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?

WhateverHappened -

Yes he should do less but his school is quite demanding. He works in a small school so you would think his work load would be less. Like I said though he loves his job, he works hard and he is never cranky when he gets home which is a bonus. I would rather him teach and come home in a great mood than him doing a different job he did not love/like and come home moody :)

You are a more patient woman than me or my husband , not that he is a woman.

:)

MammaBrussels, I don't know about other universities but you can lose 10% of your marks at the one I work at for shoddy spelling and grammar. We actually have to teach people this stuff, as a) their schools often don't bother and b) they fail to see why it is important.

My sister has an English degree and told me she didn't think she could go into teaching because she didn't know what a noun was

Are you serious? Really? An English graduate does not know what a noun is? WTF are universities up to nowadays????????????????????????????

More shocking to me is the fact that she is a graduate, but didn't have the inclination or interest to look up what a noun is. We all have things we don't know, for whatever reason. The difference between those with a university education and those without is supposed to be a stellar ability to navigate a library (or the internet), in order to find and classify knowledge whenever necessary. This should be combined with an ability to fill in any gaps for yourself.

If this was one of my students I would be giving her an earful for being so passive. I would have thrust Lynn Truss's book into her hands and told her to sort herself out (and indeed I have done this with first years many times, but I have to say we expect them to have done this by the end of the first year!)

These are some of the things I have to say repeatedly to students:

1. You don't get marks at university for working hard. You get them for working effectively. If you finish your essay in 30 minutes and it's brilliant, I will give you a first. If you take a month to write it, and it's sloppy, you'll fail. Hard work is not rewarded here, only excellence. As Winston Churchill said, "It is not enough to do your best, you have to do what's necessary".

1. If you don't know how to use an apostrophe by the time you get to university, then frankly you should be embarrassed, and find out for yourself before anyone notices. "School didn't teach it to me," is a lame excuse and only makes you look rather childlike and not ready for a university education. That applies to most issues relating to spelling and grammar.

1. Upon leaving here, you will have to get a job. For employers, having to correct all the reports, emails and letters you write is a graduate subsidy they can't afford. Unless you master the English language so that you can be relied upon to write accurately, expect to unemployed at various points in your life, at least in terms of graduate level jobs.

I'm a science teacher with a 1st from a RG university in the subject I teach, plus As in all the sciences and Maths AND Further maths at A level.

I had very poor grammar - wasn't taught it at it school.

So I taught myself. Surely that's what intelligent people do? I thought that's the point of a university education - that it teaches people how to learn things for themselves!

I am now a bit of a pedant!

Currently typing while fending off a 1 year old... she likes to bash the keys - so I apologise for any typos and brevity of text

I am interested in how well qualified people think a secondary teacher should be? And what exactly I'd a 'strong academic record'

I'm genuinely interested. O am applying to do PGCE course next year to teach Science/Physics. I have a BSc (bons) and an MSc and what 20 some years professional experience. I dropped out of school at 16 with 10 mediocre GCSEs and I have no A Levels

But, it is my understanding you have to have a degree in your subject, to do a PGCE. Therefore all teachers are well educated aren't they??

I would say that you should have a minimum of a 2:1 in a degree related to your subject and at least a B , to be honest it should be an A, in your subject at A level .

Completely agree, LWL.
If you are a teacher and you don't know something that you need to, you should learn it. That's one of the key points of having an education means to me, and that it is life-long learning.
I have never stopped using a dictionary, they just got a lot fatter.

It is also the case that if you only allowed excellence in the classroom to begin with, the structure of our education system would have to change.
Teaching isn't seen as a rewarding or prestigious career any more, so if you insisted on firsts, the classes would be gigantic as the number of teachers would be massively reduced.

cog your post dated 16.40 yesterday.
I agree teachers need to be better paid to attract better quality of people in principle. However, if you prorate their salary of 34 k and for 30 weeks of work, they are earning essentially approx. 60k right?
Another issue is that just because you landed a job they pays say 100k, does not mean you are competent in that role. Just look at all the mistakes being made in banking and trading.
My point is, I agree more money attracts more candidates and therefore due to the competition you will end up with a better calibre of people. However, perception of what teaching is has to change. Currently, every teenager wants to be a pop star or a footballer. The professional respect we used to have in society for doctors, engineers, teachers has dwindled somewhat. That needs to be gained again. Teaching assistants should not call themselves teachers for example. Nor should gas heating mechanics call themselves engineers. Only this way professions will regain that respect that is due to attaining some level of academic achievement and therefore increase standing in society and attract better calibre of people.

Hooray! Another teaching bashing thread!

elinir how exciting for you.

Oh, and great, just to prove your thesis that we're fick, I've made a grammatical error in my righteous indignation.

elinir

I don't really card for prestige but I do think that teaching is seen as a rewarding career. Apart from the odd person I get nothing but admiration and respect when people find out what I do for a living . I cannot imagine another job offering so much in the way of rewards.

Gah (Little person editing) "M" should read "BoffinMum"

I agree teachers need to be better paid to attract better quality of people in principle. However, if you prorate their salary of 34 k and for 30 weeks of work, they are earning essentially approx. 60k right?

Megabored, did you mean 40 weeks' work? That equates to a salary of 44.2k. pro rata if you assume that teachers have no paid holiday at all! If you calculate that teachers are paid for 44 weeks (40 working and 4 paid holidays) then the pro rata salary for experienced teachers is £40k.

BoffinMum I'm glad that SPaG counts at your university. I'm really disappointed that you have to teach it regularly to students. It's not assessed at A-level (at least in the subjects I examine). I find that students have real difficulty transferring their learning from other subjects. For example, they can do percentage changes perfectly in maths but can't do it in my Economics lessons!