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 agree with chicken that being taught something that is incorrect is a real worry.

I'd say - concentrate on that first! Then worry about why the teacher has not corrected every spelling mistake - he or she might have a good reason for that, but there's no good reason to teach something that is factually wrong.

'in which I didn't have a specialism'.

The combination of those two errors makes me wince.

I know, I know ... we're just online, and you're not really paying attention, and so on. But ... come on, that's painful.

Everyone who is not a qualified teacher: have a go at the practice versions of the Skills Tests that we have to pass. No calculators for maths and no cheating.

Numeracy

Literacy

Let us know how you get on. Remember, just three chances at these for Sept 2012's intake of trainees.

i thought spelling and grammar weren't marked for recent degrees?

Spelling, punctuation and grammar aren't marked in A-level exams germy. I suspect some universities don't mark SPaG

One of the previous posters may have a cast-iron point about the necessity of being able to spell "budget" and "bleeding".

But I'm not sure that it's fair to imply that knowledge of Greek pronunciation equates to intelligence. But if it is fair, where's my damn Cleverclogs badge?

Besides, private schools can generally hire who they like, PGCE or nay, can't they?

Because I am a horrible pedant, leQ.

I know it doesn't really matter.

FWIW, I would fail the mental arithmetic section of the numeracy test utterly - I can't hold two digits in my head at once. And I did fine with GCSE maths and beyond. So I suspect GCSEs may not be a great indicator of how well someone can do at those tests.

mamma - dunno about all universities but at mine we are not allowed to drop a student a grade boundary for SPAG.

MammaBrussels when did that come in? I'm sure I remember relying on SPaG as an easy 10% to get me past grade boundaries.

Is there no end to the overwhelming crapulence of teachers? When they are greedy and lazy, they are malignant, ill qualified and thick. Truly, it would be a mercy have most of them knackered for glue - certainly they'd be far more useful.

It is a teeny bit funny then, that as thick and crap as they are, the overwhelming majority of you nonetheless deliver you children into their clutches from September to July anyway...

Shurely should have been "myself" there. Aargh.

Anyway, I thought A Level scripts were marked on SPaG.

Surely these are 2 separate issues OP. I think YABU to assume qualifications are the be all and end all when it comes to being a good teacher. You could have a v academic person who would be lousy at getting their point across, just as you could have someone without wonderful qualifications who is extremely inspiring, knows their weaknesses and therefore prepares well. I know of a school where the head of maths actually qualified in a totally different subject, however he has since gone back and totally developed his skill set such that he is able to achieve some of the best a-levels in the country from his students.

BUT the common theme is that to be consistently good you need to know your weaknesses. So if you know you are a poor speller, you should be triple checking everything before it goes out (particularly letters home!). I don't think you or anyone else is BU to expect a certain level of professionalism in what parents see written in workbooks (and I accept anyone can make a mistake once in a while, but things should be littered with errors).

Of course I meant they SHOULDN'T be littered with errors....

I used to work with a very intelligent woman with an MA in Classics. Her English, Greek and Latin were elegant and I'd have been delighted to have her teach my DD any of those three subjects up to A level. However her maths and logic were extremely shaky, and her science was positively Aristotelian (I can't think of a worse criticism). I'd have emigrated rather than let her teach my DCs in a primary school. So no, having a degree does not guarantee a decent educational background.

And btw in the unlikely event that my DS ever managed to complete an entire written paragraph unaided, any teacher who dared to pick holes in the spelling or grammar would feel the Wrath of Dilys, (but none of them ever would be so silly).

I am a very intelligent person and a teacher! I have straight As at gcse and a level and a first class degree from a top uni. However, although I am very good at my job and get excellent results from my students, I sometimes think I would be an even better teacher if I had struggled more with my subject at school, because sometimes I find it difficult to grasp how my students don't 'get it' like I did.

What do you think of my qualifications?

I have 6 GCSEs, yep that's all. In fact, I had to resit my maths GCSE as I only took the intermediate level.

I want to teach....maths.

I think I'm very well suited to teaching it. It never came easy, I wasn't a natural. But, I am very good at helping my fellow students with mathematical problems and explaining things (I'm doing a degree now).

I am not going to set the mathematical world on fire. I'd say my grasp of grammar is a bit shaky (I have a C at GCSE). I don't have any qualifications in history...or...art...or a whole host of subjects.

So, go on, I'd be interested in how a parent would view someone with my qualifications....

I'm not quite sure where the line should be drawn between accusations of disablist discrimination and common sense quite frankly.
Yes, maybe people with dyslexia should be unable to enter the teaching profession? I'd love to be a surgeon, have many attributes which would make me a good doctor, however, I have an intention tremor, but hey let me open your head!

If you know more than the syllabus so that you can cover inquisitive minds and can explain it well then I don't see any problem with you teaching maths however if you don't have A levels or anything else how are you on a degree course? I'm not picking faults, I'm genuinely interested to know how this can be done.

I think spammer has it dead on.

LeQ - oh, yes, my mental arithmetic is awful! But my maths is actually more or less ok. I can manage fine so long as I have a pen and paper. Again, I think it's a question of knowing your strengths - people like me or you (by the sounds) can always accept we need to be careful and check twice ... it doesn't do any harm.

I do really get bothered by bad maths teaching. I got so confused at school because we were taught to learn everything by rote and I found that really hard. Thankfully it's not the fashion any more but I worry Gove will bring it back.

change - just an anecdote but one of my best friends at school did intermediate maths and was in the bottom set. We were all put in for the maths challenge, but told condescendingly that only the brightest members of the top set would really make anything of it. It's a test where the idea is you shouldn't need much training, but lots of innate sensitivity to numbers. My mate got a gold, the only person in the whole year to do so. She went on to get a C at GCSE because no-one considered it could be anything but a fluke that she did so well.

She resat it later on when she needed a B or higher to do a course ... got an A*!

It really brought home to me how bad my school was at recognizing that some people don't learn maths well by being told to memorize random facts - some people really need to learn to understand what is going on, and when they're allowed to do that they do really well.

isla, did you read the thread?

The two cases you compare are not very similar, are they?

I think if you are teaching at primary, then spelling, grammar and maths are essential skills. If you are going to have to teach a subject area you know nothing about, then you should research it thoroughly. If you don't know, then you make notes, use a dictionary and any other tools you need in order to be able to do the job properly.
I'm very clever. Really I am. But I'm crap at PE and sorts and so that's one of the things that I have to practise and remember and plan properly. Plus using children with better skills than mine to demonstrate.

I have to jump this whole thread (I will go back and read some of the best bits).

My sons science teacher (22). Grammar school girl. Straight 16 A*'s at GCSE, straight A's in the sciences at A Level. First class degree from a Russell in some funky new hybrid science.

She thinks chickens are asexual and the sky is blue because the sea is blue. I spend my life unteaching the sheer crap she has taught.

His English teacher (26) sends out utter bollox that switches merrily between tense and first and third person. It's all I can do not to correct it and send it back.