Teacher bashing

[Anonymous]

I have reported teacher bashing threads that add nothing to the thread like saying they are lazy. They are usually off topic as well. I’ve reported many and I believe Jeff has deleted most of them.

[jsteele]

Wow, I try to spend some quality time with my family and look what happens. That will teach me.

I am ready, willing, and eager to delete teacher bashing posts. Both of my parents were teachers and I value the profession. Just to be clear, complaining about distance learning is not teacher bashing. Complain about that all you want. But, I have seen and removed plenty of gratuitous and unfair criticism of teachers that degrades what can otherwise be helpful discussions. Given the attitudes towards teachers that some of you display, I'm surprised that you trust them to educate your children. I don't quite understand the "You are a lazy, incompetent, grifter and I want you to spend six hours a day with my child" mentality.

So, yes, please report such posts.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:Wow, I try to spend some quality time with my family and look what happens. That will teach me.

I am ready, willing, and eager to delete teacher bashing posts. Both of my parents were teachers and I value the profession. Just to be clear, complaining about distance learning is not teacher bashing. Complain about that all you want. But, I have seen and removed plenty of gratuitous and unfair criticism of teachers that degrades what can otherwise be helpful discussions. Given the attitudes towards teachers that some of you display, I'm surprised that you trust them to educate your children. I don't quite understand the "You are a lazy, incompetent, grifter and I want you to spend six hours a day with my child" mentality.

So, yes, please report such posts.

I saw what you did there.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:Wow, I try to spend some quality time with my family and look what happens. That will teach me.

I am ready, willing, and eager to delete teacher bashing posts. Both of my parents were teachers and I value the profession. Just to be clear, complaining about distance learning is not teacher bashing. Complain about that all you want. But, I have seen and removed plenty of gratuitous and unfair criticism of teachers that degrades what can otherwise be helpful discussions. Given the attitudes towards teachers that some of you display, I'm surprised that you trust them to educate your children. I don't quite understand the "You are a lazy, incompetent, grifter and I want you to spend six hours a day with my child" mentality.

So, yes, please report such posts.

Well said!

People are scapegoating teachers. Teachers are not the problem with our crappy education system, nor are they the problem with this COVID nightmare.
I believe that it really burns people up that most teachers get the summer off (despite the fact that their salaries definitely reflect this). And they view teachers as babysitters (therefore worthy of scorn and condescension) but also having the responsibility to bring out Larlo’s genius and foster him to the maximum possible. Teachers can do nothing right in the eyes of some people.

Signed,
Both parents were teachers as well

[Anonymous]

Teacher bashing has always been an easy sport, both here and everywhere. The myth that teachers have the summers off, that teaching online is easier and should result in reduced pay, that if the online platform or system doesn’t work for you, or your nanny, that the teachers aren’t doing their jobs.

The pandemic has only magnified the disrespect people have for teachers in general. Why should the schools reopen while cases rise around the country? So the children aren’t at home and parents can do their clearly more important work, or non work, knowing the kids are not underfoot. Most parents have no idea or appreciation of how hard it is to teach. A few months of having to teach your own kids (not 30 at a time) and you deal with your ineptitude and rage by, again, blaming teachers.

If you want to really stop complaining and be a part of the solution and deal with whatever the fall brings, here is what you do. Reach out to your teachers, with respect and as a partner in your child’s education. Make sure they know you are invested and respect their role in the process. I bet if you approach teachers as partners, they will welcome you and support you in your child’s education. It’s really easy to have an overinflated sense of your own competence when it comes to kids. You may know your kid, but you don’t know all kids and you likely don’t know much about schooling.

Just because you went to school doesn’t mean you know anything about teaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teacher bashing has always been an easy sport, both here and everywhere. The myth that teachers have the summers off, that teaching online is easier and should result in reduced pay, that if the online platform or system doesn’t work for you, or your nanny, that the teachers aren’t doing their jobs.

The pandemic has only magnified the disrespect people have for teachers in general. Why should the schools reopen while cases rise around the country? So the children aren’t at home and parents can do their clearly more important work, or non work, knowing the kids are not underfoot. Most parents have no idea or appreciation of how hard it is to teach. A few months of having to teach your own kids (not 30 at a time) and you deal with your ineptitude and rage by, again, blaming teachers.

If you want to really stop complaining and be a part of the solution and deal with whatever the fall brings, here is what you do. Reach out to your teachers, with respect and as a partner in your child’s education. Make sure they know you are invested and respect their role in the process. I bet if you approach teachers as partners, they will welcome you and support you in your child’s education. It’s really easy to have an overinflated sense of your own competence when it comes to kids. You may know your kid, but you don’t know all kids and you likely don’t know much about schooling.

Just because you went to school doesn’t mean you know anything about teaching.

This is the issue. Teachers are in full force screaming they won’t go back to work. But guess what - the rest of us are back at work or are going back to work. Why should teachers be any different?

[Anonymous]

I am not a teacher, but have posted often during the return to school discussions in defense of teachers.

I want to make one point, however, which is that we all agree that DL was terrible in the spring. It was terrible everywhere. As parents, we know this is an unprecedented crisis and that the school closures happened suddenly, but we don't know exactly why the spring was so bad. Someone mentioned a post by a teacher who said that they were prohibited by administrators from doing more than the bare minimum. Why? No one has told parents why so few of teachers' hours were devoted to instruction. Or in the case of my high school aged kids, none of the teachers' hours were devoted to direct instructions. Zero. It was learning activities and one hour of check in. I understand that answering questions is instruction to a certain degree, but it was not what kids were used to.

Why was the spring so bad? Was it equity/access to technology? Was it teacher union demands? Was it an administrative failure? Tell us. Tell us what the problems were in the spring so that we have some level of faith and optimism that the fall will look better.

If administrators or even teacher organizations explained to parents what issues were at play in leading to such a poor offering in the spring, parents would be more understanding. Unfortunately, we don't know what went on behind the scenes, which leaves teachers hung out to dry and looking like they were the ones who didn't want to work. I know that isn't true, but that's how it looks.

[Anonymous]

I am not a teacher, but have posted often during the return to school discussions in defense of teachers.

I want to make one point, however, which is that we all agree that DL was terrible in the spring. It was terrible everywhere. As parents, we know this is an unprecedented crisis and that the school closures happened suddenly, but we don't know exactly why the spring was so bad. Someone mentioned a post by a teacher who said that they were prohibited by administrators from doing more than the bare minimum. Why? No one has told parents why so few of teachers' hours were devoted to instruction. Or in the case of my high school aged kids, none of the teachers' hours were devoted to direct instructions. Zero. It was learning activities and one hour of check in. I understand that answering questions is instruction to a certain degree, but it was not what kids were used to.

Why was the spring so bad? Was it equity/access to technology? Was it teacher union demands? Was it an administrative failure? Tell us. Tell us what the problems were in the spring so that we have some level of faith and optimism that the fall will look better.

If administrators or even teacher organizations explained to parents what issues were at play in leading to such a poor offering in the spring, parents would be more understanding. Unfortunately, we don't know what went on behind the scenes, which leaves teachers hung out to dry and looking like they were the ones who didn't want to work. I know that isn't true, but that's how it looks.

This is not true. Many parents in APS were pleased with the DL. It was only a group of K-2 parents who complained incessantly and made it look like APS teachers weren't working.

[Anonymous]

BUT - BUT - BUT: An even bigger problem is teachers bashing parents!

A thread will often start out with a parent voicing concerns how DL hasn't worked and/or hoping for in-person learning this fall. In very quick order a swarm of teachers will then descent and try destroy that parent. For example, they'll say that this parent must be lazy and incompetent, wants only a babysitter, hates their kids for wanting to get rid of them so badly, or even that they should not have had kids to begin with if they can't handle it now. It's one thing for families to blow off some steam at the institutions that failed them, but for licensed professionals to mock and ridicule the families they're supposed to serve is quite another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I am not a teacher, but have posted often during the return to school discussions in defense of teachers.

I want to make one point, however, which is that we all agree that DL was terrible in the spring. It was terrible everywhere. As parents, we know this is an unprecedented crisis and that the school closures happened suddenly, but we don't know exactly why the spring was so bad. Someone mentioned a post by a teacher who said that they were prohibited by administrators from doing more than the bare minimum. Why? No one has told parents why so few of teachers' hours were devoted to instruction. Or in the case of my high school aged kids, none of the teachers' hours were devoted to direct instructions. Zero. It was learning activities and one hour of check in. I understand that answering questions is instruction to a certain degree, but it was not what kids were used to.

Why was the spring so bad? Was it equity/access to technology? Was it teacher union demands? Was it an administrative failure? Tell us. Tell us what the problems were in the spring so that we have some level of faith and optimism that the fall will look better.

If administrators or even teacher organizations explained to parents what issues were at play in leading to such a poor offering in the spring, parents would be more understanding. Unfortunately, we don't know what went on behind the scenes, which leaves teachers hung out to dry and looking like they were the ones who didn't want to work. I know that isn't true, but that's how it looks.

This is not true. Many parents in APS were pleased with the DL. It was only a group of K-2 parents who complained incessantly and made it look like APS teachers weren't working.

OK, maybe it was bad most places in Maryland. Would you be satisfied with one hour per week of "check-in" time with your child's high school teacher in AP subjects?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BUT - BUT - BUT: An even bigger problem is teachers bashing parents!

A thread will often start out with a parent voicing concerns how DL hasn't worked and/or hoping for in-person learning this fall. In very quick order a swarm of teachers will then descent and try destroy that parent. For example, they'll say that this parent must be lazy and incompetent, wants only a babysitter, hates their kids for wanting to get rid of them so badly, or even that they should not have had kids to begin with if they can't handle it now. It's one thing for families to blow off some steam at the institutions that failed them, but for licensed professionals to mock and ridicule the families they're supposed to serve is quite another.

Yes, it definitely works both ways. Teachers have gotten really ugly as well in response to parents' posts. I love teachers and have been one in the past (am an administrator now), but lately my heart has been hardening toward them in response to their unsympathetic characterizations of desperate parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven’t done much teacher bashing (maybe once or twice??) but I totally understand it. I’m a nanny and had to basically teach the kids myself for 3 months because the distance ‘learning’ was so awful. You don’t think people should be able to talk about that?

The comments aren’t about challenges about distance learning and are more along the lines of calling teachers lazy, entitled and worse. Their concerns about returning to work are shared by workforces everywhere and they don’t deserve to be mocked relentlessly.

Moreover there is nothing to indicate fall DL will be like Spring DL. In fact what we know already is it won’t be.

For MCPS we know there will not be teaching on Weds. Whether you are in person or at home.
That is a 20% drop from what I expect when my student attends school M-F. It is huge. It's understandable that people are upset.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The teachers failed to show they could teach.
They could have stepped up and done real teaching
6 hours a day on zoom.

They didn’t. They will always have that negative image now.

Teachers, at least in mcps barely called it in.

They should have gone above and beyond and taught live.

This is not the teachers fault. We followed the schedules and rules we were given. I agree that there should be more frequent synchronous learning, as well as real grades, and I would even advocate for teachers to call kids who are struggling or not showing up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The teachers failed to show they could teach.
They could have stepped up and done real teaching
6 hours a day on zoom.

They didn’t. They will always have that negative image now.

Teachers, at least in mcps barely called it in.

They should have gone above and beyond and taught live.

This is not the teachers fault. We followed the schedules and rules we were given. I agree that there should be more frequent synchronous learning, as well as real grades, and I would even advocate for teachers to call kids who are struggling or not showing up.

So why was the bar set so low? Were the teachers unions advocating for the things you mentioned? I have heard many teachers complain that they wanted to do more but felt constrained. Why?