State-Of-Mind Why I left teaching…

[出久 (izuku)]

Is the Common Core teaching children to hate literature? That’s what I felt I was forced to do…

Opinion | How to Get Kids to Hate English

It’s as if schools teach them to read and then make them dread doing so.

www.nytimes.com

 

[AgentPete]

Bad teaching has been a feature of the English curriculum since way before Common Core. I still bear the scars (will not read!) Jane Austen, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy. All atrociously-taught. Conversely, I caught the John Donne / Chaucer bug from teachers who still nursed the fires of passion for those authors.

Teaching priorities seem to be out of tune with the times. In the UK our politicians are obsessed with numbers, grades, marks. So teachers become form-fillers, and pupils their data. Not much room for passion, methinks.

 

[ChantalS]

Bad teaching has been a feature of the English curriculum since way before Common Core. I still bear the scars (will not read!) Jane Austen, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy. All atrociously-taught. Conversely, I caught the John Donne / Chaucer bug from teachers who still nursed the fires of passion for those authors.

Teaching priorities seem to be out of tune with the times. In the UK our politicians are obsessed with numbers, grades, marks. So teachers become form-fillers, and pupils their data. Not much room for passion, methinks.

My oldest has said that they are learning for the tests and that's it. The amount of tests my kid has is ridiculous. And the info gets shoved into them so fast there is no room for actual comprehension - just can you regurgitate this onto the test? Yes? Then we are good. My kid promptly forgets everything afterwards. It's so stupid.

 

[Jake E]

I was at teacher for years here in the UK and quit because of the state of education.
Since 2014, the curriculum has been very prescriptive. Mr. Gove *Spits on floor* decided that reading, writing and arithmetic were THE single most important things for a child to learn and put the bar for success so high, we now have record numbers of SEN children on role. Children, that a decade ago, would have been middle of the road and doing fine.
And so teachers find that they spend all their time teaching the children to pass a test. Test practice, test technique etc... and there's no time left in the timetable for art, music, drama, creative writing and reading for pleasure.
The most egregious example of this is the phonics screening test; where if a child can read but doesn't know their phonics sounds, they are deemed a failure and must repeat the phonics teaching until they pass it... even if they can read without it!
Which begs the question; what is the test for then? Phonic is designed to teach children to read, but if a child can read without it why do they need to pass it? no wonder there are droves of children with the love of reading beaten out of them.

 

[James Charles]

I burned out in the classroom, so I became an administrator (the dark side that is).

 

[Peyton Stafford]

My parents both taught public school in the USA. That's why I did not go into it. I listened to their dinner table talk.

 

[Peyton Stafford]

I burned out in the classroom, so I became an administrator (the dark side that is).

My father, a professor of philosophy, used to say, "He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches; he who can do neither, administrates." On the other hand, there are Montessori schools and some excellent private schools that I would have loved to teach at.

 

[Claire G]

I'm a soon-to-be ex teacher and teaching reading was my absolute favourite thing to do. We covered books like 'Skellig' by David Almond and 'Clockwork' by Philip Pullman; we'd act out the opening scenes from 'Macbeth'. But the curriculum has become so dry. I feel sorry for the kids; they're much less engaged than they used to be. Teachers' passion is being drained out of them (not to mention the pressures of the workload and high levels of stress). I used to be able to teach grammar however I wanted, e.g. I used Beyonce's 'If I Were a Boy' to teach the subjunctive, but then we were told to use prescriptive flipcharts and worksheets so that we were consistent with the Multi-Academy Trust that we joined. Children's enjoyment, and 'shockingly', their retention, nose-dived. It is not unusual to see teachers in tears before and after school because the job has become unbearable for so many. It was a vocation for me and many others but we are leaving in droves. But hey, the government can just ramp up recruitment for fresh, young teachers to join the profession. It's cheaper and they don't know what they're getting into. Win-win, right? It's depressing @AgentPete

 

[AgentPete]

I'm a soon-to-be ex teacher...

This is genuinely tragic, both for you and all the young people whose lives you won’t be able to influence for the better. I am so sorry The system is broken.

 

[Hannah F]

I taught in schools for 3 years and I did cry. Then I resigned and taught kids who'd been expelled from school - much more rewarding. These happened to be rich kids from well-to-do, broken-in-some-way families. They wanted to learn, but school (and family support other than paying me) failed them. We had fun. They passed their exams. I got a Harrod's hamper from one of them as a thank you present.

 

[BrianY]

Surely you all remember Woody Allen's famous comment "Those who can't do, teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym." (Although I suspect that gym is called something else in British)​

 

[AgentPete]

Both Peg and I had unsatisfactory school experiences, her in the US public school system, me in the British public school system… they sound the same but are different

When we had kids, we couldn’t find a school we liked. Then two things happened: (1) we met a family who were home-educating apparently quite well, and (2) read a book by an American teacher entitled “Dumbing Us Down”.

Now, I have to quickly say that US home schooling has heavy religious connotations, cult associations, even extreme political motivations… and so on. Not the case with us

So we did it and really enjoyed it. The kids started to align with the national curriculum at about 14, then attended college from 16 thru to university (SOAS / Cambridge respectively).

We were very lucky to be able to do this, of course. One thing it taught me was – kids have natural, in-built curiosity. First rule of education should be – don’t kill that enthusiasm to learn!

Anyway, I’d love to see the two polar opposites that are home educ / school educ become closer. It’s feasible, they don’t need to be mutually antagonistic. Better people would result

 

[Pamela Jo]

I was at teacher for years here in the UK and quit because of the state of education.
Since 2014, the curriculum has been very prescriptive. Mr. Gove *Spits on floor* decided that reading, writing and arithmetic were THE single most important things for a child to learn and put the bar for success so high, we now have record numbers of SEN children on role. Children, that a decade ago, would have been middle of the road and doing fine.
And so teachers find that they spend all their time teaching the children to pass a test. Test practice, test technique etc... and there's no time left in the timetable for art, music, drama, creative writing and reading for pleasure.
The most egregious example of this is the phonics screening test; where if a child can read but doesn't know their phonics sounds, they are deemed a failure and must repeat the phonics teaching until they pass it... even if they can read without it!
Which begs the question; what is the test for then? Phonic is designed to teach children to read, but if a child can read without it why do they need to pass it? no wonder there are droves of children with the love of reading beaten out of them.

My sons absolutely needed phonics, but I wonder if the Gove (spits on floor. horses rear screaming in the distance)phonics system is the tested one that worked in the US for so long up until the 80's when they switched to memorising every word in the English language in it's entirety. The UK seems to have slavishly followed the US down every teaching fad there is. The most successful reading teachers have a toolbox full of things to try and then keep trying them with a child til the lightbulb comes on. Fluency (that state where the child reads wo even being conscious of it) being the real goal.

 

[Pamela Jo]

I didn't have a great public school experience except when it came to being taught English and reading. Even the ex nun that nobody liked taught me to diagram sentences and so redeemed herself to me.

Oddly enough when my husband and I first met we talked about a family who homeschooled and whose kids subsequently went to Harvard. We thought it was an excellent idea, but if my kids hadn't been dyslexic I think I would have put them in school. I really wanted to get back to work, but in those twists of fate it was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Through figuring out my kids I learned a lot about my own brain and the bits that had always gotten in my way.

We began homeschooling just as the wave of right wing evangelicals supported by the Discovery Institute hit Kansas. The intent was turning it into one of the states that would outlaw teaching evolution and substitute the right-wing curriculum.
Kansas had always had one of the best educational systems in the US so this became quite a battleground.

The brag I often heard was that home-schooled kids were going to take over because they had the best education. The thing is there is some truth to that. I would say the majority of kids had a better experience learning to read and spell than they would have gotten in public schools. However those parents didn't understand that if you give your kids an honest classical education and teach them things like Symbolic Logic-they will reason uncontrollably. Now you see the number of evangelicals falling in the US because their children are leaving the mega-churches.

 

[出久 (izuku)]

Agree with @AgentPete concerning home ed. So many opportunities exist in that circle, but unfortunately in the States it's often used as a tool to indoctrinate children with religion. However, even though I was baptized with indoctrination--almost drowned in it--somehow I'm alright. And many parts of my education I deeply value, such as the depth and breadth of reading and the (shocking, when compared to Common Core subjects) level of math and science I completed before attending university.

I dream of home educating my daughter.... maybe one day. It gets tricky with only one parent. Socialization is a big consideration; absolutely possible but won't happen unless the teacher (the parent) makes it a priority.

 

[Jake E]

Agree with @AgentPete concerning home ed. So many opportunities exist in that circle, but unfortunately in the States it's often used as a tool to indoctrinate children with religion. However, even though I was baptized with indoctrination--almost drowned in it--somehow I'm alright. And many parts of my education I deeply value, such as the depth and breadth of reading and the (shocking, when compared to Common Core subjects) level of math and science I completed before attending university.

I dream of home educating my daughter.... maybe one day. It gets tricky with only one parent. Socialization is a big consideration; absolutely possible but won't happen unless the teacher (the parent) makes it a priority.

I used to be against home schooling. I always thought it was detrimental to children's social growth and eventual integration into society. That's still true, if parents don't make an effort to give those experiences e.g. soft play, trips to the park etc...
Teachers often have 30 children (a number that keeps going up as more and more children. Get crammed into the schools) and cant possibly give each child the individual attention they need. Some get left behind, despite their potential to otherwise do quite well.

 

[MattScho]

I tried one year of home schooling, though in special circs. I had a one year university gig and the provost agreed to let my kids audit first year courses, so my kids attended 6 classes in their two semesters. That part of their schooling was pretty cool. The problem with that was that uni courses didn't deal with their math class needs, so some idiot who is now typing this took on that chore, and he really sucks at math. to this day, they have a good laugh at family gatherings talking about their math education.

 

[Peyton Stafford]

No wisdom here, but my daughter was home-school. Then earned a BA linguistics, MS and Phd in engineering. Now a professional engineer, married to another, with three kids, all doing well.

 

[Hannah F]

If my parents had decided to home-school me, I think I'd have committed suicide before the age of 10.

 

[BrianY]

If my parents had decided to home-school me, I think I'd have committed suicide before the age of 10.

My sentiments exactly. And pretty close to my actual experience too.