Why are some teachers so unnecessarily mean?

[barhari]

DC1's new teacher is infamous for being very strict - she's fairly old school. The children are genuinely afraid of her. One mum actually specified her child not be put in this strict teacher's form.

She just has such an attitude with the kids - her only form of communication is to berate and tell off. She's fine with adults.

This particular teacher reminds me of a couple of my own - of course, I'm not saying all teachers are like this but I'm just curious how they get away with it? Are they just miserable in themselves? Surely no one thinks this is an effective way of communicating with a child.

There's strict and then there's just plain miserable. Why get into teaching?

@Downton57

And this charmer: Younger teachers are better Once they’ve been doing it 20 plus years they’ve just had enough of it and got no patience probs don’t even like kids anymore but they need the money.

Oh I missed that one...no, that isn't on at all and I'm sure is completely inaccurate as well.

Research shows teacher get more effective the long they teach 🤷‍♀️

I loved my job and was bloody good at it. I worked so hard to keep up with technology changes, to make sure I wasn't the IT dinosaur. I'm not naive and am aware unkind teachers exist, but they are few and far between and I only encountered one horror in nearly 30 years of teaching. The vast majority of teachers care about the kids they teach and do their best, whether they are NQTs or have been teaching for years. Some are less organised than others, some aren't as diligent as others. Like everyone else, they are human, and have flaws.

Younger teachers are better Once they’ve been doing it 20 plus years they’ve just had enough of it and got no patience probs don’t even like kids anymore but they need the money.

I'd love to know what this is based on as it is most definitely not true. Of all the teachers I've worked with, the best have absolutely been the ones with the most experience. When you walk into a classroom and have to tell the (very lovely) young teacher that they have about 5 spelling mistakes on their whiteboard and then have to explain to them what a homophone is, it kind of makes you think. The same teacher who didn't actually notice that she had two extra pupils from another class that SLT were running round the school looking for ... Not ideal.

Classroom management doesn't take too much time to develop, and new ideas are always valuable. Schools need a balance of experienced and new staff. It just seems on this thread that old equals nasty, and that feels like teacher bashing.

It also misses the point that many of us teach as our second career. There are teachers much younger than me who are also much more experienced.

The worse ones are the ones who play favourites and have the kids they hate. I was one of the hated. He died after we left primary and my friend at the time was horrified when I said I was glad he was dead. I told her I was glad he could never make a child feel as awful as he had made my life every school day.

When our very nasty HT died I couldn’t believe the tributes she got from people in my Year at school - they clearly had a very different experience to me - either that or they took not speaking I’ll of the dead to extremes - I said nothing!

I was and am a rebel but my secondary school was full of very strict teachers. It was the making of me because it taught me to control my emotions and to act appropriately in public. I went on to achieve all my exams and have had good professional jobs that were well paid. I can be as rebellious as I like at home!

I don't know. Some adults just seem so unsuited to work with children yet they choose a career doing so... it makes little sense to me.

The teachers I remember most positively were not pushovers. They weren't your mate and didn't try to be. The boundaries were in place and their expectations high, but they were also warm and kind and did not need to assert authority by shouting needlessly and being inflexible and super strict.