teach children. The others all stated they were there because they would have summers off, they thought teaching was easy, lots of vacations throughout the year, etc..
Teachers SELDOM go into teaching because they love children and want to educate them. You can tell by how invested they are in their job. Not that many are anymore.
This isn't true. I went to college as an adult, not fresh out of high school. I went for elementary ed/hearing impaired. During one of my teaching classes, we were asked why we wanted to be a teacher. Out of about 30 in the class, only three of us were there because we truely wanted to teach children. The others all stated they were there because they would have summers off, they thought teaching was easy, lots of vacations throughout the year, etc..
Teachers SELDOM go into teaching because they love children and want to educate them. You can tell by how invested they are in their job. Not that many are anymore.
A lot of people take education in college because they think (falsely) that it's gonna be just fun and games with kids, then lots of vacation.
A lot of college students CONTINUE their education, graduate, and actually BECOME teachers - because they want to educate children.
From the time you enter college, til the time of your first teaching job, you learn that it's not about summer vacation. You decide before you actually -become- the teacher. And the reasons change from point A to point B.
On the other hand, a lot of teachers became teachers when I was in elementary school, to avoid the draft. Teachers were excused from having to serve in the armed forces.
I have several very close friends who are teachers and have never personally had a problem with any of my children's teachers.. I think they have an extremely difficult job with alot of challenges.
I fully support our Home School Association and help whenever possible at school...
With that said , I do have one issue and that being with the complaint that there is not enough parental support at times.
Our school does parent teacher conferences during the daytime hours. My husband has NEVER been able to attend one because the teachers will not agree to an evening one. We even received a general notice from the principal stating that they also have families,etc... Our teachers do ONE evening function, which is Back To School Night. That is it. This makes it extremely difficult on working parents.
I realize they have their own families but it is 1 or 2x a year that they would be required to be at work past 5pm... I also realize that many teachers put in many hours outside of the school with lesson planning,etc, but in today's world, there are not many jobs that allow you to just leave work at work..
I think that if some schools were more flexible with their hours and timing of their conferences, they would see more support from the teachers.
My mom has been an elementary school teacher for over 40 years. She retired this year. She always did evening conferences due to working parents. Either face to face or over the phone at home. As a matter of fact, she basically had an open door policy for parents to call her if they had questions about their child. I remember her sitting at the kitchen table at home and talking to her students parents. I have never met any body more dedicated to her job. In the 40 years she was teaching she never had major issues with any parents. She put 150 % onto her job and the result talked for itself.
We just got the sign up sheet for conferences. There are 1 or 2 in the morning before school for 3 days, starting at about 8am. There is one evening when they last until 5:30 and 2 evenings when they last until 6:30, starting right after school at 4:00. Just FYI.
Ron Clark may be a great teach but....his experience with parents should also shed some light on basic human psychology. Case in point:
[Ron Clark, 2011] "If your child said something happened in the classroom that concerns you, ask to meet with the teacher and approach the situation by saying, "I wanted to let you know something my child said took place in your class..."
Don't know about you, but my experience...teacher(s) will wonder what else the kid is saying at home, may take it out on the kid at a later date (grading, discipline), etc, etc. It is human nature to get defensive when challenged on an issue.
But the OP's position and the article miss the bigger point, we have no way to incentivize teaching to get the best and brightest to stay; school years are out of whack with what needs to be taught; poor teachers are not often given the training to get better but then are never let go either; parents want to retain "local" control and dictate what gets taught (i.e. intelligent design v evolution, actual US history, etc, etc); local, state and federal "politics" gets in the way....
This starts at the parental level and then quickly becomes apparent that it is a societal malaise impacting many regions of this country.
My mom has been an elementary school teacher for over 40 years. She retired this year. She always did evening conferences due to working parents. Either face to face or over the phone at home. As a matter of fact, she basically had an open door policy for parents to call her if they had questions about their child. I remember her sitting at the kitchen table at home and talking to her students parents. I have never met any body more dedicated to her job. In the 40 years she was teaching she never had major issues with any parents. She put 150 % onto her job and the result talked for itself.
Your mom sounds like a wonderful, dedicated teacher!
I was not implying that the teachers here are not good teachers, I have never had any issues with my children's teachers at all.
Our school DOES NOT hold evening conferences and it makes it difficult for the working parents to be able to come.
Some have said that there is plenty of time to plan for it, however, and although our conferences are around the same time every year, each teacher puts out their own schedule and you have to sign up for the conferences when that schedule comes out, which, is usually the week prior.
If I find any fault with my children's school, this is it.... There needs to be more flexibility about the hours so that more parents can participate....
I would also like to comment again about my statement or opinion being that sub teachers should not be able to be doing personal things (such as making out their xmas cards) during their class "special" times.... After talking to a very close friend who I went to college with and is now an administrator in her school district (after teaching elementary school for 21 years...) as well as another family member who is an aide in a middle school in her area, my beliefs are not that off base it seems.
YES, the full time teachers may use that time to possibly ,quickly check some personal email, that time is meant for lesson planning or whatever else may need to be done for the classroom. As for the subs, they said that if the teacher is out and it is PLANNED, they will almost always leave something for the sub to do during that time, even if it is cutting construction paper for an upcoming project in the classroom, IF IT IS NOT PLANNED, the sub is asked to report to the office in which they will be given something else to do during that time, and are sometimes asked to cover lunch room monitors or recess monitors... They are not suppose to be doing their own personal things, that is what their LUNCH BREAK is for....
My friend who is an administrator works in VA and my family member works in NJ....
Your mom sounds like a wonderful, dedicated teacher!
I would also like to comment again about my statement or opinion being that sub teachers should not be able to be doing personal things (such as making out their xmas cards) during their class "special" times.... After talking to a very close friend who I went to college with and is now an administrator in her school district (after teaching elementary school for 21 years...) as well as another family member who is an aide in a middle school in her area, my beliefs are not that off base it seems.
YES, the full time teachers may use that time to possibly ,quickly check some personal email, that time is meant for lesson planning or whatever else may need to be done for the classroom. As for the subs, they said that if the teacher is out and it is PLANNED, they will almost always leave something for the sub to do during that time, even if it is cutting construction paper for an upcoming project in the classroom, IF IT IS NOT PLANNED, the sub is asked to report to the office in which they will be given something else to do during that time, and are sometimes asked to cover lunch room monitors or recess monitors... They are not suppose to be doing their own personal things, that is what their LUNCH BREAK is for....
My friend who is an administrator works in VA and my family member works in NJ....
I
That was never true in any district I subbed in. No teachers left things for subs to do during their planning period (specials). In some schools subs were asked to report to the office, but not in most schools. And even in schools where this was the norm, the office did not always have something subs could do because subs can't handle confidential student records.
Seriously, I think you are way off base with this. It depends entirely upon the particular school and district.
That was never true in any district I subbed in. No teachers left things for subs to do during their planning period (specials). In some schools subs were asked to report to the office, but not in most schools. And even in schools where this was the norm, the office did not always have something subs could do because subs can't handle confidential student records.
Seriously, I think you are way off base with this. It depends entirely upon the particular school and district.
Okay, so it depends on the school districts,yes, obviously... There are plenty of administrative things that can be done in the schools w/out having to handle confidential items. I have volunteered enough to know that.
It is MY opinion that they should not be doing personal things unless it is their break time.
We all have our own opinions and I am not sure why MY opinion seems to be striking a nerve with people...
Ron Clark may be a great teach but....his experience with parents should also shed some light on basic human psychology. Case in point:
[Ron Clark, 2011] "If your child said something happened in the classroom that concerns you, ask to meet with the teacher and approach the situation by saying, "I wanted to let you know something my child said took place in your class..."
Don't know about you, but my experience...teacher(s) will wonder what else the kid is saying at home, may take it out on the kid at a later date (grading, discipline), etc, etc. It is human nature to get defensive when challenged on an issue.
But the OP's position and the article miss the bigger point, we have no way to incentivize teaching to get the best and brightest to stay; school years are out of whack with what needs to be taught; poor teachers are not often given the training to get better but then are never let go either; parents want to retain "local" control and dictate what gets taught (i.e. intelligent design v evolution, actual US history, etc, etc); local, state and federal "politics" gets in the way....
This starts at the parental level and then quickly becomes apparent that it is a societal malaise impacting many regions of this country.
No they don't, they KNOW that kids make things up to suit their purposes, all kids do this. There is a common saying among teachers "I will belief half of what your child tells me about what goes on at home if you belief half of what they say goes on in school".
When our oldest was in preschool he would come home and talk about what he had for lunch, who he sat by, what kids did during lunch pretty much every day...problem is, they didn't HAVE lunch in preschool. He was pretty convincing and I was worried that I didn't send in lunch money for him to the point we had to ask the teacher to make sure.
I was subbing in our kids' old school and we had a PTA meeting that evening. A bunch of the parents were complaining about how much homework the kids were assigned and how awful it was that the teachers piled on all this work....I was that "teacher" and set them straight that THEIR children spent most of the class time passing notes and chatting while the rest of the class got their work done IN class and has NO homework.
Well, I have to say . . . I attended 'Curriculum Night" at my son's high school and was really impressed with the teachers I met.
It was a long day for them and for me because it wasn't over until about 9:00 pm. You spent 10 minutes in each classroom ~ following your child's schedule. It was very enlightening and now I can picture things in my mind when he is talking about them. It was nice to meet all the different teachers and personalities.
They seemed very professional. I think this will take the place of a parent -teacher conference for me; with the exception of the one class he is not doing well in. Math. Sigh.
Anyway ~ I was impressed.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
