
What high school teachers never tell their students - jseliger
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/aew8m9/high_school_teachers_of_reddit_what_is_the_one/
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wolfgang42
This is a reblog (without attribution!) of this AskReddit thread: High School
teachers of Reddit, what is the one thing that you want your students to know
that you’d never tell them in person?
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/aew8m9/high_scho...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/aew8m9/high_school_teachers_of_reddit_what_is_the_one/)

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x1798DE
To be fair, I cannot read that link because reddit seems to have stepped up
their efforts at making their mobile website unusable.

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anitil
Why is it that they hate their own mobile page? I feel like I must be missing
some reason that they want me on their app.

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xkcdz
Parody post
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/aft8dw/high_scho...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/aft8dw/high_school_students_of_reddit_what_is_the_one/)

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cronix
"Most of what we have taught you isn't how the world really works. Good luck."

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james_s_tayler
This is called Wittgensteins Ladder.

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swampthinker
For weeks I've been trying to find a good, simple explanation of
Wittgenstein's Ladder (I'm not the greatest at understanding philosophy).
Appreciate this.

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squozzer
That we're all just treading water, and that one day, the water will win.

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jelliclesfarm
The word that immediately comes to my mind is ‘Toxic’.

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ColinWright
I'm really intrigued to see you say that. I work with many, many teachers.
Most of the teachers I respect and admire, and these comments ring so true,
just _so_ true.

What is it that you think is "toxic"?

What do you mean by "toxic"?

How much experience do you have of teaching?

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jelliclesfarm
The culture of sharing anonymously and/or openly how ‘customers’ make
‘employees’ feel. In this case, it’s teachers and students. There are other
examples like servers/diners, doctors/patients etc.

Firstly, it is not verifiable.

Secondly, it’s spoken ‘behind the back’.

Thirdly, they are talking about children. (In this case)

Fourthly, it seems like majority of teachers..especially young ones don’t like
what they do.

Fifthly, I think the way schools are being run.. the teaching methods should
die.

Sixthly, it’s like having cooks who hate to cook for you. One day, they will
spit on your plate. It’s a given.

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ColinWright
I can say from personal experience that pretty much everything there is
something I've heard practising teachers say, though not necessarily in those
words. The sentiments are exactly as I've seen.

When you're under significant stress with no means to control it, being able
to vent can be healthy.

Yes, they are talking about children. Most of the teachers I work with are
dedicated professionals being shat upon from on high, and it's only because in
truth, underneath, they genuinely care about those in their care.

Fourthly, the teachers I know _love_ teaching. It's not a job, it's a calling.
But they _hate_ so much of what they are forced to do by those setting the
rules and regulations. This is especially galling given that those setting the
rules and regulations have, in general, never been teachers, and while they
might have the best of intentions, most of them haven't a clue.

I absolutely agree that the way schools are run must die, and the sooner the
better, for the sake of everyone who deserves respect - the children and the
teachers.

Finally, your analogy is flawed about diners and cooks/chefs, because it's not
the teachers who are the customers, it's the parents and the administration.
They are the ones who pay, they are the ones who demand results, they are the
ones who places unreasonable burdens on the teachers. And yes, many of the
teachers eventually rebel, but it's not by taking it out on the children.

So knowing teachers as I do, I think you are reading this with the wrong
slant. I hope what I've said here makes your reassess, even if you don't end
up changing your mind.

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jelliclesfarm
Having no idea what you have heard, I can only comment on the original post.
Perhaps if I have had the same input as you did, maybe we would be in
agreement.

‘Venting’ to public at large should still be taken with a pinch of salt (and
disdain) especially since it’s done anonymously.

Again. Your personal circle of friends who happen to be teachers is not the
same sample as the posters quoted in the original post.

And I can say this for every single point you make about ‘teachers you know’
and I will still hold my opinion that the first word that came to my mind when
I read the original post is ‘toxic’.

Having said that..wrt your circle of teacher acquaintances and my own
impressions, I think education as we know it needs to undergo a sea change.

Perhaps this notion of cramming 30-50 children in a room and force feeding
them ‘education’ via a low paid, unhappy teacher is not a way to transmit
knowledge or a love for learning.

I think if someone has a ‘calling’, they should do it for free or must be free
to walk away without worrying about their means to survive. Since it’s a
career choice, it carries with it all the baggage of a rat race. One can’t
have it both ways.

Considering these very teachers are products of the same system of education,
they are merely perpetuating the unpleasantness that they had to endure.

I see this as abuse on many levels. Education and schools as we know it must
die and take up another avatar.

Parents and administrators (at least here in California) have little to no
power. It’s a battle for public money between unions and Sacramento. That’s
what _I_ see from what I have observed. It’s really very dirty politics.
Teachers have chosen a side and it seems like they’d say anything they are
instructed to opine. For example: there is a ‘work to rule’. It’s like a walk
out. Teachers will only work for 5.5 hours teaching. They won’t grade papers,
won’t write recommendation letters, won’t communicate with teachers. This
happened six months ago too. 25000 teachers in LAUSD are striking in Los
Angeles Unified schools. No classes. Nothing. Full on strike. This isn’t a
calling. When one joins an union and goes on strike, it’s not a “calling”.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this, but I am not sure it has made a
difference. I have heard others say the same thing second hand but the first
hand opinions that I have heard from teachers themselves have been different.

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rland
I have heard the exact opposite. That teachers increasingly have to acquiesce
to the demands of parents and administrators. That they want to be creative
and exercise their "calling," the art of it and care given to individual
students. But they cannot because they're pressured by onerous top-down
regulation, school administration, or blowback from zealous parents.

And also, yeah I wish everyone could perform their calling for free, for the
simple joy of it, but the fact of the matter is that life isn't like that and
never will be like that.

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jelliclesfarm
Interesting.

Who has a say in a child’s education?

Let’s go over the parties involved:

1\. Parents 2\. Teachers 3\. Administrators 4\. Union 5\. The State 6\. Tax
payers/public 7\. The Student

It would be interesting to map the relationships between these various players
and their influence weights.

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gaius
Teachers always forget: everyone has been to school. So teachers moan about
how much time they spend lesson planning but I wonder how much planning went
into putting on a video and nipping out for a fag? Or marking, but I wonder,
when the answer book was given out and everyone marked their own? So when they
whine about how underpaid they are, noone believes it for a second, in fact
for the work they actually do they are if anything wildly overpaid... I’d
start by paying them only during term time, so that’s a cut of at least a
third immediately, maybe a half.

