Teachers

[Flatwhite32]

Is it just me, or have there been quite a few threads on here recently criticising/questioning teachers? I'm a teacher (currently on maternity leave) and while we aren't perfect, I find it demoralising that I work so hard in a job made extremely difficult by the government (funding cuts and stupid, pointless bureaucratic policies) yet the respect for teachers from some members of the public seems to be decreasing. I know in some instances teachers are unreasonable (I commented on a thread a few weeks ago where the teacher in question was being very unreasonable), but I am finding that more and more parents complain when I tell their child off, for example, or refuse to read to their child because 'that's just the teacher's responsibility, not mine'. It really gets me down sometimes!

Oh yes, that all makes perfect sense to me maisy, but my point is that I think human beings are not programmed to take kindly to being told what to do. Obviously it’s something we all have to learn and most people do, but some don’t, which is where you get your horrible parents.

Fine to question teachers, but I don't like parents laying down the law for example how dare you keep my children in at lunch or stop them going to the loo ect ect.

Oh no, don’t bring up the not letting children go to the loo thing on MN jac! I’ve seen a few threads where that has not gone at all well for the teacher on here.

In my last few years of teaching, much more contact was expected with home. When you teach over 200 pupils per week, that added up to extra hours per week making phone calls at the end of the school day before moving on to all the rest of the workload. To be fair, most parents are fine. A significant minority weren't.

My biggest bugbear is when SLT pass a decree such as uniform, and you merely do your duty to uphold the decree, then get left to field the complaints that you're picking on Johnny in the wrong trousers, or Julie wearing her coat in a building and you have to defend yourself to SLT and the parent for following SLT's policy when you'd rather get on and teach and not get into lengthy arguments and escalations because of a trivial wardrobe malfunction.

It still rankles years later that a mum was livid that I'd given her darling a detention for repeatedly banging the glue sticks on the desk. The new glue sticks that I'd just spent £30 of my own money on in order to appease SLT because they weren't happy with sheets flapping out of books, but there was no budget to buy bloody glue sticks and half the kids needed pens subsidising out of my weekly shop let alone providing their own. The thumping of a jumbo glue stick on a desk is actually significantly off putting when talking to a class in a civilised manner.

There is a greater sense of the customer is always right in society in general. Accademies in particular and a lot of SLTs do put teachers at the front of flack for trivial rules. There is less respect in society. Somehow teachers are supposed to earn and respect pupils before getting it back (it should be mutual)

Teachers are not perfect. Being knackered and unsupported does not help. If there is an issue, approach it politely and enquire about it, not playing the blame game. It saves a lot of stress and bother all round.

I do think that Teaching, as a Profession, has taken a nosedive in how highly regarded it is

I really think you could say the same of most professions these days. Whatever you are, there is no respect and you are constantly questioned and challenged. I've been in my profession for over 35 years and have seen the change in attitude towards us. And yes, most of it is completely unjust and unwarranted. It seems everyone else "knows their rights" and thinks they know best (usually they're completely wrong but they've seen it ont'thinternet so it must be right!).

Not a doctor are you kazzy?

BookMeOnTheSudExpress
I thought you were a teacher, Aspen? You used to say you were.

It wouldn't surprise me to find that she was a teacher as the older generation of teachers that have left the profession fantasize about how good it actually was.

Teachers with no degree.
Smoking in the school and outside the gates with the pupils.
Going down the pub on a Friday lunchtime and coming back to school half cut.
Beating the children with sticks, belts and rulers.
Generally bullying children.
Completely ignoring children that weren't "normal"
Sending any difficult children to 'special schools'
no type of outside agency to see if you were doing your job right.

but that apparently is what professionalism is supposed to be like.

It's a new school year - everyone's getting irritated by little things that the previous class teacher did/didn't do is a large part of it. Always bad this time of year, any snow closure day and during holidays when internet teacher baiting becomes a national pastime.

Mind you I'm severely fucked off with one of mine's teachers at the moment who's taken it upon herself to decide that none of the SN provision in place and specified for my kid needs to be done and is just refusing to do things like let the kid use a ruddy pencil grip because she's decided from the outset that she knows best and I think there's an element of "I've decided I don't believe in this particular diagnosis so I'm going to try to ignore it this year till the parent goes away" so I'm on the school's case about it until she gets the memo that we have a very low key set of things in place (and I've pushed to make them as feasible as possible in a classroom setting) but they ARE going to be followed.

Last year's teacher incidentally... bloody superb and I cannot praise her highly enough (made sure I got to bend the ear of the Ofsted inspector about how pleased I was with things last year) - we just do have a bad apple this year and it's really getting me down now. SENCO is lovely - but they're having to chase up this class teacher and query why things are being ignored too.

I think that some teachers do have this unfortunate sense of superiority and like any other profession there are good and there are bad.

The reason people can get worked up about it is that unlike most other professions teachers are working with our kids all day and that's quite a responsibility not just for their education but their emotional well being during the school day.

I have no issue with teachers, but at the same time I don't put them on a pedestal either. A teacher is not necessarily more intelligent or clever than anyone else.

My husband is a bit of a teacher basher though - we know a few teachers - I think most peoples bug bear is that most of them moan a lot about marking, lesson preparation and all the other stuff they do outside the class room - but they have lots if time off as well!

It's a bit annoying!

Yanbu..just left teaching as I couldn't cope. It takes an amazing person to stick at teaching nowadays.Parents are a small part of the problem.

I reckon anyone who bitches about teachers should have a long think if they could do the job, and what difficulties teachers face.

I could hardly think straight most of the time. Back in the day if a teacher told you off, mum would tell you off for upsetting teacher. Now mum's are more likely to defend the child....because apparently a lack of discipline means you love your child more.

Mums sorry

I think teachers are great

I walked away from teaching at the summer break and I'm loving running my livery yard much less stress.

The main reason I left was due to unreasonable parents. I read many threads on here and shake my head, the most recent being a parent whose child bit another in P1.

Also, the lack of funding for children with SEN was disgusting and it frustrated me seeing children in need of a 1 to 1 when they were struggling in mainstream. I couldn't cope any longer watching children struggle on a daily basis tbh and some things I witnessed finished me with what is supposed to be an inclusive community in school.

There’s a cartoon that depicts a student who has failed exams. The parents are saying that he/she should have worked harder. The same picture some years later has the head teacher berating the teacher for the student’s poor performance.

The old chestnut about short hours and long holidays was very prevalent when I was a young teacher. The stock response was that anyone who wanted the short hours and long holidays should get a degree, train and do the job.

These days, the average time that a teacher stays in the profession as about five years. That means many don’t stay that long. Experienced teachers who want to stay in the classroom are too expensive and usually got rid of.

I did the job for many years. I’d never choose it again though.

That cartoon^^ only makes sense if we assume that all students are starting from a level playing field, which I think most people would agree, they aren’t.

I would HATE to be a teacher, don’t get me wrong. I 100% couldn’t do it. But, as a pp says up thread, I imagine parents not telling off their children enough is only one of many problems with the school system. I don’t blame teachers for the way things are. But equally, I think it’s overly simplistic to blame parents. It probably suits the government just fine though, if they are allowed to continue to underfund education while teachers say, “results are bad cos parents don’t take any responsibility” while parents say “it’s because that teacher has it in for my Olivia”. The true villains of the piece are not the teachers nor the parents imo.

SallySangFroid

Its more likely that the teacher will say that 'results are bad because the pupils takes no responsibility'.

Some parents support this, some blame the teachers.

The first set know that the government is to blame for the current situation, the latter is just after someone to pass the blame on to.

The first set know that the government is to blame for the current situation, the latter is just after someone to pass the blame on to.

Do you really not know any teachers who pass the buck or who, instead of focussing their understandable frustration at problems with the educational system in the direction of the people responsible (the government), blame poor parenting and spoilt children? Really? Because I know a lot of teachers and I definitely don’t think even they would say they are always noble in their behaviour towards pupils and their parents. I get how hard it must be, so I don’t blame them. I blame the government.

Have you never seen a teacher getting completely exasperated with a child who just isn’t working hard enough only to discover that the SEN the parents have been going on about all year has now been diagnosed? Because I have. It’s easy to say “in my day pupils took responsibility”. Thank fuck these days SEN issues are better understood as are problems at home which mean pupils CAN’T “just” work harder. It isn’t a level playing field.

SallySangFroid

Where did I say anything about "just working harder", I was talking about taking responsibility.

Of course a parent knows their child best. Of course.

But as a school we know how groups of students work together and the dynamics. We don’t see the child within their family setting just as the parent doesn’t see their child in a school setting. That can be an issue because a child is usually totally different in different environments.

I think it’s fine to question teachers. We’re not infallible. However, I’m fed up of parents who think their dc are total angels and I must be a liar when I phone to say little Jonny is going on report-as per school policy- for his multiple transgressions. Bad me.

Plus schools have to have standards which to some parents are too strict and to others are too lenient. Or they feel one rule is fine but another not. Or a punishment of 2 parts - say a detention and not being allowed in the next lesson - quarter of the parents would be fine with the detention but not with being kept out the next lesson. Quarter would be fine with being kept out the lesson but not having a detention. Quarter would not be ok with either. And a quarter would support both. Or various proportions.

I get that was annoying tilly but unprofessional to be rude about the child’s parent IMO.

I thought this last night. We're under so much pressure and not enough money or staff to do the job, and all people seem to do is moan. It's depressing.