BS: why teachers despair and quit

Subject: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Apr 17 - 08:32 PM

The research is about the US but it applies equally well to the UK. Both systems are being managed into oblivion by overpaid control freaks.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170406102547.htm

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Apr 17 - 10:17 PM

Nice article, Jack.

I blame the idiotic idea that one should respect people's beliefs, which, when coupled with disdain for that there book-larnin, leaves one with ignorance squared.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Apr 17 - 11:43 PM

If 'good' teachers keep resigning, the ones who are left, presumably, will be the ones who don't understand what is needed and who don't know how to combat the dumbing down of the system. The result, slowly but surely, is like the not-so-funny joke about "how to cook a lobster"....put him in cold water and raise the temperature v-e-r-y slowly.... by the time he realizes there's a problem, it's too late.

What is needed is for educators who SEE the problem(s) to organize and protest in various ways...(yes, I know about unions and boards of education)...

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 08 Apr 17 - 11:47 PM

a nationwide focus on standardized tests, scripted curriculum and punitive teacher-evaluation systems.

similar here in Australia

How to stop teachers leaving the profession (Sept 2016)

Teacher's online letter on resigning goes viral (Feb 16) Graduate teacher attrition is a growing problem in Australian schools with up to 50% of new teachers resigning within their first 5 years in the profession.
For graduates the once stable, if undervalued profession has become increasingly insecure, with new research showing that the majority of new teachers are on short-term contracts.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: akenaton
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 04:03 AM

Loss of respect for any kind of authority. (no one has the right to make me do what I don't want to)

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: DMcG
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 04:07 AM

Apart from giving one off seminars to postgrads, my only involvement in education has been as a parent or pupil.

It is intwresting tjat one of the most viewed TED talks is on a closely related subject, which you could call the industrialisation on education. I have said before that we essentially have an induction system, (ie 'induere' not 'educare'); the whole testing and measurement is based on, and accelerates this. You can judge a person's level of knowledge and abolity in a viva/interview to a good extent, but it is labour intensive and therefore not well suited to giving lots of people a qualification. So thia ancient system.was replaces by written papers. Written papers were more efficient and still gave some scope for assessing individuality but of course lost any ability to interact. The latest major change on this line is the invention of the multiple choice paper where efficiency of marking os given such priority that any individuality of the child is ignored. Couple this with a desire for constant monitoring and assessment and you need the efficient marking system and as a direct consequence you need to ignore or at least give no value to the child's individuality.

Such a system is ideal for generating mass qualifications, but not mass education. Nor are the qualifcations themselves of much worth, since they do not measure the skills people need in real life.

And you don't need much imagination to see why professional teachers hate such an approach, and with great justification.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: BobL
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 04:30 AM

Not a new problem. Forty years ago, my then partner quit teaching and started a new career in the ticket office at Euston railway station, where her foreign-language skills were from time to time in great demand.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 05:39 AM

I've been a teacher all my working life. However I retired many years ago, so I'm not up-to-date with conditions nowadays. However, even then there were new problems for the staff by the shedload. Here are some of them:-

1. far too much 'accountability' resulting in endless forms, paperwork, assessment and documentation. This detracted from actual hands-on time spent teaching, and I suspected was never read or acted upon by anyone.
2. The National Curriculum. A stultifying teaching-by-numbers system which divided subjects into indigestible bites to be delivered exactly as prescribed, with no leeway for inspired teaching.
3. Behaviour and lack of respect from pupils. Swearing openly at staff, misbehaving in class, not completing homework, disrupting lessons. Controlling a class sufficiently in order to teach anything was virtually impossible unless one had a very firm character and much experience.
4. Offsted inspections by people who appeared to have little idea about teaching, and often little experience. They descended in droves (in teams of about twenty for our small primary school) and poked their noses into everything. One accepts that inspections are necessary, but these were ridiculously extreme and served only to unsettle and stress out the staff.
5. Entitled attitudes of both parents and pupils. One was continually challenged by belligerent parents, often rudely and without respect for our expertise and qualifications. Even violence was sometimes threatened.
6. Teaching methods involving group or even individual tuition in classes of 35. Chaotic and unproductive.
7. Salaries for graduates at a very poor level compared to other professions.
8.Extremely high stress levels resulting in exhaustion, breakdowns and sick leave, depression and resignations, especially from younger staff who found coping difficult.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 05:43 AM

I should have stated above that I taught in primary schools and have no knowledge of secondary education. But my husband (who is a High School cleaner) tells me he has quite a few times found despairing teachers in tears, head in hands at their desks at the end of the school day.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 05:45 AM

forty years ago, there weren't universties like there are now. so many people who wanted to continue their education went to teacher training colleges.

Actually that's fifty years ago in my case. the drop out rate was high, even back then. many women dropped out to have children - the average length of teaching career for a woman was two years.

many of the schools didn't provide courses of any relevance to what children needed. the discipline was harsh and when the school leaving age was raised to sixteen (ROSLA)- it was envisaged by most professional teachers that trouble would ensue. It did.

The things that have really made teaching difficult, i would list:

1) Education being a political football. Endless reorganisation. POliticians simply can't be trusted with education.
2) THe national Curriculum - the idea that there could be one curriculum for a country as diverse as England was obviouly nonsense. THe money wasted on that idiot project could have solved many problems.
3) the lack of vocational training. Education needs to have cognisance and care for the world children will grow up in.
4) Educational Gimmicks. the number of times i have been in a school where they have funding for Language DEvelopment or some such, but where the textbooks are thirty years old and older.
5) the dreaded inspection - the threat of which which seems to chill the heart of every teacher and head teacher.
I was a professional teacher in the inner ring of Brum throUgout the 1970's. i had to give up my career when my wife became disabled. since then poverty has forced me into various temporary and supply teaching gigs - sometimes when i shouldn't have left my wife. so i've seen the inside of a lot of schools.

it genuinely grieves my heart to see the lack of will on the part of successive governments. the endless pretence that the solutions are political, rather than professional.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 06:11 AM

I heartily agree, Al. Like Senoufou, I'm probably a bit out of date but I still know lots of teachers, and Mrs Steve retired only five years ago. Teaching needs to attract the best people and pay good salaries. The training should be rigorous and all teachers must emphatically be made to embrace Al's point no 3. The concept of "subject teacher" is fundamentally flawed. We are living in a world in which the danger for many children is that they will be mis-educated by the cyberworld, and teachers are ill-equipped to counter it. A good teacher will play a part in every child's emotional and moral development, and that should include every teacher in every school. The days of "sex lessons" by the school nurse should be well and truly numbered.

Good teachers don't need inspecting every few years by a bunch of ill-trained failed teachers. Good teachers don't need to be told how to mark books in what colour ink. Good teachers shouldn't be submitting reams of step-by-step lesson plans to senior staff who haven't a clue about their subject areas. Good teachers shouldn't be coaching their classes to pass tests that have nothing to do with wellbeing and everything to do with league tables (which should be banned). To be a good teacher you need plenty of time to prepare lessons, say 20% of the school day. There's something severely wrong when teachers can't have a lunch break, spend ten or eleven hours a day in school and still have to take work home and turn in at weekends and for weeks of the school holidays. If you think you'll get good teachers that way you're in cloud cuckoo land. Which every government since 1986 has inhabited, ever since that clown Baker, driven by that ideologue Thatcher who wanted revenge on teachers for daring to strike, imposed a bunch of repressive regulation on teachers.

End of rant!

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 08:04 AM

Loss of respect for any kind of authority.

The study looked at that and concluded it wasn't a significant issue. The problem was the authority the teachers were expected to submit to.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 08:58 AM

Bertrand Russell said that only the very best people should teach, and, once you've employed them, you should leave them alone to get on with the job in the best way that they see fit. We've had far too much of the media and politicians, ignorant about the issue, briefing against the teaching profession. Russell may well have been simplistic but his sentiment seems far closer to the mark than that of the current bunch of politicians.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 10:23 AM

I've always felt that teaching is truly a vocation. Some young student teachers that were handed to me to supervise were horribly unsuited to the job; they found their one hour solo lessons terrifying and disastrous. I also noticed the most elementary and embarrassing spelling mistakes on the board, and in the marking of exercise books.

The most important characteristic of a good teacher is the ability to inspire the pupils. Not just 'teach' them but to light fires of enthusiasm in them which burn for a lifetime. Young teachers who cannot achieve this become discouraged and despondent.

I do feel that a university degree is essential.

The environment of a school is very different from that of an office or commercial establishment. There is little contact with other adults during the school day, little opportunity to chat or interact. I think some teachers found that rather lonely. At least in an office one can laugh and joke, recount problems or exchange tales about evenings out etc. Being isolated in a room with 30 or so youngsters all day long is only for those who adore the job and find the company of students endlessly interesting and entertaining. Those who don't will eventually leave.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 01:56 PM

I think the problem that most young teachers have is this.

By and large, people who go into teaching are quite bright and have done well within the school system. Many of them have come from good schools full of highly motivated and capable pupils.

For many of them its a real shock to the system to meet the folks who take the Jeremy Kyle Show as a guide as to how one should conduct oneself in society.

The cane and the slipper has stopped working almost by the time I'd started fifty years ago, as a way to control the situation. the bluff had been called. Short of introducing capital punishment - corporal punishment was a busted flush in modern liberal society.

In puzzlement we looked at our fractured society - family life being the most moveable of feasts. We looked at the factories - in those day a worker at Jaguar earned three times what a teacher earned after three years in college. What inducement was there to be educated?

In truth - education has a less than honoured place in our society. We call people nerds. We burden graduates with debts. We make entry to becoming a doctor or a trial lawyer virtually unattainable. And we laud the vapid, the reality tv star, even the serial murderer, and the foul mouthed talk show guest in to stars of our firmament. faces in the news. Celebs!

In the Thatcher years, the whole education budget was blown on the right wing ideology of the national Curriculum. Schools became slums. I waas working in thos years in Notts and Derby schools. Every building seemed to have holes in the plaster. the books you used were ancient. In one school in Nottingham they had given up an entire room to SATs test papers, SATs marking schedules. Rewrites of SAT's tests, Re writes of the marking schedule. Re-writes of re-writes. The whole of a large room with high Victorian ceilings was filled from from the floor to the ceiling with bumff. No doubt some genius had been paid a fortune to nearly think that one through.

If a   child comes to school and finds himself confined in a slum for
seven or eight hours - what is he supposed to make of it. maybe it is the disruptive and the anti- social who are seeing things accurately, and they see the way society is and exactly how much it values education.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: akenaton
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 01:57 PM

I have many friends who teach at the local secondary school and provide assistance. all complain about bad behaviour and the difficulty of retaining class control.
Today's parents seem more likely to back the child than the teacher when problems occur......I think it is a societal failing.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: DMcG
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 02:09 PM

While I hold no illusions about Mrs T and Mr B, the problem is older than them. In 1973 Alex Glasgow wrote a song that started:

Jack and Jill are off to serve
Their sentence in the child preserve,
Where iron bars confine the care they need.
Jack is with hia brothers there,
Thise baby boilermakers fair
And Jill will share the fate of her neglected breed.
This is where their world begins
This is where they try their wings
And learn that kings and queens are from a different mould.
Losig, as they always will,
Down the hill go Jack and Jill
Down the river where thwir mums and dads
Were also sold.


So yes, things have got worse, but no illusions, please, of.how it uaed to be.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 03:29 PM

Not long before I retired, in my English primary school in late January, I was talking about Scotland and Robert Burns to my class of 8yr olds, and I mentioned haggis. Next day I brought one in for the children to look at (a real one in a sheep's stomach, not a plastic wrapper). I glanced at my timetable, and noticed the lessons that afternoon were 'The Abdication' and 'The Depression'. (National bloody Curriculum) I thought sod it, and during the dinner hour I cooked the haggis and the pupils listened to my rendition of Burns' 'Address To A Haggis' (much amusement at the strange words). I plunged a knife into it at the right moment then everyone had a teaspoonful to try. Afterwards we looked at a map of Scotland and they wrote some poems of their own about the haggis. This is an example of the stupidity of those who planned the National Curriculum. Eight year-olds falling asleep trying to learn about periods of history far too adult for them. No room for haggises!

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 04:09 PM

the national curriculum believed that children in infant classes(5-7yrs old) should be able to distinguish between classical and renaissance art.....!

The rumour was that Sheila Lawler member of the tory think tank would ring up the minister of ed in the middle of the night with some outlandish idea and he would add it immediately to the NC.

Eventually a reasonably sane man became minister of ed, John MacGregor. THe messages coming down the pipeline was that he had talked with teaching unions and agreed the NC was total bollocks.

within weeks he was booted off to become minister for Northern Ireland, where he had the job of defending demented tory policy over there.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 06:15 PM

National curriculum, national assistance, national dried milk, national service. All of it for the riffraff, none of it for the upper classes. Note how the national curriculum never applied to the VAT-free, charitable status public schools, doesn't apply to the ideology-led free schools. Keep the hot-polloi in their place, eh? One rule for us, another for them...

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 06:16 PM

Hoi!

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 08:36 PM

Teachers are awarded when they train kids to win the race to the bottom of the brain stem. There is more to programming than meets the eye. It is true that politics is often at the root of this programming.

Physical brutality from below and emotional brutality from above leaves teachers in the middle, pitifully rewarded when they comply to teaching a mind set they may not agree with.

When a rogue teacher enhances learning with giving kids a virtual feeling of freedom the teacher is often not rewarded but is popular with the students.

Only teachers remember the special rewards that do exist. When my father received a rare reward he would beam.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: meself
Date: 09 Apr 17 - 08:52 PM

My niece went from Canada to England to teach elementary school (or whatever you call it over there). It was a 'rough' school, but what made it unbearable was the endless meddling of and harassment from the various levels of authority above. Unlike a number of others, she made it to the end of the year. She decided that she would just do substitute-teaching the following year to avoid most of the BS ....

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 03:25 AM

I retired 3 years ago, but the last 10 years were in a referral unit (excluded kids) not mainstream.
I started in 74.

Erosion of respect and discipline made the job steadily harder and less rewarding, but teachers were largely responsible for that by bringing in liberal regimes.
It used to be one adult and a blackboard with a large class.
Not possible now.

Ex-teachers who become administrators are another problem.
They are very good at thinking up extra things for teachers to do that benefit the students.
Actually anyone could do that, but they never suggested anything teachers could stop doing to make time for all the new things.

Now most new teachers quit after a couple of years.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 04:17 AM

I had a class of forty-eight (!) eight year-olds in Glasgow. And a rather limited selection of equipment, text-books etc. But the Head was wonderfully supportive of his staff, kept the pupils in check without being repressive, and (bless him!) left us to get on with teaching. Our timetables were entirely up to us. We could choose what we taught and when. Only a blackboard and some chalk, and no groups, just 'whole class' teaching. But if one was inventive and brought in visual aids, interesting objects and could 'entertain' without losing control of the class, it whizzed along.
I wrote, directed and produced a pantomime (Sleeping Beauty), complete with costumes and stage sets. We performed this to the 'infants' across the road, and to the parents. I played the piano for the songs I'd composed, and the nine 'elves' were a little percussion band.
We were forever making huge collages on geography, history, 'nature' and science, which adorned the walls of every corridor. It was all such fun for everyone (including me!), and I'm certain those children learned what they needed to without any stultifying National Curriculum. Now there just isn't time for 'interesting' or 'fun' learning. It's just grind grind grind. Like Mr Gradgrind in Dickens' Hard Times. The pupils get bored and misbehave. And the teachers get depressed and leave.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 04:31 AM

I knew a phd once who tried primary school teaching. I think he should have made a very good one, with a broad range of interests and a desire to explain things to the young. Last I heard he's back to doing university work.

The picture I seem to get when I've talked to teachers is that the "red tape" grinds them down and that education can be an "accountancy"/"statistics" exercise.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Raggytash
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 05:17 AM

I think that one of the fundamental problems is that many teachers have little experience of life outside the classroom.

School, Sixth Form College, University, back to the schoolroom as teachers.

Maybe if these teachers had done another job for a year or three they would be more capable teachers.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: DMcG
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 05:52 AM

While knowledge of other spheres of life is valuable to us all, I am not sure I see why we should single teaching out as the one profession that we should ask to do something else before they start the job in earnest. We don't ask accountants to teach first, or lawyers to run a corner shop, so why should teachers do something different first? I dont doubt that it would be valuable experience, but I don't see the lack of it as a bigger problem than any other profession.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 06:03 AM

Dave, from my own couple of later in life experiences (IT courses) I would say it is nice to have a tutor with some experience in "industry". They can (to me) add another more "hands on" view.

But that's maybe a different topic...

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: DMcG
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 06:19 AM

I agree, Jon, that is is a really useful skill for a teacher to be able to show the relevance of what they are teaching and to relate what is being taught to something the student is familiar with. Without it, you risk teaching repetition of meaningless sentences and magic. Maths is very prone to this; talking to people you often find they know that "you do this" but have no understanding of why. Teaching the why of things - whether science, maths, history or art - seems to me at the heart of good teaching since that is the base for understanding rather than fact-collecting. It just doesn't seem obvious to me that time out in another industry necessarily helps.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: DMcG
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 06:26 AM

Relating that back to the topic: I think most teachers really want to get the understanding in their pupils but that all the pressures are for them to just teach the magic words.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Raggytash
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 06:31 AM

In other professions you are not normally charged with teaching young people about a subject. An accountant does not normally teach in his or her role as an accountant. A lawyer does not normally teach in his or her role as a lawyer. Student go for particular training to become proficient in these, and other, subjects.

If someone has spent their formative years exclusively in a classroom setting their experiences of life are somewhat limited.

Going back to when I was engaged in education I found the best teachers were not the ones straight from teacher training college but the ones who had had other experiences and seemed better able to disseminate thoughts and ideas.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 08:45 AM

No one will ever know it all but 'know it all's' seem to see this as a laudable pursuit that governs their meddling with students, teachers and grading systems that are designed to separate wheat from chaff.
I think I was deemed chaff unfairly.

Yes, knowing 'why' is crucial to the foundation of on going learning.
Learning what simple questions to ask is very illuminating.
I believe the most important part of every class subject is how to learn. We learn from understanding, not by rote.
This is basically about the old, give a fish vs. teaching to fish, wisdom.

Listening to all of you is quite worrisome regarding my son who graduates next year to become a history teacher.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Stanron
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 09:32 AM

Don't knock learning by rote. I can still recite all twelve times tables and just a couple of days ago I had need to recite the Alphabet. All still serviceable 60 plus years later. No understanding needed, simple rote memory. Not that understanding is not valuable, of course it is, but so is stuff learned by heart. Like lyrics, tunes and whatever else.

Having said that I retired from teaching two years early and was glad to get out. I was getting told how to teach by people less than half my age.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: DMcG
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 09:47 AM

Learning by rote is sometimes useful but in the main I think this is where there is no underlying rationale, or that rationale doesn't help much with the getting the answer quickly. There is no reason the letters of the ABC (or any other alphabet) are in the order they are so rote learning is your only option. You could derive all the tables from first principles but it wouldn't be sensible. The order of the UK kings and queens is another rote thing. So yes, rote has its place. But for example looking at the times tables and seeing the patterns offers insights simplw rote learning does not.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Jack Campin
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 10:32 AM

Erosion of respect and discipline made the job steadily harder and less rewarding, but teachers were largely responsible for that by bringing in liberal regimes

It's hardly the fault of "liberal regimes" if the kids are up till the small hours training themselves to have the attention span of a chipmunk by playing computer and phone games and then poisoning themselves all day with junk food chemicals.

I work across the street from a junk food takeaway whose clients are mostly kids from the local high school at lunchtime. I don't know how such a small outlet manages to produce so much pizza in such a short time. There are typically 20 kids hanging around outside it stuffing themselves with dripping vitamin-free handfuls of stodge and grease. Nobody could think straight on a diet like that.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Greg F.
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 10:41 AM

teachers were largely responsible for that by bringing in liberal regimes.

Professor, I concede that you are, indeed, The King Of Bullshit.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 10:57 AM

"An accountant does not normally teach in his or her role as an accountant" - oh yes he does, I've been doing just that for the past 30 years to graduate idiots who think they know everything and know nothing, and I got into accountancy with just the required number of O levels!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 10:57 AM

"Now most new teachers quit after a couple of years."

Not true. The dropout rate for newly-qualified teachers in this country is just under one-third in their first five years. Don't make things up.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 11:13 AM

It's a complex set of difficulties for teachers. I remember when the National Curriculum came in, each teacher in our school was presented with a large three-drawer filing cabinet. I wondered why. I soon found out. Ten huge and massively heavy grey ring-folders (National Curriculum 'subjects') were brought in by a staggering Welfare Assistant. Followed by about seven other, smaller folders for Lesson Plans, Assessment of Lessons Completed, Stock Orders, Special Needs Assessments, on and on and on. I was drowning in A4 sheets of paper. Those three drawers were soon full to bursting.

Then The Timetable. ('Literacy Hour', and many other cages in which to lock and stultify children's brains). Learning now comprised ten mutually exclusive subjects, which appeared to be the GCSE course divided into indigestible chunks thought suitable for children from 8yrs old. (hence The Depression and The Abdication)

Not long afterwards the Inspectors arrived, mostly a bunch of fools who couldn't teach and hadn't a clue what they were supposed to do. The things they said to me and the 'suggestions' they made were so annoying I was hard put not to knock them senseless and flee the building.
If today's teachers have these sorts of things to endure, it's no wonder they look elsewhere, for better salaries, happier workplaces, far less stress and more appreciation. Good luck to them.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 11:27 AM

An Ofsted inspector once fell asleep on the back row of my science lab when I was taking a class of Year 8s. One of the lads came up to the front to tell me that "that man at the back is snoring, sir!" Read what you like into that, but I know for a fact that he was staying at the Falcon Hotel in Bude and had been propping up the bar the night before. Bit of a goldfish bowl is Bude!

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 11:29 AM

Don't knock rote learning, Rote has its place...

I swear you take two words and miss the bigger point. I was refining the definition of higher learning. Of course you could not play a scale without rote learning and muscle memory. Memorization is not going to get you to be more intelligent than a rat.

Anyway I know why you guys commented in the way you did. It is due to the nature of our neural filter. It is designed to ignore, repeat our POV or combat the concept. In the absence of oxytocin our brain is not designed to flatly agree. It is an example of simple human nature, not the superiority of understanding why. Brain stem reaction to fear and hate will beat true understanding as assuredly as a poor diet will diminish higher brain function. If you still do not agree, look at the nature of our 'debate' threads here. :^)

Be that as it may, Should my son give up on teaching before he begins?
Some of the teachers here seem to imply he should. I know graduates who did give up.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: DMcG
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 12:57 PM

I think I have told this before, but it links into Senofou's haggis story and her complaint about compartmentalising subjects. About two years ago I was in a fort standing next to a cannon which was pointing out to sea, intending to sink any approaching vessels. To me there was not only a cannon but a set of imperitives driving more advanced maths for the trajectory, improvements in measurements for both weights and measures, better machining and manufacture of the cannon and the ball, improved quality of the metal, improved quality regimes on the powder, more reproducable charges and on and on. My son is a historian by inclination, so he saw trade agreements, ebb and flow of commerce and who knows what else.

To me, it makes no sense to partition things so all you see is a cannon.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Stanron
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 01:17 PM

Donuel wrote: I believe the most important part of every class subject is how to learn. We learn from understanding, not by rote.

Not exactly two words.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 01:46 PM

Thomas Gradgrind asked little Sissy Jupe ("Girl number twenty") to 'define a horse'. She and her father worked with horses in a circus, and she viewed them with much joy and admiration for their beauty and power. But Gradgrind didn't like her stammered reply, and asked a ghastly little toady called Bitzer. He reeled off a list of a horse's anatomy such as 'quadruped' and different teeth etc. Gradgrind approved of this boring list and Sissy was made to feel inadequate. ('Hard Times', Charles Dickens)

This passage seems to me to epitomise the blasted National Curriculum.

As with DMcG's cannon, one can impart a fascinating, rounded view of the world in all its wonderful complexity, involving all the disciplines and areas of study. Or one can see...er...a cannon.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 01:47 PM

Steve,
"Almost four out of 10 teachers quit within a year of qualifying, with 11,000 leaving the profession before they have really begun their career and record numbers of those who remain giving up mid-career, according to analysis of government figures."

That would justify my statement.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/mar/31/four-in-10-new-teachers-quit-within-a-year

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 01:50 PM

Four in ten within a year is not most within two years. Also, if you bother to look you'll find the figure I gave to be the accurate one.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 02:02 PM

Steve, if almost half have left after one year, then after a couple of years it will have passed the halfway mark, and it has got worse since 2012.
"Majority of new teachers to drop out within a year by 2017 (ONE YEAR!)
By 2017, just 48% of newly qualified teachers (NQTs) will still be in teaching one year after qualifying says Randstaad      "
http://academytoday.co.uk/Article/majority-of-new-teachers-to-drop-out-within-a-year-by-2017
You have offered nothing to back your claim.

But this is not about the facts.
You can not let any post of mine go unchallenged.
Likewise Greg F.
What is your experience of teaching in UK Greg?
I have forty years.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Senoufou
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 02:07 PM

Do you think the numbers leaving quite early on in their profession might be due to the fact that they haven't a true vocation for the job? They start teaching and cannot 'connect' with their students, or engage their interest. Or they're unable to dream up ways of presenting lessons that are innovative and entertaining. This always led to discipline problems for 'my' young protege student teachers. They always arrived with lots of photocopied bits of paper and the textbooks, but their delivery of the lesson and performance was, well, boring.

A teacher is on stage in a sense, and has to 'act'. And a huge sense of humour is important. It's all about one's character, and pupils will suss that out in five minutes.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 02:09 PM

Perhaps, but did not used to be like this, and has been getting worse for years.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: meself
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 02:17 PM

"Should my son give up on teaching before he begins?"

Depends. If he really wants to teach, then he should give it a shot, and see how it goes. Some people, because of their brains and personalities, don't get terribly dragged down by all the stress, pressures, and general BS. Many young people, though, find themselves carrying on through a grim determination - they're going to make it to the end of the year no matter what, just the way their grandfather fought to the top of that hill and liberated Europe. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I'm not sure that that's the best attitude. Sometimes I think it would be better for a beginning teacher who's having a miserable time to just take a look at themselves, take a look at the situation, and say, This isn't a match - I'm outta here. And go work at McDonald's, if need be, till they work out something better.

One of my sons has considered going into teaching. I've neither encouraged nor discouraged him. My advice was that if he honestly thought he would like teaching, to go ahead, but if he was just thinking of it as something he "could do" with a History degree, then I wouldn't particularly recommend it.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 04:07 PM

I challenge faulty information, Keith. You came up with a throwaway remark and are now trying to support it with unjustified extrapolations. Just go away and look it up properly instead of trying to cling to your sacred first statement. It's just wrong. Deal with it.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Greg F.
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 05:03 PM

I have forty years [experience teaching].

Two observations, rofessor:

1. You didn't learn much in those 40 years.

2. God help your pupils.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 06:24 PM

From The Guardian, six months ago.

(Sally Weale Education correspondent)

Monday 24 October 2016 19.21 BST Last modified on Friday 17 February 2017 11.20 GMT

Almost a third of teachers who began their career in 2010 quit the classroom within five years of qualifying, according to government figures.

Of the 21,400 who began teaching in English state schools in 2010, 30% had quit by 2015, the schools minister, Nick Gibb, confirmed in a written parliamentary answer.

More than one in 10 (13%) of newly qualified teachers left after a year of teaching, meaning 87% continued to work in the classroom, a proportion the government says is largely unchanged since 1996.

That figure fell to 82% after two years in profession, 77% after three years, 73% after four years and 70% after five years, according to the response to a question by Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland.

I reproduce this for the benefit of those who don't let facts get in the way of prejudice. You know who you are!

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Apr 17 - 07:47 PM

i dunno. you're all very judgemental.

a cursory look at society should be enough to tell you that the world is full of people not really doing what they want to. to earn a living. why should teaching be any different. tell you worried young teacher friend - just because you're struggling now doesn't mean you al ways will be. perhaps its not the right branch of teaching for you - teaching has many mansions.

i think it was one of the beat poets who said DH Lawrence tell you that sex between men and women should be a wondrous loving beautiful thing like running into a cathedral. by and large - its not.

it would be nice if all the lessons were great and all the teachers great - but common sense tells us that it will never be. Its a good job. And even if you aren't the world's greatest you will achieve competence if you try hard enough. And you will help some children - even in the most terrible of schools and classes.

if everything was easy and came naturally to us - we'd all be perfect.   sorry to be preachy - i guess it comes from being a folksinger.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Iains
Date: 11 Apr 17 - 04:10 AM

Plenty of links for those that can be bothered:

Teacher Recruitment and Retention | National Union of Teachers - NUT
https://www.teachers.org.uk/edufacts/teacher-recruitment-and-retention
There is increasing evidence of a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention just ... Despite the inclusion of Teach First applicants in the ITT statistics, the overall ...

Highest teacher leaving rate in a decade - and 6 other things we ...
schoolsweek.co.uk/highest-teacher-leaving-rate-in-a-decade-and-6-other-things-we-le...

Jun 30, 2016 - Record numbers of teachers are leaving the profession bolstering claims of ... the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "Official statistics mask the .... This is a very worrying trend for the UK and the prognosis is that it is ...

Nearly half of England's teachers plan to leave in next five years ...
https://www.theguardian.com › Education › Teachers' workload
Mar 22, 2016 - Guardian survey shows huge concerns over workload with teachers in ... so hard that they would be indistinguishable from the UK's "best in the ...

Four in 10 new teachers quit within a year | Education | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com › Education › Teaching
Mar 31, 2015 - 'Teachers are exhausted, stressed and burnt out in a profession being monitored to within an inch of its life.' Photograph: Agencja Free/Alamy.

Nearly 50,000 quit - around one in 12 full-time teachers, according the ...
www.mirror.co.uk › News › UK News
Jan 30, 2015 - Teachers quitting profession in record numbers as 4,000 leave ... teachers - according the Department for Education's own statistics .....

[PDF]Teachers - Parliament
researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7222/CBP-7222.pdf
Mar 21, 2017 - www.parliament.uk/commons-library ... Statistics on teacher retention. 7. 3. Government initiatives to encourage teacher recruitment. 9.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Apr 17 - 04:12 AM

Steve,
I challenge faulty information, Keith.

It was not faulty, as my linked quotes proved.
You just had to have a go because it was me, and just made yourself look stupid again.

Your "information" was an understatement of the problem.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Apr 17 - 05:10 AM

Give it a rest, Keith. You are being utterly pointless.

Talking of a recruitment and retention crisis, the early 1970s was a terrible time. Teacher turnover in London was out of control. My first job was in Poplar in east London. I'd whacked in a few job applications and blow me if I didn't get two interviews on the same day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I was the only applicant for both jobs. I took the job at the morning interview and had to ring the other school to tell them I wasn't coming. The head teacher came to the phone and went absolutely ballistic with me, pleading with me to reconsider. It wasn't because I had a stellar reputation, I can tell you that! Edward Heath's monthly pay rises triggered automatically by inflation (a popular but doomed policy that got out of hand), coupled with a major pay review, saw my salary double in twelve months. My first week's pay was £22. The headmistress, Sister Teresa, lent me half a month's pay so that I could pay the rent. The retention issue today has a very different cause. Bureaucracy, overwhelming amounts of paperwork, constant inspection threats and sheer overwork. At least we didn't have that. I doubt whether anyone can demonstrate a concomitant dramatic improvement in standards.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Apr 17 - 05:30 AM

does it matter, you two what precise percentage of teachers drop out?

a lot do - despite the wages not really being too bad.

the reasons for this are many and varied. rather like all government workers - police, army, social workers....successive governments abuse, then idealise, underfund and generally bugger about in an amateurish way, and expect too much from human beings whom they thrust into impossible circumstances.

The thing is though - its a difficult job. Very hard work. it takes imagination, realism, a lot of patience and though no one will brief you on the fact, a degree of low cunning. plus experience, The third time you teach Richard II , Seamus Heaney or THe WAsteland to A level kids will be be better than the first time. and that's tough on you and tough on the kids you teach first time.

that's why having a high drop out rate isn't great for the profession. you DO get better and more mature in your response to problems.

The greatest problem in this gig are the snake oil salesman. THe guys that tell you the problems will all be solved by dismantling what has been achieved.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Apr 17 - 09:05 AM

Just trying to shake him off, Big Al.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Senoufou
Date: 11 Apr 17 - 09:52 AM

I began my teaching career in the very early seventies, and had to complete only three short Teaching Practices at three different schools during my postgraduate teacher training year. My tutor was approached by all three Heads asking him to sound me out as to accepting a post at their schools. In addition, two other Heads asked him to recommend a promising student and he gave them my name too. So in effect I had five job offers before I had even qualified. This wasn't because of any outstanding talent on my part (although I did achieve a Distinction), but as Steve says, there was a serious shortage of new teachers.

In Scotland there was a two-year probation period after qualifying, and 'probationary teachers' were much cheaper. One's salary went up after successfully completing the two years. So my cheapness was also a factor in their enthusiasm!

I accepted the poshest school, and enjoyed it, but moved to a much poorer district where the social deprivation was appalling, and absolutely adored everything.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Apr 17 - 01:50 PM

Al,

does it matter, you two what precise percentage of teachers drop out?

It does not.
Ask Steve we he chose to make an issue of it.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Apr 17 - 07:00 PM

Knock it off and move on, Keith. Nobody cares, honestly.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Apr 17 - 03:54 AM

I am not arguing about the issue, just objecting to being unable to express an opinion or make an accurate statement about anything without being attacked by you.

It happened recently on the GPS discussion.
It is like a vendetta.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Senoufou
Date: 12 Apr 17 - 04:39 AM

At the risk of sounding like Joyce Grenfell, we'd all get on a lot better if some folk would desist from being bullies and attacking one poster in a pack like nasty playground tykes. This is about teachers leaving the profession, not 'Let's all pile in on top of Keith'.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Apr 17 - 07:03 AM

Keith - my apologies if I piled in on top of you.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Apr 17 - 08:00 AM

Keith has a very long track record of hectoring people interminably. It isn't stalking but his victim act is laughable.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Senoufou
Date: 12 Apr 17 - 08:13 AM

I've just remembered this (going senile I expect):-

When I was teaching in Scotland, early seventies, a new thing came in whereby all teachers had to be give 'Non-Contact Time' of 30 minutes every school day. Money was provided to employ extra staff to cover the two-and-a-half hours per week for every teacher. The time was intended to be spent preparing lessons, marking work, assembling equipment and planning etc. It was a real godsend, and I'm wondering if it still pertains 'up there'?
In my English school (I was there for over twenty years) there was nothing like this, and one was expected to work after hours (I often didn't leave the building until gone 5pm, and always appeared at 7.30 am to get stuff done. We all took work home with us too, and dragged ourselves in during holidays. If one hadn't done this, one would have drowned under the backlog.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Jack Campin
Date: 12 Apr 17 - 08:26 AM

objecting to being unable to express an opinion or make an accurate statement about anything without being attacked by you

Nobody can expect to rehash ideologically spin-doctored bollocks and then pontificate that it's an "accurate statement" without getting called out on it.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Raggytash
Date: 12 Apr 17 - 09:03 AM

My Mother qualified as a teacher in 1966, I remember her bringing work home almost every night. She would work at the dining room table for at least an hour a night and often 2 to 3 hours. This was in addition to tending 3 children and a husband.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: bobad
Date: 12 Apr 17 - 09:27 AM

we'd all get on a lot better if some folk would desist from being bullies and attacking one poster in a pack like nasty playground tykes

Unfortunately there are some posters here who are compelled to belittle others in order to bolster their own egos. Envious individuals also make themselves feel better by belittling others. It's no different here at Mudcat than outside.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Senoufou
Date: 12 Apr 17 - 10:13 AM

My two lovely nieces graduated from University six or seven years ago. I kept my mouth shut, but was praying that they didn't want to become teachers. Fortunately, the both became involved in financial advising and banking. Phew!

I certainly would be very worried if a child of mine (I haven't got one, but still...) went into teaching. The stresses and strains are in my view not worth the money.

Subject: RE: BS: why teachers despair and quit
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Apr 17 - 01:23 PM

Jack,
Nobody can expect to rehash ideologically spin-doctored bollocks and then pontificate that it's an "accurate statement" without getting called out on it.

I completely agree with that statement Jack, but it bears no resemblance to my post on this issue.