Bad/absent English teacher in middle school

[Anonymous]

My kid is in middle school and his English teacher is terrible. We haven’t had a single large writing assignment all year and he’s in 8th. My elementary kid has more work than my 8th. I thought they were doing most work in class but turns out he just gives short writing prompts all year. And worst of all he’s always absent and sub is there all the time. He will just send a random assignment to the sub to monitor and apparently none of the kids do it when subs are around. The year is 1/2 over now and not really time to swap teachers anymore. I’m just disappointed and worried how 9th grade will be when he seems to have wasted all year with this absent and disconnected teacher.

Anyway, I’m wondering if it’s worth raising to the principal in an inquisitive way. Maybe he has some personal issues. But also don’t want to get my kid in trouble or teacher in trouble. I just want my kid to be prepared for high school. WWYD? Just get him a side toutor?

[Anonymous]

No. It is none of your business why the teacher is out. The principal approves the leave, s/he knows the situation already. You are not going to enlighten them to something they don't know about. As long as there is a sub in the room, there's nothing else that will be done.

As for the short assignments--that's the reality of today's teacher, even one who is present 180 days. There is no time to grade 150 multi page essays. 150 paragraphs already takes 5 hours if they spend 2 minutes on each providing feedback.

If you want more in depth writing, you have to find a school set up with a better student:teacher ratio. Maybe that's tutoring. Maybe it's private school. Maybe it's homeschool.
It stinks, but it's the reality of today's schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. It is none of your business why the teacher is out. The principal approves the leave, s/he knows the situation already. You are not going to enlighten them to something they don't know about. As long as there is a sub in the room, there's nothing else that will be done.

As for the short assignments--that's the reality of today's teacher, even one who is present 180 days. There is no time to grade 150 multi page essays. 150 paragraphs already takes 5 hours if they spend 2 minutes on each providing feedback.

If you want more in depth writing, you have to find a school set up with a better student:teacher ratio. Maybe that's tutoring. Maybe it's private school. Maybe it's homeschool.
It stinks, but it's the reality of today's schools.

Ok I see some points here but fact is we know other students in same grade with other teachers who are giving assignments and papers. So we drew the short straw. Just ridiculous as school was recognized as a blue ribbon or something school. Dad state of affairs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. It is none of your business why the teacher is out. The principal approves the leave, s/he knows the situation already. You are not going to enlighten them to something they don't know about. As long as there is a sub in the room, there's nothing else that will be done.

As for the short assignments--that's the reality of today's teacher, even one who is present 180 days. There is no time to grade 150 multi page essays. 150 paragraphs already takes 5 hours if they spend 2 minutes on each providing feedback.

If you want more in depth writing, you have to find a school set up with a better student:teacher ratio. Maybe that's tutoring. Maybe it's private school. Maybe it's homeschool.
It stinks, but it's the reality of today's schools.

Ok I see some points here but fact is we know other students in same grade with other teachers who are giving assignments and papers. So we drew the short straw. Just ridiculous as school was recognized as a blue ribbon or something school. Dad state of affairs.

*sad*

[Anonymous]

Some teachers just aren’t good. There is one in my department- it’s horrific she is allowed to “teach.” Terrible for the kids. Then there’s also some teachers who are good but going through medical stuff or family stuff and having a bad year. There’s no way to know but the reality is we are halfway through the year so you’re kind of stuck at this point. Nothing will happen to the teacher either way. You could get a tutor but make sure they’re a former English teacher if you do because very few tutors are skilled at teaching writing . It is one of the most difficult skills to actually teach and assess. For your part, 30 minutes of NO SCREEN reading every single night would be a great thing to enforce at home. Even better if you’re reading the book and discussing it with him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. It is none of your business why the teacher is out. The principal approves the leave, s/he knows the situation already. You are not going to enlighten them to something they don't know about. As long as there is a sub in the room, there's nothing else that will be done.

As for the short assignments--that's the reality of today's teacher, even one who is present 180 days. There is no time to grade 150 multi page essays. 150 paragraphs already takes 5 hours if they spend 2 minutes on each providing feedback.

If you want more in depth writing, you have to find a school set up with a better student:teacher ratio. Maybe that's tutoring. Maybe it's private school. Maybe it's homeschool.
It stinks, but it's the reality of today's schools.

Ok I see some points here but fact is we know other students in same grade with other teachers who are giving assignments and papers. So we drew the short straw. Just ridiculous as school was recognized as a blue ribbon or something school. Dad state of affairs.

Life isn’t fair. Your kid isn’t going to be moved into the “good” room(s). Everyone has bad teachers in their lifetime. This is your kid’s.

What exactly do you plan to gain by “writing inquisitively?”

[Anonymous]

Op,

I am a middle school English teacher. You have the right to complain. My students write lengthy papers at least twice a month. Writing is a time consuming process for both the student and teacher.

Please complain. I am so tired of lazy teachers. They make those of us who work hard look bad. When we inherit their students our jobs are so much harder. It is not fair for the kids.

[Anonymous]

Complain. It sounds like this teacher/class needs support. However, one of the best ways to improve writing is to read. Set aside daily time for reading books and well-written essays.

[Anonymous]

You aren't going to get decent writing instruction in public. You need to hire an outside tutor.

[Anonymous]

Have you conferenced with the teacher to share your concerns?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You aren't going to get decent writing instruction in public. You need to hire an outside tutor.

Most people that learn to write can't hire private tutors. Read read read. Then write and edit, write and edit, write and edit. You can read your kids work and speak to them about how to improve it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op,

I am a middle school English teacher. You have the right to complain. My students write lengthy papers at least twice a month. Writing is a time consuming process for both the student and teacher.

Please complain. I am so tired of lazy teachers. They make those of us who work hard look bad. When we inherit their students our jobs are so much harder. It is not fair for the kids.

NP here and thank you for this. Yes it's true that life isn't fair and that kids are sometimes going to get bad teachers, but why does that excuse the teacher's actions?

Also, I think you can be out a lot and still assign papers. You get a sub and the sub says "welcome class, please work on your papers and send questions you have to your teacher." Right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op,

I am a middle school English teacher. You have the right to complain. My students write lengthy papers at least twice a month. Writing is a time consuming process for both the student and teacher.

Please complain. I am so tired of lazy teachers. They make those of us who work hard look bad. When we inherit their students our jobs are so much harder. It is not fair for the kids.

OP here. Thank you. Honestly I’m the last one to ever complain about anyone. I’ve had a waiter accidentally spill a hot giant bowl of pho on me and didn’t complain or ask for comp from restaurant as I felt bad getting the young waitress in trouble. When it comes to my kid it’s more of a struggle for me with this urge to voice my concerns.

To be clear, I highly doubt it’s a health issue with this teacher. I’ve had experience with many other teachers who were out for maternity, marriage, medical issues etc but this is different. I should have tried to move him when on back to school orientation night he tired to give us his class overview to parents while, at the same time, try to teach his extra side gig, English tutor to several young elementary kids via zoom. Talking to us direly 1/2 time and giving them langue discussion topics 1/2 time. I’ve never seen that before. He said he couldn’t resolve schedule conflict and trying to do both. I could already see 1/2 parents super annoyed at that point and that was first month of school. Then he was out for a week with car trouble sometime last year. Then just this past week he was out Thursday and Monday. Then he hasn’t been here to do the makeup quizzes with the kids who has signed up for testing. And he hasn’t graded anything since start of this semester. He has yet to give any substantial assignments since start of the year. I get bits and pieces only between my discussions with my 8th grader and his 7th grader friend who has him also. They all say the class is a joke. If I don’t say anything then next year kids will have the same troubling experience. My younger will go to middle soon and also might get him.

I’m conflicted but these are the reasons why I’m concerned. I’m not aware of students can give feedback at the end of class or not. I’ve never had any school surveys around classes either so there isn’t an anonymous way for me to give feedback either.

Either way, I’ll be working on language and writing with him after school as likely nothing will be done with teacher shortags.

[Anonymous]

I taught high school English in the 2000s. It was shocking to me how little some of my colleagues required of kids. We would go over the really bare bones requirements - the research project, read one Shakespeare play, etc. Some of my less than stellar colleagues would brag, "Oh, I just put them in groups and have them make a poster for the 'research requirement.'" "Oh, I just have them watch the movie for the Shakespeare requirement." I honestly have no idea what these people were doing in their classrooms every day. I assigned a multi-page paper and we read a major play or novel every 9 weeks. Of course, this is probably why I was given honors and AP classes and these other teachers weren't.

Of course, this was in my 20s before I had kids. I worked really long, unsustainable hours. But at least students would come back to me and say, "Some of my college classmates don't know how to write a paper. I learned that from you!" Of course, at the time they complained that I was too hard and the other teachers didn't make kids do what I was doing. But that's OK . . . that's what teenagers do.

[Anonymous]

Boy I really went overboard with the "of course"s!