The Teacher Thread

Originally Posted by JustinW

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I imagine we will see a move from the former to the latter. I was at a district meeting today and we all started talking about the pending lay-offs. At first I was encouraged that everyone agreed there was merit in keeping both the new and the experienced teachers. In fact, everyone agreed that the selection should be on merit. Yay. Then we started discussing the best metrics for measuring teacher merit. Not yay. I am still stunned that one 40-something high school teacher really believed that popularity with the students was the most important measure of teacher performance.
You'll have to go into more detail on what you think merit pay should be based on because frankly the concept is the dumbest ******* thing I've heard in a long time.I have a hard time believing this is the literal truth and not a drastically oversimplified version of this teachers opinion.

Originally Posted by JustinW

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I imagine we will see a move from the former to the latter.

I was at a district meeting today and we all started talking about the pending lay-offs. At first I was encouraged that everyone agreed there was merit in keeping both the new and the experienced teachers. In fact, everyone agreed that the selection should be on merit. Yay. Then we started discussing the best metrics for measuring teacher merit. Not yay. I am still stunned that one 40-something high school teacher really believed that popularity with the students was the most important measure of teacher performance.

Here in NYC this is the issue. Its not because I'm a big "union" guy, although I am, but I happen to think teaching is one of those jobs where seniority can make a teacher better. I know I am a much better teacher today than I was in my first three years because of the experience. Especially because of the high rate of younger teachers who leave the job, senior teachers should be kept over newer ones. What needs to be done though, is administrators need to be more aggressive in giving people U ratings. Depite what people think, its not impossible to get rid of a tenured teacher, its just demanding on the administrators, and because of the fact that they are overworked, they choose not to put in the effort it takes in this regard. Also, many of the teachers who get laid off, eventually find their way back into the system, like they did in the 70's. But again, this wouldn't be an issue if there was an accurate rating system, however there isn't and I'm not sure one is possible in a profession like ours, there are just too many intangibles.

Here's how I look at it. God forbid someone you love has gone missing. Would you rather a rookie detective on the case, or an experienced one? Is there a chance that the experienced detective is not a good one, sure, but there's a better chance that the rookie detective will make many more mistakes, or not turn over the right stones to find them.

Originally Posted by NewYorkRanger

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Here's how I look at it. God forbid someone you love has gone missing. Would you rather a rookie detective on the case, or an experienced one?

Leave it to an American public school teacher to come up with such a marsupialed analogy.

Originally Posted by StephenHero

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Leave it to an American public school teacher to come up with such a marsupialed analogy.

Leave it to an asshole to read and comment in a thread he knows nothing about.

I do know that comparing education to kidnapping is probably not worth a sticker on my essay.

Originally Posted by StephenHero

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I do know that comparing education to kidnapping is probably not worth a sticker on my essay.
I don't know- two professions where there's high stress, intense focus on problem solving and widespread public distrust of your peers? Who knows, maybe you're just not used to getting stickers.

I would gladly take on the "stress" accustomed to teachers if I got three months off to cope with it.

They're unpaid. And it's never too late.

lol @ three months

Originally Posted by StephenHero

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I would gladly take on the "stress" accustomed to teachers if I got three months off to cope with it.

Originally Posted by Rambo

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Its people like this shithead that make me not want to participate in what could potentially be a greatly beneficial threads to people in this profession. I'm not saying he has no right to his opinion, but let the douchebag start another thread, the teacher "bashing" thread, if he wants to enlighten us with his rhetoric.

On a lighter note, I just had an 8th student return to my class after a suspension today. A few weeks ago I witnessed him threaten to **** and kill a female teacher at my school for scolding him. I am having a hard time figuring out how to handle myself around him now. In my 10 years of teaching, I have never witnessed anything as purely evil as what I saw him do.

Originally Posted by NewYorkRanger

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On a lighter note, I just had an 8th student return to my class after a suspension today. A few weeks ago I witnessed him threaten to **** and kill a female teacher at my school for scolding him. I am having a hard time figuring out how to handle myself around him now. In my 10 years of teaching, I have never witnessed anything as purely evil as what I saw him do.

Originally Posted by mm84321

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Yea. How you doin'?

Wow.

Originally Posted by NewYorkRanger

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On a lighter note, I just had an 8th student return to my class after a suspension today. A few weeks ago I witnessed him threaten to **** and kill a female teacher at my school for scolding him. I am having a hard time figuring out how to handle myself around him now. In my 10 years of teaching, I have never witnessed anything as purely evil as what I saw him do.

One of my students returned today from two days of OSS for telling an aide that he wanted to shoot his civics teacher in the face. The day after his suspension was issued, his mother finally came in for a child study meeting. This was the third time the meeting was rescheduled because something kept coming up for mom. The administration finally told the mom that the student was not allowed back at school until she came to the meeting.