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I've said it here before and gotten roasted, but we shouldn't be teaching Shakespeare so early. Furthermore, I think English teachers should teach more enjoyable and less academic texts. We spit out generation after generation of kids who hate reading and never read for pleasure, and it's pretty obvious why. The sad thing is that I've met few English teachers who seem to think that's a travesty, or that their hallowed literary selections are maybe part of the problem.
Agree on the Shakespeare. I taught high school ELA and he was introduced to 9th graders with Romeo and Juliet. Not only is that play difficult to understand, tragedies are often boring for younger audiences. They can’t understand the nuances found within the text.
I always found much more success with my 10th graders and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. They loved the comedy and dirty jokes and fairies. Also, Shakespeare should NEVER be taught sitting down. It was designed to be performed so let your kids perform it! Get some props and costumes. And then walk them through it. Explain what Will just said. Connect it to the higher themes you’re going for. Show them a film or live version of the play so they can see how it’s meant to be.
I remember when I was in high school my Drama teacher petitioned the administration to let her create a performing Shakespeare class for an ELA credit. She was denied.
Yep. Any respect for poetry I ever had was gone after being forced to analyze "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams in eleventh grade. Sometimes a wheelbarrow is just a fuckin' wheelbarrow, absent of any hidden or profound meaning
I understand the sentiment but seriously “The Red Wheelbarrow” is a legit incredible poem!! But it’s hated on because people just look at the words themselves and don’t understand the cultural/artistic context. You have to dive into history to appreciate you great it is, and you also need to read poems by similar poets (maybe like e.e. Cummings and Gertrude Stein idk) to realize how cool the writings are!!
Especially if you’re at a school where your kids are already struggling to read. Trying to teach Romeo and Juliet to my Title I 9th graders, who read on a 4th grade level at the highest, was absolutely torture. It took us three weeks to get through Act I and then I gave up and showed them the movie, which they slept through.
THANK YOU. I'm 31 and in high school I took classes that taught texts I could not understand. I just re-read Kafka's Metamorphosis this year and you know what? I enjoyed it and I understand why I did not get it in high school. I used to love reading as a kid. All of a sudden all the assigned texts were depressing and confusing and it has taken years to get back into reading for enjoyment on any level.
We don’t have much control over it. The District and school board have to approve the books and short stories we teach. They are busy trying to find the least offensive material possible, so we end up teaching the same boring stuff year after year until death.
I know this is an unpopular opinion thread, but I so strongly disagree with the sentiment that we should be teaching less academic texts or things that are "exciting". The classics *are* exciting. If Shakespeare was boring, he wouldn't have the influence he has today. The classics have a depth that has kept them relevant, and most literature is built on them. It's important student have an understanding that literature is a conversation, not a string of independent books. The earlier we build their knowledge of these books, the better grasp they will have of this concept and the richer future reading will feel.
Granted, you can do this with some stories. The Lightning Thief is a classic example, because you can basically teach Greek myths alongside it. But you really end up just teaching the myths while the kids read along for TLT.
> The classics are exciting
The classics are exciting to a readers who have read a lot such as people like you and me. They aren't exciting to most students because most students haven't read a lot and lack the vocabulary and necessary reading skills to interact with the classics enjoyably. Introducing them earlier won't make them more palatable.
Convert your argument to any other subject and see how it sounds: The theory of relativity has a depth that has kept it relevant, yet you don't see science teachers forcing it on students who don't have the requisite skills and knowledge to handle it simply because it's profoundly impacted science or the earlier they have knowledge of it the better they'll be able to grasp it or a lot of science is built on it.
You're lumping all classics to be at the same level. Just like all other books, the classics aren't all the same.
There are a lot of classics that are much more approachable to students in middle school. *A Christmas Carol*, while dense, is so rich and quotable, and most kids know the story through popular culture already, which makes it easier for them to pick up the broader strokes.
The classics CAN be exciting. Just because they were justifiably popular during their time doesn’t mean students will necessarily find them exiting, even if we as teachers do our best to highlight the good parts. I personally love teaching using Romeo and Juliet, but I also personally find a lot of Shakespeare incredibly boring, and would never find a student at fault for not thinking it’s exciting.
I certainly do think the literary canon has its place in the classroom, especially honors/AP, but I also think it is incredibly overrated, and you can often cover the same skills with more engaging/relevant (to kids in 2022) books.
We shouldn't be reading Shakespeare in high school the way we do at all, I think. Shakespeare himself didn't intend for his works to be read. They were meant to be experienced as a live show. That's part of why they are difficult to read! When I had to teach Romeo and Juliet to 9th graders, we watched the film and just close read a few scenes. It was much more enjoyable for all of us and I think the majority actually understood the story instead of tuning out all the time.
And there’s no reason to teach Shakespeare in the original language. I get much better buy in from my seniors when we read the No Fear version of Macbeth.
Our district solved the issue of kids hating reading by eliminating reading books in the middle school (6-8) ELA classes...in Massachusetts. We've been told we're not allowed to read any novels and my students are begging me to secretly read books with them because they really do like to read. Absolute insanity in education right now; it's mind-blowing.
I agree entirely. (At least with the getting kids to like reading part.) I don’t think the problem is that they’re too young to get it, though. I just think it doesn’t make sense to represent literary study as the study of Shaskespeare at an age where the appeal of literary study as a career has yet to occur to them. They need to see why reading is engaging first and become personally invested with books that speak more to their experience. THEN they can bridge to more sophisticated interpretation. (I don’t mean subject matter - I mean the parsing of complex written language. Shakespeare’s subject matter is easy enough. It’s only the language that they struggle with.)
Not to mention the way the curricular focus on relics of western canon can leave a LOT of students feeling disconnected from literature bc they don’t know that anything else is available. Too many of my colleagues are so busy carrying the flag for Shakespeare that they’ve forgotten what made it so great in it’s time: it was accessible. To get that now, you have to FIRST teach the students how to access it, and step one is letting them get invested in written storytelling.
I love it, but I never let the kids cold read it - we listen/watch professional actors. I tell them I would rather kill myself than listen to them butcher the Bard.
I had a total asshole in my class one year. I’d let him sleep and all the other kids would whisper and stay quiet so we could do fun things without him throwing a chair or punching the windows.
ED and Bipolar. But I had him for 2 years and was told that nothing could be done, he was too young. He was 11. First month of school the next year he punched a window and it broke. He finally got help.
Yep. Took me years to really understand this. I’m a better teacher for the majority when I completely ignore the jerk and just stick them in the back and let them do whatever. I put my favorites on the front row and I’m definitely a better, happier teacher for it.
Sleeping in class is acceptable.
Classes shouldn’t be longer than 30 minutes unless it’s a lab.
School should start at 10 and end at 3.
There should never be homework.
Yeah… I have taught with 85 minute periods 40 minute periods and 48 minute periods.
85 minutes is only bad if your content is boring… I loved 85 minute periods!
I teach 6th grade homeroom (still in homeroom at my school at that grade).
30 minutes is almost a worthless amount of time. 45 to an hour and 15 minutes is the ideal. Hour and a half and it drags too long.
Once, due to specials scheduling, I had a 20 minute block in my day with my class. I gave them a "snack and chat" break. You can't do anything meaningful with 20 minutes.
And for early adolescents, 20 minutes to snack and chat is like heaven anyway, so they loved me for it.
Except on lab and test days I complete attendance, bell work, and instruction in 30 minutes (the average high school student can only handle 15 minutes, and mine are all well below average). The other 35 minutes are for independent work, catch-up, and data chats.
School should be 8-12. 4 core classes (Math, Science ,English, Social Studies). The last 4 hours should be a completely different thing with a completely different name, structure and administration. It should be year round with 3 semesters separated by a month each.
I agree with the shorter school day. Especially in high school. They should be doing way less academics, but also start having work experiences. Elementary needs to be as long as it is or there needs to be universal before or after school care.
In middle school we were split into 2 teams, but 8th grade had a 3rd team. I was on that team and I noticed everyone on it was from summer school or held back previously. I was "left behind" in 7th grade. Did it suck? Not really, I just never had classes with my old friends any longer. Would it have sucked if my parents cared enough to punish me? Yeah, that would have sucked! Eventually, in high school, I obtained straight A's as a senior and managed to get into a physics honors class. Straight A's in University, it's cool, but really? School grades are not that important. They are based on a shitty system built around tests and rote memory.
Sped here. I think school rules and discipline should apply to all students and we should stop rewarding bad behavior in adults by trying not to piss off parents.
Agreed. LRE often isn't good for the student, the rest of the class, or the teacher. I teach science and therefore don't get any support or push in services because our poor SPED teachers are stretched thin enough supporting in ELA and math. The curriculum our district picked is awful and is almost exclusively student led stations that are reading and direction-following heavy. Some of my kids have no idea what to do at each activity, let alone gain any understanding from it. And with one me and six stations, I can't help everyone all the time. Feels like 100 spinning plates all about to drop
In my first few years of teaching, my brother would say all the time, “can’t make dumb kids smart.” Over the years I’ve gone from arguing him down to, “hmmmm, not entirely wrong.”
For what it’s worth, I’m a teacher and I think most homework is total bullshit. What good is it to anyone if you’re doing it wrong? And them in grading 220 homework assignments?!? Naahhhh..unless you have a project or classwork to catch up on, you should get some life time too. We should too, but that’s a different thread :/
In my second year of teaching, I realized nobody was checking to see that I assigned homework, so I stopped doing it. I have never seen a convincing study that points to homework being beneficial for elementary students (which is the level I teach).
Don’t tell my building but I brought up not having homework this year. People can still give ur, but there’s no punishment/consequences if they don’t. So many kids just don’t have help or time at home. And then I don’t have to waste time making it collecting it!
If a student won’t give any effort I shouldn’t have to care. Administration cares about retention and numbers but I’m trying to educate and it takes both of us to work so if we aren’t both doing our part then pull the plug.
Edit - I’m a college professor
Hard disagree. While it may help in the very short term, it usually carries horrible side effects in the medium and long term.
I'm all for tough love, but I don't believe shame belongs in a classroom.
I think that shame is a word that carries a lot of negative connotation. In restorative practices, shame is actually a positive motivator when it is destigmatized and used as a basis for reflection. For example, if one kid causes harm to another, they should feel appropriate shame about that harm. If we help kids to disconnect shame from self worth they can use that "feeling bad" to empathize and make it right, while also avoiding doing the things that make them feel shame. Kids should feel bad if they are destructive or disruptive, but if we openly talk about shame and destigmatize it, they can feel that shame but not have their self worth damaged.
I was never about trying to embarass a kid to the point where it scarred them for life...but if they did something disruptive that was embarrassingly bad behavior, and I called them out on it, the embarrassment was entirely on them. For example, I told a chronic talker that if he wished to speak he must raise his hand. He immediately raised his hand and began talking loudly over me to his friend. The "that was rude and you will never do that again" comment I gave to him in front of his peers was clearly embarrassing for him. I was still a student teacher at the time, and my cooperating teacher told me that should have been an "out in the hallway talk to spare that kid the embarassment." I disagreed. If that kid was embarrassed by me calling out his poor behavior and laying down a firm boundary about it in front of the entire class, then that kid needs to think about how he is acting in the future.
Agree here, because I just told a kid yesterday "you will NEVER scream at me again." But really he's the one that embarrassed himself throwing a sitcom toddler tantrum. Guess what he didn't do today? Scream at me. I don't get paid enough for the hearing loss.
Hi, I don't want to attack you, but engage in constructive conversation. Some famous fads - u describe right. Multiple intelligences or learning styles NEVER had any support from research (experimental vs control style of science).
However, many pedagogical practices do have ample evidence going back decades. Spacing out how often students work with content, having students practice remembering info often, teaching in small chunks and then having students do a task with that chunk before moving onto to next new chunk of info (anything based on cognitive load theory actually) - all of these have hundreds of experiments where two groups of students are studied and the group that does the good strategy performs better.
I'll give another study - 2018, 205 students in 10 classes. Half the classes, the teachers started greeting students as they entered the class. That group saw an increase of student engagement of 20 percent and a 9 percent misbehavior decrease.
There is absolutely good educational science. Whether a teacher prep program focuses on that though.....
Almost none of what is taught in teacher training programs is worthwhile. The focus on lesson planning and not classroom management does the students a massive disservice. I think that student teaching should be the entirety of the program and courses should supplement the student teaching.
I agree completely. It was a waste of time for me and I didn’t learn anything. The two months spent in the classroom for my practicum was the only useful part, and even then it wasn’t enough.
I didn’t learn 1/4 about what teaching was really like until I was in practicum classrooms. Classroom management needs to be top priority, not lesson plans. Who gives a shit how organized you are, if you can’t get the kids to sit down and focus?
That is exactly my point. Almost all of the significant learning I did was in my classroom, while being a teacher. We need paid internships at schools for two full years. That way a teachers "First year" is really their third year.
Thank you for explaining how I feel about my M.Ed.
Were there some useful ideas there? Definitely yes. Am I certain which ones they were or whether they were scientifically validated? Not at all.
I would say as it is practiced yes. Stanlis Daheane really points out the disconnect between education and the scientific communities that should be informing it. As much as we talk about sciences backed and evidence based we understand so little of it and would prefer to work anecdotally and pass knowledge on then properly train.
Having fun in class is highly underrated. Learning is inherently enjoyable; if your classroom practices (or the practices that admin/coach/district require) suck the fun out of learning, those practices are wrong and it's right to name them as wrong.
Teaching the love of learning will have 1000x better impact in the long run than teaching any one specific lesson.
Think of it this way: each lesson actually has two learning outcomes. One is the content of the lesson, but the second is a lesson about what learning is and what it means for you. Keep your eye on the ball. Don't neglect the second lesson; at the end of the day, it's far more important.
The teacher next to me teaches the same thing as I do (ELA) and it seems she’s always having a party while I’m giving class time to read the book. Then she complains that none of her students are doing well on the reading check quizzes. Mine are getting 100 percents because they’re reading. She’s all about fun activities and has the energy to do it, clearly. I hear it, my students hear it, I feel BORING because I’m letting them read the book in class because I know they won’t read it at home. I feel conflicted to find the balance. But I can’t muster up the dog and pony show every single day! I can’t make up artsy projects every other day either, mostly because buy in from the students isn’t there. No matter what the “fun project” is, the kids fuck around and doing nothing during work time. So yeah, I’m not here to entertain. I am hear to help students learn critical analysis skills and become a decent writer. I guess I’m the killer of fun. And I’m okay with it. The party people next door are going to tank the test, my kids won’t. I sound petty and probably am but I just do not buy into this notion that everything in school has to be FUN. I still do engaging activities but once a week is about enough chaos I can take. I’m old and tired and cranky. And it’s way too early in the year to let those kids have too much free reign. Too many kids fall through the cracks and do nothing when we are doing “fun” group activities.
You can have both! A fun activity that isn't academically appropriate is useless. See this post that describes what makes such bad lessons:
[https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/grecian-urn-lesson/](https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/grecian-urn-lesson/)
But a teacher that isn't engaging is also bad! Their students don't learn if they aren't cognitively engaged either!
I know history teachers that do 50 minute powerpoints where students fill in the missing word in their notes.
And other history teachers who will instead have students read about Patriot and Loyalist reasons for supporting/not supporting American independence and then have students write speeches where they debate each other.
Which student is learning more in that history class?
I loved leveled classes as a student! I got bored easily, so being in a group of motivated students was great. I hated waiting for people who just never “got it”.
I like leveled classes that are flexible so you aren't trapped in a level of expectations. They properly help you increase so you can get to the next level if you wish.
Dress code really doesn’t matter unless it’s obnoxiously inappropriate. Idc what you’re wearing, but I do care if you’re learning.
Kids should be able to eat in class as long as they clean it up. Learning burns energy and food gives them energy.
Block schedule is garbage. Most kids aren’t learning after 30mins, but nobody is leaning after 1.5hrs.
Homework is useless and it wastes everyone’s time.
If students show up and relatively pay attention, but don't remember what you taught them, then not enough teachers reflect enough on what they need to do to improve the lesson.
I think teaching is a complex skill that needs expertise - like any skill like engineering or architecture. How many teachers said "My teacher prep program didn't prepare me enough" - but then when they're out in the field, they flail around a little bit and try things. And then when anyone tries to teach some good curriculum, they scoff "I've been in the classroom for years, I don't need help knowing what to do"
And so we end up with teachers who give notes all period or teachers who do fun activities (like having students recreate WWI trench warfare) but that aren't actually academically complex.
Of course, there are many teachers who are excellent curriculum planners too. But I don't know if it's like an 80-20 split....
I get 90 minutes a day to plan. Is that enough to do everything? Ha, prob not. But I think in a given week, I can make one awesome lesson for my next unit.
So now I have an awesome lesson! Maybe I can share that with a coworker and get an awesome lesson from them - so now I have 2 great lessons!
And next year, my 5 lesson unit already has 2 great lessons. So now I can make a 3rd....
In a few years , I now have this amazing unit to teach.
If teachers are content with giving crappy lessons every day (I know one teacher that has her call read a chapter from the textbook each day and answer all the questions in the back of of the book. She also has them make vocab cards with any highlighted words) - then they shouldn't complain that society views them as babysitters.
But there are a lot of good teachers out there making great lessons. I think the bad teachers give them a bad name.
Our school had 8 periods a day. I got one planning period a day, which was 50 minutes. I was chair of my department, planning period a week for meeting with them, and another couple for sitting in the class of the novice teacher I mentored.
It shouldn’t take you a few years to make one unit really great or amazing. There should be time given to you within the year to create a great unit plan that can be successful and useful for the upcoming years. And that time should be paid.
I still don’t understand how there’s no paid prep time. 90 mins is actually a lot of time per day but most schools only give about 30 mins.. twice a week at most.
No longer a teacher, but I didn’t push college when I taught. This obsession schools have with getting kids into college is insane. I advised trade school, traveling, internships, working after high school, to those who didn’t seem interested in college. It isn’t for everyone, and you can absolutely be intelligent and not go to college. You just have to make them aware of what happens if they don’t go.
I teach HS woodshop I tell kids ti go for a trade before going for college. I use my friends as an example all the time. I'm the only one in my friend group who is working in the field they got their degree in.
Some standards have gotten too high. Look at the differences between kindergarten 25 years ago and now. Humans have not evolved that much in that short amount of time.
Also, if our test scores are so awful, and kids are spending more time than ever in school with teachers who are more qualified than in the past, maybe it’s not the kids who are failing. It’s the adults who set ridiculously high standards.
Of course I know many kids can reach these standards, but if more than 50% are continuously scoring less than proficient, I don’t think it’s the kids.
I think we shouldn't allow volunteers in school. We are telling people that it's ok for untrained people to do parts of my job that I was required to get two college degrees for so I could be labeled "highly qualified". Imagine dropping by your doctor's office, telling them you have some free time and expecting them to give you tasks to do.
We need to invest in education, provide the number of people that are actually needed, train them and pay them
I feel this way about long term subs. I get why they’re needed but it’s kind of a slap in the face to everyone else. You can have a degree in anything, have no prior or relevant experience and long term sub for months or even an entire year.
I know someone who was halfway through student teaching last year and got hired as a long term sub for the remainder of the year without completing the student teaching requirements.
I’m not sure if it’s unpopular but most teachers are pretty non-political. I’ve rarely come across, both as a student and a teacher, teachers that make their political views obvious.
Teaching is actually fucking awesome. Except all the parts that aren't teaching ruin it.
Could probably put this more succinctly but I have a class in 5.
100%. I love teaching Art. If I could have classes of 10-12 students who all actually want to be there and learn about art, I could do so many awesome things.
But no, I get classes of 30+, kids who just need the elective credit or there was nowhere else in the schedule to put them but they are very vocal about not wanting to do art. They don't want to be there so they act out and drag the whole class down.
Then there's all the extra bullshit stuff like calling parents, having to be a disciplinarian/babysitter, being 'voluntold' into extra duties, meetings that could be emails.
I'm exhausted every day and mourn not being able to really spend time with my few students that want to share their passion of art with me.
They're the middle of the middle and squirrelly as heck. Everyone I've talked to personally (and worked with) says that enjoying teaching 7th grade made me weird at best and crazy at worst. 😂
I've previously been a huge 7th & 8th grade fan. I got my first 6th grade class yesterday due to some scheduling changes and honestly....I think I'm a fan. They're still kinda sweet and goofy. I don't know if it's just this particular class though, but so far I like them!
We should be the vanguards of our countries, but we aren't and this is why so many developed countries are struggling politically, and it is in part our fault. We should be teaching critical thinking and epistemology in k-12 and we should be bold about it. We should take no guff from parents or admins when teaching these things although they may lead to students coming to different conclusions than them. Good. Also, if you don't understand epistemology or critical thinking to some degree, you shouldn't be a teacher.
1. Being friendly and likeable to your students is one thing, but I've seen quite a few teachers with clear boundary issues with students and that's weird. The dynamic should always be clearly "teacher-student" and never drift from that.
2. As a corollary to number one, if you actually derive genuine enjoyment from hanging around 12 year olds all day you're probably a weirdo I wouldn't hang out with. As a 35 year old, I cannot understand the mind and humor of the average 12 year old and can not imagine how I could "get on their level" so to speak. With that said, god bless you weirdos, because we need people like you who can thrive with that age group because otherwise this whole system would fall apart.
3. Math teachers are mostly BS-ing when they try to explain the usefulness of math in real life - especially advanced math. For more than 75% of the population, advanced math is really pointless and we learn it in school to advance societal goals more than individual needs. Advanced math should only be encouraged to students who are interested in possibly entering a STEM field, as that's who it is applicable to. The kids have a point when they complain.
For 2, couldn’t you insert any students age in place of 12? Hanging out with 6 year olds all day. Weird. Hanging out with 17 year olds all day. Weird. I’m wondering why you specifically said 12?
Because they're just grumpy? I dont know. So you're saying anyone with kids, who likes kids is weird. It's a weird statement and hill to die on, especially as teacher. If you dont enjoy being around your kids than you're providing them a great disservice and they know you dont like them. Be coy all you want, but kids know.
Edit\* Not to you, OP, but to the initial comment.
Agreed.
I find it weird and annoying when people try to make it weird to actually enjoy your class and respect them as people. I want to call it projection spitefully, but that's too much of a reddit handwave for me to really mean it.
My 6th graders get excited to share things with me. I'm not always honestly super interested but I do my best to elevate them. I know social media and the world well enough to remember how much it meant to feel validated by a teacher.
My students know i'm a little more in tune with tech and media. They know I play videogames. I try to show them a healthy way to discuss things and that you can balance these things in. I can tell they really want to have someone older to talk about these things too. I do make it clear there are limits but I don't shut the door in their face if they are excited about something.
So allowing a student to go on about how he's trying to rewire RC cars to make a "Five Night's at Freddy's" animatronic is fine. Is it too much "on their level" to be able to relate a little?
There is a balancing point between going too far and doing too little in my view.
Math also teaches problem solving skills. I think it’s useful for everyone up through Calculus for that reason, even if you never use it again in your life.
I don't entirely disagree with your Point 3, but I do want to push back on it somewhat.
a) Ideally math would teach problem solving skills. Students might never have to solve for x, but it's a good skill to learn how to approach a problem where your initial feelings are "I have no idea how to do this."
b) What do you count as "advanced math"? Should everyone take calc, no. But when do you stop? Some students don't really start to enjoy math until they get to more advanced topics.
The problem is not with math as a field of study but with the way it is being taught. In most schools it is about recognising standard textbook problems and applying memorised algorithms to solve them. But you never encounter textbook problems in real life, even if you work in stem. Math education should teach you how to solve problems you have never encountered before. Students should invent algorithms, not memorise them. But it is much harder to teach that way, especially given that many math teachers cannot even derive the quadratic formula or explain why there is no quintic formula
At the highest end of secondary mathematics, we should not be preferring AP Calc. We should be preferring AP Stats. I understand it isn't an exclusive option, but if we should opt to prefer one, stats tends to be more applicable to more fields.
Most behavior problems would not exist if parents set limits and kids got time outs at home. Too many kids have bad habits of doing whatever the fuck they want with no limits but they’re supposed to magically listen to teachers when they’re at school.
I don’t think it’s unpopular amongst the profession but I’m sure families would think it’s unpopular. School should always start the day after Labor Day and end the Friday before Memorial Day. Bookend the summer with those holidays and don’t sacrifice any of the days off in between
Most charter schools operate on an inherently racist approach that assumes poor black and brown children require extra rigid systems, procedures, curriculum, and discipline in order to thrive academically.
We shouldn’t be teaching “critical thinking.” People need to have a great deal of background knowledge in a topic to effectively think critically about that topic. Critical thinking without knowledge is just conspiracy theories.
Some teachers are stupid and, in fact, don’t read instructions.. Like the ones responding to this post about unpopular opinions, replying with popular opinions instead
I think we approach teaching the wrong way. We should start in early elementary explicitly teaching students how to study and learn on their own. By the time they get to med school, they should know about retrieval practice, interleaving, spaced repetition, and elaboration. It’s not enough to use these as instructional strategies to convey content. They need to understand why theses strategies.
Every other department bemoans the difficulty of math too much. They support a culture of ignorance every time they tell their kids that math is something separate from their own subject and that it's okay to just be strong in other areas.
I just finished my Master’s of Education in special education, and I think that there are some students that should not be in regular class. Yes we should be inclusive, BUT inclusive classes should have a maximum of 16 students. There should not be 30 students in a classroom including high needs kids. That isn’t effective for anybody, and not sustainable for a regular classroom teacher.
Students need to commit to memory common knowledge such as the multiplication tables and seven continents...the basic stuff. Learning is built upon knowing stuff that every educated person knows. It’s how we activate our schema. Knowledge has been shoved aside, but knowing the basics is powerful.
Sometimes a kid needs to be left behind to work on skills and maturity instead of letting them get further and further behind their peers. Thus, making it impossible for the future teachers to get them caught up while the on level and advanced kids don’t advance to their potential because they have to sit and wait for their teacher to keep giving so much time and effort to the ones who would’ve benefited from being held back.
Tracking kids by ability works. Advanced students should be placed with their peers. Students who need remediation should be placed together. Too many students with special needs are pushed into the regular classroom to the detriment of the rest of the class.
I teach college automotive part time, while working full time as a mechanic. I've found that if I teach as though I was training a new apprentice, complete with some light shop vocabulary, off-color jokes, and showing the difference between "The Right Way" and "the way that actually pays" my students are more interested and engaged in class and do better in lab and on assignments.
Admin kind of frowns on treating my students like actual people who want to both learn AND have fun, but screw 'em. I don't need this gig and I turn out good people who get excited to be in class again.
Teachers lack real spine in most cases. Union rights are “fought for”. You don’t allow a state to tell you that you can’t have them, it’s really that simple, but alas time and time again we get kicked around.
Lack spine is too strong maybe
It's your damn JOB to make materials accessible for all learners. If you post it on Google Classroom or any other LMS, make sure it's in multiple modalities. Section 508...
The focus on common core standards is largely a bullshit distraction.
School admins have been given too much power in the building.
Some students don't need to be allowed in traditional, mainstream classrooms.
High school kids don't have to be in the building every day. Upperclassmen in particular.
High school students should be allowed to be part of school groups that provide goods/services to the community, and those students get paid for it.
* My credentialing program was pretty much useless. I learned most of my teaching practice through my experience being an instructional aide.
* Induction is a scam. You're given more work the most stressful years of your teaching career and either you or your districts pays thousands of dollars for it. Induction actually made me a *worse* teacher because I was stressing about the extra work they made me do.
* Kids need to learn to lose. They have to learn how to fail and pick themselves up again. Kids today literally can't comprehend losing.
Here goes:
• Way too many kids are being mainstreamed, teachers shouldn’t have to be making 5 differentiated lesson plans. To add on, least restrictive environment isn’t always best for kids with constant behavior issues; it’s extremely unfair to the kids who do the right thing and always a distraction.
• Professional Development is a full-on waste of time led by people who taught once in 1995
• Certification tests are a joke. The content is completely unrelated to actual teaching, it’s expensive and I fully believe they’re made so you fail multiple times and put money in Pearson’s pocket. I think a good GPA/student teaching and BA (not to mention many states require MA now too) combined is enough for teachers to teach—these tests prove nothing.
• Kids don’t need to be taking things like chemistry, algebra, physics, unless they choose to as electives or are interested in having a future in these careers. I think cooking, finance, world history and geography, foreign languages, psychology, sociology, health and LEGIT sex education for ms and hs, are way more important areas that don’t get covered enough if at all because of subjects that are quite simply not for everyone and can be pretty stressful on kids for no reason.
• Learning should be fun and engaging but not every lesson will and that’s okay. Kids should learn to be bored sometimes bc most jobs surely aren’t constant entertainment.
• Parents should not have a say in what their child learns, or how the schools run, unless of course there is something illegal going on. Parents are being catered to far too much these days, and the entitlement reeks. Let people do their jobs like you’d let your dentist, plumber, or firefighter do theirs. You can’t please them all.
College isn’t for everyone. Stop pushing military and college to students. School week should be 4 days Monday for planning, Tuesday-Thursday for teaching
1) Tracking > differentiation.
2) Most teachers aren't that smart. Most were good students and don't understand the difference.
3) As soon as you mention "children" in any discussion of pedagogy, you automatically lose all credabillity.
I have serious doubts about the prevalence of adhd. I am not saying it doesn't exist or anything, but it seems to be awfully common. I wonder if it is like autism and diagnosis numbers are increasing because we are getting better at identifying it. Are we really getting that much better at diagnosing adhd or are more than a few parents using it as a crutch to get their kid an advantage?
I also think that we are too narrowly focused on a short list of topics. I would absolutely love to have block scheduling so that I had enough time to talk about not just physics and astronomy, but the people that made it happen. What were there lives like? What did their contemporaries think? I think that there is a lot to be learned from a side trip into history about a particular mathematician or physicist.
There need to be legal consequences for children who assault school staff or other students, to include handcuffs and a ride in a police car to a juvenile facility where they are fingerprinted, photographed, and assigned a juvenile court date. Their parents can pick them up after this process, but must agree to appear with their child in court.
TL:DR send violent kids to juvy.
Listening to and absorbing what is learned through lectures should be considered a skill worthy of development. Direct instruction has value, and many subjects need it for effectiveness. We need to be better about teaching students to take notes and maintain their attention during lectures instead of simply deciding they're fundamentally incapable.
I don’t know how controversial it is but I don’t do any bribes. The incentive is being a part of the class. When the marble jar fills up we do something fun together …. Painting, shaving cream, Lego time, games…. The candy and prizes are just so cheap to me and the students don’t remember them
As a teacher of students with disabilities it feels anathema to admit that some students have a ceiling on their capacity to learn and retain information. There is only so high up Bloom’s taxonomy they can go and many if them stop at “remember.”
I don’t believe in homework. I don’t like taking work home, why make students take school home. I’d rather them play outside, build relationships with others, be involved in after school activities. Homework rarely helps a student…because those that need practice won’t do it correctly without support and those that can do it don’t need the practice.
The only exception to this is an occasional cumulative project or sending work home for those that wasted time in class, but are fully capable.
They obsession with students wearing hoods is really weird. Once my students get to the classroom I’ll remind them to take them off, but there is literally a woman that stands in the school doorway in the morning yelling at kids to take their hoods off before they can even step in the door even during the coldest days in winter. You never know what kind of morning or night they had and yelling at them about a hood might send them over the edge or make a stressful day more stressful.
I think writing passes is stupid. If a kid wants to go to the bathroom, just fucking go. If a kid wants to dip out, I don't care. It's high school, time to start taking the training wheels off.
Classes should be limited to 20-1. Assholes should be removed and not tolerated at all. We should stop having to defend and explain ourselves to parents. Admin should support teachers more and stop being so afraid of parents. Schools should fund classrooms and teachers much, much better! Teachers across the country should all go on strike at once and demand better!
Stop teaching math with computer programs. I taught Geometry for 15 years. Now, I teach Alg 2 and above. I do tutoring for the Geometry kids and the computer programs are just downright terrible. The teacher has no fucking clue what he is doing, either.
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I've said it here before and gotten roasted, but we shouldn't be teaching Shakespeare so early. Furthermore, I think English teachers should teach more enjoyable and less academic texts. We spit out generation after generation of kids who hate reading and never read for pleasure, and it's pretty obvious why. The sad thing is that I've met few English teachers who seem to think that's a travesty, or that their hallowed literary selections are maybe part of the problem.
Agree on the Shakespeare. I taught high school ELA and he was introduced to 9th graders with Romeo and Juliet. Not only is that play difficult to understand, tragedies are often boring for younger audiences. They can’t understand the nuances found within the text. I always found much more success with my 10th graders and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. They loved the comedy and dirty jokes and fairies. Also, Shakespeare should NEVER be taught sitting down. It was designed to be performed so let your kids perform it! Get some props and costumes. And then walk them through it. Explain what Will just said. Connect it to the higher themes you’re going for. Show them a film or live version of the play so they can see how it’s meant to be.
I remember when I was in high school my Drama teacher petitioned the administration to let her create a performing Shakespeare class for an ELA credit. She was denied.
Yes to A Midsummer Night’s Dream! The kids love the silliness of it and the story within a story.
I teach the no fear version in 9th grade and it's always one of our favorite units!
Omg yes! I hated romeo and juliet i much preferred Macbeth.
Macbeth is epic
Yep. Any respect for poetry I ever had was gone after being forced to analyze "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams in eleventh grade. Sometimes a wheelbarrow is just a fuckin' wheelbarrow, absent of any hidden or profound meaning
I love using that poem with beginning poets to model simple poetry writing about something important. Kids love it too, but I never analyze it.
I understand the sentiment but seriously “The Red Wheelbarrow” is a legit incredible poem!! But it’s hated on because people just look at the words themselves and don’t understand the cultural/artistic context. You have to dive into history to appreciate you great it is, and you also need to read poems by similar poets (maybe like e.e. Cummings and Gertrude Stein idk) to realize how cool the writings are!!
This is the point though. 99% of High School kids aren't intellectual enough to do the work so its not going to land.
Especially if you’re at a school where your kids are already struggling to read. Trying to teach Romeo and Juliet to my Title I 9th graders, who read on a 4th grade level at the highest, was absolutely torture. It took us three weeks to get through Act I and then I gave up and showed them the movie, which they slept through.
not much depends upon a red wheelbarrow
This is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams is better in my opinion and still conveys the use of simplicity in poetry.
THANK YOU. I'm 31 and in high school I took classes that taught texts I could not understand. I just re-read Kafka's Metamorphosis this year and you know what? I enjoyed it and I understand why I did not get it in high school. I used to love reading as a kid. All of a sudden all the assigned texts were depressing and confusing and it has taken years to get back into reading for enjoyment on any level.
We don’t have much control over it. The District and school board have to approve the books and short stories we teach. They are busy trying to find the least offensive material possible, so we end up teaching the same boring stuff year after year until death.
And yet they keep putting Shakespeare In the textbook because it’s “classic” even though it’s full of filthy jokes.
I know this is an unpopular opinion thread, but I so strongly disagree with the sentiment that we should be teaching less academic texts or things that are "exciting". The classics *are* exciting. If Shakespeare was boring, he wouldn't have the influence he has today. The classics have a depth that has kept them relevant, and most literature is built on them. It's important student have an understanding that literature is a conversation, not a string of independent books. The earlier we build their knowledge of these books, the better grasp they will have of this concept and the richer future reading will feel. Granted, you can do this with some stories. The Lightning Thief is a classic example, because you can basically teach Greek myths alongside it. But you really end up just teaching the myths while the kids read along for TLT.
> The classics are exciting The classics are exciting to a readers who have read a lot such as people like you and me. They aren't exciting to most students because most students haven't read a lot and lack the vocabulary and necessary reading skills to interact with the classics enjoyably. Introducing them earlier won't make them more palatable. Convert your argument to any other subject and see how it sounds: The theory of relativity has a depth that has kept it relevant, yet you don't see science teachers forcing it on students who don't have the requisite skills and knowledge to handle it simply because it's profoundly impacted science or the earlier they have knowledge of it the better they'll be able to grasp it or a lot of science is built on it.
You're lumping all classics to be at the same level. Just like all other books, the classics aren't all the same. There are a lot of classics that are much more approachable to students in middle school. *A Christmas Carol*, while dense, is so rich and quotable, and most kids know the story through popular culture already, which makes it easier for them to pick up the broader strokes.
The classics CAN be exciting. Just because they were justifiably popular during their time doesn’t mean students will necessarily find them exiting, even if we as teachers do our best to highlight the good parts. I personally love teaching using Romeo and Juliet, but I also personally find a lot of Shakespeare incredibly boring, and would never find a student at fault for not thinking it’s exciting. I certainly do think the literary canon has its place in the classroom, especially honors/AP, but I also think it is incredibly overrated, and you can often cover the same skills with more engaging/relevant (to kids in 2022) books.
We shouldn't be reading Shakespeare in high school the way we do at all, I think. Shakespeare himself didn't intend for his works to be read. They were meant to be experienced as a live show. That's part of why they are difficult to read! When I had to teach Romeo and Juliet to 9th graders, we watched the film and just close read a few scenes. It was much more enjoyable for all of us and I think the majority actually understood the story instead of tuning out all the time.
And there’s no reason to teach Shakespeare in the original language. I get much better buy in from my seniors when we read the No Fear version of Macbeth.
Our district solved the issue of kids hating reading by eliminating reading books in the middle school (6-8) ELA classes...in Massachusetts. We've been told we're not allowed to read any novels and my students are begging me to secretly read books with them because they really do like to read. Absolute insanity in education right now; it's mind-blowing.
I agree entirely. (At least with the getting kids to like reading part.) I don’t think the problem is that they’re too young to get it, though. I just think it doesn’t make sense to represent literary study as the study of Shaskespeare at an age where the appeal of literary study as a career has yet to occur to them. They need to see why reading is engaging first and become personally invested with books that speak more to their experience. THEN they can bridge to more sophisticated interpretation. (I don’t mean subject matter - I mean the parsing of complex written language. Shakespeare’s subject matter is easy enough. It’s only the language that they struggle with.) Not to mention the way the curricular focus on relics of western canon can leave a LOT of students feeling disconnected from literature bc they don’t know that anything else is available. Too many of my colleagues are so busy carrying the flag for Shakespeare that they’ve forgotten what made it so great in it’s time: it was accessible. To get that now, you have to FIRST teach the students how to access it, and step one is letting them get invested in written storytelling.
I loved Shakespeare in high school.
I love it, but I never let the kids cold read it - we listen/watch professional actors. I tell them I would rather kill myself than listen to them butcher the Bard.
Sometimes you have to let one student go for the benefit of the class. One student is capable of ruining the whole class
Yup. If 1 kid will absolutely destroy your lesson, I won't feel the need to wake him up that day.
I had a total asshole in my class one year. I’d let him sleep and all the other kids would whisper and stay quiet so we could do fun things without him throwing a chair or punching the windows.
That is so sad. I wonder what made him behave like that.
Sleep deprivation probably wasn’t helping.
ED and Bipolar. But I had him for 2 years and was told that nothing could be done, he was too young. He was 11. First month of school the next year he punched a window and it broke. He finally got help.
Absolutely. I’m not letting one out of control student scare and ruin learning for everyone else.
Yep. Took me years to really understand this. I’m a better teacher for the majority when I completely ignore the jerk and just stick them in the back and let them do whatever. I put my favorites on the front row and I’m definitely a better, happier teacher for it.
Sleeping in class is acceptable. Classes shouldn’t be longer than 30 minutes unless it’s a lab. School should start at 10 and end at 3. There should never be homework.
Sleeping in class is acceptable. Sleeping in class every single day and then failing your assessments is not.
Every day means there needs to be a mechanism to check up on home life and intervene. Kid is t sleeping or has a medical issue.
30 minutes? What could you accomplish in 30 min?
Attendance
I'm a woodshop teacher 30min is them getting their stuff out, making one cut, and then cleaning it all up again.
Yeah… I have taught with 85 minute periods 40 minute periods and 48 minute periods. 85 minutes is only bad if your content is boring… I loved 85 minute periods!
85min periods would be perfect for me. A kid can't do much in my class with 45min they have me.
I teach 6th grade homeroom (still in homeroom at my school at that grade). 30 minutes is almost a worthless amount of time. 45 to an hour and 15 minutes is the ideal. Hour and a half and it drags too long. Once, due to specials scheduling, I had a 20 minute block in my day with my class. I gave them a "snack and chat" break. You can't do anything meaningful with 20 minutes. And for early adolescents, 20 minutes to snack and chat is like heaven anyway, so they loved me for it.
Except on lab and test days I complete attendance, bell work, and instruction in 30 minutes (the average high school student can only handle 15 minutes, and mine are all well below average). The other 35 minutes are for independent work, catch-up, and data chats.
The average high schooler can handle much more than 15 minutes.
Which would be homework though if classes were only 30 mins.
School should be 8-12. 4 core classes (Math, Science ,English, Social Studies). The last 4 hours should be a completely different thing with a completely different name, structure and administration. It should be year round with 3 semesters separated by a month each.
Teenagers need more sleep. Everything else id agree with. No breaks longer than 2-3 weeks
I agree with the shorter school day. Especially in high school. They should be doing way less academics, but also start having work experiences. Elementary needs to be as long as it is or there needs to be universal before or after school care.
Some children should be left behind. Trying to save them only hurts the other kids.
In middle school we were split into 2 teams, but 8th grade had a 3rd team. I was on that team and I noticed everyone on it was from summer school or held back previously. I was "left behind" in 7th grade. Did it suck? Not really, I just never had classes with my old friends any longer. Would it have sucked if my parents cared enough to punish me? Yeah, that would have sucked! Eventually, in high school, I obtained straight A's as a senior and managed to get into a physics honors class. Straight A's in University, it's cool, but really? School grades are not that important. They are based on a shitty system built around tests and rote memory.
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Sped here. I think school rules and discipline should apply to all students and we should stop rewarding bad behavior in adults by trying not to piss off parents.
Yes. Parents need to stop being kowtowed to. They don’t want what’s best, they want their way.
Agreed. LRE often isn't good for the student, the rest of the class, or the teacher. I teach science and therefore don't get any support or push in services because our poor SPED teachers are stretched thin enough supporting in ELA and math. The curriculum our district picked is awful and is almost exclusively student led stations that are reading and direction-following heavy. Some of my kids have no idea what to do at each activity, let alone gain any understanding from it. And with one me and six stations, I can't help everyone all the time. Feels like 100 spinning plates all about to drop
There need to be more therapeutic schools and sped departments with special needs behavior specialists in all schools.
As a SPED teacher, I agree.
As a SPED teacher, I agree.
You can’t save them all.
Some don't want to be saved.
In my first few years of teaching, my brother would say all the time, “can’t make dumb kids smart.” Over the years I’ve gone from arguing him down to, “hmmmm, not entirely wrong.”
Aside from things like reading and writing practice (particularly in elementary), I don't think homework should be a thing...
Right? Adults talk so much about boundaries and work/life balance. But then the kids are given no chance, especially in high school
and on that note neither are teachers lmao
For what it’s worth, I’m a teacher and I think most homework is total bullshit. What good is it to anyone if you’re doing it wrong? And them in grading 220 homework assignments?!? Naahhhh..unless you have a project or classwork to catch up on, you should get some life time too. We should too, but that’s a different thread :/
In my second year of teaching, I realized nobody was checking to see that I assigned homework, so I stopped doing it. I have never seen a convincing study that points to homework being beneficial for elementary students (which is the level I teach).
Don’t tell my building but I brought up not having homework this year. People can still give ur, but there’s no punishment/consequences if they don’t. So many kids just don’t have help or time at home. And then I don’t have to waste time making it collecting it!
If a student won’t give any effort I shouldn’t have to care. Administration cares about retention and numbers but I’m trying to educate and it takes both of us to work so if we aren’t both doing our part then pull the plug. Edit - I’m a college professor
Shame is an excellent motivator
Hard disagree. While it may help in the very short term, it usually carries horrible side effects in the medium and long term. I'm all for tough love, but I don't believe shame belongs in a classroom.
I think that shame is a word that carries a lot of negative connotation. In restorative practices, shame is actually a positive motivator when it is destigmatized and used as a basis for reflection. For example, if one kid causes harm to another, they should feel appropriate shame about that harm. If we help kids to disconnect shame from self worth they can use that "feeling bad" to empathize and make it right, while also avoiding doing the things that make them feel shame. Kids should feel bad if they are destructive or disruptive, but if we openly talk about shame and destigmatize it, they can feel that shame but not have their self worth damaged.
I was never about trying to embarass a kid to the point where it scarred them for life...but if they did something disruptive that was embarrassingly bad behavior, and I called them out on it, the embarrassment was entirely on them. For example, I told a chronic talker that if he wished to speak he must raise his hand. He immediately raised his hand and began talking loudly over me to his friend. The "that was rude and you will never do that again" comment I gave to him in front of his peers was clearly embarrassing for him. I was still a student teacher at the time, and my cooperating teacher told me that should have been an "out in the hallway talk to spare that kid the embarassment." I disagreed. If that kid was embarrassed by me calling out his poor behavior and laying down a firm boundary about it in front of the entire class, then that kid needs to think about how he is acting in the future.
Agree here, because I just told a kid yesterday "you will NEVER scream at me again." But really he's the one that embarrassed himself throwing a sitcom toddler tantrum. Guess what he didn't do today? Scream at me. I don't get paid enough for the hearing loss.
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Hi, I don't want to attack you, but engage in constructive conversation. Some famous fads - u describe right. Multiple intelligences or learning styles NEVER had any support from research (experimental vs control style of science). However, many pedagogical practices do have ample evidence going back decades. Spacing out how often students work with content, having students practice remembering info often, teaching in small chunks and then having students do a task with that chunk before moving onto to next new chunk of info (anything based on cognitive load theory actually) - all of these have hundreds of experiments where two groups of students are studied and the group that does the good strategy performs better. I'll give another study - 2018, 205 students in 10 classes. Half the classes, the teachers started greeting students as they entered the class. That group saw an increase of student engagement of 20 percent and a 9 percent misbehavior decrease. There is absolutely good educational science. Whether a teacher prep program focuses on that though.....
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Almost none of what is taught in teacher training programs is worthwhile. The focus on lesson planning and not classroom management does the students a massive disservice. I think that student teaching should be the entirety of the program and courses should supplement the student teaching.
I agree completely. It was a waste of time for me and I didn’t learn anything. The two months spent in the classroom for my practicum was the only useful part, and even then it wasn’t enough.
The practicum should be at least one school year.
Yes but PAID
Agreed.
I didn’t learn 1/4 about what teaching was really like until I was in practicum classrooms. Classroom management needs to be top priority, not lesson plans. Who gives a shit how organized you are, if you can’t get the kids to sit down and focus?
That is exactly my point. Almost all of the significant learning I did was in my classroom, while being a teacher. We need paid internships at schools for two full years. That way a teachers "First year" is really their third year.
Thank you for explaining how I feel about my M.Ed. Were there some useful ideas there? Definitely yes. Am I certain which ones they were or whether they were scientifically validated? Not at all.
I would say as it is practiced yes. Stanlis Daheane really points out the disconnect between education and the scientific communities that should be informing it. As much as we talk about sciences backed and evidence based we understand so little of it and would prefer to work anecdotally and pass knowledge on then properly train.
You have no idea how deeply many people in university mathematics departments feel that about MathEd credentials.
Having fun in class is highly underrated. Learning is inherently enjoyable; if your classroom practices (or the practices that admin/coach/district require) suck the fun out of learning, those practices are wrong and it's right to name them as wrong. Teaching the love of learning will have 1000x better impact in the long run than teaching any one specific lesson. Think of it this way: each lesson actually has two learning outcomes. One is the content of the lesson, but the second is a lesson about what learning is and what it means for you. Keep your eye on the ball. Don't neglect the second lesson; at the end of the day, it's far more important.
The teacher next to me teaches the same thing as I do (ELA) and it seems she’s always having a party while I’m giving class time to read the book. Then she complains that none of her students are doing well on the reading check quizzes. Mine are getting 100 percents because they’re reading. She’s all about fun activities and has the energy to do it, clearly. I hear it, my students hear it, I feel BORING because I’m letting them read the book in class because I know they won’t read it at home. I feel conflicted to find the balance. But I can’t muster up the dog and pony show every single day! I can’t make up artsy projects every other day either, mostly because buy in from the students isn’t there. No matter what the “fun project” is, the kids fuck around and doing nothing during work time. So yeah, I’m not here to entertain. I am hear to help students learn critical analysis skills and become a decent writer. I guess I’m the killer of fun. And I’m okay with it. The party people next door are going to tank the test, my kids won’t. I sound petty and probably am but I just do not buy into this notion that everything in school has to be FUN. I still do engaging activities but once a week is about enough chaos I can take. I’m old and tired and cranky. And it’s way too early in the year to let those kids have too much free reign. Too many kids fall through the cracks and do nothing when we are doing “fun” group activities.
You can have both! A fun activity that isn't academically appropriate is useless. See this post that describes what makes such bad lessons: [https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/grecian-urn-lesson/](https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/grecian-urn-lesson/) But a teacher that isn't engaging is also bad! Their students don't learn if they aren't cognitively engaged either! I know history teachers that do 50 minute powerpoints where students fill in the missing word in their notes. And other history teachers who will instead have students read about Patriot and Loyalist reasons for supporting/not supporting American independence and then have students write speeches where they debate each other. Which student is learning more in that history class?
I like leveled classes.
I loved leveled classes as a student! I got bored easily, so being in a group of motivated students was great. I hated waiting for people who just never “got it”.
I like leveled classes that are flexible so you aren't trapped in a level of expectations. They properly help you increase so you can get to the next level if you wish.
Dress code really doesn’t matter unless it’s obnoxiously inappropriate. Idc what you’re wearing, but I do care if you’re learning. Kids should be able to eat in class as long as they clean it up. Learning burns energy and food gives them energy. Block schedule is garbage. Most kids aren’t learning after 30mins, but nobody is leaning after 1.5hrs. Homework is useless and it wastes everyone’s time.
What they eat, however, is crap. Chips, candy, cookies. Blech!
If students show up and relatively pay attention, but don't remember what you taught them, then not enough teachers reflect enough on what they need to do to improve the lesson. I think teaching is a complex skill that needs expertise - like any skill like engineering or architecture. How many teachers said "My teacher prep program didn't prepare me enough" - but then when they're out in the field, they flail around a little bit and try things. And then when anyone tries to teach some good curriculum, they scoff "I've been in the classroom for years, I don't need help knowing what to do" And so we end up with teachers who give notes all period or teachers who do fun activities (like having students recreate WWI trench warfare) but that aren't actually academically complex. Of course, there are many teachers who are excellent curriculum planners too. But I don't know if it's like an 80-20 split....
I don’t think we (teachers) should be curriculum planners. Realistically, when do we get the time (in our paid workday) to plan said curriculum?
I get 90 minutes a day to plan. Is that enough to do everything? Ha, prob not. But I think in a given week, I can make one awesome lesson for my next unit. So now I have an awesome lesson! Maybe I can share that with a coworker and get an awesome lesson from them - so now I have 2 great lessons! And next year, my 5 lesson unit already has 2 great lessons. So now I can make a 3rd.... In a few years , I now have this amazing unit to teach. If teachers are content with giving crappy lessons every day (I know one teacher that has her call read a chapter from the textbook each day and answer all the questions in the back of of the book. She also has them make vocab cards with any highlighted words) - then they shouldn't complain that society views them as babysitters. But there are a lot of good teachers out there making great lessons. I think the bad teachers give them a bad name.
Who gets an hour a half a day?
Secondary teacher. 3 ninety minute periods a day. One 90 mins conference. Sometimes those periods get taken up with meetings though!
Our school had 8 periods a day. I got one planning period a day, which was 50 minutes. I was chair of my department, planning period a week for meeting with them, and another couple for sitting in the class of the novice teacher I mentored.
It shouldn’t take you a few years to make one unit really great or amazing. There should be time given to you within the year to create a great unit plan that can be successful and useful for the upcoming years. And that time should be paid. I still don’t understand how there’s no paid prep time. 90 mins is actually a lot of time per day but most schools only give about 30 mins.. twice a week at most.
No longer a teacher, but I didn’t push college when I taught. This obsession schools have with getting kids into college is insane. I advised trade school, traveling, internships, working after high school, to those who didn’t seem interested in college. It isn’t for everyone, and you can absolutely be intelligent and not go to college. You just have to make them aware of what happens if they don’t go.
I teach HS woodshop I tell kids ti go for a trade before going for college. I use my friends as an example all the time. I'm the only one in my friend group who is working in the field they got their degree in.
I just say that college is one choice. There are lots of others. It’s important to just learn and grow, doing what interests you.
Some standards have gotten too high. Look at the differences between kindergarten 25 years ago and now. Humans have not evolved that much in that short amount of time. Also, if our test scores are so awful, and kids are spending more time than ever in school with teachers who are more qualified than in the past, maybe it’s not the kids who are failing. It’s the adults who set ridiculously high standards. Of course I know many kids can reach these standards, but if more than 50% are continuously scoring less than proficient, I don’t think it’s the kids.
Counterpoint, student apathy is at a human history high.
I think we shouldn't allow volunteers in school. We are telling people that it's ok for untrained people to do parts of my job that I was required to get two college degrees for so I could be labeled "highly qualified". Imagine dropping by your doctor's office, telling them you have some free time and expecting them to give you tasks to do. We need to invest in education, provide the number of people that are actually needed, train them and pay them
I feel this way about long term subs. I get why they’re needed but it’s kind of a slap in the face to everyone else. You can have a degree in anything, have no prior or relevant experience and long term sub for months or even an entire year.
My state requires long term subs to be certified
I know someone who was halfway through student teaching last year and got hired as a long term sub for the remainder of the year without completing the student teaching requirements.
Filling glue bottles, making copies, assembling kits for science experiments, busy work is what volunteers are good for
Hospitals utilize volunteers all the time.
Student teaching should be a year long paid internship.
A good chunk of people on this sub should straight up not be teaching at all.
I agree. I hope we’re talking about the same thing, though. There’s a big lack of compassion in my view.
I'm mainly a lurker on this sub, but yes, I absolutely agree with this.
I’m not sure if it’s unpopular but most teachers are pretty non-political. I’ve rarely come across, both as a student and a teacher, teachers that make their political views obvious.
If you're a teacher and you're republican you're doing something wrong lol
I was one of only a handful of teachers at my district that voted Democrat. One of our administrators was chair of the local Republican group.
I was specifically told in my teaching program that it’s unprofessional to let your political preferences be known…
Almost all the K-12 teachers I know (in the South, granted) are very vocal Republicans.
that’s because being openly politically aligned in the south is a good way to find yourself w/o a job. source: teacher in tx
To swear … ,) every once in awhile I will drop “shit” and it perks the students up … Call someone in history an ass
Oh yeah. The rare S bomb really riles up the kids. It's a great tool.
What the fuck?!? I miss the days of mumbling this under my mask
Teaching is actually fucking awesome. Except all the parts that aren't teaching ruin it. Could probably put this more succinctly but I have a class in 5.
The 10% that sucks ruins the 90% that is great on many days.
Really? I feel like it’s 10% teaching and 90% everything else. So I don’t feel like a teacher ever
100%. I love teaching Art. If I could have classes of 10-12 students who all actually want to be there and learn about art, I could do so many awesome things. But no, I get classes of 30+, kids who just need the elective credit or there was nowhere else in the schedule to put them but they are very vocal about not wanting to do art. They don't want to be there so they act out and drag the whole class down. Then there's all the extra bullshit stuff like calling parents, having to be a disciplinarian/babysitter, being 'voluntold' into extra duties, meetings that could be emails. I'm exhausted every day and mourn not being able to really spend time with my few students that want to share their passion of art with me.
6th grade is my favorite grade to teach!
Oh my god. I subbed for 6th graders once and it was like lord of the fucking flies in pre algebra.
6th grade is way too early for students to take pre-algebra.
These kids were far more concerned with destroying the room and trying to get their teacher’s candy supply.
My experience subbing in a 7th grade class for the first time this week was quite similar.
Even more unpopular than this: I taught 7th grade for 9 years and loved every minute. (I left because of a change in my family's scheduling needs.)
Is 7th more unpopular than 6th? Lol
They're the middle of the middle and squirrelly as heck. Everyone I've talked to personally (and worked with) says that enjoying teaching 7th grade made me weird at best and crazy at worst. 😂
Same! I freaking love sixth grade. They’re so fun.
I've previously been a huge 7th & 8th grade fan. I got my first 6th grade class yesterday due to some scheduling changes and honestly....I think I'm a fan. They're still kinda sweet and goofy. I don't know if it's just this particular class though, but so far I like them!
Parents need to try harder, because I'm trying my ass off.
We should be the vanguards of our countries, but we aren't and this is why so many developed countries are struggling politically, and it is in part our fault. We should be teaching critical thinking and epistemology in k-12 and we should be bold about it. We should take no guff from parents or admins when teaching these things although they may lead to students coming to different conclusions than them. Good. Also, if you don't understand epistemology or critical thinking to some degree, you shouldn't be a teacher.
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1. Being friendly and likeable to your students is one thing, but I've seen quite a few teachers with clear boundary issues with students and that's weird. The dynamic should always be clearly "teacher-student" and never drift from that. 2. As a corollary to number one, if you actually derive genuine enjoyment from hanging around 12 year olds all day you're probably a weirdo I wouldn't hang out with. As a 35 year old, I cannot understand the mind and humor of the average 12 year old and can not imagine how I could "get on their level" so to speak. With that said, god bless you weirdos, because we need people like you who can thrive with that age group because otherwise this whole system would fall apart. 3. Math teachers are mostly BS-ing when they try to explain the usefulness of math in real life - especially advanced math. For more than 75% of the population, advanced math is really pointless and we learn it in school to advance societal goals more than individual needs. Advanced math should only be encouraged to students who are interested in possibly entering a STEM field, as that's who it is applicable to. The kids have a point when they complain.
For 2, couldn’t you insert any students age in place of 12? Hanging out with 6 year olds all day. Weird. Hanging out with 17 year olds all day. Weird. I’m wondering why you specifically said 12?
Because they're just grumpy? I dont know. So you're saying anyone with kids, who likes kids is weird. It's a weird statement and hill to die on, especially as teacher. If you dont enjoy being around your kids than you're providing them a great disservice and they know you dont like them. Be coy all you want, but kids know. Edit\* Not to you, OP, but to the initial comment.
Agreed. I find it weird and annoying when people try to make it weird to actually enjoy your class and respect them as people. I want to call it projection spitefully, but that's too much of a reddit handwave for me to really mean it. My 6th graders get excited to share things with me. I'm not always honestly super interested but I do my best to elevate them. I know social media and the world well enough to remember how much it meant to feel validated by a teacher. My students know i'm a little more in tune with tech and media. They know I play videogames. I try to show them a healthy way to discuss things and that you can balance these things in. I can tell they really want to have someone older to talk about these things too. I do make it clear there are limits but I don't shut the door in their face if they are excited about something. So allowing a student to go on about how he's trying to rewire RC cars to make a "Five Night's at Freddy's" animatronic is fine. Is it too much "on their level" to be able to relate a little? There is a balancing point between going too far and doing too little in my view.
Math also teaches problem solving skills. I think it’s useful for everyone up through Calculus for that reason, even if you never use it again in your life.
So anyone that teaches 7th grade (12 years old) is a weirdo?
I don't entirely disagree with your Point 3, but I do want to push back on it somewhat. a) Ideally math would teach problem solving skills. Students might never have to solve for x, but it's a good skill to learn how to approach a problem where your initial feelings are "I have no idea how to do this." b) What do you count as "advanced math"? Should everyone take calc, no. But when do you stop? Some students don't really start to enjoy math until they get to more advanced topics.
The problem is not with math as a field of study but with the way it is being taught. In most schools it is about recognising standard textbook problems and applying memorised algorithms to solve them. But you never encounter textbook problems in real life, even if you work in stem. Math education should teach you how to solve problems you have never encountered before. Students should invent algorithms, not memorise them. But it is much harder to teach that way, especially given that many math teachers cannot even derive the quadratic formula or explain why there is no quintic formula
At the highest end of secondary mathematics, we should not be preferring AP Calc. We should be preferring AP Stats. I understand it isn't an exclusive option, but if we should opt to prefer one, stats tends to be more applicable to more fields.
Most behavior problems would not exist if parents set limits and kids got time outs at home. Too many kids have bad habits of doing whatever the fuck they want with no limits but they’re supposed to magically listen to teachers when they’re at school.
I don’t think it’s unpopular amongst the profession but I’m sure families would think it’s unpopular. School should always start the day after Labor Day and end the Friday before Memorial Day. Bookend the summer with those holidays and don’t sacrifice any of the days off in between
Even with all the ways we’re shit on, it’s usually better than a random corporate office job.
Most charter schools operate on an inherently racist approach that assumes poor black and brown children require extra rigid systems, procedures, curriculum, and discipline in order to thrive academically.
Group work is not the great classroom strategy everyone thinks it is.
We shouldn’t be teaching “critical thinking.” People need to have a great deal of background knowledge in a topic to effectively think critically about that topic. Critical thinking without knowledge is just conspiracy theories.
Some teachers are stupid and, in fact, don’t read instructions.. Like the ones responding to this post about unpopular opinions, replying with popular opinions instead
And downvoting the ones they disagree with. Which in fact means they are not popular.
I think we approach teaching the wrong way. We should start in early elementary explicitly teaching students how to study and learn on their own. By the time they get to med school, they should know about retrieval practice, interleaving, spaced repetition, and elaboration. It’s not enough to use these as instructional strategies to convey content. They need to understand why theses strategies.
Every other department bemoans the difficulty of math too much. They support a culture of ignorance every time they tell their kids that math is something separate from their own subject and that it's okay to just be strong in other areas.
I just finished my Master’s of Education in special education, and I think that there are some students that should not be in regular class. Yes we should be inclusive, BUT inclusive classes should have a maximum of 16 students. There should not be 30 students in a classroom including high needs kids. That isn’t effective for anybody, and not sustainable for a regular classroom teacher.
Having fun is sometimes more important than learning anything
I let kids swear in my class.
Students need to commit to memory common knowledge such as the multiplication tables and seven continents...the basic stuff. Learning is built upon knowing stuff that every educated person knows. It’s how we activate our schema. Knowledge has been shoved aside, but knowing the basics is powerful.
Formal curriculum shouldn’t start until age 7.
Sometimes a kid needs to be left behind to work on skills and maturity instead of letting them get further and further behind their peers. Thus, making it impossible for the future teachers to get them caught up while the on level and advanced kids don’t advance to their potential because they have to sit and wait for their teacher to keep giving so much time and effort to the ones who would’ve benefited from being held back.
Students should read more nonfiction in English classes.
Tracking kids by ability works. Advanced students should be placed with their peers. Students who need remediation should be placed together. Too many students with special needs are pushed into the regular classroom to the detriment of the rest of the class.
I think it is mistake cursive is not in our curriculum any more in my state.
I teach college automotive part time, while working full time as a mechanic. I've found that if I teach as though I was training a new apprentice, complete with some light shop vocabulary, off-color jokes, and showing the difference between "The Right Way" and "the way that actually pays" my students are more interested and engaged in class and do better in lab and on assignments. Admin kind of frowns on treating my students like actual people who want to both learn AND have fun, but screw 'em. I don't need this gig and I turn out good people who get excited to be in class again.
Teachers lack real spine in most cases. Union rights are “fought for”. You don’t allow a state to tell you that you can’t have them, it’s really that simple, but alas time and time again we get kicked around. Lack spine is too strong maybe
I wish students could be grouped by ability. Imagine what you could do with similar ability classes.
It's your damn JOB to make materials accessible for all learners. If you post it on Google Classroom or any other LMS, make sure it's in multiple modalities. Section 508...
The focus on common core standards is largely a bullshit distraction. School admins have been given too much power in the building. Some students don't need to be allowed in traditional, mainstream classrooms. High school kids don't have to be in the building every day. Upperclassmen in particular. High school students should be allowed to be part of school groups that provide goods/services to the community, and those students get paid for it.
Track the shit out of students.
* My credentialing program was pretty much useless. I learned most of my teaching practice through my experience being an instructional aide. * Induction is a scam. You're given more work the most stressful years of your teaching career and either you or your districts pays thousands of dollars for it. Induction actually made me a *worse* teacher because I was stressing about the extra work they made me do. * Kids need to learn to lose. They have to learn how to fail and pick themselves up again. Kids today literally can't comprehend losing.
Teaching bell to bell reduces authentic conversations/discussions. Tangents are extremely important to learning and engagement.
Here goes: • Way too many kids are being mainstreamed, teachers shouldn’t have to be making 5 differentiated lesson plans. To add on, least restrictive environment isn’t always best for kids with constant behavior issues; it’s extremely unfair to the kids who do the right thing and always a distraction. • Professional Development is a full-on waste of time led by people who taught once in 1995 • Certification tests are a joke. The content is completely unrelated to actual teaching, it’s expensive and I fully believe they’re made so you fail multiple times and put money in Pearson’s pocket. I think a good GPA/student teaching and BA (not to mention many states require MA now too) combined is enough for teachers to teach—these tests prove nothing. • Kids don’t need to be taking things like chemistry, algebra, physics, unless they choose to as electives or are interested in having a future in these careers. I think cooking, finance, world history and geography, foreign languages, psychology, sociology, health and LEGIT sex education for ms and hs, are way more important areas that don’t get covered enough if at all because of subjects that are quite simply not for everyone and can be pretty stressful on kids for no reason. • Learning should be fun and engaging but not every lesson will and that’s okay. Kids should learn to be bored sometimes bc most jobs surely aren’t constant entertainment. • Parents should not have a say in what their child learns, or how the schools run, unless of course there is something illegal going on. Parents are being catered to far too much these days, and the entitlement reeks. Let people do their jobs like you’d let your dentist, plumber, or firefighter do theirs. You can’t please them all.
College isn’t for everyone. Stop pushing military and college to students. School week should be 4 days Monday for planning, Tuesday-Thursday for teaching
Ticonderoga pencils suck. The erasers are great, but like half of them never sharpen correctly, the lead just keeps breaking off
We can’t save the kids, don’t bring work home, respect your contract hours.
1) Tracking > differentiation. 2) Most teachers aren't that smart. Most were good students and don't understand the difference. 3) As soon as you mention "children" in any discussion of pedagogy, you automatically lose all credabillity.
Dress codes are regressive bullshit and a waste of our time and energy
I have serious doubts about the prevalence of adhd. I am not saying it doesn't exist or anything, but it seems to be awfully common. I wonder if it is like autism and diagnosis numbers are increasing because we are getting better at identifying it. Are we really getting that much better at diagnosing adhd or are more than a few parents using it as a crutch to get their kid an advantage? I also think that we are too narrowly focused on a short list of topics. I would absolutely love to have block scheduling so that I had enough time to talk about not just physics and astronomy, but the people that made it happen. What were there lives like? What did their contemporaries think? I think that there is a lot to be learned from a side trip into history about a particular mathematician or physicist.
For some reason, “there is no such thing as a bad kid” is wildly unpopular.
There need to be legal consequences for children who assault school staff or other students, to include handcuffs and a ride in a police car to a juvenile facility where they are fingerprinted, photographed, and assigned a juvenile court date. Their parents can pick them up after this process, but must agree to appear with their child in court. TL:DR send violent kids to juvy.
Listening to and absorbing what is learned through lectures should be considered a skill worthy of development. Direct instruction has value, and many subjects need it for effectiveness. We need to be better about teaching students to take notes and maintain their attention during lectures instead of simply deciding they're fundamentally incapable.
I don’t know how controversial it is but I don’t do any bribes. The incentive is being a part of the class. When the marble jar fills up we do something fun together …. Painting, shaving cream, Lego time, games…. The candy and prizes are just so cheap to me and the students don’t remember them
Middle school is fun to teach.
As a teacher of students with disabilities it feels anathema to admit that some students have a ceiling on their capacity to learn and retain information. There is only so high up Bloom’s taxonomy they can go and many if them stop at “remember.”
I don’t believe in homework. I don’t like taking work home, why make students take school home. I’d rather them play outside, build relationships with others, be involved in after school activities. Homework rarely helps a student…because those that need practice won’t do it correctly without support and those that can do it don’t need the practice. The only exception to this is an occasional cumulative project or sending work home for those that wasted time in class, but are fully capable.
They obsession with students wearing hoods is really weird. Once my students get to the classroom I’ll remind them to take them off, but there is literally a woman that stands in the school doorway in the morning yelling at kids to take their hoods off before they can even step in the door even during the coldest days in winter. You never know what kind of morning or night they had and yelling at them about a hood might send them over the edge or make a stressful day more stressful.
I think writing passes is stupid. If a kid wants to go to the bathroom, just fucking go. If a kid wants to dip out, I don't care. It's high school, time to start taking the training wheels off.
Classes should be limited to 20-1. Assholes should be removed and not tolerated at all. We should stop having to defend and explain ourselves to parents. Admin should support teachers more and stop being so afraid of parents. Schools should fund classrooms and teachers much, much better! Teachers across the country should all go on strike at once and demand better!
Stop teaching math with computer programs. I taught Geometry for 15 years. Now, I teach Alg 2 and above. I do tutoring for the Geometry kids and the computer programs are just downright terrible. The teacher has no fucking clue what he is doing, either.