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?

okay I thought it was 30 weeks at 6 hr days

I cannot believe that any intelligent person would think this. You have got to be kidding.

I suspect lots of people think we just open a page in a text book and ask our students to answer the questions . That is exactly how I was taught at school. That dies not account for marking and reports , but I bet we all underestimate what others do.

let what i was leading to is that even though the pay is only for x number of hrs, they end up working longer. So do a lot of other professions. Ie my example of getting paid only for 40 but having to do 60 hr weeks on a regular basis.

I think there is a general problem in thus country with expecting people to do over and above their hours .

I know colleagues, desperate for their first step onto the management ladder who work for much of their holidays and weekends . This is not just the case in teaching and it is very unhealthy .

Bloody hell, how the teacher bashing threads go round in circles. For the record, I am spectacularly thick, have 346 days holiday a year, couldn't get a job in 'the real world', contribute nothing to society as I don't create wealth, only go on school trips because I fancy a little holiday myself, wake up every morning thinking of ways to upset little children, think teachers are the only people in the world who do any work and should probably be sacked.

Agree with The Big Jessie above that one of the best ways to learn about the structure of ones own language is to learn a foreign language.

WhateverHappenedToWinceyWillis - no, you are wrong. I don't know of anyone who DID NOT start at the lowest pay grade. I have a first, and am also a qualified accountant AND worked as an unqualified teacher for 2 years prior to my PGCE, yet still started at the then (5 years ago) salary of just under £20k.

I still do not earn £30K - which is what I was earning as a TRAINEE accountant...

Yes I work stupidly long hours term time, but have most of the holidays off (only do a couple of days each holiday). I do work weekends and evenings. I think it averages out as a normal professional job hours over the year - which is then therefore underpaid. And I speak as someone who has had a previous career, so knows the workplace outside of teaching.

I did my PGCE in 1997 and still don't earn £31k!

It must have changed. I was given a point for my first and a point for relevant experience. Most of the teachers I started with had a similar starting point.

If you did your PGCE in 1997 that is a similar time to me. I am sure I earned over 30k when I went through threshold.

I am not saying that we don't perhaps deserve more money. I just don't think we are on peanuts as others have said or that we are particularly hard done by.

I have an amazing quality if life as do most of my colleagues, because of my holidays and I think that does counterbalance some of the pay issues as does the pension and the fact that my job is great fun and quite secure.

But I would like to afford that motorhome, DH wants a boat and we would all love to spend the whole six weeks in the South of France so if the taxpayer wants to contribute I am happy to oblige .

Letseat, seriously why have you not gone through threshold? You should be on more, unless you have taken a significant amount if time to have children.

I haven't ever gone through threshold. I have been part time for ages and the head hates part timers, so I haven't ever asked to go through for it as, knowing him, he'd refuse!

I'm applying for threshold next year - when I will be a newly returned from maternity leave part timer...

And there's another thing - although I'll be teaching a 50% timetable, I will still have to pay for a full week of childcare, as week one I have a Tuesday off, week two I have a Thursday off, and some days I just teach periods 1 and 5 and so will not be paid for the hours in between!

I would say that's pretty unusual for most other professional jobs. Also, I will have to pay half fee childcare in the holidays to keep her place.

Having said all that - stupidly long hours, not great pay for the job, lack of respect, silly part time hours: I still love the job, but I get seriously fed up with all the teacher bashing.

Calm down, Badger. You're right - absolutely no adult could think such tosh

That is rubbish of your head . I would love to go part time but I know it would be the death of my career . Sadly I don't think it s just teaching which has that attitude.

whatever that's right. It's not only teaching that ruins careers if you go part time. Your earlier post re. Quality of life, 6
Weeks off etc answers my question. I do not 'quality' of life (if measured by time at home etc), but have he money. So I work approx 60 hr weeks, get paid a whole tonne but only have 25 days and weekends (most but not all) to spend it in. Okay, so we have in kind established that maybe teachers do get paid enough for what they do. Maybe we don't need PhDs to teach primary school but just people who are more able and interested than someone who is happy to let others and their own spelling and grammatical errors slip. (my last comment is in context to ops post, not valid when a child simply needs encouragement than lots of re lines in his/her reports). So now, how are thy going to attract a more motivated bunch?!

Sorry for typos. Trying to type with a 10month old pulling for the phone!!

Does anyone else ever stare at the word typos and then typoes and think, "those both look wrong "? I regularly do so. Could someone with l33t grammer skilz grammatically skilled help me?

Well, it's short for typographical errors, innit. So typos is correct.

Re: typos, maybe teachers could post of the howlers they see in parents' letters.

post some of the typos

Feenie has averted my not-quite-mid-life existential crisis! Of course it's flipping short for typographical... You twit, Jessie.