Teachers children

Was talking to a teacher her daughter had just got her junior cert the girl had got 7 B and 2 C...I thought that was a brilliant result, her mother said to me its a solid result thats all... this teacher/mother also feels that not enough is being asked of teenagers as regards work/applying themselves and that they have it too easy.

Do you think the teacher have higher expectation of their children that other parents

bdoo

In general I would say that teachers have higher hopes and expectations for all kids than many parents I have dealt with.

On the other hand they often forget that kids have lives outside of school that are just as worthwhile.

highly1111

I'm a teacher and a mother and I think teacher's place far too much pressure on themselves as they feel that poor results reflects on them which is crazy. I think they feel that people may think that if they can't get results out of their own children how the hell could they get results out of students if that makes sense.

Maybe she didn't want to be seen to be boasting either??

Powerhouse

mariaalice wrote: »

Was talking to a teacher her daughter had just got her junior cert the girl had got 7 B and 2 C...I thought that was a brilliant result, her mother said to me its a solid result thats all... this teacher/mother also feels that not enough is being asked of teenagers as regards work/applying themselves and that they have it too easy.

Do you think the teacher have higher expectation of their children that other parents

Obviously much depends on the ability of the individual concerned but while 7 Bs and 2 Cs is a very good Junior Cert, the lack of an A and the inclusion of a few Cs does arguably incline it towards the 'solid' rather than the 'brilliant' in the sense of being utterly outstanding. It's still very good but in some schools there will be a lot of students with as good and better. Teachers in such schools would be aware of this. *

It equates to a potential 480 point Leaving Cert (allowing a B2 average) but in reality many students suffer slippage from Junior to Leaving. For example I know a guy who got ten A grades in his Junior Cert a few years ago and in the Leaving Cert this year he got one A. He still managed 510/20 points but on Junior Cert form this should have been maybe 550-600.

If a person with 7 Bs and 2 Cs suffered similar slippage where it turned into, say, 3 Bs and 3 Cs they could begin to get into very crowded territory points-wise. That might be the mother's angle along with the fact that she was probably aware that many students bettered this.

As for her feeling "that not enough is being asked of teenagers as regards work/applying themselves and that they have it too easy" - I think there is merit in that view. At Junior Cert level especially they expect to be spoonfed. The amount of teenagers underachieving academically simply because they don't try hard enough is astonishing. For example, I know a guy who, predictably, got a D in an honours English in the Junior Cert. He was capable of getting an A but wouldn't do a tap - did no homework and would rarely have his books.

* I am fully aware in writing this that in many schools such outcomes are the stuff of delusion, and that often getting them to sit the Junior Cert is the achievement.

evolving_doors

Powerhouse wrote: »

As for her feeling "that not enough is being asked of teenagers as regards work/applying themselves and that they have it too easy" - I think there is merit in that view. At Junior Cert level especially they expect to be spoonfed. The amount of teenagers underachieving academically simply because they don't try hard enough is astonishing.

Don't forget though that students do a large number of subjects so for a student to gain any in-depth knowledge is quite difficult. Research on the Irish exam system has shown that the 'spoonfeeding' is not because of student demands but because of the obsession with terminal exams (by teachers,parents, media AND students), hence the best teaching method for this is 'chalk and talk'.
Really students can only skim the surface with so much on their plate, consider how much they could transfer over to the Leaving Cert and how far they could take a subject if they studied less subjects for the junior Cert. Or maybe even consider removing the relationship between the JC being a dry-run for the LC all together.

As regards teachers expectations for their children... basically I think parent teachers are no different to any other (middle class) parents.

seavill

"that not enough is being asked of teenagers as regards work/applying themselves and that they have it too easy" -

I completely agree with this. I disagree with the point made above that it is down to the exam system. The come into secondary incapable of these self directed tasks, which then leads to more problems, well before any LC talk.

I was truly baffled yesterday when I said to a couple fo 3rd years that if they weren't sure the method of doing a certain thing we had already covered (but they hadn't bothered listening) that they needed to go to their book (which was already open) and look up the method.

They sat there with the same page and couldn't understand what I was asking of them. They were incapable of actually finding the relevant information. They didn't even get that they might have to flick through a few pages to get the right info. They sat there completely confused. Now this was not just being lazy it was utter confusion. They had to know the exact page from me before being able to do anything.

As for the teacher mentioned in the OP. Aside from the average Joe Soap parents, an experienced teacher is able to tell exactly what a student (or their child) is capable of achieving. This is probably where her comment has come from, rather than she actually being too harsh on the child.

rainbowtrout

seavill wrote: »

"that not enough is being asked of teenagers as regards work/applying themselves and that they have it too easy" -

I completely agree with this. I disagree with the point made above that it is down to the exam system. The come into secondary incapable of these self directed tasks, which then leads to more problems, well before any LC talk.

I was truly baffled yesterday when I said to a couple fo 3rd years that if they weren't sure the method of doing a certain thing we had already covered (but they hadn't bothered listening) that they needed to go to their book (which was already open) and look up the method.

They sat there with the same page and couldn't understand what I was asking of them. They were incapable of actually finding the relevant information. They didn't even get that they might have to flick through a few pages to get the right info. They sat there completely confused. Now this was not just being lazy it was utter confusion. They had to know the exact page from me before being able to do anything.

As for the teacher mentioned in the OP. Aside from the average Joe Soap parents, an experienced teacher is able to tell exactly what a student (or their child) is capable of achieving. This is probably where her comment has come from, rather than she actually being too harsh on the child.

Too true.

I find this a lot in science. There is a serious lack of common sense and ability/willingness to think for themselves. If the answer isn't right in front of them in black and white, there's no such thing as flicking back a page or two to find it or thinking of a way to approaching the question, it's just skipped.

The Junior Cert science practical coursework requires students to design, carry out and write up two experiments from a list of three issued by the Department in third year. If I sent my class home with the three titles and told them to design the whole experiment from scratch by themselves I would get a set of blank booklets handed back to me by the majority.

I have to ask a whole load of questions to try and tease information out of them just to get them to come up with a way of doing the experiments.

E.g. measuring heat loss in liquids

Me: What do you need?
Class: blank expressions...
Me: well would liquids be necessary??
Class: yes.....
Me: What kind of liquid do you think you could use for the experiment?
Class: (eventually) water.....
Me: Straight from the tap?
Class: ya, that's grand
Me: It mentions heat loss
Class: Hot water so
Me: Where are you going to get hot water?
Class: Could boil a kettle
Me: Will you need any other equipment?
Class: No
Me: How are you going to hold the water?
Class: Oh, in a beaker
Me: How will you know how hot the water is?
Class: Thermometer.....

Me: *bangs head off wall*

and on and on....


Not all students are like this, some are excellent but many require this level of questioning to get them to think about what they have to do. If I didn't do this, the experiments would not happen. We haven't even discussed how the experiment is going to be carried out at this stage, this is only the basics.

As for the OP, the teacher might have thought her child could do a lot better. I had the exact same conversation with a teacher in my staff room the other day, he said his daughter got Bs and Cs mainly with 2 As I think. He said she was capable of more but didn't apply herself enough, despite plenty of encouragement from himself and his wife (both teachers).

bdoo

rainbowtrout wrote: »

seavill wrote: »

"that not enough is being asked of teenagers as regards work/applying themselves and that they have it too easy" -

I completely agree with this. I disagree with the point made above that it is down to the exam system. The come into secondary incapable of these self directed tasks, which then leads to more problems, well before any LC talk.

I was truly baffled yesterday when I said to a couple fo 3rd years that if they weren't sure the method of doing a certain thing we had already covered (but they hadn't bothered listening) that they needed to go to their book (which was already open) and look up the method.

They sat there with the same page and couldn't understand what I was asking of them. They were incapable of actually finding the relevant information. They didn't even get that they might have to flick through a few pages to get the right info. They sat there completely confused. Now this was not just being lazy it was utter confusion. They had to know the exact page from me before being able to do anything.

As for the teacher mentioned in the OP. Aside from the average Joe Soap parents, an experienced teacher is able to tell exactly what a student (or their child) is capable of achieving. This is probably where her comment has come from, rather than she actually being too harsh on the child.

Too true.

I find this a lot in science. There is a serious lack of common sense and ability/willingness to think for themselves. If the answer isn't right in front of them in black and white, there's no such thing as flicking back a page or two to find it or thinking of a way to approaching the question, it's just skipped.

The Junior Cert science practical coursework requires students to design, carry out and write up two experiments from a list of three issued by the Department in third year. If I sent my class home with the three titles and told them to design the whole experiment from scratch by themselves I would get a set of blank booklets handed back to me by the majority.

I have to ask a whole load of questions to try and tease information out of them just to get them to come up with a way of doing the experiments.

E.g. measuring heat loss in liquids

Me: What do you need?
Class: blank expressions...
Me: well would liquids be necessary??
Class: yes.....
Me: What kind of liquid do you think you could use for the experiment?
Class: (eventually) water.....
Me: Straight from the tap?
Class: ya, that's grand
Me: It mentions heat loss
Class: Hot water so
Me: Where are you going to get hot water?
Class: Could boil a kettle
Me: Will you need any other equipment?
Class: No
Me: How are you going to hold the water?
Class: Oh, in a beaker
Me: How will you know how hot the water is?
Class: Thermometer.....

Me: *bangs head off wall*

and on and on....


Not all students are like this, some are excellent but many require this level of questioning to get them to think about what they have to do. If I didn't do this, the experiments would not happen. We haven't even discussed how the experiment is going to be carried out at this stage, this is only the basics.

As for the OP, the teacher might have thought her child could do a lot better. I had the exact same conversation with a teacher in my staff room the other day, he said his daughter got Bs and Cs mainly with 2 As I think. He said she was capable of more but didn't apply herself enough, despite plenty of encouragement from himself and his wife (both teachers).

I fell your pain. Explaining how foundations work the other day. Blank faces as I tried to explain bearing capacity.

Lets make a link to something they definitely know I thought. Junior science I reckoned if they remembered anything it might be this so I started...

For every action there is an. ........ Not one out of 24 even attempted to mutter an answer.

Equal and opposite reaction, I said, unless you are in a classroom, in that case there's no reaction at all. They didn't even get the humour.

The new JC wI'll fix this as we all become creative teachers free from the shackles of a terminal examination and unleash the true potential which we alone have destroyed with our note taking and other such nonsense, discovery learning, the holy grail of project work.... The list is endless.

Oh wait... Project work, science, religion, cspe, sphe, woodwork, metalwork etc etc, they're still lazy.

How many times have I heard ' it must be great teaching woodwork, they all want to be there and sure you have no exams, the project work is great, they must love doing it'

It's not, they don't, we do, it's not and they don't again. Project work will either expose the true laziness of modern teenagers or create an atmosphere of massive parental pressure on teachers to produce the results by either cooking the marks or contributing to the student work themselves. This is my experience from the UK,

whiteandlight

As a teachers daughter OP (both parents) I think they tend to be far more in tune with teenagers abilities and needs. For example one of my sisters wanted medicine and was capable of it. If she had underachieved at JC their attitude would have been similar about a 'solid' results.

On the other debate it really is an interesting one. With my third year maths class this year, on their first mixed revision worksheet I had to take a full period on teaching them how to revise using it. Literally saying read question one (coordinate geometry, find the slope). Does this look familiar? What topic do you think this is? look at your book, which chapter do you think it is? Go to the chapter. Can you find a question similar to it? 'no'. Are you sure? You need to go through each page of the chapter. Which word in the question might be important? Eventually someone says 'slope'. Ok so back to your chapter, can you find questions involving the word slope? 'no'. Are you sure? Start at page one of the chapter.

Eventually they found the section. It was torture. They really had no clue how to search for information or track something down. Now we may be at fault as well for giving them the information or scaffolding too much but it really is proving difficult to instill what I would have considered common sense at that age into current teenagers

drvantramp

Advice on managing disruptive teachers child welcomed!

rainbowtrout

drvantramp wrote: »

Advice on managing disruptive teachers child welcomed!

I assume the child is disruptive in the same way as any other child, talking out of turn etc.

Treat them as you would any other disruptive child. Is the issue that the child's parent is a work colleague of yours?

happywithlife

i've had this before and to make it worse her mum was also her year head !!
i just followed normal procedure, making sure to document everything and followed the discipline policy to a t ...
worked for me & we got it sorted although it was low level (but constant) disruption like not having her books, constant backchat etc.

maidie

rainbowtrout wrote: »

Too true.

I find this a lot in science. There is a serious lack of common sense and ability/willingness to think for themselves. If the answer isn't right in front of them in black and white, there's no such thing as flicking back a page or two to find it or thinking of a way to approaching the question, it's just skipped.

The Junior Cert science practical coursework requires students to design, carry out and write up two experiments from a list of three issued by the Department in third year. If I sent my class home with the three titles and told them to design the whole experiment from scratch by themselves I would get a set of blank booklets handed back to me by the majority.

I have to ask a whole load of questions to try and tease information out of them just to get them to come up with a way of doing the experiments.

E.g. measuring heat loss in liquids

Me: What do you need?
Class: blank expressions...
Me: well would liquids be necessary??
Class: yes.....
Me: What kind of liquid do you think you could use for the experiment?
Class: (eventually) water.....
Me: Straight from the tap?
Class: ya, that's grand
Me: It mentions heat loss
Class: Hot water so
Me: Where are you going to get hot water?
Class: Could boil a kettle
Me: Will you need any other equipment?
Class: No
Me: How are you going to hold the water?
Class: Oh, in a beaker
Me: How will you know how hot the water is?
Class: Thermometer.....

Me: *bangs head off wall*

and on and on....


Not all students are like this, some are excellent but many require this level of questioning to get them to think about what they have to do. If I didn't do this, the experiments would not happen. We haven't even discussed how the experiment is going to be carried out at this stage, this is only the basics.

As for the OP, the teacher might have thought her child could do a lot better. I had the exact same conversation with a teacher in my staff room the other day, he said his daughter got Bs and Cs mainly with 2 As I think. He said she was capable of more but didn't apply herself enough, despite plenty of encouragement from himself and his wife (both teachers).

It doesn't stop with Children, I teach adults in further education and sometimes it can be very difficult for them to use their initiative and think, however I think a lot of this comes down to lack of confidence in their ability to learn when out of school for some time. Literally I could explain something very simply ten times and the penny aint dropping for some of them...