How hard is teaching.

Study into it if you like. I think it's the biggest issue to make the biggest difference, but also, after that is addressed eliminate restrictions and regulations on teachers. Let them create the best learning conditions they can and fund it. Trust them. Have faith in them. Rely on their expertise. That is what the leading strategies in many countries do where they pay teachers similarly to what they pay doctors.

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Correction: It doesn't take much to be a mediocre public school teacher.

 

That's your characterization. You're imposing your characterization of "good" and "great" on my statement without knowing what I meant be "good".

 

That doesn't add up. If they aren't experts we can't turn them lose on students.

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That's funny.

 

Exactly. How difficult an instructor's task is depends on how receptive his/her student is. (And as a sidebar, for the young ones being taught, you show me a home in which the parents are engaged in what's going on in the classroom, and I'll show you a student that's got a very good chance of learning something).

If this question is being raised because of the number of downright crappy teachers we have in our public school system, you can blame the teachers unions and the morons that have been running the show from D.C. for that situation...

 

Well, most parents suck now. So it's not going to get any better. What can be done?

 

Generally speaking, I think teachers do a good job. (Of course there are exceptions.) You are right that the results aren't there, but this is the fault of policy, not the individual teachers who have no control over policy.

 

What countries are those?

 

Can you give examples of the bad polibies?

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I think the ones that have better teachers than us.

 

Yep.

I was a public secondary school teacher for 15 years, and I noticed a lot of parents and politicians blaming teachers when kids or schools performed poorly. I saw a lot of teachers blaming parents when kids performed poorly.

Unfortunately, it is uncommon for either group to publicly recognize that the students are the ones who actually determine the quality of their education. The kids are the ones in charge of whether they pay attention, ask questions, and do the work.

A curious and hardworking student will get a Harvard quality education at the public library. A lazy and indifferent student will only get a poor quality education, even at Harvard.

An education is not a thing given or done to students. It is something all students must do for themselves. Teachers are primarily guides and cheerleaders

Good teachers effectively remind students of this. Good students accept responsibility for their own educations, and accept their teachers' guidance.

 

Is this a thing kids are born with or are shown?

 

They took a simple process, and turned it into a Rube Goldberg device.

Anyone who paid attention in high school should be able to teach the subject matter. Anyone can effectively teach the subject matter with an up-to-date information source (textbook, for example) and a list of about 15 questions, including "Why?", "How do you know?", and "How would you find out?"

It is classroom control and relationship building that require teachers to have extraordinary abilities, especially considering what school administrations allow kids to get away with.

 

Which are also the ones that have the worse doctors, I guess.

 

If you were hired with the idea being that your job is to merely facilitate the educational experience, then yes.

I'm guessing that people are a little tired of that these days. They want teachers who are responsible for teaching. You get junior for so many hours a year, and they want results. You have him for five hours, they want to know what he learned in those five hours. If all you did was facilitate his unproductive time in the classroom, it's time to learn how to lay bricks.

 

I think the most common response to the question of why teachers went into education in the first place is "because I wanted to make a difference".

That's also the most common response from journalists when asked the same question about their profession, and very similar to the answer Rupert Murdoch gave when asked why he kept his circulars afloat after them all having been in the red for over ten years which was "I think they're a force for good in the world".

Most teachers didn't become teachers because they are good at moving information from one mind to another. They did it because they want other people to think like they do.

 

Sure.

Restore discipline to schools. Behavior, dress, classroom conduct.

Hold kids back when necessary. If they aren't scholastically ready for the 5th grade, have them repeat the 4th grade, and so forth. Be more concerned about the quality of high school graduates than the quantity of high school graduates.

Require P.E. every semester from K-12.

Why do students and teachers need July and August off? Let's make the school year longer. A month off is long enough.

My two cents ...

 

I am sure you are right. I used to look down on teachers before I got to know a few and found out what teaching was about. I know that I could never be a good teacher in a public school classroom.

 

Very good point. We all can make a difference.

 

Why? Is it that hard?

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So teachers suck at classroom control and relationship building? How do they improve?

 

I would find it so.

 

I sure wish I knew. If I did, I might still be a teacher.

Sooner or later all kids are shown it, but I am damned if I can tell why some take the bait and why some do not.

I taught many successions of brothers and sisters, and I noticed that that individuals differed widely within families. One might be a screw-up, and another might be unusually dedicated. They would all live in the same neighborhood, have the same home environment, be in the same socio-economic class, the same ethnic group, but they would perform so differently in class.

The hard working students were not always the smartest siblings, either. Some kids had involved parents, and some did not. Some indifferent slackers grew up with well educated parents. Some dedicated scholars had illiterate, or even criminal parents.

It looks to me like it is based on the same kind of thing as liking walnuts. Some people do, and some don't, but there does not seem to be any particular reason for it.

 

Interesting. Well if it's a trait, then there needs to be systems for those kids. And also environment doesn't matter.

 

I spent my twenties working in restaurants, and I was happy. I saw a lot of people start new jobs at the places I worked. They would interview well, but when they showed up to work, they would have serious deficiencies in basic skills and attitudes. There would be problems in taking or giving clear directions, showing up on time, getting straight to work, following through on tasks.

Basically, there were a lot of unprepared, irresponsible dinks. I became a teacher because I did not want to grow old in a nation run by unprepared, irresponsible dinks.

 

Teachers are all over the map in intelligence and ability, just like any profession. I don't think teaching is especially hard if you know the subject matter well, but teaching requires a special kind of patience. Some people look down on teaching with the motto "If you can't do, teach." Not only do you have to know the subject matter and convey it to the students, you also have to deal with discipline and dealing with the parents if the student is underperforming or misbehaving.

Teaching has some nice perks. The 2 biggest in Texas are the Teachers Retirement System instead of Social Security and holidays and Summers off. Many districts require you to have your master's degree within 10 years of hire if you want to keep teaching there. There is no overtime, unless you moonlight working concessions at school events or running scoreboards. The pay is OK, but I do much better. My brother has taught for 25 years and he is a pretty sharp guy. He teaches economics/ business and business software classes. (Excel, Word, etc.....)

 

Interesting. To be a good teacher they gave to be driven. If not they are not an asset to the kids.

 

I assume that there are advantageous combinations of traits and environments.

There is also the question of how the student reactions and participation in their educations correspond to particular careers or life paths. I once heard Howie Mandel say that he earns a million dollars a year for doing the same things he got in trouble for doing in high school.

My take-away from that is that there are no one-size-fits-all educational solutions. Perhaps that is the key to good teaching and good curriculum design: being able to create the right match for a particular student between the training and the destination.