I like teachers

[dinneR ★]

I was fortunate to have some great teachers.

I tip my hat to @Airehead  @roadsue and @jsharr's son and anyone else who works to educate our youth.

[Naomi]

I like my parents who were both teachers.  They had coworkers I had very low opinions of though.  Like every occupation, there are excellent examples and poor examples.   On the whole though, yep, they don't get the credit they deserve.  

[Longjohn ★]

Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.

[Indy]

Wish I could say the same, thought most of mine were idiots.

[dinneR ★]

5 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

I like my parents who were both teachers.  They had coworkers I had very low opinions of though.  Like every occupation, there are excellent examples and poor examples.   On the whole though, yep, they don't get the credit they deserve.  

So true. I had a a couple of clunkers, but most were amazing. 

I had one take me to Banff, Glacier NP, Mt St. Helens, and the OR coast all on his dime. He called it his living scholarship. 

[ChrisL]

14 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

On the whole though, yep, they don't get the credit they deserve.  

This ^^^. but I think most here know I have had mixed results with my kids teachers.  I have also had good and bad teachers in HS & College.

My best teachers where my NCO’s.  More than anything I’m a product of their leadership & coaching.

[dinneR ★]

11 minutes ago, Indy said:

Wish I could say the same, thought most of mine were idiots.

Yet you graduated with a degree. Surely, you didn't do it alone? We've all had teachers or mentors who have helped shape us.

 

[Longjohn ★]

3 minutes ago, dennis said:

Yet you graduated with a degree. Surely, you didn't do it alone? We've all had teachers or mentors who have helped shape us.

 

Some people get their degree in spite of their teachers.

[Razors Edge ★]

11 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

Some people get their degree in spite of their teachers.

Many more think they got their degree despite their teachers, too.

[Indy]

15 minutes ago, dennis said:

Yet you graduated with a degree. Surely, you didn't do it alone? We've all had teachers or mentors who have helped shape us.

 

If you can't graduate High School you might be in trouble.

Mentors, nope, would've been nice, but I was pretty much always stuck figuring it out myself.  I got labeled early on in grade school as a smart kid who didn't care, so teachers just left me alone in the back of the room and largely ignored me all through highschool.  Wasn't until late in college that I had a visiting prof that figured me out in the first week of class.  Again, labeled as one of the smart ones who generally gets it, grades just don't reflect ability (I tutored the valedictorian).  She called me into her office, asked if I knew why my grades sucked, I didn't, she did.  Told me had A.D.D. and gave me some ways to not just deal with it, but take advantage.  Went from a C to A student over night.

Had a couple other college profs that were willing to work with me, but until college, teachers didn't generally give a shit about me.  I wasn't one of the popular kids, I wasn't one of the star athletes in the couple sports that mattered, I was just another face in the crowd to push through.

 

And many times, I think teachers get to much credit and the kids not enough for achieving despite them.

[Longjohn ★]

I had an idiot student teacher for a third year algebra trig class. We butted heads the whole time she was there. I had enough credits to graduate without that class so I didn’t care if I passed. When she left the regular teacher gave me a B average for the course. 

[Indy]

4 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

I had an idiot student teacher for a third year algebra trig class. We butted heads the whole time she was there. I had enough credits to graduate without that class so I didn’t care if I passed. When she left the regular teacher gave me a B average for the course. 

I had a horrible Physics teacher, me and a some classmates used to argue with him all the time about how he kept getting it wrong.  He finally said fine, if you are so smart and think you can do better, you teach the class.  So we all took turns and did.  Apparently we did a good job since quite a few of us ended up going on to get Engineering degrees or Physics degrees.

It's amazing what can happen when someone reads a book.

[ChrisL]

11 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

Many more think they got their degree despite their teachers, too.

I can honestly say the head of my department at the University I attended  really looked out for me.  He was a Vet, knew I was one too and was working full time and taking 18 units as I couldn’t afford to stretch out college.  

He looked after me, helped me get into full classes, offered me a couch to sleep on and spoke to the librarian who often chased me off the couches when I was napping. Ine day I thought she was gonna tell me to leave but she said to me, I spoke to Dr Karber, go to the 3rd floor resource area, nobody will bug you there!

I walked the spring of 94 but had to come back for one summer class to officially graduate.  I was also an Honors grad but a school rule didn’t allow me to wear a tassel or be recognized, I would have to come back the following spring to do that.  He pulled some strings and got me a tassel and I got to go up with the Honors grads.

He had my back and really helped me my last two years.

[groupw]

For the most part, my teachers were pretty decent. Had an English instructor who automatically gave guys a grade lower than girls. She decided guys didn't express themselves in writing. To a certain degree, I would agree with her. But the writing assignments were definitely more biased to female interests. Was so glad to get the other teacher my Senior year! 

Our mathematics teacher left to become a superintendent elsewhere. The teacher hire to replace him could not communicate with us. Nice lady, but could not get the concepts to us. I was so far behind when I got to college that I had to take Calc1 twice. 

I have a number of great friends who are teachers. One thing I have noticed, though is how many teachers cannot relate to adults who aren't teachers. This is especially true with former students. I can only think of a handful of my teachers who can relate to me as an adult. 

[maddmaxx ★]

My mother was a teacher and later one of the first women principals in the state.  When she began she taught in a one room school house.  Today that school is a one car garage on someone's property.  Along the way she ran into good teachers and sometimes not so good.  On average the good far outweighed the bad.  Not all the good were exceptional or favorites of their students but they did the job and taught the kids.

Womaxx works in a high school as an office professional.  She hears every day that this teacher or that teacher is a bad teacher.  She hears it from students on the detention bench.  She hears from parents upset that their kid won't graduate because he/she has been absent for no good reason 40 days in the last school year.  She hears it from parents and their lawyers demanding retribution because their darling's cell phone was confiscated because of texting in class.

I probably have a biased view of this but if all you've ever encountered is bad teachers to a large degree you must live someplace near the bottom of the bell curve.

[Indy]

35 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

My mother was a teacher and later one of the first women principals in the state.  When she began she taught in a one room school house.  Today that school is a one car garage on someone's property.  Along the way she ran into good teachers and sometimes not so good.  On average the good far outweighed the bad.  Not all the good were exceptional or favorites of their students but they did the job and taught the kids.

Womaxx works in a high school as an office professional.  She hears every day that this teacher or that teacher is a bad teacher.  She hears it from students on the detention bench.  She hears from parents upset that their kid won't graduate because he/she has been absent for no good reason 40 days in the last school year.  She hears it from parents and their lawyers demanding retribution because their darling's cell phone was confiscated because of texting in class.

I probably have a biased view of this but if all you've ever encountered is bad teachers to a large degree you must live someplace near the bottom of the bell curve.

Nah, you've just dealt with them from a different perspective.  Being who you're mother is, you probably got some extra attention, and the office stuff, is often just one side of the story and sounds like the extreme cases on one end.

It was true when I was in school, it's true now.  Teachers have and do play favorites.  If you are a favorite, you get afforded a little extra attention, you are offered more outside the class room learning opportunities (my niece got to do a trip to Belize, she went swimming with Dolphins, everyone on the trip was either an athlete or a teachers kid).  If you are just an average kid that's more or less invisible, your experience is far different.

[dinneR ★]

Badass teachers

 

[Prophet Zacharia]

1 hour ago, Indy said:

Told me had A.D.D. and gave me some ways to not just deal with it, but take advantage. 

Sounds like my meth dealer.

[maddmaxx ★]

19 minutes ago, Indy said:

Nah, you've just dealt with them from a different perspective.  Being who you're mother is, you probably got some extra attention, and the office stuff, is often just one side of the story and sounds like the extreme cases on one end.

It was true when I was in school, it's true now.  Teachers have and do play favorites.  If you are a favorite, you get afforded a little extra attention, you are offered more outside the class room learning opportunities (my niece got to do a trip to Belize, she went swimming with Dolphins, everyone on the trip was either an athlete or a teachers kid).  If you are just an average kid that's more or less invisible, your experience is far different.

I did not go to any of her schools.  She worked in another town.  There's a problem with always believing that others are someone's favorites.  That thinking colors your assumptions.

[Road Runner]

I really liked my 5th grade teacher.  She liked me too.  She recognized that I had a minor talent in drawing and arranged for me to take private art classes.  I never had another teacher like her.  

[MickinMD ★]

I was fortunate to spend most of my teaching career in the largest public high school in Maryland, Old Mill High about midway between Baltimore and Annapolis. It is part of the 12 high schools plus feeder schools countywide system centered on Annapolis where teachers can request transfers to other schools in the system and many request Old Mill, due to being in an above-average income area and because of the large student population where recruiting kids for music, theater, sports, clubs, etc. is relatively easy.

We had some poor teachers, but in general they didn't last long.  We had teachers who had industrial experience in science and business administration, teachers who made more money as private book authors, artists, and playwrights, P/E teachers and coaches who had played on nationally ranked and two national champion college teams, and more.  Our school competed in band, University of Maryland Chemathon, and other competitions and had a huge trophy case full of awards. In addition to sports and the Chemathon, I coached the chess team to several county championships and three state top five finishes.  Many of the band, chess, chemistry, math, etc. awards were won while competing against the state's top private schools.

When the county decided to create a Gifted and Talented Magnet Program, our school was chosen for the North half of the county.

Eventually, No Child Left Behind began and schools were forced to dumb-down their programs so no one was left behind in passing academic classes and those who would have been better off learning to make good money as auto repair mechanics, carpenters, masons, hairstylists, etc. were cheated out of excellent trades while taking watered-down classes like "Elements of Geometry."  Within 8 years 90% of our 140 teachers had retired or moved on to other things.  By 2010, I looked at the school's website and recognized the names of 11 teachers I knew.  The school system eventually abandoned its Magnet Program because our replacements were not up to snuff.

[Further]

I was the worlds worst student, I'm ashamed of how I behaved in high school. That none of my teachers physically assaulted me speaks volumes for their patience. I probably would have been well served with a beating or two, but that had gone out of fashion during my grade school years, where I was well behaved. Sorta. 

[maddmaxx ★]

4 minutes ago, Further said:

I was the worlds worst student, I'm ashamed of how I behaved in high school. That none of my teachers physically assaulted me speaks volumes for their patience. I probably would have been well served with a beating or two, but that had gone out of fashion during my grade school years, where I was well behaved. Sorta. 

I was lazy.  It wasn't my teachers fault.  I was a national merit scholar finalist and went to a big name school as a physics major where the lazy caught up with me.  Probably the best decision of my life was to enlist in the Navy and learn a bit about the real world.  How you use it is much more important than what you've got.

[Further]

1 minute ago, maddmaxx said:

I was lazy.  It wasn't my teachers fault.  I was a national merit scholar finalist and went to a big name school as a physics major where the lazy caught up with me.  Probably the best decision of my life was to enlist in the Navy and learn a bit about the real world.  How you use it is much more important than what you've got.

I consider my decision to not go into the Coast Guard the biggest mistake of my life. 

[maddmaxx ★]

Just now, Further said:

I consider my decision to not go into the Coast Guard the biggest mistake of my life. 

I just didn't like the academic world.  I wanted to go to the General Motors Institute and everyone pushed for me to go to RPI or MIT.  Hated it as well as being lazy.  I got a much better education in the service as some specialities that led to me ultimately to a much more satisfying career.  Didn't pay as much, but I enjoyed the hell out of it and became pretty respected in my specialties.

[Further]

I'm still attending Wassa Matta U, but I've been tutoring for a while now  ?

[Longjohn ★]

46 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

I wanted to go to the General Motors Institute

My cousin went there. He worked for a Chevy dealership for a short time and then he opened his own. He did well with it, sold it to his parts manager when he retired. His parts manager didn't have it very long and turned it over to his son and he closed it. It's been sitting empty for a couple years now.

[Airehead]

I have interacted with hundreds of teachers. The good ones have qualities that cannot be learned at teacher school.   It is a tough job and the lousy ones lack the teacher heart. I have been blessed to know some really amazing educators and have learned tons from them.  I hope I have touched a student, their family, or a novice teacher in the same way.