How Many of Your Kids’ Teachers are Duds?
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Anonymous
| With the caveat that I am not a teacher, but come from a family of teachers and professors, how many of your kids’ teachers in a given year are duds? Or maybe not a dud, but the course content is so odd for the course that you wonder (e.g. an English course where all of the books this year so far have had detailed tape and torture scenes)? Maybe you don’t see it now and it isn’t until your kid gets to Spanish 3 only to realize that the Spanish 2 class only make it halfway through the book? In looking at one of my kid’s teachers from 7th grade, in hindsight, 1/2 of them taught strange content and/or taught in a way that was not a fit for most kids. 8th grade was wonderful and I thought 7th grade an off year. High school surely must be better. 9th grade another dud year. 10th grade - wow, now I really see the gaps from 9th grade and I’m truly questioning the value of this kid’s private school. I have three kids and I never felt like this for the other two (different school). |
Anonymous
| Sounds like your school may be a dud. |
Anonymous
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I have an elementary school kid but I would say that a lot of private schools have the risk of duds and have loose enough curriculum and testing requirements that duds can slip by for a while under the guise of “teacher autonomy”. My child has been at her school for 6 years and had 2 dud years and one awful year. The teacher of the awful year did not have her contract renewed. My child is in her final year at her school so we have been attended admissions events all fall, and based on the questions people are asking 1:1 and in the hallways, a lot of people are experiencing erratic teacher quality at even the very best private schools. And no wonder! We’ve told teachers that their work isn’t valuable so the best college students run far away from the profession. And then we turn around and criticize schools for not finding better teachers.
The younger generation of educators approaches loyalty and their careers very differently than teachers even 5 years older. I attend independent school conferences as a conference organizer and the thing they have in common is concerns about succession and job-hopping. Except that heads are no longer calling it job-hopping because that carries a negative connotation that is going away- it’s now assumed in the industry that early career educators will only stay for a few years in each role. That makes it tricky for them to quickly integrate into a school’s culture and curriculum, so there will be more dud years to come for everyone. |
Anonymous
| French for our K8 (DC has long since graduated) was very hit or miss with a lot of turnover, which was very frustrating. Most other things worked out well. DC was nevertheless well prepared for rigorous HS and placed well in French, but did a lot of extra enrichment. Atm the music program could use some structure, but most everything else is doing well thus far. |
Anonymous
| My kid's teachers are all amazing. The athletic department, however, is a joke and poorly managed which has been frustrating for my kid and others. Parents complain about it, but...silence. |
Anonymous
This (but we’re probably different schools). We had one dud last year but theybwere quickly replaced. All other academic teachers have been great… with the exception of just two specials teachers. They suck (to put it bluntly) and based on feedback from all the kids they are also not good at their jobs. But, that’s balanced by all the great teachers so we’re not super upset by this. |
Anonymous
| Elementary here, but just the art teacher is really lackluster. Really, really unimpressive stuff. Everything else is amazing, so I just deal with it. |
Anonymous
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Speaking as a teacher, it's no different than any other profession. If I come to your office, company, store, etc. I will likely encounter great people, drones, and duds.
Private schools like to pretend that they hire nothing but geniuses who walk on water, but that is never true. They have to fill their schedule with teachers who can cover those classes. Standards can vary. FWIW, teaching well - not like a "dud" - is a lot harder than most people imagine. |
Anonymous
| This problem is only going to get worse in the coming years given the growing teacher shortage. |
Anonymous
Another teacher here. I agree with all of this. I’ve encountered duds in other professions. Example: we switched doctors last year because we thought our last one was a dud. We didn’t like the idea of missing things during physicals because of his lackadaisical behavior. I just think it’s easiest to pick on the duds in education. I feel we don’t complain about other professionals as often as we complain about teachers. I also agree that teaching WELL is a lot harder than people think it is. |
Anonymous
| I'm shocked by the huge disparity in the quality of teaching at our kids' big-3. Our HS English program, which is purportedly top notch, has incredible teachers and absolute duds. Anecdotally, the teachers who are true professionals, who are committed to the craft and have been around for decades, are phenomenal. The newer ones who maybe don't see teaching as a vocation seem to be calling it in. |
Anonymous
| In English at our kid’s big-3, the new teachers are phenomenal and the ones that have been there forever are the ones calling it in. Times do change. Teachers need to stay fresh and update materials and methods a little occasionally. |
Anonymous
I’m a private high school English teacher. I’m going to be completely honest: this job takes 60-70 hours a week to do WELL. The younger teachers still have energy. I’ve been pulling these hours for 14 years. I’m slowing down and can no longer devote all weekend to commenting on essays and planning new lessons. Please take a moment this holiday season to thank those phenomenal teachers in your life. What they are doing in the classroom comes at a great personal cost. |
Anonymous
Planning should not be too difficult for you after many years? I understand that grading is a huge time suck but don’t you have a total of approximately 60 students? Is it really that bad? Also you get 3 months off in the summer. And another month with winter break and spring break. |
Anonymous
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We have 16 years worth of k-8 (two kids both now graduated) and have had great teachers. Very happy.
Second kid: 0 duds First kid: 3 duds - all were gone the next year and the new hires were great - early grade math section teacher - middle school core academic teacher (ie one of these: Eng/Hist/Math/Sci/Span) - middle school chorus For high school - it was hard to know - we don't meet the teachers and DC's don't talk about them. |