what makes a bad teacher?

[Anonymous]

I see people discuss what makes a good teacher. Compassion. Communication. Etc. Other than " the opposite of That! " what specific traits has You disliked in former teachers. Especially prek k and 1 st

[Anonymous]

Our kindergarten teacher could not manage active boys, and when my son was not making any progress she didn't notice/didn't care. She also wrote kids off and stopped caring about their progress.

[Anonymous]

Great question! And I am a teacher. 1) Little or no sense of humor, and/or ability to laugh at oneself. 2)burnt out/uninspired/bored teachers. 3) Teachers w/ poor skills in communication, orginization, creativity. 4) judgemental teachers who are unable/unwilling to recognize their student's strengths. 5) teachers who focus more on their student's weaknesses. 6) those who do not differentiate their teaching styles/behavior management for individual students.7)those who simply do not care. 8) cold, uncaring teachers.....I could go on....

[Anonymous]

Teachers that are not able to speak, or write in the english language.

[Anonymous]

My DD had a teacher who threw things when he got angry. Once he threw a pencil across the room. I consider that a bad teacher. This was at a private school with a good reputation.

She also had a first grade teacher in a different school who was obviously annoyed by her and who frequently spoke to the kids in an irritated voice. She was also extremely disorganized and she would get terrible migraines and on those days she would yell at the kids to be silent and sit at her desk with her head down while they worked on worksheets. My DD would try to hide or lock herself in the bathroom every morning so that she wouldn't have to go to school. Several kids were not learning to read that year and the teacher tried to tell all of the parents that their kids had learning disabilities, including my DD. Later my DD became a straight A student- no LD.

[Anonymous]

Our teacher last year could eventually with a lot of help and different school situation be a good teacher. I think she wanted to be, but last year she had a horrible year, I would say she in fact was a bad teacher. The most important things that I saw made in effective was class room control- she could not get past bad behavior so a child could never really improve in her class so they really saw no reason to behave. She used too many negative totalizing phrases and as a consequence kids just did not think they were valuable to her. She also played favorites in a way that marginalized too many of the struggling kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers that are not able to speak, or write in the english language.

Let me help you--
You provided an incomplete sentence.
Since you're referring to people, you should use "who" instead of "that."
"English" should be capitalized.
You do not need a comma.

You're welcome!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great question! And I am a teacher. 1) Little or no sense of humor, and/or ability to laugh at oneself. 2)burnt out/uninspired/bored teachers. 3) Teachers w/ poor skills in communication, orginization, creativity. 4) judgemental teachers who are unable/unwilling to recognize their student's strengths. 5) teachers who focus more on their student's weaknesses. 6) those who do not differentiate their teaching styles/behavior management for individual students.7)those who simply do not care. 8) cold, uncaring teachers.....I could go on....

As a long-time teacher/educator, I agree with all that you've written. It is especially disturbing to see poor elementary school teachers because their students are with them for extended periods of time. In particular, have no tolerance for any teacher who humiliates and "shreds" a child for any reason. Those teachers should be required to go through additional training with subsequent observations on a frequent basis or forced to leave.

[Anonymous]

Kindergarten teachers in private school last year...here is what made bad:

* Not understanding/believing the development of young children and having appropriate excpectations of children's behavior - one teacher was constantly - I mean almost every minute - correcting 5 yrs olds for things like fidgideting, not sitting with crossed legs, speaking in a manner she didn't like, etc. It was really too much.

*Unable to communicate with parent - got defensive when asked for updates on child's progress and even the most basic question about curriculum

*Liked the "popular girls" and made sure to select and single them out for leading anything and everything and admitted to me as a parent that she did so

*And lastly, not having children themselves. I know that there are those who will swear up and down that makes no difference but it really, truly does - especially in an early childhood setting like Prek, K, 1st -3rd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Kindergarten teachers in private school last year...here is what made bad:

* Not understanding/believing the development of young children and having appropriate excpectations of children's behavior - one teacher was constantly - I mean almost every minute - correcting 5 yrs olds for things like fidgideting, not sitting with crossed legs, speaking in a manner she didn't like, etc. It was really too much.

*Unable to communicate with parent - got defensive when asked for updates on child's progress and even the most basic question about curriculum

*Liked the "popular girls" and made sure to select and single them out for leading anything and everything and admitted to me as a parent that she did so

*And lastly, not having children themselves. I know that there are those who will swear up and down that makes no difference but it really, truly does - especially in an early childhood setting like Prek, K, 1st -3rd.

I totally disagree with this. I posted above about two bad teachers and my 3 kids have had a few other really bad eggs but some of the best, most amazing teachers did not have children themselves. Some people are just born to teach.

[Anonymous]

When you, as a parent, approach the teacher to report an incident of aggression (or perhaps ongoing bullying -- you're not sure) and the teacher proceeds to zoom past the concrete details you just reported and say, "So what is Victim going to do to for his part to stop this?"

Those were the first words out of her mouth. Essentially, What did your kid do to make Aggressor punch him in the face and what does he plan to do differently to avoid getting punched in the mouth?

As an aside, this particular teacher is everything the teacher in 20:25 portrays -- all in one package. Private school, early grades, upper NW DC

[Anonymous]

I am an amazing teacher (preschool) and always have parent requests for kids to be in my class. I am also pp 20.25. AND I am ttc # 1 via ivf. To the pp, your comment is ignorant and hurtful, imo.

[Anonymous]

My comment was directed to 7.19.

[Anonymous]

My question is how do you know this much about the teacher? How do you find out what "tone" the teacher uses. We are at a new public school this year and my second grade son "hates" it. I wish I felt like the teacher was helping him with his transition. I figured we just have to give it time, but I really wish there was some way for me to figure out what kind of teacher he has. Asking my son for info is liking pulling teeth and I work full-time so it is not easy for me to volunteer during the day. I guess as the year goes on, you just start to get a better idea of how the teacher works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am an amazing teacher (preschool) and always have parent requests for kids to be in my class. I am also pp 20.25. AND I am ttc # 1 via ivf. To the pp, your comment is ignorant and hurtful, imo.

Don't worry about it. PP 7:19 is just plain wrong. Of course you are great teacher. I can tell just by reading your other comments.