Link stolen from Xigs, with a rant!

[conuly]

It's my rant. Yay!

I have had, in intermediate and high school (elementary school was a while back, and I never learned much there anyway, I just read under my desk) good teachers, bad teachers, and in-between teachers. I've also had good and bad professors at college. Occasionally, I have moved out of my self-absorption (when I was younger, or when the class is very simple) or my fascination with the subject (more recently, especially when it's a class I like) and paid attention to the class itself - the students, the teacher, all that stuff.

And I've noticed something important. The number one trait of good teachers is respect. They respect their students, they respect their subject, and it shows. The bad teachers don't.

So, I remember a Spanish class where the teacher clearly thought his students (except for me, he tried to make me out to be his favorite student, completely oblivious to the fact that I couldn't stand him. Indeed, when I got him the next term, I headed straight to guidance and begged to be put in another class, any other class) were stupid, lazy, and badly behaved. And it showed. He once had a shouting match with somebody where he finally, as she up and left, announced her last (failing) grade to everybody. Even when he wasn't thinking that he was about to be attacked by wild students, he acted rudely. I remember, before he realized that I actually could read Spanish reading a passage that included the word "dedos". In the two seconds it took me to think of the word, he started waving his hand in my face, shouting "dedos, you know, dedos". *eyeroll* Yes, dedos. It's cognate with our word "digit". But if I said digit, you might have thought I didn't know the word, because you might ignorantly believe it is only a math term. Your attempt at a visual aid is amusing, but ultimately unhelpful, so would you step away from my desk now, please so I can find the word "fingers"? As in "I'm about to break your fucking fingers"?

Idiot. And you could see that his expectations for his class was how they ultimately behaved. He thought they'd leave early and show up late - and they did. He thought they would be out of control, and boy were they. It wasn't for a lack of a watch that I consistently arrived 15-20 minutes after the bell rang.... It's just not pleasant being around somebody who thinks that everyone else in the room isn't worth giving the time of day to.

And I was in other classes with some of those people, and they didn't act like that. It was all him.

I remember English classes where the teacher, although he didn't think the students were completely out of control, didn't expect anybody to learn much. And so they didn't. He didn't teach much, and didn't make any expectations that people would learn, and so they all went out of their way to keep not learning. Why not? It's not like they were supposed to. I used the opportunity to catch up my reading. Occasionally, I caught up on my reading all the way down in the library, and was happier for it. Nice and quiet.

On the other side, I remember my physics teacher, Mr. Olsen, who had complete control over his class. And people learned things in there. I don't think it would have occured to anybody not to do well, or to act up. And he didn't threaten people, and he didn't get offended if you had to pee, and people didn't take advantage of this. Why? Because it was clear from his behaviour that people who are nearly adults can be expected to act like adults, and that if we couldn't learn the material we wouldn't be there.

I had a history teacher whom I absolutely adored who was the same way. (And he really deserves some credit for forgiving me for that ill-advised "so, you have no life" comment when I met him, which I honestly didn't intend to say out loud. And also, for forgiving me for writing books every time I bothered to hand in my homework, and for every essay question. I honestly never meant to write more than everybody else, I just liked my answers to be complete....) People learned a lot in that class, and they behaved well, because they were expected to do just that.

(Incidentally, all the teachers who seemed to fit the "respect their students" mold didn't mind being corrected in class. I think this is related.)

People tend to live up to whatever expectations you set for them. Even when they exceed your expectations, the truth is, when your views of a person are sufficiently low, you will never see them for who they are. So you win every time, right? Either way, people act however you already predicted they'd act, and you can come back and tell the naysayers "See, I told you so". Plus, you get to feel superior.

On a side-ways tangent, let me just say that offering rewards for doing well in class is just a bad idea. One would think that research in that area was wide-spread enough that everybody would know it by now. But maybe psychology isn't a required course to become a teacher...?

Comments

[rho]

And that isn't even a reward. That's a bribe. And a cheap and tacky bribe at that. I mean really, how many kids are going to care about a 1 in 200 chance of winning $20 worth of something that they probably don't want anyway? If it were me I'd make damn sure that I used those three tokens whether I needed them or not. Possibly all in the same lesson.

[conuly]

Like I said, complete lack of respect for these "children".

Newsflash, lady: Highschoolers aren't children. Minors, maybe (not all of them, of course), but not children. They're old enough to bar mitzvah, to baptize, to get their confirmation. Many of them are old enough to leave school, get a job, get married, get pregnant, join the army. They're not children.

[conuly]

Lady is the OP, not you, of course :) I'm a bit mad, can you tell?

[eofs.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to remember what we did at my school about going to the toilet. I think mostly people just went at break or lunch or occasionally between lessons (although that's a bad idea since there's no break between them so you will most definitely be late.) I'm trying to remember what happened when you needed to go in a lesson, but it's not something I can remember happening often so it's sorta hard. But I would guess you put your hand up at a convenient time (and yes Mrs OP, when a writing task has just started *is* a convenient time as it doesn't disrupt anybody but the person needing to go) and the teacher came over and let you go. Or maybe even you went up to their desk actually.

If a student is persistantly taking 20 minutes to go to the toilet then bring them to task, don't make life hard for everyone else. And besides, if they're missing work by leaving the room then surely they still have to catch that work up somewhen. And if they ask to go mid-explanation, just say "wait until I've got everyone down to work" (which I'm sure is what would have been said in my school.)

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

Wow, your Spanish class story brings back memories. There were two 6th period Spanish 2 classes my freshman year: one that had everyone who'd been in Spanish 1 together the year before in middle school [which was a privilege]; one that had everyone who'd failed Spanish 2 the year before and/or Spanish 1 the year before that ... and me. And she knew it. It was a nightmare. People came late, left early, talked, passed notes, the whole shebang. I slept through every single class all year. My teacher went to my mother (also a teacher in the school) and asked if I had sleep apnea. My average was still something like 98%. It's actually a miracle I continued with Spanish at all after that, and if I hadn't where would I be now?

We did have passes at my school—school policy—but most of my teachers just had a wooden one with their names carved in it hanging by the door for anyone to take.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Your Spanish teacher sounded a lot like mine. She was actually a good teacher, as in she had a lot to impart to us, but it was so easy to whip her up into a tizzy. There were times where she almost made me cry. I've only had two teachers that ever did that (my 12th grade math teacher as well, who yelled at me while I was at the board doing a problem because I just couldn't, for the life of me, properly divide a three digit number by a two digit).

My best teacher was my 12th grade English teacher. I didn't recognize it at the time, but his classes were almost always conducted as seminars. You didn't get in trouble for showing up late, unless the office had already come by to get the attendance (a lot of teachers operated like this). He put his ideas out there, and if you didn't want to learn, well, it wasn't any skin off his back. He was there for the people that wanted it. It was curiously liberating.

[cindel.livejournal.com]

My high school was the best and the students respected all of the teachers of course go in hand and hand with the administrations that ruled with an iron fist. That was five years ago and now kids don't give a crap about school,education or their teachers.

[conuly]

Serious or sarcasm? Could go either way....

[grammaravenger.livejournal.com]

I remember English classes where the teacher, although he didn't think the students were completely out of control, didn't expect anybody to learn much. And so they didn't. He didn't teach much, and didn't make any expectations that people would learn, and so they all went out of their way to keep not learning. Why not? It's not like they were supposed to. I used the opportunity to catch up my reading.

This is exactly how my German teacher was. He hardly taught, and the only ones who actually really learned German were the ones who learned things on their own. He was constantly exasperated with the class's refusal to learn anything (despite the fact that his teaching was awful), and as they failed to meet expectations he just kept lowering them. I always felt that if he made us do more work and demanded more that the class would have been better. If by not doing work, (s)he ends up getting less work assigned instead of being penalized, why is the already somewhat unmotivated student going to do the work? This always eluded him.

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

Basic leve psychology is a required course to become a teacher at both of the colleges that I've looked into it at.

[conuly]

Yeah, I know, it's pretty standard. That's why I said it, it's StealthSnark.

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

Ah. I'm terrible at picking up at stuff like that. You have to understand that despite the fact that I come off as a social adept, I'm particularly inept at...

...well, a lot.



-excerpt from my story John Fli. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sporks5000/23531.html)

Forgive me if I'm occasionally slow on the uptake...

[leora.livejournal.com]

I can't read all of this, but when it came up in the teaching community, I remember someone commenting on how many new teachers try to get really fanatical about bathroom breaks, but it usually ends after the first person throws up in the classroom because the person wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom.

[rho]

And that isn't even a reward. That's a bribe. And a cheap and tacky bribe at that. I mean really, how many kids are going to care about a 1 in 200 chance of winning $20 worth of something that they probably don't want anyway? If it were me I'd make damn sure that I used those three tokens whether I needed them or not. Possibly all in the same lesson.

[conuly]

Like I said, complete lack of respect for these "children".

Newsflash, lady: Highschoolers aren't children. Minors, maybe (not all of them, of course), but not children. They're old enough to bar mitzvah, to baptize, to get their confirmation. Many of them are old enough to leave school, get a job, get married, get pregnant, join the army. They're not children.

[conuly]

Lady is the OP, not you, of course :) I'm a bit mad, can you tell?

[eofs.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to remember what we did at my school about going to the toilet. I think mostly people just went at break or lunch or occasionally between lessons (although that's a bad idea since there's no break between them so you will most definitely be late.) I'm trying to remember what happened when you needed to go in a lesson, but it's not something I can remember happening often so it's sorta hard. But I would guess you put your hand up at a convenient time (and yes Mrs OP, when a writing task has just started *is* a convenient time as it doesn't disrupt anybody but the person needing to go) and the teacher came over and let you go. Or maybe even you went up to their desk actually.

If a student is persistantly taking 20 minutes to go to the toilet then bring them to task, don't make life hard for everyone else. And besides, if they're missing work by leaving the room then surely they still have to catch that work up somewhen. And if they ask to go mid-explanation, just say "wait until I've got everyone down to work" (which I'm sure is what would have been said in my school.)

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

Wow, your Spanish class story brings back memories. There were two 6th period Spanish 2 classes my freshman year: one that had everyone who'd been in Spanish 1 together the year before in middle school [which was a privilege]; one that had everyone who'd failed Spanish 2 the year before and/or Spanish 1 the year before that ... and me. And she knew it. It was a nightmare. People came late, left early, talked, passed notes, the whole shebang. I slept through every single class all year. My teacher went to my mother (also a teacher in the school) and asked if I had sleep apnea. My average was still something like 98%. It's actually a miracle I continued with Spanish at all after that, and if I hadn't where would I be now?

We did have passes at my school—school policy—but most of my teachers just had a wooden one with their names carved in it hanging by the door for anyone to take.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

Your Spanish teacher sounded a lot like mine. She was actually a good teacher, as in she had a lot to impart to us, but it was so easy to whip her up into a tizzy. There were times where she almost made me cry. I've only had two teachers that ever did that (my 12th grade math teacher as well, who yelled at me while I was at the board doing a problem because I just couldn't, for the life of me, properly divide a three digit number by a two digit).

My best teacher was my 12th grade English teacher. I didn't recognize it at the time, but his classes were almost always conducted as seminars. You didn't get in trouble for showing up late, unless the office had already come by to get the attendance (a lot of teachers operated like this). He put his ideas out there, and if you didn't want to learn, well, it wasn't any skin off his back. He was there for the people that wanted it. It was curiously liberating.

[cindel.livejournal.com]

My high school was the best and the students respected all of the teachers of course go in hand and hand with the administrations that ruled with an iron fist. That was five years ago and now kids don't give a crap about school,education or their teachers.

[conuly]

Serious or sarcasm? Could go either way....

[grammaravenger.livejournal.com]

I remember English classes where the teacher, although he didn't think the students were completely out of control, didn't expect anybody to learn much. And so they didn't. He didn't teach much, and didn't make any expectations that people would learn, and so they all went out of their way to keep not learning. Why not? It's not like they were supposed to. I used the opportunity to catch up my reading.

This is exactly how my German teacher was. He hardly taught, and the only ones who actually really learned German were the ones who learned things on their own. He was constantly exasperated with the class's refusal to learn anything (despite the fact that his teaching was awful), and as they failed to meet expectations he just kept lowering them. I always felt that if he made us do more work and demanded more that the class would have been better. If by not doing work, (s)he ends up getting less work assigned instead of being penalized, why is the already somewhat unmotivated student going to do the work? This always eluded him.

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

Basic leve psychology is a required course to become a teacher at both of the colleges that I've looked into it at.

[conuly]

Yeah, I know, it's pretty standard. That's why I said it, it's StealthSnark.

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

Ah. I'm terrible at picking up at stuff like that. You have to understand that despite the fact that I come off as a social adept, I'm particularly inept at...

...well, a lot.



-excerpt from my story John Fli. (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sporks5000/23531.html)

Forgive me if I'm occasionally slow on the uptake...

[leora.livejournal.com]

I can't read all of this, but when it came up in the teaching community, I remember someone commenting on how many new teachers try to get really fanatical about bathroom breaks, but it usually ends after the first person throws up in the classroom because the person wasn't allowed to go to the bathroom.