Teachers

Evan93

Like most people, I have been blessed with a bad teacher. It doesn't bother me much but it's annoying that they are paid to do a job which they aren't doing to an apropriate standard. I am happy with most of my teachers. Although there is always that 1 teacher,the 1 who just doesn't care. In some subjects a good teacher is nessecary but in others they might not be. Regardless of the subject they should perfom their duty which they are being paid to perform.

I like to say to myself that a bad teacher is not an excuse to not do your best in a subject.


So, I assume one or two people have/had a bad teacher(s). How do you find it, are you annoyed or do you get on with it?

tracker-man

There are some teachers who try really hard put cannot teach. And there are some who don't bother there arse but could be good if the put in the effort. I am blessed with a teacher who is both lazy AND incompetent as a teacher. He is a nice guy outside of teaching, but the man is a disgraceful teacher.

LC Physics is the subject. Its so sickening that I have to fork out for grinds and work extra at home to teach myself the subject while he's getting paid to do F*** all. /rant

DancingQueen:)

I'm pretty lucky with the teachers I have but there is one that just isn't the greatest teacher at all. She tries but i'm pretty much doing the subject by myself (luckily it's not the hardest subject). There are a few people doing pass in the class and she concentrates on them. Lovely person but I wish we did a little more.

furbey

I can relate to the physics teacher problem mate. I dunno, I'm a repeat and after doing nothing all last year I discovered at the end of the year you do a lot better if you teach yourself. Do the exam papers and check the answers on examinations.ie if you can't do questions.
we have a fair few **** teachers but apart from honours Maths and Applied Maths as far as I know it's earier to teach yourself the rest of them. Bad idea to teach urself them 2. Trust me I'd know.

H2student

furbey wrote: »

apart from honours Maths and Applied Maths as far as I know it's earier to teach yourself the rest of them. Bad idea to teach urself them 2. Trust me I'd know.

So true >_<, good thing I have an excellent maths teacher. I only have to try teach myself when I fall behind.

Anyway, I had a few bad ones myself but to be honest I can't blame some for not trying. They don't get better pay if their class does well and from what I can see, the ones who tries really hard to help their students don't gain much respect anyway. That's why I would hate being a teacher. Agree that a certain standard should be met though.

dee o gee

Thankfully for most of my subjects I have good teachers, but for one subject I have a teacher that races through the book, and just reads it while skipping through parts and putting others into her own words. So while shes reading a paragraph she starts skipping bits and putting others into her own words, Im sitting there trying to follow what shes saying (she speaks way too fast), and thinking where the f*ck is she reading from, so have to speed read the next few pages myself to figure out which paragraph shes reading from! She also has her favorites in the class that she asks 'did you get that' and as soon as they say yes shes back on a roll speed reading from the book. :rolleyes:

But I also have some very good teachers that genuinely care for their students, one of them noticed that I tend to fall asleep in her class (from lack of sleep), and approached me after class one day to make sure everything was ok with me and has since been drilling into me the importance of good sleep. Lovely woman, she even suggested getting someone to sit beside me to keep poking me to stay awake!

furbey

dee o gee wrote: »

Thankfully for most of my subjects I have good teachers, but for one subject I have a teacher that races through the book, and just reads it while skipping through parts and putting others into her own words. So while shes reading a paragraph she starts skipping bits and putting others into her own words, Im sitting there trying to follow what shes saying (she speaks way too fast), and thinking where the f*ck is she reading from, so have to speed read the next few pages myself to figure out which paragraph shes reading from! She also has her favorites in the class that she asks 'did you get that' and as soon as they say yes shes back on a roll speed reading from the book. :rolleyes:

Ya we have a biology teacher who refuses to move on if her favourite isn't in the class and if he doesn't understand something she'll go back over everything. At the end of the year last year she went up to another girl in her class after the leaving and asked how her favourite found the exam nothing about the other girl.

But I also have some very good teachers that genuinely care for their students, one of them noticed that I tend to fall asleep in her class (from lack of sleep), and approached me after class one day to make sure everything was ok with me and has since been drilling into me the importance of good sleep. Lovely woman, she even suggested getting someone to sit beside me to keep poking me to stay awake!

I would say that teacher has her favourites too

Lawliet

I use to have this useless French teacher for junior cert, I don't think she taught us one thing for the entire three years. She use to just give us a page out of the book to translate and then just left us at it for the class. Never even corrected it. After first year everyone in the class copped on and used the class to do other things like homework, or just talk. She didn't even attempt to make us pay attention. I'm not even exaggerating, this woman is pure useless. Most of the class barely managed a pass at ordinary level. I dropped French for leaving cert needless to say; even if I did get one of the better teachers in the school, I'd never be able to keep up with the work load and I was three years behind every other French class in the school.

grrrrrrrrrr

Minister Batt really needs to look at this whole interminable contract thing where teachers cant be fired!


in the teachers defence there are some amount of nuts with severe problems in schools today that ccant be dealt with! the schools have no powers and the parents either dont care or are too protective and think their kids are angels!!

Seloth

My English teacher was fired last week...I was delighted as while some claimed her to be a good teacher...she had a totally wrong atitude.

Never had a worse teacher so I'm quite happy shes gone.

pathway33

Part of the problem has been identified by the Engineers Ireland report
www.engineersireland.ie which is largely on maths, but this bit applies to all teachers

Page 45 (49 / 67 pdf version) "once a teacher is recognised by the teaching council their principal may ask them to teach any :eek: subject"

(bold and eek not in report)

pfannkuchen

I'm not even sure one of my teachers is qualified. She knows her stuff but not the syllabus which is a little worrying. Then again, she's only the latest in a long list of teachers I've had for this particular subject - 9 since 1st year, at the last count and only one of them was half decent

Piste

Just a friendly reminder that you must not post names of teachers or schools on this thread, or it's instaban for you!

Ash_M

Ugh, I have an awful Irish teacher. I speak an teanga pretty much fluently, but I'm still gonna be in trouble for the aul LC with the way she carries on. Too friendly and not enough structure in the class, we're getting nowhere, and the class usually ends up with "talk among yerselves there for a bit". The class isn't a gang of angels, but definitely not the worst, so it's not completely discipline related.

gemxpink

Luckily, I'm blessed with the best teachers in the school. I don't have any 'bad' teachers as per say but I have one or two who could be amazing teachers if they just tweaked their ways.

My friends who are unfortunate enough to not be doing all honours and those who are not in the said 'better' honour class are complaining an awful lot about languages and maths.

In 5th year I was put into this amazing Maths teachers class and I was thrilled because she was 1 of 2 better teachers of the 4 maths teachers. Then she left at Christmas and we were given this fresh out of university Maths teacher with no experience to teach us. It was a disaster, she had to ask students for their way of solving the sum and we learned so little that another maths teacher (whos class I was lucky enough to get moved to in 6th year) had to do after school grinds with the entire class each week to catch us up.

Then my friends' German teacher is an absolute disgrace and should be sacked according to half of the school. Unfortunately she teachers half of the subjects available and probably will never we fired but can't teacher to save her life. Almost started crying infront of a inspector.

Both teachers are lovely people just find it hard to teach. Should have been fired IMHO.

**Timbuk2**

Mostly I have great teachers. My accounting and geography teachers are excellent, the effort they put into helping us is great!

But one thing that annoys me is that there are two French classes - an honours and a pass. The pass class get the excellent teacher, and us honours get the incompetent fool (couldn't teach to save his life!). How is that fair? No disrespect to ordinary level students, but the honours students need more help than the ordinary level students as the course is a lot bigger and much more difficult.

Lawliet

**Timbuk2** wrote: »

But one thing that annoys me is that there are two French classes - an honours and a pass. The pass class get the excellent teacher, and us honours get the incompetent fool (couldn't teach to save his life!). How is that fair? No disrespect to ordinary level students, but the honours students need more help than the ordinary level students as the course is a lot bigger and much more difficult.

The same thing happens at my school: for Junior cert it's streamed into two A classes, two B classes and two C classes. The A classes always got landed with the useless teachers while the lower classes got the better ones.
I mean alright, I can see how the lower classes might need the extra help. But still constantly sticking the top classes with the teachers who really shouldn't allowed near a classroom is completely unfair.

Thankfully they don't stream leaving cert classes in the same way.

randylonghorn

pathway33 wrote: »

Page 45 (49 / 67 pdf version) "once a teacher is recognised by the teaching council their principal may ask them to teach any :eek: subject"

(bold and eek not in report)

Seriously, don't assume that this is always a problem. The reality is that good teachers can teach any subject with which they are sufficiently familiar.

I was taught science for JC by someone whose degree was in Geography and English! Fabulous teacher, far less likely to talk over our heads than some of the others, and consistently put classes through with excellent results.

Another teacher in the school whose degree was History and Maths, but who loved Irish with a passion, would occasionally take a few Irish classes if a teacher was missing for any reason. We learned more from her in a week than from our normal teacher in a month! ... and in fairness to our regular teacher, she was a hard worker and tried her best, but she was way too high-brow for us, she would have been better off teaching at third level tbh.

ChristinaIndigo

pathway33 wrote: »

Page 45 (49 / 67 pdf version) "once a teacher is recognised by the teaching council their principal may ask them to teach any :eek: subject"

I thought that only applied to teachers with a first year group?

I was under the impression that yes, once recognised by the teaching council, a teacher can teach any subject - but, I thought after 1st year (maybe 2nd year) had ended, a qualified teacher in the subject was needed..

pathway33

randylonghorn wrote: »

Seriously, don't assume that this is always a problem. The reality is that good teachers can teach any subject with which they are sufficiently familiar.

Seriously, WOW!, You've just improved my future job prospects tenfold. So in years to come, does that mean once I am qualified to teach one or two subjects I can apply for any teaching job provided I'd feel confident of taking it to honours leaving cert level? That'd be deadly.

I've been despairing looking at teaching posts and it says e.g 'english and history' and I might be 'english and geography'. It's like getting 3 numbers in the lotto. You've made a potential future teacher very happy

randylonghorn

pathway33 wrote: »

Seriously, WOW!, You've just improved my future job prospects tenfold.

Lol, I meant "can" as in "are capable of"!

In fact, the regulations have been gradually getting stricter over the years, and will probably continue to do so.

My point was that a good teacher who is thoroughly familiar with a subject is likely to teach it well, even if their degree is in another subject, and I pointed to personal experience of such people.

implausible

Time to clear up a few myths:

1. Yes, sometimes teachers teach subjects which they are not qualified to teach. If there is a gap in the timetable to be filled and there's no-one to do it, a teacher of another subject may be asked to do it. E.g. I once taught JC Religion, which is not my subject and another time I was given a LC Maths class (did it in first year in college). It does not mean that I would be given a LC Hons class in say, History.

2. An honours class is not entitled to the 'best' teacher, nor should they be. Usually, the weakest groups need the most help. Anyway, classes aren't doled out this way. In my last two schools, the teachers took the OL/HL in turns, so I'd have OL one year, HL the next. Some teachers request to teach certain classes e.g HL or OL, but it's usually agreed within a department. However, there are certain schools where some teachers (usually older) refuse to take anything but HL.

That's my tuppence anyway. Like everything else in life, you're going to get good and bad, sometimes it's just pure luck.

grrrrrrrrrr

**Timbuk2** wrote: »

Mostly I have great teachers. My accounting and geography teachers are excellent, the effort they put into helping us is great!

But one thing that annoys me is that there are two French classes - an honours and a pass. The pass class get the excellent teacher, and us honours get the incompetent fool (couldn't teach to save his life!). How is that fair? No disrespect to ordinary level students, but the honours students need more help than the ordinary level students as the course is a lot bigger and much more difficult.

You cant complain about not having the best teacher in the school for french. our class is mixed honours and pass! with two thirds of the class being pass!:mad::mad:

plein de force

I have a superb french teacher and accounting teacher, and the rest are good too.
My Irish teacher is dire though, in 5th year and were doing matching numbers and letters exercises still, havent learned a thing all year

**Timbuk2**

grrrrrrrrrr wrote: »

You cant complain about not having the best teacher in the school for french. our class is mixed honours and pass! with two thirds of the class being pass!:mad::mad:

I'd prefer to be in a mixed class with a good teacher than an honours class with a crap teacher. French isn't something that can be learned from a book (like History, for example) so a teacher that knows what they are doing would be essential for French (especially when it comes to non-written aspects, e.g. the oral, listening etc.).

I've even joked to myself a few times that if I dropped down to pass, worked with the good teacher, but did honours for the real LC, I would get a better grade than I would by staying in the honours!

grrrrrrrrrr

**Timbuk2** wrote: »

I'd prefer to be in a mixed class with a good teacher than an honours class with a crap teacher. French isn't something that can be learned from a book (like History, for example) so a teacher that knows what they are doing would be essential for French (especially when it comes to non-written aspects, e.g. the oral, listening etc.).

I've even joked to myself a few times that if I dropped down to pass, worked with the good teacher, but did honours for the real LC, I would get a better grade than I would by staying in the honours!

Good point!

Have you said anything to your principal about it?
Like what have you to lose, you sound to be in a bad state anyway!!

They gave the A irish class in our school to a teacher who couldnt control her bladder never mind a class! We got the people with no interest kicked out! only pity is we waited 7 months to do it!!