France Bans Ketchup in School Cafeterias

[Limehouse]

I had a teacher tell us that we (the US) won the Bay of Pigs Invasion. And I told her that was wrong about five different ways, and she said "well thats how it is on the test. I get paid whether you learn or not."

But she wasn't a real teacher. Here at least we have the "bored housewife teacher", which is a woman who get her teaching creds after her kids start school so she isn't in the house watching soaps all day. They don't want to teach. They want something to do until their kids get home, and they don't particularly care about the money. And they are universally terrible teachers.

Wow, Errata, it isn't like you to just write off a whole group of people based on groundless assumptions.

I graduated when my children were small. I did so because prior to that, I did not have the opportunities or the money to go to university due to deeply personal circumstances. I graduated with a First Class degree and followed that with a PGCE and other post-graduate qualifications.

I work with some of the most difficult young people you could encounter. I also work in teacher training. I have been graded by Ofsted as being 'outstanding' and to top it all, I have considerable visual and sometimes mobility difficulties due to a complex and progressive genetic disease. Both my children have grown up but I am still teaching. So, I think I am certainly an exception to your 'universally bad' example.

[Limehouse]

Limehouse:

I get the sense that either you are are teacher or have some connection with a teacher, yes?

Down here at this very moment there is a case unfolding at an inquest where a local 15 year old schoolboy drowned on a school excursion to the river in 2009 because they went swimming and the teachers - five of them - failed to make sure every student was accounted for.

I can live with teachers making some mistakes, everybody makes mistakes, but that is a teacher mistake which cost a life.

My example to Robert was just one of many I could give you, I once had a teacher who taught us that the plural of "fish" is "fishes", and plural of "mice" is "mouses". You wouldn't read about it.

Those sorts of things are not difficult to get right, you'd expect a 5 year old child to know that, never mind a University graduated and accredited teacher - which only re-affirms my belief that university is often a waste of time.

You plead for us to have some sympathy and respect for teachers - respect has to be earnt, mate.

Oh, and by the way, i've not been a teacher, but i've been a Teachers Aide - and I lasted more than an hour.

Errata:

Wow. One hopes that they teach their own children better than that! They sound similar to relief teachers, who just fill in for sick or holidaying regular teachers....

For the record, the majority of teachers are pretty good, but the bad ones tend to be REALLY bad.

Cheers,
Adam.

I never mentioned respect or sympathy in my post. I just pointed out we are not responsible for all of the ills in society.

Of course you can find examples of bad teachers. Every group in society has bad examples. As you state, the majority of teachers are pretty good and in some regions, they do a very difficult job.

[Errata]

So, I think I am certainly an exception to your 'universally bad' example.

I wouldn't consider you a bored housewife teacher at all. I would consider you a teacher, with an avocation and a calling. It isn't the deciding to teach after the kids have left that makes someone a bored housewife teacher. It's the decision to do it because they are in fact bored, and it is one of the 5 acceptable professions for a traditional married southern woman who primarily identifies herself as a mother. (The others are charitable works, interior decorator, boutique employee, and the ever popular cosmetics dealer). These women choose teaching because it fits their schedule, allowing them to be home when their children are home. And these women almost always teach in public schools and send their kids to private school. They don't care. And they are vocal about why they teach, and why they don't care. It's an issue here. And we are so short of teachers there is nothing anyone can do about them.

On the other hand, I taught sex ed for a couple of years, and if you ever want proof that the real problem with kids today is the parents and not the teachers, give that a try while living in the bible belt. I got threatened with a lawsuit almost every week. Because I taught "lies" like, oral sex can't get you pregnant, or that there is in fact no birds or bees involved in the reproductive process, or that condoms are a necessary part of any sexually active life. I actually got fired for telling kids that sex feels good, its how we evolved so that we would want to do it and therefore procreate. And half of the outraged parents were upset that I said sex feels good, as if it was some kind of secret I wasn't supposed to share, and the other half were pissed that I referenced evolution as though it were fact. It was at this point that I pretty much decided that if I needed a license to teach, they needed a license to parent.

[Adam Went]

Limehouse:

I never mentioned respect or sympathy in my post. I just pointed out we are not responsible for all of the ills in society.

Nobody said they were, and nobody lumped every single teacher across the world in same category either. But the fact is that in many cases, these teachers hold the future of our children and therefore our next generation of professionals in their hands, and we've all encountered examples that don't fill us with great hope.

As for it being a tough job....they get 4 months out of every year off, including virtually all of summer. Yeah, tough gig.

Errata:

Oh yeah, what you say is shocking, and sorry you had that done to you, but in the modern age it's certainly not surprising. Parents often have little understanding of the best way to educate their children, they want them to stay the little angels they were when they were 6 or 7 rather than teach them about the real world.

I know that in high school we had to have permission slips from our parents anytime the teachers wanted to show us an even remotely edgy film or similar. Why send your kids to school if they can't be allowed to follow the curriculum that's been approved by the educators?

The worst part is that the ones who are wrapped in cotton wool the most as youngsters are often the ones who turn out to be the biggest troublemakers in later years.

As for the shortages, it's the same in many professions these days. You know they're scraping the barrel when you visit a Doctor who searches for answers regarding your symptoms...on Google.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Limehouse]

Limehouse:

[I]As for it being a tough job....they get 4 months out of every year off, including virtually all of summer. Yeah, tough gig.

Cheers,
Adam.

4 months holiday?? I don't know where you live - but I get 29 days per year. The legal minimum for all full time workers in the UK is 28 days per year.

'Virtually the whole summer off?' No chance.

[Adam Went]

Limehouse:

Well, there's an 8 week break in the summer time, and 2 x 2 week end of term holidays at 2-3 month intervals throughout the year, plus another break around Easter time. That doesn't include other special days off, public holidays, etc etc.

Sure, sometimes teachers are required to work extra during the holidays, especially around exam time, etc, but it's not as if it's back breaking labour.

How many days of holidays do you reckon i've had off in the past year? I'll tell you.... zero. Oh to have even 29 days of paid holidays!!

Cheers,
Adam.

[Limehouse]

Limehouse:

Well, there's an 8 week break in the summer time, and 2 x 2 week end of term holidays at 2-3 month intervals throughout the year, plus another break around Easter time. That doesn't include other special days off, public holidays, etc etc.

Sure, sometimes teachers are required to work extra during the holidays, especially around exam time, etc, but it's not as if it's back breaking labour.

How many days of holidays do you reckon i've had off in the past year? I'll tell you.... zero. Oh to have even 29 days of paid holidays!!

Cheers,
Adam.

My college is open all summer. In fact, it closes only on Bank Holiday Mondays and between Christmas Eve and January 2.

As I said, I get 29 days holiday a year and I have heard just recently that this is being reduced.

Teaching may not be back breaking labour, but it's stressful and teachers are given more and more responsibility for things that parents and carers should really be taking care of.

My husband is self-employed, so he gets no paid holidays at all ever.

[Adam Went]

Limehouse:

I certainly agree with you as far as teachers being given responsibilities which should chiefly be for the parents to deal with, and then are often unfairly blamed for unruly behaviour or learning difficulties and so on and so forth.

However every job has its ups and downs and surely in the overall picture you would consider teaching a rewarding job?

Cheers,
Adam.

[Limehouse]

Yes Adam, it is indeed rewarding - and often small things are achieved that go unnoticed by the outside world but are so important to the student.

[Errata]

some of the most important things I've ever learned I got from teachers. My government teacher taught us to get involved in government, because it irritates politicians and might actually do some good. But he said that all politics are a Scooby Doo cartoon, and US citizens have to jump into the mystery machine and expose the seemingly kind and caring janitor as the monster he really is.

Gotta love any Scooby Doo metaphor for the duties of a citizen.

[Robert]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgJ5AcsXp4M

[Adam Went]

Limehouse:

Then if that's the case, the student should remember it and relay it when they are involved in professional adult careers, so that it can perhaps help eradicate the view which you seem to believe the majority of the public hold in regards to teachers.

I can only state again that the vast majority of teachers are really good at what they do - I went to what would be considered a very small rural school in comparison to most and 90% of the teachers were fine, it's just a handful of bad ones that stir the pot sometimes because the bad ones are really bad.

It's as much about gaining a rapport with your class as anything else IMO - brute force doesn't work with teenagers.

Cheers,
Adam.

[John Bennett]

For the record, I was a secondary school teacher for over 10 years. Most of the time, the teaching day went according to plan (just), but anybody who thinks that teaching is just about standing in front of a bunch of kids, keeping them on task and drip feeding knowledge to them in a way that is engaging and inspirational needs to think again (if only it were that easy). There are SOOOOOO many dynamics. Add to that the paperwork and demands of school policy, meetings, extra-curricular activities....

In that time I have taught thousands of young people from the age of 11 to 19, watched them grow up, seen them change mentally and physically -I've seen success and failure on a grand scale. I have seen students who had been previously 'written off' achieve great things - they turned themselves around by being inspired by their teachers and by a drive to change themselves. I've used every trick in the book to ensure that I can teach and they can learn, as I'm sure every other teacher has.

Then again, I have shared classrooms with students who were muggers, shoplifters and drug dealers. Some students went on to become rapists, kidnappers and on more than one occasion, murderers. I've been sworn at, attacked, threatened with stabbing and shooting and confiscated two guns in my teaching career. I've had students who carry knives.

I've had to mentor those with difficulties, even visited their homes on behalf of the school, seen how they live and had to familiarise myself with their social services case-files (which in some cases are awful enough to make one cry or throw up). I've even seen one of my students begging at Russell Square Tube station when they should have been on work experience. I've had parents crying down the phone in desperation or screaming in anger.

I've sat in exclusion tribunals, been cross-examined by a solicitor (after being attacked by a student), given evidence to the police and sat with a student in the cells because their parents were unavailable.

OK, that's enough, and I have to say I taught in a tough area and it wasn't like that every day.

But one thing is evident, is that a lot of schools have to deal with issues that begin outside the school gates. Sometimes, these can be frightening in their magnitude and intensity - sometimes it's just a petty squabble that gets silly and disrupts a lesson for 10 minutes.

Some teachers can cope with this intensity, others can't and yes, I will say that there are some teachers who are not up to the job. I got out out when the changes became so great, I realised that this vocation was not what it was when I started. Some don't.

And finally - if teachers don't need the long holidays, then you can bet your life the kids do. They are tested to the hilt, assessed and reassessed and have to know their own levels of assessment and the pressure is much more than it was in my day.

If you've ever tried to teach after two eight week terms, you'll know how frazzled these students become. We're dealing constantly with human beings and LOTS of them. Understanding that dynamic and working with it (and surviving it) makes teaching more than just an overpaid job with long holidays.

[chrisjd]

Amen to that, John!
Christian

[Ally]

And to add to that list, the idiotic parents who spout nonsense like "you guys have two months of vacation what do you have to complain about". No one ever seems to take into consideration that teaching licenses expire and almost every teacher I knew was using those summer vacations to take the courses and trainings that were required to maintain their licenses.

And those that weren't in school were getting second jobs because teaching pays like crap, and of course, you don't get paid for those two months.