To be getting fed up with this hatred of schools and teachers.

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In another thread (this is not really a thread about a thread) about schools some posters have made it very clear that they hate schools, see teachers as jumped up nazis and feel that everyone is feeling superior and looking down on them.

Am I alone is feeling upset and insulted by this?

I am a teacher and surely we both want the same thing, the best for your child?
We are not the enemy. We are on the same side.

I have said that I would like to see higher entry requirements for teaching, and also that recruiting clever, highly qualified, good teachers was a big factor in improving my department. Naturally, I would not employ someone who was merely well qualified and not skilled in classroom practice. And that's not the same as saying I should be paid more than somebody with fewer qualifications.

I have a 1st from a top university and could earn more. I have earned far more. I am sure that you could find me saying as much elsewhere. My qualifications don't particularly make me stand out at my present school - although I mostly only know the qualifications of teachers that I have been involved in employing. Just because I could earn more it doesn't mean that I think I deserve more.

However I do think that you might attract more people into teaching if you paid more. There is an issue in terms of attracting and keeping the best graduates into teaching. As part of my role I do careers interviews with students. I very rarely hear one of our brightest students say that they want to become a teacher. I think that is an issue that pay could address.

I know I will be flamed for this, but I teach because my husband brings in a far higher wage. There is no great pressure on me to earn a wage to support my family, so I was happy to drift into teaching because it gave me more family time and I was happy to make the salary sacrifice.

TFM I am always the slackest teacher on a teaching thread, you cannot have that crown.

You are very unpleasant NigellasDealer.

Why the vitriol? Why can't you accept that some teachers have had extremely difficult experiences and morever why can't you respond in a kind human way to anyone who has just admitted they felt suicidal and broken?

Not if you work 15 hours a day, you aren't. Soz.

I'm am routinely told that I must be making up my hours because I don't work in the holidays and try not to much at the weekend. Apparantly that is impossible

In this area sadly I think parents look down on teachers.They may be polite on the surface but certainly don't respect teachersc .I don't know how common that is nationally.

I am on maternity leave at the moment anyway, am trying to get the slackest SAHM award now.

teachers demanding some automatic 'respect' when many of them offer absolutely none to their pupils or their parents, on the grounds that they have some dodgy low grade degree and have scraped through a PGCE is laughable, frankly

^^ This

And as someone else said, Teachers deserve no more respect than anyone else walking this earth.

EvilTwin - if didn't mean trawling through a lot of threads I would find you some examples so you'll just have to take my word for it. These threads are always long so I don't think anybody can remember all of what is said it, particularly if the writer is on your 'side' but from my point of view the individuals completely missed on the point on what it is to be a good teacher. It isn't their degree but their teaching qualification and how they do their job.

It was on a pay and conditions thread rather one of the regular, 'why does everybody hate teachers?' ones.

BTW, maybe asking why people dislike teachers so much isn't such a good idea if you don't want people to tell you why? You will find you get completely different responses if you ask people what they like instead of what they dislike. Just a thought.

The perception is that anyone can get a teaching job, which is why those jobs are not held in as high regard as jobs in more competitive fields. I can't see this changing until teaching becomes a desirable profession.

More respect? I'm not sure anyone is asking for that.

Because that comment is completely lacking in the basic respect due to everyone, and a child entering a classroom with that attitude about their teacher, supported by their parents, is unlikely to contribute to a positive learning environment, frankly.

Being polite and courteous to all ought to be the default setting for everyone. Then you adjust it as necessary.

You CAN train with a third class degree but you would be very very hard pushed to find a training provider who would allow you to. I know someone who was on my PGCE with a third and he didn't pass his NQT year, so now cannot teach. Although since Gove announced schools can employ unqualifieds he could potentially be allowed in. Which is completely and utterly wrong.

There are awful parents and children, just as there are awful teachers and awful schools.

Unfortunately, it works both ways, doesn't it, and good people, be they teachers, children or parents get damaged by it.

It makes me sad to see teachers having bad experiences just as much as it makes me sad to see children having a bad time at school.

I think TA's should be better trained seeing as (in my children's school) they are the ones taking the classes a lot of the time.

The rubbish they come out with is alarming...most of them only trained to get a school hour position.

Teachers do have too much crap to deal with beyond just teaching a class. I can see they must get fed up not being allowed to 'just get on with it'

I love my job but in six years I've been yelled at, told I had "personal issues" with one woman's kids (I think she thought I was jealous of her or something) and reduced to years more times than I care to mention. Been told to fuck off, threatened by kids and had to keep parents happy at the expense of my own sanity. I spent all the Easter holidays going over the coursework of the 32 kids I taught gcse and trying my best to make sure I hit all the targets and progress levels I am expected to. Regardless of a kids attendance, attitude and work ethic I am expected to get them their predicted grade. Getting a kid a C who is barely in school is an absolute nightmare. I also have to pay over the odds for holidays, miss time spent with people important to me as my holidays are totally inflexible and therefore cannot be altered. Told I should be fined because teachers went on strike, when it's not schools that brought the fines in and not do we set holiday prices.

So no yanbu. I get sick and tired of reading how teachers are this or that, yet if it's so easy then why don't people train to do it? You want the holidays, do the job.

Children should be taught to respect their teachers until or unless they give their parents reason to believe that they should not be respected.

Parents should encourage respect by being careful what they say about their child's teachers in front of the child and always finding out facts by a clear and reasonable discussion with school, before showing their child that they disagree with school staff.

The reason I say this? It's purely because of the attitudes of some children in school, from as young as six or seven years old. Some (very few) children are disrespectful and rude to teachers. This disrupts the lesson and interferes with the teaching of the whole class.

One or two un-cooperative, sulky or argumentative children can easily disrupt a whole lesson. It impacts the learning of every child. Much better to leave the politics out of the class, tell the child to behave and be respectful and, if there are still problems, deal with it by speaking to the teacher, head teacher or governors.

It's really simple things, such as telling your friend on the 'phone, "I don't care what the school say, I'm taking little Johnny for a term time holiday and they can stuff their stupid fine" or "That teacher is talking nonsense, I know my child best and they would never do/say that" and "I'm not letting someone else tell my child when to use the toilet, if they need to go, they need to go and that's that!"

Just some examples of issues discussed all the time on mn

Fine to think these things, of course, and discuss them with family/friends and even to rant about schools/teachers. Just best not to do it in front of the children.

IMO

UQTs have been around for years. I work with some really excellent unqualified teachers. None have failed a PGCE though. Can't imagine schools employing someone who had. Someone who is a poor teacher just wouldn't cut it now, would they? Qualified or unqualified.

When I did my PGCE, someone with a PhD failed it. PGCEs aren't particularly academically challenging, and he was undoubtedly a clever bloke. But he was shite in the classroom, and that's where it mattered, as it should.

Definitely TheFallenMadonna. It is your teaching qualification and what you do with that counts not your degree class.

I've lost count of the number of people I have encountered who are perfectly intelligent and sensible but when confronted with a teacher revert to the self centred stroppy teenager they were when teachers held power over their lives.

Oh god, Slug, I do this . Especially head teacher presentations about secondary schools. I sat there like the smartarse 17 year old I used to be, going "there's a misplaced apostrophe, sniggersniggersnigger" in a quite horrid manner

I actually get on quite well with the head of the secondary my DD1 does now attend. But have to curb Smartarse tendencies at parents' evenings still.

I rather love most of my kids' teachers.

Have not read the thread but I think like all proffessions and people, you do get some that are like Trumped up Nazi's, they are in a position of power and some do abuse this. Just as some doctors do, policemen do and so on. I certainly had some teachers who were bullies plain and simple and some who were life changing amazing...

You also get really wonderful lovely ones, and some mediocre ones and so on.

I sometimes wonder if people have the ability see beyond themselves, being a teacher yourself op, does this mean you think all teachers are 100% wonderful?

Dd and ds have lovely teachers and I really appreciate everything they do. Both of their schools I can't fault really.
However both have had teachers that I (nor seemingly their classmate's parents) didn't rate and in one instance I changed dd's school as I feared for her safety.
It's very difficult when your child has had a particularly poor experience for it not to colour your view tbh but her current school made her time with Mrs W a dim and distant memory as they set about restoring dd to the child she had been previously.