To expect teachers to be clever?

[CJ2010]

I was visiting a friend, who has a 12 year old DC and she was telling me how unhappy she was about the school and her DC's education, or lack of. She showed me her child's workbook that contained comments from the teacher. My friend is getting really concerned because her DC's spelling and grammar mistakes are not being picked up by the teacher. She then told me to have a read through and to take a close look at the teachers comments, I did, and they were littered with spelling errors and poor grammar.

It got me thinking. I know a couple of teachers; we all went to school together and are still mates now. One is a primary school teacher, the other secondary. Both teachers only managed to get a Grade C for Maths at GCSE. One of them also got a few Grade D's in other subjects (not English or Science). IMO, GCSE's are a basic qualification and being taught up to GCSE level only really gives a broad, general knowledge of a subject. If they are only coming out as average / or below at this level, regardless of subject, are they really qualified to educate the next generation? They are not very clever are they?

I fear, that this this average educational ability amongst techers is quite common and wide spread. My DC's have yet to start school, but it is worrying for the future. AIBU?

I am still cautious about saying standards have dropped, given that we expect so much more these days. But I agree there are obvious problems and use of technology certainly contributes to that.

Something I think is a really strange issue is the way that some very well-respected professionals (like doctors) get to use technology a lot - so many doctors have for years been recording their notes on voice recorders of one kind or another, not writing them down. At the same time, jobs where even ten or twenty years ago you could get by without written records, are now changing and requiring higher and higher standards of literacy. And we are not fully equipped for that, and - as a society - we haven't worked out why or how we need these changes to happen.

I think teachers have a very hard job in the middle of all of this and I'm impressed anyone is willing to take on the job of teaching.

Sorry, that wasn't very clear, ariel, that was mostly me agreeing with you with a few reservations! I really need to learn to write clear English ...

Don't know if it's already been said, but maybe all the intelligent teachers have left the profession for one with higher status, higher pay, and better benefits and hours?

Not all teachers have great spelling and grammar. This is because you can gain enough A'levels to get onto a teaching degree without spelling perfectly or having perfect grammar.

DS1 is very good at spelling. He is very good at grammar. He is very good at explaining things to people clearly. I very much hope he never goes into teaching under 16's because he just can't read social clues very well.

To be a good teacher you need to be good at a vast array of things. You need to have a good grasp of basic maths and English. You need masses of patience. You need to have a sense of humor. You need a thick skin ( at some point a 7 yo will tell you your bum is much bugger than it used to be, and you have lots of lines next to your eyes . You need to be enthusiastic at all times. You need to be explain things clearly. You need to be able to encourage timid children whilst calming down boisterous ones. You need to know exactly how to chat to a tearful dad and son who has just been with the family dog as it was put to sleep and two seconds later congratulate a mother with her new born baby, and explain why her child is star of the week. You have to make sure you are assessing each child appropriately, and are keeping management happy at all times. You have to make sure your classroom is a stimulating environment, and that you have planned appropriately to ensure each child makes appropriate progress.

No, I am not a teacher, and neither would I be for £30K a year.

If a teacher has poor spelling, but can handle the rest, then I can over look it.

But I will be very about their education. I sometimes wonder how certain people managed to get into teaching at all.

What does really amaze me, though, is teachers lack of understanding of dylsexia, Aspergers, ADHD, etc.

Why, why, why are these subjects not covered in their training???

We were taught that dyslexia wasn't even proven - in 1990. In an afternoon, during a 4 year English Lit/Primary Ed course.

Teaching reading wasn't many more afternoons than that either!

It's not proven. It is a theory.

Like science in general.

Oh, yes, I now teacher who had been teacher for some years, then was moved to reception, who confessed to me "I don't even know how to teach reading, no one's ever told me how to do it, it's not something we were really taught."

She seems to have managed to teach 30 children to read, though.

I agree Lynette. Vast areas are missed out in training. The most important of these, in my opinion, is discipline and behaviour management. When I was training, those things were mentioned in passing as though something a good student would just "get" automatically and instinctively. No methods were actually taught to us at all possibly because the people doing our training were mainly former teachers who couldn't hack it in the real world. I believe this is why so many NQTs fall by the wayside.

However that is another thread for another day....

Hahaha at Dylsexia isn't proven. We are sooo nowhere near understanding why some people who otherwise appear to be reasonably intelligent find it difficult to read and write. I see my DC's teachers virtually wading through a fog as they try to find out how best to educate them. The reasons are complex, different with each individual, and until primary school teachers know how to recognise and help children with such difficulties these children will continue to be failed.

I now a teacher? Classic. I think I might know one!

I meant to add another sentence to my last post; I don't blame teacher's for their lack on knowledge, I blame the course they followed, and whoever thought it covered all aspects of teaching.

I agree, ariel.

I think it is a real problem that it seems to be assumed that people who want to teach will be naturals at discipline - they're not! It takes training, just like any other skill.

It isn't really a separate thread, because how can you be clever in front of a class if you've not been taught how to keep them quiet? A lot of 'clever' teaching requires really skillful crowd control, surely?

YANBU to think that teachers should have a reasonably good grasp on English and Maths. That should be essential. Although I would allow for some typos and the odd slip up from working late/rushing - but they should be one offs.

However I have to admit that I only have grade C in English and B in Maths. But this was years ago now and I actually do have a good grasp of English, better than the C would suggest. Infact my English, esp my spelling and grammar is better than a few younger teachers I now know with higher GCSE grades than I have. I

FFSIvehadenoughofthisnow - why did you bite your lip and not saying anything? I was a teacher and now work as a TA, but I would never keep quiet if something was being taught wrong. I have corrected spellings on a whiteboard (can be easy to make a mistake when writing on a board I find) or clarifying facts and my class teacher is fantastic about this - uses it as a learning exercise with the children of checking spelling, reading it back, and looking things up if not sure. It isn't rude to do so so long as it is done in an appropriayte way.

Serene't you trained in a school Ariel? I am a mentor for trainees, and classroom management is high on our weekly agenda!

Oh - and no, we don't always correct every error in a child's work. It very much depends on the child's abilities and the attainment focus for that lesson.

In my experience behaviour management is up to the placement schools to teach - it's not something that can easily be taught by theory alone. I am a mentor for student teachers, and it is an area which we discuss with our student teachers weekly, daily, and lesson by lesson.

We joke in our department that all of us are somewhere on the autistic spectrum! We are all very intelligent, and we are an extremely well qualified bunch of teachers. Some of us lack emotional intelligence however....

... Having said that, we have some colleagues in other departments where the spelling and grammar that I see in whole school emails could be greatly improved. I wince occasionally - but one of the worst offenders is one of the most inspiring maths teachers I have ever had the privilege to see teach.

... another is an English teacher though - so there YANBU..... BUT- this is just one school - we are a mixed bunch, and you can't tar all with the same brush.

Unfortunately some of the best are leaving the profession to do other things - year by year more leave. It is too much stress, too many hours term time, then a big crash in the holidays. Not to mention the lack of status and now even the pension is being eroded.

You pay peanuts: you get monkeys.

Yes, that's fine for secondary students who spend the majority of their course actually in school On our course we had once placement of five weeks and another of six weeks. The rest of the time was spent in college. It needs to be part of the taught course.

I'm not saying I couldn't control a class, but sometimes I struggled and found it hard. It was not instinctive. It was not easy and nor did it "just come with experience". It needed to be worked at relentlessly. And it seems to be very much a pride thing - experienced teachers never, ever want to admit that they find it difficult too. This was the one of the reasons I left teaching after five years - I couldn't be bothered to act as a referee on a daily basis.

Has anybody ever heard of Roll Play. This was a large label on a box in reception. Ok maybe T.A or could be teacher, but it was the teachers job to manage the classroom.

Roll Play sounds like lots of fun.

Is it a bit like soft play?

Roll play - I haven't done a forward roll in YEARS! Never got the hang of backward rolls - always went sideways... :(

My ds's school have Book's and a competition to design a Quite corner. Roald Dahl has apparently past away. Staff signs/displays. And those are just the latest.

What gets me is that any one of about 20 people in my one form entry school would spot that, even if they had to get there a split second before I did. And it would be sorted out instantly (hardly ever happens anyway though).

I speak as someone who resorted to darkness, a balaclava and a black marker to add 4 capital letters and an apostrophe to a recent PTA summer fair poster.

Okay, not really. But I did change it quietly. (Quitely? See, I can laugh about it now. Almost.)

I think about this quite often and wish secondary teaching attracted more clever, well educated people. I think it's a real problem in raising standards in my school. I teach secondary school students and have several (very competent at teaching younger students) colleagues who really struggle to teach the Alevel syllabus effectively because they don't really understand it and/or don't have a good enough language skills to teach good essay technique. But then when kids ask me about my exam results and degree they always go "but Miiiss, why are you a teacher then? Why don't you do something good?" and I suppose that's the attitude of a lot of people.

Of course, being clever isn't enough; you have to have emotional intelligence and good organisational skills and a bladder that will cope from 8:30-3:30 and all sorts of other things...