Why all the anti school/teacher threads?

[shithappens123]

I’ve not been a member for long but I’ve noticed the amount of school bashing threads on MM. it’s almost as if some patents see the school as an enemy not as organisations wanting to educate their children the best they can.

I’ve read threads on how they gleefully complain about teachers (seems more in primary education though) and saying how incompetent they are when they have no idea how hard they work.

Teachers are fair game on here and it’s most disturbing.

hashtag

I think the difference with your examples - which are without doubt bosses taking advantage of low paid workers - is that the overtime is visible - and therefore can often be clawed back. Teaching overtime happens by and large at home and is not finite. Our children will not get taught if the overtime doesn’t happen - and the government has created a situation where it is impossible to do the job without working such long hours that the hourly rate is shite.

I have wider issues with the disparity in wages between different sectors, but that’s for a different thread.

Interested to know how Ricky earns their 70k....

Politician perhaps..? He did sound very Gove like

70k? Could be anything, really.

I don't think it's that teachers think they're more important than the children they teach (although if a child is off sick, it's a lot less disastrous than when the teacher is off sick!), it's that the teachers have to prioritise 30 odd children, according to their needs - and some people seem to think that the teacher should only think one child is important. Their own.

The thread was going so well until page 7ish when it became like teacher thread bingo starting with 'but I pay tax so pay your wages'.

It was only a matter of time.

It's a bit like many a school thread: most people are interested in a reasonable debate about the issue and someone has to turn up to hijack it, offload their gripes and steer it towards how cushy teaching is, pay, holidays, someone's great aunty neighbour who worked somewhere else for less. It's oh so predictable, especially in the summer holidays.

70k? Could be anything, really

I think that price tag rules out lots of jobs.

I think the attitude rules out public sector.

Yeah I never understood that I pay my tax so I pay your wage thing? Don’t people realise teachers pay tax too..?

Hmmm, so teachers are paying their own wages. . .

I think that price tag rules out lots of jobs.

Middle office banker working for a lower tier firm?

HR wonk?

Brand marketing manager for some cheap tequila?

😂

Brand marketing manager for some cheap tequila?

LOL. Low blow. . .

😂

I generally ignore aggressive comments against teachers. I also doubt that people who earn 70k a year and have a lawyer husband actually do!

Anybody can be anyone they want to be on the Internet and spout off nonsense.

I have two kids, one in uni and one who will be starting her last year of secondary school this fall. I have never had an issue with a teacher that wasn't solvable by speaking directly to the teacher about it.

The school administration can be a different story. My son (the older of the two) was language delayed and so was placed in a special setting where he could receive additional support when he started primary school. That was great, and quite helpful. However, by year three his language deficit was gone and SEN setting was holding him back more than it was helping. We asked the school to have him tested to see if he could be mainstreamed. They pushed back, then gave him little snippets of tests rather than the whole test, all sorts of delaying tactics. So we spent a bloody fortune to have him tested and evaluated privately.

The educational psychologist who tested him confirmed that his deficit was gone and that he was actually quite intelligent and needed to be mainstreamed. The school sat on her report and did nothing. Finally, after a face to face meeting with the SEN committee, our private consultant educational psychologist and his teachers they agreed to try it but advised strongly against it. The next year he started in a normal class setting. He went on to membership in the National Honor Society in secondary school, is now on the Dean's List at an excellent university.

Why did the try so hard not to mainstream him? In a word, money. They received very generous additional state funding for every child classified as SEN and it was "baked into" the budget. Mainstreaming the child, even though it was clearly in the child's interest, was not in their financial interest.

It still pisses me off when I think about it.

He/she seems to have gone away.. maybe now we can have a civilised discussion about this

Well as much as an arse as they were, you are more ‘agree with me’ than ‘let’s discuss’

MissConductUS
From your username I'm guessing you're in the states.
We have the opposite issue typically in the UK: children forced into inadequately funded mainstream schools, SEND provision is rationed and things can have to hit crisis point before anyone further up the system acts (usually after parents and teachers have been pushing for years and the poor child has wasted a year or more education).

No hashtag I was merely expressing my concerns about the amount of teacher bashing threads. Don’t tell me what I’m thinking.

I’m not, I’m telling you that you don’t come across as wanting to discuss.

From your username I'm guessing you're in the states.

I am, in New York to be precise. Our school funding is partly based on local property taxes and partly on aid from the state, which comes from general revenue. Overall, this works fairly well but advantages areas with higher property values. State law requires an appropriate education for each student. Even with the additional state payments for SEN students some schools hit the limit for the number they can realistically support.

We are fortunate to be in a school district that's well funded and considered a very good place to work for teachers. Perhaps I've blown this problem a bit out of proportion. It just seemed a perverse reason to hold a young child back. Overall our kids have had excellent, dedicated caring teachers. DS went back to visit some of his favorites when he came home from uni for the summer and they were delighted to see him.

That’s your opinion.