Terrible teachers at TJ

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is this a thing?

I'm a parent of a freshman so I've had very little exposure to teachers yet, but already there are two very bad teachers that seem should be removed ASAP and I don't know how they are still employed.

Teacher #1 -
I've met so many parents independently of boys, girls, athletes, non-athetes complain about this one PE teacher. In her back to school night presentation she talks about her stillbirth. Which I think was set up to prepare us for her constant absences and negative attitude.

My varsity athlete in 3 sports absolutely dreads PE with her and has a B despite actually trying and being one of the best (insert any activity they're doing). She actively goes after them too. I only get constant negative reports from her when no other teacher ever even sends me an email.

You are obviously a miserable person who possesses less empathy than a rock.

1. The teacher presenting about her stillborn baby is not a "set up." What would make you think she'd constantly be absent just because she shared a detail about her family and its tragic loss? And then you assume that because the teacher lost a child, she will have a negative attitude? What is wrong with you? Show some compassion.

2. Being a multi-sport athlete does not mean your kid is a stellar PE student. Maybe he refuses to follow rules, learn new skills, and/or do his work in Health or Driver's Ed.

3. Maybe you only get negative reports from the one teacher because your kid has picked up on your holier than thou approach, thinking your kid is perfect, or maybe he's picked up on your piss poor attitude about non-academic classes.

Maybe this teacher is indeed a terrible teacher. Or maybe you and/or your kid are the problem. I predict it's the latter.

I've never, ever had a problem with a school or a teacher before this one in particular. Obviously, kid is at TJ. But also, there are ***lots*** of other parents having the same issue with this teacher as discussed on an internal parents chat. I confirmed in person that it was, indeed, the same teacher we were all complaining about.

I'm a recurrent pregnancy loss patient myself but I'm done with her piss poor attitude.

What does the bolded mean?

You've never had a problem with a teacher before this one in particular. Obviously you've never had a problem and that's why your kid is at TJ? That makes no sense.

You've never had a problem with a teacher before this one in particular. Obviously your kid is at TJ, so... Again, this makes no sense.

You still have not explained why you think the teacher sharing about her stillbirth is at all related to her attendance or her attitude. Why did you think it was a set up?

Because she's saying that's why she has a terrible attitude and missing school.

I encountered the teacher outside of class doing something and I made a casual remark about helping out and her response was basically I'll do anything to not be in class. I mean it was super clear she hates her job. Very, very clear.

She may need some time off. A sabbatical or leave of absence. A stillbirth is fukn traumatic. We had a third trimester miscarriage and that was horrible but still birth would have been worse. Exponentially worse. She may be broken right now and can't it won't take the time to heal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I would be leery of getting information verified by "a friend's husband" and thinking that a "B" in PE is related to athletic ability. You are not there in the classroom and your information is second and third hand.

Your kid really needs to work hard to not get an A in PE.

Any able bodied kid who earns a B in PE should get grounded and have their electronics taken away by their parents.

There is a PE teacher at TJ that gives graded written tests.

Since you are obviously not me (the OP) can you verify that I'm not crazy? There is a problem PE teacher that everyone knows about?

The one I know gives written tests on the history of ultimate frizbee and the rules of competitive badminton. I don't know if she had a miscarriage but I do know she seems to think PE should have "rigor" instead of just being a class where kids can take a breath in the middle of an otherwise intense day.

A lot of the teachers are intense.

In my opinion the worst offenders are the Spanish department.

One price of advice to anyone thinking of coming here. Think long and hard about taking Spanish at TJ. My kid has a few years of Spanish under his belt so he continued with it and Spanish is his second hardest class and it is expected to only get harder. So many TJ kids only take the minimum 3 years of language because of the "rigor" of Spanish.

Language is not an honors class and I wonder if this is an attempt to turn it into an honors class or an attempt to reduce their class size.

Every class at TJ is supposed to be an honors class by definition...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is this a thing?

I'm a parent of a freshman so I've had very little exposure to teachers yet, but already there are two very bad teachers that seem should be removed ASAP and I don't know how they are still employed.

Teacher #1 -
I've met so many parents independently of boys, girls, athletes, non-athetes complain about this one PE teacher. In her back to school night presentation she talks about her stillbirth. Which I think was set up to prepare us for her constant absences and negative attitude.

My varsity athlete in 3 sports absolutely dreads PE with her and has a B despite actually trying and being one of the best (insert any activity they're doing). She actively goes after them too. I only get constant negative reports from her when no other teacher ever even sends me an email.

Teacher #2
He's 80+ teaching foundations of computer science and everything he teaches the kids is outdated. He doesn't follow the curriculum so any kids in his class are then at a disadvantage for future CS classes at TJ. All this information was verified by a friend's husband who does programming professionally so knows the material he's teaching and methods are all way, way out of date.

Bottom-line:
How, at a top-notch school, do they not have better performance or even just-don't-suck standards for their teachers? TJ shouldn't be for every student or teacher.

Make sure TJ gets no bad teachers…the rest of FCPS should get them, right?!?!

It's a magnet school. It should not have teachers that hate their jobs or are not actually up-to-date on the material they are teaching. (By up to date, I mean the material is maybe over 20 years old). Some of that you might get away with at a regular school, but, no, I don't think **any** school deserves teachers that hate being a teacher or the job. Hence my suggestion that that teacher finds an admin position.

FWIW, the basics of CS don't change. Like - the same boolean algebra that drove Babbage still applies. And guess what: will still be what CMU or MIT are expecting your kid to know if they go into CS in college.

Do software engineering best practices evolve rapidly? Sure. But you still have to know how logic gates work before you get there. Or how loops and conditionals work. And those are basically the same - with semantic differences - in BASIC or python. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I would be leery of getting information verified by "a friend's husband" and thinking that a "B" in PE is related to athletic ability. You are not there in the classroom and your information is second and third hand.

Your kid really needs to work hard to not get an A in PE.

Any able bodied kid who earns a B in PE should get grounded and have their electronics taken away by their parents.

There is a PE teacher at TJ that gives graded written tests.

Since you are obviously not me (the OP) can you verify that I'm not crazy? There is a problem PE teacher that everyone knows about?

The one I know gives written tests on the history of ultimate frizbee and the rules of competitive badminton. I don't know if she had a miscarriage but I do know she seems to think PE should have "rigor" instead of just being a class where kids can take a breath in the middle of an otherwise intense day.

A lot of the teachers are intense.

In my opinion the worst offenders are the Spanish department.

One price of advice to anyone thinking of coming here. Think long and hard about taking Spanish at TJ. My kid has a few years of Spanish under his belt so he continued with it and Spanish is his second hardest class and it is expected to only get harder. So many TJ kids only take the minimum 3 years of language because of the "rigor" of Spanish.

Language is not an honors class and I wonder if this is an attempt to turn it into an honors class or an attempt to reduce their class size.

Every class at TJ is supposed to be an honors class by definition...

I thought language was the exception. I could be wrong

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is this a thing?

I'm a parent of a freshman so I've had very little exposure to teachers yet, but already there are two very bad teachers that seem should be removed ASAP and I don't know how they are still employed.

Teacher #1 -
I've met so many parents independently of boys, girls, athletes, non-athetes complain about this one PE teacher. In her back to school night presentation she talks about her stillbirth. Which I think was set up to prepare us for her constant absences and negative attitude.

My varsity athlete in 3 sports absolutely dreads PE with her and has a B despite actually trying and being one of the best (insert any activity they're doing). She actively goes after them too. I only get constant negative reports from her when no other teacher ever even sends me an email.

You are obviously a miserable person who possesses less empathy than a rock.

1. The teacher presenting about her stillborn baby is not a "set up." What would make you think she'd constantly be absent just because she shared a detail about her family and its tragic loss? And then you assume that because the teacher lost a child, she will have a negative attitude? What is wrong with you? Show some compassion.

2. Being a multi-sport athlete does not mean your kid is a stellar PE student. Maybe he refuses to follow rules, learn new skills, and/or do his work in Health or Driver's Ed.

3. Maybe you only get negative reports from the one teacher because your kid has picked up on your holier than thou approach, thinking your kid is perfect, or maybe he's picked up on your piss poor attitude about non-academic classes.

Maybe this teacher is indeed a terrible teacher. Or maybe you and/or your kid are the problem. I predict it's the latter.

I've never, ever had a problem with a school or a teacher before this one in particular. Obviously, kid is at TJ. But also, there are ***lots*** of other parents having the same issue with this teacher as discussed on an internal parents chat. I confirmed in person that it was, indeed, the same teacher we were all complaining about.

I'm a recurrent pregnancy loss patient myself but I'm done with her piss poor attitude.

What does the bolded mean?

You've never had a problem with a teacher before this one in particular. Obviously you've never had a problem and that's why your kid is at TJ? That makes no sense.

You've never had a problem with a teacher before this one in particular. Obviously your kid is at TJ, so... Again, this makes no sense.

You still have not explained why you think the teacher sharing about her stillbirth is at all related to her attendance or her attitude. Why did you think it was a set up?

Because she's saying that's why she has a terrible attitude and missing school.

I encountered the teacher outside of class doing something and I made a casual remark about helping out and her response was basically I'll do anything to not be in class. I mean it was super clear she hates her job. Very, very clear.

She may need some time off. A sabbatical or leave of absence. A stillbirth is fukn traumatic. We had a third trimester miscarriage and that was horrible but still birth would have been worse. Exponentially worse. She may be broken right now and can't it won't take the time to heal.

I doubt the poster above you cares. It’s clear she lacks empathy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are not crazy as others have complaints too. But you need to email the principal. Nothing posted here will help fix this.

DP. Agree.

Also: do not bother at all with contacting anyone on the school board. They absolutely hate TJ and would abolish it if they could get away with it.

They are also useless at addressing serious problems with under-performing teachers at any FCPS school; if they were to intervene they would probably defer to the teachers’ unions/associations and try to keep poor-performing teachers in their jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are not crazy as others have complaints too. But you need to email the principal. Nothing posted here will help fix this.

DP. Agree.

Also: do not bother at all with contacting anyone on the school board. They absolutely hate TJ and would abolish it if they could get away with it.

They are also useless at addressing serious problems with under-performing teachers at any FCPS school; if they were to intervene they would probably defer to the teachers’ unions/associations and try to keep poor-performing teachers in their jobs.

People complaining on this thread and also over in the private school forum are seriously underestimating how few great teachers there are in the country and how hard it is to find these amazing teachers they expect everywhere.
-parent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP. My freshman DS has the 80+ year old teacher. He complains all the time. I'm in CS myself and I think he is amazing. Maybe in a couple decades, my DS will realize how lucky he was to have such a treasure of an experienced teacher in high school.

Totally agree! My 11th grader had him. She liked him loads more than others, and really began to appreciate him towards the end. She's writing her college essay on his class as an example of something that challenged and changed the way she thinks about things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is this a thing?

I'm a parent of a freshman so I've had very little exposure to teachers yet, but already there are two very bad teachers that seem should be removed ASAP and I don't know how they are still employed.

Teacher #1 -
I've met so many parents independently of boys, girls, athletes, non-athetes complain about this one PE teacher. In her back to school night presentation she talks about her stillbirth. Which I think was set up to prepare us for her constant absences and negative attitude.

My varsity athlete in 3 sports absolutely dreads PE with her and has a B despite actually trying and being one of the best (insert any activity they're doing). She actively goes after them too. I only get constant negative reports from her when no other teacher ever even sends me an email.

Teacher #2
He's 80+ teaching foundations of computer science and everything he teaches the kids is outdated. He doesn't follow the curriculum so any kids in his class are then at a disadvantage for future CS classes at TJ. All this information was verified by a friend's husband who does programming professionally so knows the material he's teaching and methods are all way, way out of date.

Bottom-line:
How, at a top-notch school, do they not have better performance or even just-don't-suck standards for their teachers? TJ shouldn't be for every student or teacher.

Make sure TJ gets no bad teachers…the rest of FCPS should get them, right?!?!

It's a magnet school. It should not have teachers that hate their jobs or are not actually up-to-date on the material they are teaching. (By up to date, I mean the material is maybe over 20 years old). Some of that you might get away with at a regular school, but, no, I don't think **any** school deserves teachers that hate being a teacher or the job. Hence my suggestion that that teacher finds an admin position.

FWIW, the basics of CS don't change. Like - the same boolean algebra that drove Babbage still applies. And guess what: will still be what CMU or MIT are expecting your kid to know if they go into CS in college.

Do software engineering best practices evolve rapidly? Sure. But you still have to know how logic gates work before you get there. Or how loops and conditionals work. And those are basically the same - with semantic differences - in BASIC or python. Sorry.

This! I was thinking the same thing when reading that the OP had someone's father comment on this.
When I was at Stanford, we learned to program in different languages that were no longer used, but understanding why and what the different systems do was part of "Foundations of CS".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I would be leery of getting information verified by "a friend's husband" and thinking that a "B" in PE is related to athletic ability. You are not there in the classroom and your information is second and third hand.

Your kid really needs to work hard to not get an A in PE.

Any able bodied kid who earns a B in PE should get grounded and have their electronics taken away by their parents.

There is a PE teacher at TJ that gives graded written tests.

Since you are obviously not me (the OP) can you verify that I'm not crazy? There is a problem PE teacher that everyone knows about?

The one I know gives written tests on the history of ultimate frizbee and the rules of competitive badminton. I don't know if she had a miscarriage but I do know she seems to think PE should have "rigor" instead of just being a class where kids can take a breath in the middle of an otherwise intense day.

A lot of the teachers are intense.

In my opinion the worst offenders are the Spanish department.

One price of advice to anyone thinking of coming here. Think long and hard about taking Spanish at TJ. My kid has a few years of Spanish under his belt so he continued with it and Spanish is his second hardest class and it is expected to only get harder. So many TJ kids only take the minimum 3 years of language because of the "rigor" of Spanish.

Language is not an honors class and I wonder if this is an attempt to turn it into an honors class or an attempt to reduce their class size.

All PE classes at every middle and high school I’ve ever taught at (both in an out of the county) have had written assessments. We cannot grade participation or effort in any class anymore. The options are to have kids take 100 free throws and grade them on percent made or percent improvement, or give them a quiz on basketball rules.

This is not unique to TJ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How is this a thing?

I'm a parent of a freshman so I've had very little exposure to teachers yet, but already there are two very bad teachers that seem should be removed ASAP and I don't know how they are still employed.

Teacher #1 -
I've met so many parents independently of boys, girls, athletes, non-athetes complain about this one PE teacher. In her back to school night presentation she talks about her stillbirth. Which I think was set up to prepare us for her constant absences and negative attitude.

My varsity athlete in 3 sports absolutely dreads PE with her and has a B despite actually trying and being one of the best (insert any activity they're doing). She actively goes after them too. I only get constant negative reports from her when no other teacher ever even sends me an email.

Teacher #2
He's 80+ teaching foundations of computer science and everything he teaches the kids is outdated. He doesn't follow the curriculum so any kids in his class are then at a disadvantage for future CS classes at TJ. All this information was verified by a friend's husband who does programming professionally so knows the material he's teaching and methods are all way, way out of date.

Bottom-line:
How, at a top-notch school, do they not have better performance or even just-don't-suck standards for their teachers? TJ shouldn't be for every student or teacher.

Make sure TJ gets no bad teachers…the rest of FCPS should get them, right?!?!

It's a magnet school. It should not have teachers that hate their jobs or are not actually up-to-date on the material they are teaching. (By up to date, I mean the material is maybe over 20 years old). Some of that you might get away with at a regular school, but, no, I don't think **any** school deserves teachers that hate being a teacher or the job. Hence my suggestion that that teacher finds an admin position.

You sound incredibly entitled and naive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are not crazy as others have complaints too. But you need to email the principal. Nothing posted here will help fix this.

DP. Agree.

Also: do not bother at all with contacting anyone on the school board. They absolutely hate TJ and would abolish it if they could get away with it.

They are also useless at addressing serious problems with under-performing teachers at any FCPS school; if they were to intervene they would probably defer to the teachers’ unions/associations and try to keep poor-performing teachers in their jobs.

People complaining on this thread and also over in the private school forum are seriously underestimating how few great teachers there are in the country and how hard it is to find these amazing teachers they expect everywhere.
-parent

If we paid them like Finland did, they would in fact be everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I would be leery of getting information verified by "a friend's husband" and thinking that a "B" in PE is related to athletic ability. You are not there in the classroom and your information is second and third hand.

Your kid really needs to work hard to not get an A in PE.

Any able bodied kid who earns a B in PE should get grounded and have their electronics taken away by their parents.

There is a PE teacher at TJ that gives graded written tests.

Since you are obviously not me (the OP) can you verify that I'm not crazy? There is a problem PE teacher that everyone knows about?

The one I know gives written tests on the history of ultimate frizbee and the rules of competitive badminton. I don't know if she had a miscarriage but I do know she seems to think PE should have "rigor" instead of just being a class where kids can take a breath in the middle of an otherwise intense day.

A lot of the teachers are intense.

In my opinion the worst offenders are the Spanish department.

One price of advice to anyone thinking of coming here. Think long and hard about taking Spanish at TJ. My kid has a few years of Spanish under his belt so he continued with it and Spanish is his second hardest class and it is expected to only get harder. So many TJ kids only take the minimum 3 years of language because of the "rigor" of Spanish.

Language is not an honors class and I wonder if this is an attempt to turn it into an honors class or an attempt to reduce their class size.

All PE classes at every middle and high school I’ve ever taught at (both in an out of the county) have had written assessments. We cannot grade participation or effort in any class anymore. The options are to have kids take 100 free throws and grade them on percent made or percent improvement, or give them a quiz on basketball rules.

This is not unique to TJ.

At TJ, it is unique to this PE teacher. At least the rigor is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What, precisely, is the 80 year old teacher teaching (or not teaching) that lead the husband considering his teaching to be out of date?

It was the coding techniques according to the Dad. Things that haven't been professionally in use for several decades.

It sounds like he’s laying the foundation, which is actually excellent teaching. This is a high school, not a coding bootcamp, is it not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you are not crazy as others have complaints too. But you need to email the principal. Nothing posted here will help fix this.

DP. Agree.

Also: do not bother at all with contacting anyone on the school board. They absolutely hate TJ and would abolish it if they could get away with it.

They are also useless at addressing serious problems with under-performing teachers at any FCPS school; if they were to intervene they would probably defer to the teachers’ unions/associations and try to keep poor-performing teachers in their jobs.

People complaining on this thread and also over in the private school forum are seriously underestimating how few great teachers there are in the country and how hard it is to find these amazing teachers they expect everywhere.
-parent

Exactly. And these posters also fail to realize what it takes to be a great teacher. It’s so much more than content knowledge. You need to be an engaging presenter, motivator, and coach. You need data analysis abilities as well as extreme organizational skills. You need a strong work ethic and a reasoned, seasoned approach to literally every aspect of your job. Heck, a strong teacher is the type of person who could breeze to success at any job.

And we treat teachers like crud, including these strong ones. I guess we should add “strength of steel” to that list.