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?

'how to learn' is a skill teachers need to impart to children

LRD - if "dyslexics" are cured as adults, that is because they were not actually dyslexic in the first place. There has been significant misdiagnosis of dyslexia in the past few decades in the UK.

LRD, we're going back to my theory that over the past 30-odd years state schools have in the main educated to the lowest common denominator and have no capacity or willingness to teach according to need. Fine, don't go over that struggling nine year old's precious few words with a red marker but do bloody well do it for my average/above average child!

Did I say they were cured as adults? No.

Please do not put words into my mouth.

graham agree with your post of 12.55

gt and bonsoir those people arenor representative of all dyslexics though....the same way Einstein isn't, or Branson. But clearly dyslexic are able to and do acheive very well as adults. So there is no reason a dyslexic could not acheuve as a teacher if tha is where their talents and interests lie

graham - oh, yes, I agree! I'm not justifying not marking work properly, just saying there might be special cases where you would want to give the poor child a bit of praise despite his or her remaining errors.

It is only a special case, though, and a bit off-topic I admit.

I dint think you understand dyslexia at l bonsoir

That is not my experience of state primary schools at all gt....maybe we are just lucky

Teachers in theory are looking for particular things in a piece of work. This will have been communicated to the children beforehand. So a piece might be marked for ideas, tone, use of adjectives etc. It's not like when you were at school and spelling mistakes were pointed out with a red pen and a 'good work' comment was added at the bottom.

I teach. I occasionally make spelling mistakes in my work. Feel free to come and teach and show me how's it done!

I think teachers should be subject specialists. I remember one person telling me that although they had a degree in History and generally did teach history at secondary school level, due to staff shortages at her current school she ended up teaching maths and she freely admitted she was rubbish at it.

DD had a lovely primary school teacher who was fabulous in so many ways...except in yr2 DD was correcting her in science classes, simply because her teacher wasn't really that well versed in science. So being inspirational is not an asset if you inspiring people while teaching them things that are incorrect, that is actually counter productive.

We now have DD in a school where the teachers are subject specialists and the staff turnover is low.

I also think basic spelling and grammar is within the grasp of most people and certainly should be a requirement for teachers.

I once sat through a presentation about "Pubic Services in England". Spell checker obviously didn't pick it up, but is was a not actually the subject the presentation was about!!!!!

AThingInYourLife 12.37

I don't know but I certainly hope there is a limit!

For the benefit of people who might be wondering why I'm getting upset about this belittling of dyslexics as teachers:

Dyslexia is a spectrum difficulty, and it is not easy to define.

However, 'cured' suggests that the problem is solved - and it's correct to say that if it were possible to 'cure' dyslexia in adulthood, you'd effectively be proving the condition hadn't existed in the first place. However, you can find that adults have learned so many coping strategies, the same problems they had as children are no longer really noticeable.

Take me for example. I seem to be able to read and write perfectly adequately - but if you start to teach my a foreign alphabet, like Greek or Russian, I find it immensely harder than you'd expect, because I am dyslexic. I hit the same problems I hit with English, all over again. It is quite obvious there is an issue with the way my brain processes written language.

Unless teaching in Russian or Greek, or a non-English alphabet is needed, I don't see how it is an issue, though?

I'm not a primary school teacher and don't want to be one, but I am really shocked that anyone would write off a whole group of disabled people despite not understanding what the disability might mean for each individual.

There are plenty of people on my BEd course who are dyslexic.
I cannot believe people are suggesting that this should mean they shouldn't be accepted onto a teaching course in the first place!

I do think, however, that the university must support these students in how to manage their dyslexia and find ways to 'cope' with it in the classroom so that is does not limit their teaching ability.

As said by LRD, it does appear to be possible for dyslexics to manage their disability by learning to master certain skils - it just takes a bit of work!

Pendeen and AThing - see my previous post at 12.46 for info about QTS Skills Tests

You shouldn't have to explain why you are upset LDR

Thank you Pachelbel :)

Thanks bejeezus

I'm not upset for me, though, I'm upset for other people, so I want to explain it.

Most of my family is dyslexic and I know lots of dyslexic children - I think it is so important that they get the right help and support, and I think more dyslexic teachers can really only be a good thing for that.

The nine year old finally writing a page is my brother. He's grown up now and forgotten all about it, and got his first in History, and he's doing great. But maybe a teacher more sensitive to dyslexia would have made him feel less stupid, and wouldn't have automatically assumed he was an educational write-off just because he didn't seem quite like them. Dunno.

"I have friends with mild dyslexia and high intelligence and they won't let themselves near their own DCs' homework for fear of the damage they might provoke."

Bonsoir, do you mean may cause?

See me after the thread.

Mmm. I don't think you can 'provoke' damage either, unless you reckon it's an entity to be addressed like the God of Thunder or something. But what's wrong with 'might' there?

My woeful dyslexic ignorance, it strikes again.

I can only imagine that a dyslexic teacher, would be an excellent teacher for all kids....having gone through the processes of finding their ways round, over and under learning obstacles their whole lives....what better training can you get in 'helping kids to learn'?!

I am ok with teachers not being that academic as long as they are good teachers and not lazy, however, I have always told my kids not to rely on teachers and to double check syllabuses, maths methodology, etc etc themselves.

Dyslexic is ok but only if compensated for. I have awful, awful spelling and when I worked my handwritten notes were often submitted to court as evidence. I just wrote really slowly and carefully and used a dictionary all the time. I did not apologise for it and I don't think it mattered. I would expect a dyslexic teacher to do the same type of thing.

Also, at the penguins are mammels comment at the beginning of this thread. They must just not do penguins at teacher training college as we had one teacher do a class mural of the Arctic including penguins and another insisting there are no penguins in Africa

I'm always rather amused (sarcastically) at the bashing that teachers get. I do appreciate that there are some (in limited number) teachers that are probably not as skilled or as 'good' as others, but surely that's the same as in any job. I love how people like to sit on the couch & criticise teachers - if you think you could a better job, why don't you bloody well do it then, become a teacher & then see how hard it is. Harrumph

I feel like that, bejeezus.

I suppose, to go back to the OP, there are very different circumstances that could look similar in terms of paper qualifications. If someone did poorly at school for no real reason, got through GCSE with Cs, struggled through a bad degree because they'd always been expected to go to university, and did a PGCE because they couldn't think what else to do - that's not great! I have seen it happen. The person left teaching pretty quickly, which was the right thing for everyone concerned.

OTOH, if you've struggled but really worked at things, or maybe improved dramatically once your problems are sorted out, and you go into teaching wanting to make a difference and give children what you didn't get, that's a huge, huge point in your favour, IMO.