Why Is There A Shortage Of Teachers?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35895321
Isn't it obvious?

[Quizmonster]

NJ, I believe it did happen once before, which isn't bad for an acquaintance lasting all-but a decade! At least there has never been any enmity involved.

[New Judge]

I can't remember when it was, QM, but I'll not disagree :-) :-)

Online enmity is not my thing and I'm glad we can disagree pleasantly :-)

[Hypognosis]

@Mamyalynne

//
Whilst I would be the first to admit that there are some unruly pupils and indeed parents and of course there always have been - I am amazed at those who think every school/class is full of those.
//

I blame Phil "Grange Hill" Redmond. While he may have been re-hashing the experiences of his own youth, in rural backwaters, like where I grew up, it was practically an instruction manual for bad behaviour. My perception is somewhat distorted by the "kicking oneself" factor, as in "why didn't I think of doing that, when I was that age?", hence my lasting view that it was for the benefit of kids who simply lacked the imagination to behave badly.


// Do these include your own offspring or just those of everyone else? //

I decided to spare my potential offspring from suffering by not trying to obtain any, so it's always going to be "everyone else's", as far as I am concerned.

In reality, out of a class size of ~33 (secondary school, late 70s), only about half a dozen were both disruptive and low down the test scoresheets.

They wouldn't allow daily humiliation of class troublemakers, in this day and age. The trouble was, the class thugs knew who the brainy kids were, thanks to this reading out of scores so everyone knew who the brainy kids and they got a lot of stick. It's probably where intellectual snobbery has its roots.

Anyway, based on deeply buried memories like those, I'd probably come down like a ton of bricks on disruptive pupils and be fired or litigated to pieces, before the first week was out.

[Mamyalynne]

Good post Hypno (phew, got it right this time) - yes half a dozen maybe out of a class sounds more likely but so often we seem to be told (here at least) all schools are full to the rafters with badly behaved pupils and parents who won't back the school up.


I was in trouble occasionally at school and got punished twice (not physically) both there and when I got home.

Both daughters were at some stage sent home, usually because of hairdo issues - I never argued their case.

I have four Grandchildren who are all on the autistic spectrum and no allowance has ever been made for bad behaviour, occasionally one may say they have been mismanaged but that's life - we have to get on with it.

Thankfully at the moment all is going well , god bless our teachers I say.

[Hypognosis]

@Mamya

// Hypno (phew, got it right this time) //

Nope. (Tee hee!)


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The point is that the class does not have to be overrun with troublemakers. Just a handful is sufficient to disrupt the lesson.

I reckon it's actually the kind of kids which have to work hard, to make their grades who suffer the most. The top of the class are attentive, quick in the uptake and may have sufficiently good memory to regurgitate it all, with relative ease, under exam pressure.

A stimulating home environment, well educated parents, piles of non-fiction books to read certainly helps (widening your outlook beyond what school can deliver and ability to see "the big picture" helps to grasp newly presented concepts that much more easily). As does a stable home environment with no distractions like divorce, serious illness, alcoholism, drug consumption, eviction situations and so on.

We don't all start out on an equal footing with regard to home environment, so expecting fairness or equality in educational opportunity or achievement is, frankly, something of a pipedream.

Politicians twiddle the controls on the education machine without the slightest clue what they are doing. Maybe they should set about fixing the social ills which hinder children's education and at least some of the school performance failings may iron themselves out, in time?

Fictional example:
The divorce rate doubles in a short time span. Reading scores decline. Somebody invents phonics. It takes a decade or more before this feeds through to exam results. Results don't magically return to their historical level, so they shift to the next fad. Divorce rate declines (for its own inscrutable reasons). Reading scores improve. Fad #2 is declared the best thing since sliced bread and other countries copy it. Divorce rate increases again. Reading scores decline once more. Administering tweaks and "cures" with little appreciation of the real underlying causes of a problem is just quackery.

I repeat: fictional example.