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?

oooh another teacher bashing thread.

To CURRENTLY achieve qualified teacher status (and teach in a state school) you have to have a grade c in GCSE maths and english, a degree (with QTS, or a BEd or an additional postgraduate qualification), and have passed a literacy and numeracy skills test (and an ICT test as well I think). There are teachers who have become teachers before the current requirements came into force. My Auntie was a fantastic teacher and in those days did not even require a degree. The worst teacher I ever had was a Dr of physics - a very clever man but could not teach for toffee.

You might argue about the quality of qualifications but that is not the teachers fault.

Just as a matter of interest the current government has just introduced 'free schools'. In these schools the teachers do not need any form of qualification at all.

I think teachers should know how to spell and count especially if they are primary teachers and teach chidren the basics. I expect teachers should know about what they are teaching.

A teacher at my childs school thought that Prince Phillip was the queens SON. When someone told me this i am pretty sure my jaw dropped.
They were learning about the Royal family for the Jubilee.

Teachers don't know everything. And nor should they be expected to.

It is perfectly acceptable to respond to a child's question with 'I'm not sure. Let's find out together.'

An environment where teachers are expected to be all-knowing and are judged for not having the correct answer leads to misinformation.

One fellow trainee was asked by a year 4 child:
'Miss, what causes thunder to make a sound?'
She didn't know, and so responded with:
'It's the sound of the clouds crashing together.'

Surely it is better that parents, children and fellow teachers alike accept that we do not always know the answer and make it acceptable for the teacher to help the child to find out.
Everyone learning together can't be a bad thing

Yes, pachebel, and I think it is also such an important moment for a child, when they learn that teachers also need to find things out and admit to not knowing everything.

lrd that's the thing.
University has lost the kudos it once had because just about anyone can go there. I'm all for inclusion, but I believe we have reached a point where people just aren't prepared to accept their limitations, and think they are entitled to anything/everything.
I know someone who is currently being funded for academic study at uni, in 2 years she will come out and be called Dr. X If I told you what her PhD was you'd never believe it.

clarinet When i left secondary school teaching i went into work in uni's (3 in all) and i also found similar. Particularly the point about not being wrong. I found students totally unable to deal with it. They would either become almost aggressively defensive or despondent and defeatist.

If someone has never been told they are wrong and constantly praised being wrong must feel awful. But it isn't - it is important. For some reason society is teaching young people they are always right (praise good - ignore bad) so much so they cannot cope with being wrong.

clarinet your post is shocking and so spot on. Is it because teaching is regarded at a similar level to nursing (in terms of class and salary) that it does not attract the top graduates?

Lori As part of the recent changes to Skills Tests, they've scrapped the ICT test.
A mistake in my view as I think teachers need to be competent with it in this technological day and age.

Yes it's true that most people my age are au fait with Microsoft Word (and Facebook!) but ICT stretches further than that.

Oh well.

I'm not teacher bashing. There are lots of wonderful teachers out there who are a credit to their profession. However, some people who are currently teaching, should not be! It's not fair on our children.

Poor teaching is a consequence of our dumbed down education system. Under Labour, it almost became a persons 'right' to get a degree. Only the creme de la creme should be able to study for a degree. If only the best could attend, Students from low incomes could be fully funded for their course.

what's 'clever'? my IQ is 157 but i can't fix the washing machine. i'm a teacher but i get tired and make spelling mistakes.

why do people think teachers are other than human? teachers are normal people's mum's, daughters, sisters, brothers, husbands, fathers. just ordinary people who put in a bit of extra effort to get some qualifications.

I agree isla. And I think it's actively cruel to pretend that spending three years will automatically make someone more employable. There are lots of important things people don't learn best in an academic setting - but they're pushed to fit an academic course, because that's considered the most important.

Mind you, I am definitely one of those people who wouldn't have got to university under the system my parents went through - I'd probably have failed the 11+ - so what I think is that we need a totally new approach, not to keep hankering after the 'good old days'. I couldn't swear to it, but I think probably just as the standard at university was higher, so too the numbers of functionally illiterate pupils who left school having never been properly taught was also higher.

However, some people who are currently teaching, should not be! It's not fair on our children.
and could i add to the above, a heck of a lot of children who don't want to learn are ruining our schools. that's not fair on our children and its not fair on our teachers. sack the pupils! especially my friday period 6!

To all of you in the teaching profession, should I put my faith in the teachers and send my DC's to school or should I look into home educating them? Serious question.

We can't afford to send them to private school and the state secondary schools around here are rough. I imagine it's a battle of survival just to get through the day without being picked on, I don't think much learning happens.

The primary schools around here are good but it goes rapidly downhill after that. I take the point made by another poster, that some kids ruin their own education.

YANBU. But sadly teachers are paid (in real terms) much less than they used to be, and teaching is no longer regarded as such a respected profession (used to be more "equivalent" to other graduate-type jobs, whereas this seems to have been lost).

Many of the best potential applicants to teaching will reject this field of work for a job which is better paid, with higher morale, proper facilities and equipment, somewhere they'll be more appreciated and so on. Or even just a job where you don't get sworn at/ignored every day and isn't quite so relentlessly exhausting.

Oh god, yes home school them....if you think you can do a better job. Whatever the school do won't be good enough will it

To all of you in the teaching profession, should I put my faith in the teachers and send my DC's to school or should I look into home educating them? Serious question.
homeschool

ariel - why are books necessarily better than computers? I'd think they are different. I have a very bright mate who is almost completely blind - she cannot read books and depends on computers. You presumably don't mean that sort of thing?

Hi LRD, I don't think I'm saying that books are necessarily better than computers. However, it seems to me ("to me" being the operative words ;) ) that the internet and becoming the primary source of knowledge and research has coincided with this real drop in literacy standards. Now correlation doesn't equal causation, I know that. But I think there must be something in it, just because of the way web pages are used. You don't need the attention span and concentration you used to need for book and paper based research. When I was teaching I went on God knows how many courses as part of the ongoing effort to boost standards, yet standards continue to drop. I think it would be naive to think that this had nothing to do with the way that information is now shared.

Ha I just spent 20 minutes of my life taking the literacy skills test I'm such a sucker, passed btw, although my weakest area is punctuation, I have no idea and just wing it really.

I do think YANBU, I can forgive the occasional spelling mistake, "sargent" instead of "sergeant" on a board outside my dd's class. However, the lack of science knowledge shown by basically all of dd's teachers (y3) is pretty bloody shocking. Dd loves science and her teachers have mentioned that she knows more than them, they dread teaching science etc. I mean really, she has read a few horrible science books and likes to ask me questions about what she has read, is curious about, she is hardly bloody Einstein.

A heartfelt 'Well done' to MrsJohnMurphy

To add to the ICT test discussion - it was scrapped because it was cr@p! They could not use real Windows software in the examples so it was all similar but dreadful.

I would advocate a science skills test for primary trainees. As a 'mature' entrant to the profession, coming from a science background, I was dismayed by how poor some of my fellow trainees were on science. We did however have a very strong course, with the same amount of time given to science as to maths and English. If they don't know an answer, they at least know where to find out!

I don't think I agree ariel - I know people said the same things during the transition from memory to written culture, and from manuscripts to print books, and it makes me wonder if we're not just blaming a convenient technological change?

I think the internet can be a really great way to learn - the problem IMO is when it is used lazily. Something like wikipedia is - for all its faults - an amazing resource when I compare it to the equally faulty but much smaller and less appealing out-of-date paper encyclopedias we had at school (believe it or not, when I went to school in the 1980s we had an encyclopedia that had a page for each of the continents including, for Africa, a picture of a naked black man and woman with spears. I am not kidding and I remember that picture!).

I think you are right there are problems, but I would argue we need to get involved with making computers and the internet better teaching tools, rather than rejecting them (maybe that is what you're saying, sorry if so!).

CJ2010

Homeschool

Btw ... every time people mention standards dropping I think of that exchange in the West Wing, do you know it?

The president says: 'Wow! Sweden has a 100% literacy rate, 100%, can you believe that? How do they do it?!'

And his Chief of Staff replies deadpan: 'Maybe they don't, and they also can't count'.

I love it.

I think it's also true to say we don't always measure standards the same ways and I take it with a pinch of salt when people insist everything is doom and gloom and was once wonderful.

As someone who was originally home-educated, my kneejerk reaction is "send them to school". But that very much reflects my own personal experience. I never realised how awful my mother was as a teacher, until I encountered professional teachers, who were all, in my experience, unanimously brilliant, and actually capable of teaching, inspiring, and answering questions.

That's what I mean LRD, I'm not blaming technology, I'm just saying that the huge explosion in IT in the last 15 years or so has coincided with this drop in literacy skills. You hit the nail on the head - it's used lazily.

But it has also happened at the same time as so many other factors.

Not skills, so much as standards.