Teachers!

[bixaorellana]

Who here is or was a teacher?

I hugely appreciate teachers because of the enormous reserves of patience, imagination and resourcefulness they are expected to serve forth every single day. The entire world relies on them to make the next generation ready to live in the adult world.

[gyro]

..or the next generation to be uninspired, resentful and full of regret.

There are some good ones and some bad ones, but the good ones do shine it has to be said.

[bixaorellana]

My very first teacher was so awful, she pretty much put me off school forever. However, that just proves that teaching is really a vocation, and those who aren't called should not be teaching.

What is really heartbreaking is when good, inspired and inspiring teachers finally give up the classroom because the administrative system is so oppressive and lackluster that it hampers their teaching.

[Kimby]

I teach, but as a volunteer at museums and nature centers. I could never manage a classroom of my own for a whole year. So much responsibility! So much work! And for the wee ones, so much nurturing, which I am not good at.

We do not pay (or respect) teachers enough for the very important job they do.

I loved my 5th grade teacher, who had a storeroom full of painted models of songbirds. Interestingly, after I met my husband-to-be I discovered that he had assembled and painted the same collection of birds as a child. Another sign that it was meant to be!

[spindrift]

My teachers were all nuns - not known for being kind.

[Jazz]

I was a teacher, but only taught off and on in my 20's. I found that I did not want to be in one room, with 30-40 children with bells ringing. There were few teaching jobs at the time and I was supply teaching. My solution at the time to avoid the large classes was to teach the classes others avoided...thus my career was with English as a second language, special education, hard of hearing, and autistic children. These classes were usually only about 6-10 kids and I enjoyed them very much. I also taught several evening classes in ESL to adults and liked this much more. However, I spent the next 25 years in the film business.

My feeling is that the great teachers are born with an innate sense of teaching and no amount of training can ever equal this. Perhaps 10%(?) of teachers are 'great'. I clearly remember the five that changed my life throughout my schooling. To be a gifted teacher is rare, and requires patience and a thorough understanding of human nature. I have never understood the quotation "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.' I don't agree.

[Deleted]

I taught adults for 2 years and high school level girls for 1 year. It was a disaster. In my defense, it was a private school for bad girls.

[Kimby]

Mar 28, 2009 18:06:49 GMT Jazz said:

I have never understood the quotation 'Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.' I don't agree.

I think there's a tiny bit of truth in it perhaps. In college, I lived in a house with 9 roommates, both male and female. Seven were in science fields and two were in elementary education. We scientists were always correcting the spelling on the posters the future teachers were making for their education classes.
Those two were not "rocket scientists", but they did have other attributes that the egghead scientists lacked, like empathy and nurturing and altruism.

Another truism "Learn by doing" has morphed into "Learn by teaching." There's nothing like having to teach something to make you learn it.

[livaco]

I am a teacher. I teach science to elementary school kids from four-year-old kindergarten to fifth grade. There are about 900 students at our school. I teach all the classes about once a week. What I do is supplement the science education they get from their classroom teachers. In the classroom they will be reading the text, and practicing vocabulary words etc., while in the science lab I give them activities that are more hands-on to help them learn things better.

We will do things like making circuits to light up a miniature light bulb, plant seeds, get caterpillars and observe their changes as they become butterflies, do experiments with magnets, water, minerals, earthworms and, well, I guess just about anything...

I think the largest class I had was 39 students. Right now they range from 22 to 32, except for a couple of special ed classes that are smaller. There are some challenges with students. It is an inner city school; many of my kids speak very little English, and many have had some very difficult times with their home lives. For some, school is the most stability they have in their lives.

kimby, you made me cringe when you post about education students not being able to spell. I see spelling mistakes all the time on teachers' bulletin boards or chalk boards, and it makes me want to scream! Sometimes it's just a simple mistake, but sometimes it's not. And at my school it is often because the teacher does not speak English as his or her first language. (Half our classes are taught bilingually in English and Spanish.) kimby, another thing I want to say is that when I was at college I knew of some students who were going into teaching because they thought it would be easy. I hope that they either found the strength inside them to do it right, or ended up in different careers, because teaching is definitely not easy. ( I've heard that many new teachers do not last more than a couple years.)

I agree with the poster who said teaching takes patience. It also takes the belief that whatever challenges you get you will work at them until you figure out the best way to meet them, whether it's getting through to a particular student, or figuring out how to get students to best understand a concept. I am always getting up in the middle of the night to write down a lesson idea that came to me as I was trying to get to sleep.

I feel when I am teaching like I am a conductor at a concert. There are many different things to be working out all at the same time, but it's great when the classroom is just humming and everything is working right. And I am learning things all the time. I've found that really thinking through a lesson helps with classroom management. You have to think through all the details, like how things will get passed out and cleaned up. And I have found that I don't have behavior problems when I have activities that the kids really want to do.

I am lucky because I get to know my students very well, because I teach them for many years. You really get to know what works with each kid. And I really get to love them. My kids are so cool, even when some of them make me want to pull my hair out. (In a way, especially those kids.) And I use humor whenever I can; they love that.

[lagatta]

I've been a T.A. at university, and taught languages (English, French and Italian) to adults. I've also done a lot of what is called "popular education", for example teaching about tenant rights and obligations, including to new arrivals here.

Have never had the slightest desire to teach a class of kids though.

[livaco]

I think I also have to share how it came about that I decided to become a teacher, because it is interesting.

When I was growing up, I NEVER said that I wanted to be a teacher. It was at least partly because that's what all the little girls said, and I didn't want to be like everyone else. It was also because I did very well at school, and I had the idea that I should choose a career that was more impressive, or, to put it bluntly, paid more money. However, even if I wasn't admitting it, I really did want to be a teacher. I had a couple of younger sisters, and I was always coming up with activity booklets and projects for them to do. And I loved school; the only problems I had in school was that I wanted to talk all the time (about what we were learning), and I corrected the teachers, and I would drive the teachers crazy coming up with other ideas for them to do with the lessons.

When I went to college, I got a scholarship to a much better school than I would have otherwise been able to afford (Marquette University). All I knew was that I did well in school, so my plan was to continue as long as possible. I was a pre-law student, and I was going to continue on to law school.

But then I ended up in England for 3 months that turned into 7 years. I quit college and traveled around. It was then that I really learned that while you need a certain amount of money, that's not what's really important. I was the happiest I'd ever been traveling around India spending a couple dollars a day.

Years later, when I was back in the US with a small son, I decided to go back to school, and the career I should go into was so obvious to me, I don't know why I hadn't realized it before. It sounds corny, but I was meant to be a teacher. I've been teaching for about 10 years, and I feel lucky every day (and exhausted many days, but still happy).

[bixaorellana]

Kimby, I think if your education major friends weren't "rocket scientists", that is because the profession of teaching is not sufficiently valued, so guidance counselors channel earnest but lackluster students into teaching. What a disservice to them and to their future students! Sure, some of those people might have the true spark for becoming teachers but sometimes education courses are so pedestrian and dumbed-down that they drive away any students with verve.
I was briefly an education major, and was appalled by the teacher (principal of the lab school) and his parrot-like pupils. I remember thinking that one day I'd have children, and they'd be subjected to my classmates as teachers.

Even then I knew that was so wrong and continue to be shocked by people who think someone who teaches high school science must be smarter than someone who teaches kindergarten. It's ignorant and dismissive of all the people, including parents, who are responsible for young minds.

Fortunately many, many teachers are like Livaco -- people who got a wide education, including life experience, then realized that they'd be both useful and satisfied as teachers.

[Deleted]

I don't know if this is a valid observation, but I received a much better education in my early years in Mississippi than when I finished high school in California. One interesting aspect of this is the fact that at that time, Mississippi was the state that spent the least on education and paid its teachers the least. California was the opposite -- most money spent on education and highest paid teachers.

This made me think that teachers had to be really dedicated to teach in Mississippi and that California had a lot of bad teachers looking for easy money. Technically, there was another difference. Mississippi teachers had almost no equipment and had to spend all of the class time teaching. In California, I cannot even count the number of times that the teacher just turned on a film projector for the entire duration of the class.

[rikita]

only teaching i ever did was teaching english to little kids (between ages three and ten - there were several groups) a couple of times per week during my own last years of school. was an interesting experience, mainly because i was kind of just sent there in front of these kids without hardly any preparation of how to teach... sometimes was scary in fact.

don't think i could be a teacher though... at work i notice anyway, that i get along good with very small children, but the closer they get to school age, the more difficult it is. they like me, usually, but i am not very good at convincing them to do what i say... now a class with thirty of them, and me as a teacher, i fear would result in chaos...

but i admire those that are teachers and are dedicated to it, and good at it. unfortunately i have various memories of teachers that probably weren't really meant for it in my own school time... but there were a few exceptions...

[tillystar]

I am seriously looking into teaching at the moment. I would start training in September 2010 as I missed the boat for this year. There is a lot to consider though so its good to have this time to make sure I am making the right decision. There is so much to weigh up and its a big step as I think it would be difficult to go back to what I do if I didn't like teaching - especially becuse of this "those who can't, teach" view in the business arena.

I could teach English Lit and Lang or Business because these are my 2 degrees but I am really keen to teach Religious Education and so I would need to take extra courses in this. I would also be happy to teach English but not so attracted to that so that needs some more thought.

I had some wonderful teachers who really had a grdat effect on the path of my life but also some really shit ones and some who seemed to enjoy bullying children, which is so messed up.