How hard is teaching.

I agree. Never thought of it like that before. I feel that the school has to understand that.

 

But your job as an educator is not to train people not to be unprepared, irresponsible "dinks", but to move information from your mind to that of the pupil.

 

Howie Mandel probably hurt a lot of his fellow classmates.

I think it's all about the environment. Sometimes, all it takes is one Howie Mandel sitting in the middle of the classroom, and students might as well just stay home because you're just not going to learn anything with him in the class. Drag him out of the classroom by his ear, and you'll see test scores soar!

The teacher is supposed to be the only personality in the classroom. That's how you control a classroom, and with that control, comes the ability to teach. Teachers have to be the alpha in the classroom, but far too many are incapable of doing that.

Oh, and mixing girls in with boys is a huge mistake. Two completely different learning styles.

 

It is a little like asking what people should do to become better husbands, wives, and parents.

The answer to your question depends on the teacher, the school environment, the particular deficiencies, and the particular students.

Something that I have not yet seen on this thread, is that teaching is the only profession that really requires the professional to love his or her clients in order to be most effective.

It is also the only job I know of where sometimes you get paid in love. It is an incredible perk.

 

Well you said a lot. How many love their job and students? If that is the intangible then no wonder they have problems and students don't like or respect them.

 

Welcome to 1950s thinking

 

Lol. This thread is getting good.

 

And 1950s academic achievement...

 

You are partially right, and partially wrong.

Absolutely, the kids who don't get with the program get in the way of other kids educational success. Kids who do not want to be there learning need to be somewhere else.

The teacher cannot be the only personality in the room. That is not how teaching and learning work because that is not how relationships of any kind work. It has to be participatory, where the students contribute to the group personality.

Otherwise, we might as well have a teacher on a screen with thousands of kids just watching.

The reason mixing (post-pubescent) boys and girls is a mistake has nothing to do with learning styles. The real problem is that guys do not behave the same when there are females around. Any amount of estrogen in the social environment turns testosterone into liquid stupid running through the veins of the guys.

My experience as a teacher was that when I had all-male classes (because the girls were all absent), the guys were calmer, paid more attention, and did more work. I know this is just anecdotal, but it was my experience that classroom control was so much easier and more effective without the silliness and distracted energy the girls brought out in the guys.

 

"group personality"? Why is that important? They can have all the group personality they want once that bell rings. Between bells, the only personality required is the one that can sit down, be quiet unless called upon, and shut the hell up the rest of the time.

you forgot taking notes and raising their hands if they have a question relevant to the subject matter. That's something a teacher on a screen can't handle, and is the reason why we still have teachers instead of giant video monitors. Also to gauge whether or not they understand the subject matter.

There is that, as well. That sexual friction doesn't help anybody.

 

Most teachers and lot of administrators do understand the unworkability of one-size-fits-all education.

One big problem is the involvement of the Federal Government, imposing unrealistic and unworkable standardizations. Another problem is the excessive involvement of State Governments. When I first became a teacher, I had particular things that I had to teach for each course, but I arranged the curriculum, designed the activities, selected the books, wrote the tests, and adjusted it all to meet the needs of my students. If too many did poorly on a test, I could go back, teach the material another way to make sure they understood.

Sometimes I would recognize my class was not getting it, and I would stop in the middle of a lesson, and talk with the class about what would help them learn it better.

By the time I left teaching, we were getting mandatory standardized lesson plans. This was before the Common Core, but was designed to support the use of standardized tests to grade teachers and schools (instead of to guide teaching). We had to teach the lessons within three days of the target date, and there was no time for re-teaching if the kids did not get it. It made teaching for mastery impossible.

 

It is not just that individuals have distinct personalities; groups do, too. It is a way to think about how individuals affect each other, how they tend to interact. For example, some students bring interest or enthusiasm that become contagious and engender a more productive group personality.

It is most important in skills-based classes, like math, literature/English, foreign language, because there must be practice, discussion, and interaction about the material. Classroom learning is cooperative, and some of the most effective learning activities involve students interacting, helping each other learn. This is where group personalities matter.

While as a teacher I had to develop relationships with individuals, I also had to develop relationships with groups.

 

That sounds good if you say it fast, but the reality of school is that most subjects are not about information, but rather about skills. Even the ones that seem like they are about information (history, science) are also about how to think about that information, and how to apply it. This all includes training students in how to do school, how to approach learning, how to organize thinking and activity completion.

My first year teaching, I had 11th graders who had never had a teacher who did not accept late work. They were all used to turning things in late for half credit. I had to teach them that the real world does not work that way.

Probably the most important thing I taught my students was how to deal with deadlines. Very few people use algebra in real life. Almost nobody needs to know the 4 methods of character development in literature, etc.

EVERYBODY needs people to take care of business on time and according to the requirements.

I would have rather had my students show up with these things already under their belts, but somebody had to make sure that they got it sooner or later.

 

There are some of each.

 

How is it that coaches of sports are able to do this but teachers aren't? That doesn't make sense to me.

 

I think they do.

Again the problem is mostly at home.

 

Group personalities are largely a matter of the alpha in the class, which is why I said you have to find that one disruptive student and lead him out by his ear. The same group of students, the same teacher, the same school, but add one disruptive student, and you've got a problem because that one student will negatively affect students in a three desk radius.

It seems we agree, but somehow we don't...

and groups have personalities due to the members of that group. Sometimes members of that group can be positive, while other times, they can be disruptive. It's the teacher's job to identify those individuals and do what it takes to create what you pedagogical types like to refer to as a "healthy learning environment". If that means giving the student a bum rush out the door and down the hall to the principal's office, then that's what it takes.

I see that as the teacher's responsibility, which is why I think the most important personality is that of the teacher. He or she has to control the group. Not in every micro-managing way, of course, but the teacher must be the leader of that group.

 

Teaching is tough. Folks ought to try it before they criticize too much. Most places it is pretty easy to substitute.

To get folks to do thing they are either self-motivated or you have to persuade them. To persuade you have two tools, reward and punishment. The system has taken away most of the punishment. You can't touch them. They will be the first to let you know. You can get rid of 'em. Expulsion is a thing of the past. By far discipline was the biggest problem for me. One disruptive student can destroy a classroom.

What would you do with a belligerent student who didn't want to learn and was intent on giving you grief to the amusement of the rest of the class? What if momma is convinced little Leroy is a genius and everyone is picking on him.

 

I taught 5th grade in a Catholic school in the Bronx surrounded on all sides by public schools. Most of our students were Black and Hispanic. I loved teaching and have hundreds of great stories. One of my favorites was we were studying the ear---the parts and how they work so that we can hear and also ear disorders like earaches, otitis extern(swimmer's ear), tinnitus and vertigo. A few weeks later, I received a note from a parent thanking me. She had had vertigo and her daughter diagnosed it from her symptoms. When she went to the doctor, he confirmed it. I was sooooo proud of her. Those are the kinds of moments you hang onto, because some days could be rough.

 

The best teachers are those who can inspire their pupils. They don’t have to be the best on their subject they teach, just have the ability to hold the children’s attention. It’s a difficult art to master and probably one that only a few have while the majority don’t.
Take a difficult subject, English grammar for example

Stative Verbs, Performative Verbs, Collective Nouns etc; all pretty boring stuff and if the teacher just lists and gives their meanings, you would be lucky if even half the class remembers a third of the lesson.
A good teacher will know that lists of grammar terms and explanations are not the best way to instil knowledge to pupils i.e. the teacher must first find a way to gain their interest. So the teacher may choose two books that are familiar to the pupils, say, the Potter and the Twilight series. Probably both will have their fans; the teacher then promotes a lively discussion concentrating on the writing, the good and the bad, of each. The teacher then moves the discussion on by reading aloud passages from the books which highlight grammatical errors etc, trust me, there are quite a few.

I don’t use the example above to choose which is the best written book, but as one example of how to gain their pupils interest in the lesson.

 

Judging by the really stupid 20 year olds we see in the "man on the street" interviews, we have a lot of really stupid teachers and college professors.

 

That pretty much sums it up. We aren't talking post high school, but K-12. It doesn't help that teaching has been politicized by the likes of the NEA. I'm not a teacher but know many. The parents are failing, too many use school as a glorified day care service and do not encourage their spawn to learn and discipline them if they are not trying. That's not to say teachers are perfect, but a child needs guidance and it starts at home. Teachers can't help those who don't help themselves.

 

My experience was that the majority of discipline issues were either natural chattiness, or the result of curriculum problems. Sometimes the curriculum problems were the result of bad design or delivery, but usually it was because the curriculum level was mismatched to some of the kids in the class.

If the kids were too advanced for the work, then they would finish early, get bored, and run amok. If they were unprepared for the subject matter, and it was too advanced (they were too far behind), they would goof off to hide that they did not understand, or to avoid a situation that made them feel inadequate.

Mismatch between kids and curriculum is way too common, and is the inevitable result of three foolish, but common policies mandated by most schools, school districts, and state boards of education.

1. Grouping students primarily by age, not ability and mastery of prerequisite knowledge and skills spreads the ability range in each class. This policy virtually ensures that some students will be bored, some will be lost. That increases the likelihood of behavior issues. Regardless of behavior, this decreases the potential effectiveness of instruction and class activities
2. Social promotion (passing kids to the next level who have not mastered their current level's material) is meant to save kids' self-esteem, but it has the opposite effect. When a kid is passed who does not have the prerequisites to do the new work, the kid is once again unable to do the work, and comes to the conclusion that he/she is stupid. As the kid is socially promoted year after year, that self-assessment is repeated and reinforced. During that time the kid is increasingly likely to misbehave and ultimately drop out of school.
3. Not teaching to mastery. The tendency is to rush classes through subject matter, to allow kids too little time to practice, and to depend on review to fill in gaps. This radically decreases the chances that students know or remember what they need to understand in order to keep up with current material.

(If you doubt how common this is, consider that I dealt with these policies in inner city schools and suburban schools alike, and in four school districts in two states-Texas and California. I routinely had 11th graders with 5th grade reading levels in the same classes with kids who had post-collegiate reading levels.)

The fact that these policies and the resulting issues are ubiquitous is why it was so important to be able to differentiate instruction and assignments. I always had ready-made questions and activities that ran the whole range of Bloom's Taxonomy. For the kids who were behind, I would have ways to link basics to new material. For the kids who were ahead, I would have extra challenges for them, activities that required higher order thinking or next-step applications.

Instruction differentiation is always necessary to some degree, but the more spread out the abilities in a class are, no matter how tightly grouped, the less effective even the best teacher can be.

 

I have always felt a good teacher is just as (if not more) valuable to society as a good doctor. The educational level is less important. A good teacher will posses a unique combination of mostly inherent skills. Sure a good teacher can be made but in my opinion most of them are born. Yes they should be paid well and we need to be able to weed out those who are just there to collect a paycheck.

 

Some truth there. We need to get back to ability grouping, do away with social promotion, bring back corporal punishment. A few bad apples can really make teaching difficult. Get rid of the bad apples.