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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To tell teachers bashers to go and complain to their own fucking schools

466 replies

Frozenfan2019 · 17/06/2020 12:07

Aibu to be fed up to the back teeth of ignorant comments like "do your job like everyone else" and " it's your vocation" aimed at all and any teachers who happen to be on a thread. If you have a problem with the teaching provided by your own school contact them. People commenting have no idea of the workload that the people they are trolling online might be struggling with. It's bullying plain and simple and wouldn't be allowed to be aimed at other groups.

Do you honestly believe that every single teacher in the UK is lazy? If not why not contact YOUR school about the issues you have with YOUR child's teacher instead of starting yet another general teacher bashing thread.

As a teacher on here I have to say I have never been more demotivated. I work hard for my kids at school while also homeschooling my own three like so many of us. How dare you make me feel like I am failing because you have an issues, unfounded in some cases I am sure, with your school?

They are your children take some responsibility, contact the school if you have concerns and accept that most teachers are fired for the children they each but we don't make many of the decisions. They are made at a much higher level.

OP posts:
GazeboParty · 18/06/2020 15:35

@JimmyGrimble

Some are saying that teachers should be culled. That was nice.
I'm sure that was lovely to read. 😂Some people don't understand a lot.
GazeboParty · 18/06/2020 15:38

@FrippEnos Some teachers haven't been very nice about parents either calling them thick, lazy, can't be bothered looking after their kids, not very good parents etc - as you say there has been blood spilled on both sides.

Ruralteacher · 18/06/2020 15:39

@JimmyGrimble

Some are saying that teachers should be culled. That was nice.
WTF? So bumping off teaching staff will help the increasing recruitment crisis how? You couldn't make it up.
GazeboParty · 18/06/2020 15:42

So bumping off teaching staff will help the increasing recruitment crisis how? It would be an extreme method granted!😂

ChloeDecker · 18/06/2020 16:04

ostinato
I think a big part of the problem is that it’s not a small minority of children being let down. Research by UCL indicates that 2.3 million children are not doing any home schooling. That’s 20% of school children.
Terminology such as ‘let down’ is toxic and just adds to the prolific teacher hate in this country, which proves there are a large number of people who assign different standards to teachers than they do others-this repeated issue of ‘sitting in gardens’ is very unfair as plenty of remote teaching can be done at different times of the day (spending hours the night before or from 6am that morning pre-uploading lessons/marking for example). Working from home and lockdown has changed the way many employees work-why should teachers be singled out for abuse for this? (I k ow why really, because there is a real problem with how teachers are viewed in the U.K. and this thread just keeps on proving it.)
The press in general has actually been very unhelpful in stoking bad feeling by mis-using studies like this one above and not asking the right questions to the government briefings/interviews. Piggywaspushed posted a very interesting link earlier in this thread but as usual, most people haven’t read it. I’ll post it again below but it re-iterates that the Guardian article did not appropriately analyse the original report by UCL and it’s fair enough that teachers keep pointing this out our if posters repeatedly keep bringing it up.
twitter.com/MrMountstevens/status/1273391740632924161

Unions telling teachers not to engage, not to mark work, not to do live lessons etc all contribute to the negative views people are developing.
And again, press issues have caused misinformation such as this (unions did not and never did not tell schools not to mark-I recommend reading the full guidance and context)
Again, in addition, from the link Piggy posted, there is an unsupported assumption that live lessons are more effective. The Education Endowment Foundation found no clear difference between the two, but again is a convenient ‘stick’ to beat teachers with (we’ll go back to pensions again after all this because some do just love a good teacher bash, pandemic or no pandemic)
It is also, always so interesting how closely people claim to know the minute by minute accounts of teachers on here. Not even my DH knows exactly minute by minute what I have been doing and I him!

educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/public/files/Publications/Covid-19_Resources/Remote_learning_evidence_review/Rapid_Evidence_Assessment_summary.pdf

GazeboParry
but the teachers on MN are most definitely moaning about the parents on MN.

Nope. Not one teacher has started a thread of ‘All parents are...’ but the same cannot be said the other way round.

Beatingthisthing
There are some teachers on MN who act as if they're a persecuted minority when they could just realise, it's not a personal attack and so not engage in 'bashing' threads, want them shut down or start new threads with dramatic claims of how they've been personally affected by threads by anonymous strangers on the internet which aren't personally directed to them at all.

If this is your viewpoint, the same can also be applied to many of the prolific TB posters who have used the same and sometimes worse language to hyperbolically describe situations, which have been directed to all teachers.

This is the point. The OP did not mention all parents in their thread title but specific teacher bashing posters. It has been interesting to see some parent posters reacting in the same way as they accuse teachers of reacting but not seeing it (and teachers have been dealing with it on here daily, to be fair, so fair enough, 12 odd weeks later a thread like this finally appears.)

HaudYerWheeshtYaWeeBellend · 18/06/2020 16:49

Nope. Not one teacher has started a thread of ‘All parents are...’ but the same cannot be said the other way round.

Nope back to you, when reading the threads it’s context that matters, most parents are advising on their schools meaning ALL their school teachers, not ALL teachers of the United Kingdom.

I think a big part of the problem is that it’s not a small minority of children being let down. Research by UCL indicates that 2.3 million children are not doing any home schooling. That’s 20% of school children.

It’s not toxic at all, it’s simply factual whether you disagree with the terminology or not.

Children are being let down, children are not even receiving a basic education, children and parents are receiving no communications from schools, vulnerable children are not getting check in.

I’d say all of the above is a bloody shambles and some teachers, schools/councils and the government should be bloody shamed of themselves.

HaudYerWheeshtYaWeeBellend · 18/06/2020 16:57

The OP did not mention all parents in their thread title but specific teacher bashing posters.

As with many OP, there will be some posters who bash the profession, but the majority are those frustrated with the little or lack of information/provisions the school teacher or the school is given.

Most threads are not teacher bashing, their was a poster frustrated that the work being set was for 2 year groups younger, and getting no communication at all from the school, not the teacher, the head etc... even after numerous phone calls/emails, causing the child to be bored and frustrated, while having to deal with working from home herself.

She was slated for “another teacher bashing thread”

Yes there are some posters who teacher bash, but the vast majority are frustrated parents speaking about their circumstances and their experiences with their children teachers.

ChloeDecker · 18/06/2020 17:10

We’ll have to disagree about the “majority”.

And I wish it was as clear cut as just talking about their experience-too many have been about what their “sister in law” or “neighbour” has said or what other posters have said or hasn’t actually turned out that what someone’s experience has actually been because what actually has happened is not what they have originally said. Sadly, it’s unfair to take all posts at face value and is rarely as simple as ‘nothing from school ’ or ‘no contact’. If it was, the genuine advice and support would not have been ignored from many repeat poster shows who just like to re-iterate their same posts on thread after thread after thread.

I do agree with you though that thankfully, there are plenty of reasonable parents posting and I hope they don’t get lost in those threads that are goady.

UmbrellaHat · 18/06/2020 17:31

Who is to say who are 'reasonable' posters -those who agree with you?
One of the things that being on MN has made me realise is how scary it is that our children's education is being provided by people who cannot accept any view that does not agree with their own. Or who extrapolated from on person's experience to claim they are bashing teachers.
This very closed mindset is depressing.

FrippEnos · 18/06/2020 17:36

UmbrellaHat
One of the things that being on MN has made me realise is how scary it is that our children's education is being provided by people who cannot accept any view that does not agree with their own.

Funny, given that we are on a site that for months 'parents' cited live zoom lessons as the pinnacle of remote learning, and anything else lacked a 'can do' attitude.

louisthetrumpetswan · 18/06/2020 17:37

Do tell the teachers about growth mindset.

Honestly, they'll love it

FrippEnos · 18/06/2020 17:38

louisthetrumpetswan

Grin
Pepperwort · 18/06/2020 17:41

You know, I don't know if it's the time of day I come on or what, but it is relatively rare I see these much-maligned "teacher-bashing threads".

I've seen loads from teachers complaining about parents though. And I'm getting fed up of them.

UmbrellaHat · 18/06/2020 17:47

I've seen loads from teachers complaining about parents though. And I'm getting fed up of them.
Same here -just hoping that these caver just the vocal yobbish minority and there are a silent majority out there of calm and resourceful teachers ..

Pepperwort · 18/06/2020 17:49

I think (hope) that is true, but for some reason this minority really can't accept the existence of a parenting website.

IrmaFayLear · 18/06/2020 17:52

Yes, I think that good teachers will actually be getting on with the job, and can see that the situation is difficult for all.

Some posters yelling that it is parents’ job to educate their children (well, some can, but many can’t) and defending opportunistic union leaders are hopefully not representative of the profession.

IrmaFayLear · 18/06/2020 17:53

Let me rephrase that: I know they are not representative of the profession.

Xenia · 18/06/2020 17:55

I just looked at the link and disagree with most of the things he says - eg he says live lessons are not necessarily better than stuff recorded earlier. I disagree and plenty of private schools are doing live lessons. A live lesson has everyone present etc Much better.

Then he says more time spent does not mean better. Again I disagree - one reason our local private schools do better is they do not finish at 2.50pm every day like the closest secondary school to my house. Longer and more time in lessons is better for children.

JimmyGrimble · 18/06/2020 17:58

Xenia ok. We all bow to your greater understanding of pedagogy. Who are we to disagree? Wink

JimmyGrimble · 18/06/2020 17:59

@UmbrellaHat

I've seen loads from teachers complaining about parents though. And I'm getting fed up of them. Same here -just hoping that these caver just the vocal yobbish minority and there are a silent majority out there of calm and resourceful teachers ..
Yobbish you say? Pot and kettle springs to mind.
Piggywaspushed · 18/06/2020 17:59

Well , since you aren't a teacher and he is an educational researcher, I tend to go with him xenia.

I think you will also find your local private school 9which may not 'do better' against starting points) has shorter terms, far longer lunchtimes and possibly a later start time. Some of the highest performing countries in the world spend far less time in their lifetimes in the classroom : it's a separate issue, though.

JimmyGrimble · 18/06/2020 18:01

@IrmaFayLear

Yes, I think that good teachers will actually be getting on with the job, and can see that the situation is difficult for all.

Some posters yelling that it is parents’ job to educate their children (well, some can, but many can’t) and defending opportunistic union leaders are hopefully not representative of the profession.

Oh god damn those opportunistic union leaders, sticking their oats in, wanting their members, the children and their families to be safe. How fucking dare they? Grin You really couldn’t make this shit up.
Piggywaspushed · 18/06/2020 18:02

But he does raise far more important issues with the way that Guardian article has handled the data so I'd be keen to hear which bits you agree with!

It is very sloppy journalism. (and actually sloppy research).

FrippEnos · 18/06/2020 18:09

IrmaFayLear
Let me rephrase that: I know they are not representative of the profession.

Yes, its the same way that we know that the loud mouthed, yobbish, parents that post made up rubbish on here are not representative of parents as a whole.

ChloeDecker · 18/06/2020 18:18

A live lesson has everyone present etc Much better.

Interesting that the Education Endowment Foundation disagrees.