For teachers- do your pupils learn something new every day?

[jasper]

I am asking this due to the thread about taking kids out of school outwith holidays, where some of you explained it disrupted the teaching programme.

My question is do you really teach your pupils something different every day? This is a genuine question, not intended to provoke or criticise. I admire anyone who chooses teaching as a profession and the friends I have who teach are , to a woman, remarkable and inspiring individuals.
It's just that my memory of school (particularly primary school ) was of weeks and weeks of repetition of the same things.

That was my biggest compliant about school - it was boring and repetitive and I felt I hardly ever learned anything.

We were taken out of school for a week or two most years and there was never any notion of having to catch up or missing anything. Have things changed or am I suffering from false memory syndrome ? Might I have gone on to acheive greatness if it hadn't been for those fortnights in Harrogate?

So to repeat my question,which was not intended to rehash the holidays issue, do you teach a different thing every single day?

[hmb]

Well, that is a crappy thing to do , do you think it would be OK for her to take the time off to spend it on an educational trip with her kids? Because I wouldn't

[hmb]

Dinosaur, would you be pissed off if your kids teacher took 2 weeks holiday? I'm honestly interested. Because I'd be as mad as hell if my kids teachers did that.

[hmb]

MIL asked for the day off to attend dh's graduation and was refused. Id your child teacher off for 2 weeks? I repeat, I'd be as mad as hell.

[singingmum]

My point is that though education is important there are other important things for children and this is one of them.Holidays are very often the only quality time that a parent gets to spend with a child and that if the only way to afford that is the child catching up then thats what it must take.I admit that a lot of the responsibility of this is the travel companies but also schools have a lot to answer for.Maybe the way to go is the idea of changing to a new style of school terms ie shorter hols more frequently.I only do lessons with my children in the morning that is when we sit together and do the basics the rest of their education is self led and I think that is where the education system fouls up in its judgement of 2 weeks off in term time.My children ask to learn and lately so do their friends when visiting so although I am sure that you are an excellent teacher schools have to be failling somewhere when I can teach a school educated child a basic fact or lesson." weeks with family is what a lot of them need to show interest in the world around them.

[hmb]

Dinosaur, I've got no feelings left, I'm a hard-faced school marm! I'm not hurt at all!!

The point I'm making, (obviously badly!) is that parents think it is OK to take kids out of school for 2 weeks. That doesn't affect their kids' education to their mind. How many of them would feel it was OK for the teacher to go on holiday, say on the run up to the exams (as has happened with some of the year 11 kids I teach)? Not many I'd bet. As someone said earlier on parents get pissed off if a childs reading books don't get changed on time.

[Hulababy]

singing mum (and others) - As hmb said before though, would you mind if your child's teacher took time out of teaching your child so that he/she could have some quality holiday time away at a decent price?

[singingmum]

In all honesty I would not mind.However as a HE'er I do not have this to think about.I just believe however that society has changed and it is time the education system did too.

[hmb]

100% right, and we are jolly lucky to have such long holidays. I've worked in other areas and I know just how lucky we are. But not all teachers are married to teachers. Dh is in the RAF and often finds it hard to have holidays in school holiday time. As I posted, when he came back from the Gulf war I didn't ask for a day off, as I knew what the answer would have been! If family holidays are so valuable to the development of children then do I have the right to take a holiday in term time for the benefit of my kids? If missing 2 weeks doesn't harm your child when you take them away, then how could my going?? In fact, you could argue that it would matter less, because I could structure cover lessons, and juggle practicals etc before I went. But I think that it would matter, and it would have parents howling with anger at my lack of dedication. Would it annoy you?

[singingmum]

Actually it could be argued that your going away and another teacher covering would give the children a wider social experience.This is good as we all know for their development.If you were worried about the reaction of the parents surely a short explanation of why you could not take a holiday during say the easter hols would be sufficient for most parents.Why do teachers think that parents are a world apart from reality?As a parent surely you would find this sufficient, as a teacher surely you should know that quality time with family leads to better behaved,happier children.No offence but you seem under the immpression that unless someone is a teacher they do not have the ability to understand or be reasonable,which in reality is so obviously untrue.

[hmb]

But that would have impications for lack of continuity, cover teachers wouldn't know the children so well, understand SEN provision for children so well etc etc. And they would have to do without the wonderful me . I think you would find that most parents would be very pissed off!

[suedonim]

I don't really think teachers taking time off in term compares with pupils doing the same. We have a choice of whether to become a teacher or not, whilst unless one HE's, we don't have any say whether children go to school.

We have occasionally taken a bit of time off such as last autumn when dd1 went to her brother's wedding. It had been arranged in the holidays but a change in our circs meant she was at another school with diff holidays by then. It really was unavoidable. As she's older (16)she is used to working on her own and she made up the work herself. She'd already missed half the previous school year due to the change in circs and still achieved good Standard Grades. We were in limbo re school for dd2 (7yo) at that point but her prospective teachers felt it was a fantastic opportunity for her to be immersed in Jewish culture.

I wouldn't make a habit of it, though, and it isn't fair for parents to blame any shortfall on the teachers.

[singingmum]

By that argument surely then it would be better for a child to go through life with one teacher only.Therefore limiting their social contact and learning only one set of views.Please understand my children are taught by myself,my partner ,his parents and mine and my brother as we each have different skills.From the wide range of ages and contacts my children learn how to handle and speak to people of all kinds.More social contact makes them more confident and means that they think for themselves better as a result.I think you either have had bad contact with parents of pupils you teach or for some reason believe as I stated that they are unable to understand your situation.

[hmb]

I would never imply that, and nothing that I have posted should lead you to that idea. I am both a perent and a teacher. In fact I was a parent long before I was a teacher. I have absolutly no proplems with anyone home edding their kids. For that matter I have no problem with parents taking their children out of school in term time. If you scan my other posting on this topic you will see that I have repeatedly stated that they are the reponsibility of the parenst. I have also said that holidays can be educational, and essential, I have also posted (on another thread) on the educational value of 'non academic' sujects to a childs development and education. All that worries me is that some parents take their children out of school at crucicial points in school life, not seeming to realise that the children will be missing a lot of work. By an large those parenst will not make sure that the children catch up that work. And many of them will then turn around and blame the school for the poor exam results. Rather like the mother who phoned my head of department F-ing and Blinding decause her son hadn't finished and submitted him course work on time. And the reason, you guessed it, he was away on holiday. The school set up 3 catch up sessions and he missed them all.

[Hulababy]

suedonim - yes I did choose to be a teacher but only in so much as you choose your career/job and to have children, and to send those children (rather than home ed or other optoions possibly)to a state school knowing that you are only allowed a set number of sdays away in any one year, surely?