AIBU to think teachers should be respectful to pupils?

[mammaplay]

DS 11 has just started secondary school. He has mild SEN needs which the school are aware of (effects speed of work and presentation).
Today in front of the class, the maths teacher screwed up his worksheet, threw it in the bin and simply handed him a new worksheet (with no verbal communication) as he'd made a minor mistake in not leaving enough space on the page.
AIBU to think this type of behaviour from teachers is a bit 'old school' and unnecessary, or am I being completely precious about my little snowflake?

It doesn't matter (to me) what your son did or didn't do. The teacher is the adult and what he did was very childish and was probably quite intimidating for your child. I'd have a word with him about it.

seaweedandmarchingbands

You seem to want an argument, I don't.

OP only said there was no verbal communication when the new worksheet was given. I haven't made anything up.

OP has decided her way forward with this so the thread is over for me.

Teddybear45
I've had students do the large handwriting thing.
It was easier to make it look like they'd done more than to admit they were finding things difficult or the CBA because it was hard, or both.

Having any SEND doesn't make a child naughty. Having lower expectations of a child because they have SEND needs isn't good enough either because the child then learns that they don't have to do as much as their ability because the teacher won't notice or doesn't care enough about them to push them and support them to achievem
Then we wonder why some students don't achieve their potential.

See also, students with literacy issues being allowed to opt out of writing and do other tasks for years or submit work below their ability, and then people (senior leaders and teachers) panic when, surprise surprise, those kids aren't doing well at GCSE. Maybe had someone said to them in y7-9 that shoddy work or rushed work wasn't good enough and they wanted more effort and work from them in order to help them, they'd not be facing a suite of low grades which affects their entry to a vocational level 3 course.

I strongly disagree with the "neatest" usually has the best work. Lots of girls are very neat and tidy in their books and organisation but their content is severely lacking in depth.

I pointed out that it's much easier for their revision to have neat books, with clear titles, with their corrections in another colour so they know what they haven't understood, that key extracts for the exam are clear when they flick through (Vs having to fold open and check every scrappy sheet), that getting them answering questions in full sentences Vs writing in a worksheet saves trees but also gives them a set of comprehensive notes, that the graphic organizers we use are a way of visualising thought processes etc.

As teachers, we must be aware of what we insist on because it makes our jobs easier (namely marking and auditing) and what actually benefits the child. If we really cared about the children we would design individualised tools to complement their ability and most effective learning style. But we don't. It's one size fits all and it is a joke. Any teacher who thinks otherwise is either naive or part of the problem.

I'm SLT and a HOY. Used to be a SENCO.

ChilledBee

I don’t mean neater, in that reductive sense. I mean more reflective of what the teacher has asked for, meaning they listened more. And I would argue that correlation would be clear if we did a study on it. Obviously we can’t. 🤷🏻‍♀️

ChilledBee

And learning styles are bollocks. Total bollocks.

MonChatEstMagnifique

I don’t want an argument at all. It just feels more sensible to draw conclusions from what the OP said, rather than what she didn’t say.

Learning styles? What year is this, 2003?!

You need to get with some up to date research on cognitive science.

chilled
I've already commented on neat Vs depth.

Everything I do in the classroom is to benefit the children I teach so let's just get away from the does that having basic standards for books is somehow oppressive.

I'm just not up for wasting lesson time getting into silly disruptive chatter about the fact i want a sheet glued in flat so they can take notes Vs folded and glued in the wrong way. Even if learning styles wee a thing (rather than a hideous zombie myth that won't die in schools), there is zero need for a student to glue a crucial piece of text in their books in a way that hinders their learning.

If someone can explain to me with appropriate research evidence why I should allow a student to not have the notes they need in a format they can refer back to is a way of supporting that child in their personalised learning style (again zombie myth) then sure I'll go for it.

Until then tables need to be drawn big enough for the work, sheets need gluing in so they can do the work.

It's no wonder teachers are pissed off when SLT still peddle this out of date, debunked rubbish.

Please tell me you don't think brain gym is a good idea....

Belinda
I heard a science teacher delivering CPD last year claim that whilst people have dismissed Brain Gym (aka utterly debunked) they still use it with their GCSE students because it helps to connect their synapses.

This is someone seeking promotion to senior leadership.

Hmm no, I believe that the way we approach teaching is for one sort of learner. I don't believe that people only have one learning style and I think someone might need English taught different to Maths but the classroom itself is set up for one type of learner and that's the type that will access the curriculum most effectively. They'll make good workers for sure. But that's what school is for - to create good little workers.

Yes we make it look like we deliver education in a variety of formats or whatever, but that's crap. We sit kids in the class and drill them exactly how we used to but we use fancy whiteboards and let them discuss stuff as a group a bit more because you have to.

It makes me ill to see teachers blindly regurgitate the rhetoric that supports what we see in our schools today.

Teaching 202 focuses on whether the student is effectively able to "refer back to their notes" which many cannot. Not whether it looks like they've got something written down to revise when OFSTED turn up. So individualised teaching might mean you encourage some kids to bring a recorder to video/audio record the session and use that to revise. It might mean they draw pictures or mind maps. It might mean that some kids don't get homework because they are better off compartmentalising their studies from their home life. It might mean some kids glue in their worksheet in a way that doesn't make sense to the teacher. But maybe they need to put on their adult undies and suck that up.

Sorry, it is incredibly depressing to work in this field right now. My school has at least 3 teachers who honestly have no business being there.

ChilledBee

What you are saying is utterly unsupported by research. Direct instruction works. Classrooms where teachers impart information and students learn it are effective classrooms. Yes, some students need adjustments. No, we do not need “personalised” learning strategies. All that has produced is chaos.

Teaching 202 focuses on whether the student is effectively able to "refer back to their notes" which many cannot. Not whether it looks like they've got something written down to revise when OFSTED turn up
So many students can't use notes to revise and yet year on year thousands of students use their exercise books and revision guides and manage to reduce to mind maps, revision flashcards, quiz each other etc.

Yes. Of course, when in doing things that allows children to succeed im doing it all for Ofsted (including all the years I've been willing to argue with SLT/Ofsted when their latest fad was unhelpful for kids).

So much of what you write sounds like SLT bollocks of 'this is my opinion on education and if you disagree then you have no business being in my school'.

I'm quite glad I'm in a research informed school that embraces a range of teaching strategies and we have SLT who value that in their staff.

Imagine being a student with a book full of “personalised” worksheets, not properly stuck in, not in the correct order, with information on them you haven’t processed because you didn’t take it down yourself, with fifty-odd hours of videos of Sammy and Peter flipping bottles behind the teacher’s back while she tries to get Michael’s iPad to work. Then tell me “personalised” learning works. What a pile of gash.

Me too. So sick of the latest fad from an educonsultant. Brain gym, learning styles, Building Learning Power. All tosh.

Read up on how kids learn. Teach them that way. Direct instruction, modelling, practice. Spaced recall, retrieval.

No experience in secondary, but from what I've seen in primary, that kind if thing doesn't work. It doesn't work because next day/week the child has no fucking idea anymore what's all supposed to mean,they can't relate/compare to classmates' work or class plan because it's entirely different and they can't produce the content because they have nothing to go on.(no word bank,no plan,no sentences starters etc)Normally it then means an adult has to sit with them 1 to 1 and start from scratch with written notes,most of the times using the template/format from the initial lesson.

Of course maybe the student doesn't learn best by going through a novel/play in order. Maybe they know best about something they've not been taught yet and can confidently tell me that it makes sense to them to have act 1.1 followed by 3 empty pages that have been filled later with act 4. It makes perfect sense not to have work clear in a table which you can use when school go through explicit study skills sessions because personalised learning says one that's too small with half the notes scrawled in is just as valuable.

Really, all in all, there is an amazing contradiction at the heart of that sort of philosophy:

1. Students can't process information and can't use notes and exercise books effectively when they're presented in a way that is logical and clear. It's unreasonable to expect them to do this. It's unreasonable to expect them to follow simple instructions because "personal learning styles"
2. Students also super good at processing information to the point where they can remember content from 2 years ago without logical notes (but can't be expected to remember to draw a table in pencil), they are so good they can remember the annotations from a chapter 18 months ago (but it's too much on them to glue the chapter extract on one page)

It's almost like students are considered to be simultaneously so incompetent that staff shouldn't expect too much, but are so spectacularly awesome that they can learn a whole course and 2 years of material without proper notes.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that people having low expectations of some students only tells the students that some teachers don't expect much from them.

Yup.
I know make notes WITH my classes under the visualiser.
Record for me. Modelling for the class. Instant notes to copy for those who can't/miss lesson. No wiping whiteboard only to hear "I needed that, Miss!" whilst getting that sinking feeling!!

Direct instruction works for some learners but does nothing to develop critical thinking skills. Ask any further education lecturer how terrible students are at critical thinking or why they find referencing so difficult. The answers are linked.

But honestly I am soon to return to work with a bunch of teachers who want to do the bear minimum and believe that children who can barely process a sentence effectively to self assess and all that crap. I don't want it here.

YANBU. I'm a teacher and I wouldn't do this.

However, I would encourage you to speak to the teacher and find out why they did this.

There may be more to the story that your child didn't hear or pick up on.

... or the teacher may have just of been having a really shitty day, given an instruction a thousand, million times and lost their shit when your child still didn't listen. It doesn't excuse the teachers actions, but we are all human and have our moments. They teacher may apologise.

Or the teacher could just be a dick. And it's then worth telling the school.

Get a bear on the staff instead. That'll teach them.

Belinda
You can't do that!!!
You know you shouldn't talk to students and model how to do things.

They need to spend 45 minutes discovering stuff and then inventing success criteria for next lesson. Then next lesson they can do their extended piece in any form of their choice from writing to interpretive contemporary dance.

Proper notes are notes they can learn from. We have one teacher in our school who makes the students colour code their notes EXACTLY how she tells them to because she's super organised and has fluffy pens and all that stuff. She isn't allowed to teach top sets any more as her results are so crap. But it's of course the parents fault.