@KnowItSome
I wonder how you are going to calculate the level of teachers’ interest in teaching activities in their classrooms in order to fire incompetent teachers.
Do you think that Doctor Who is a “competent” teacher? Should he be fired?
Lauren Cooper and Doctor Who clash in class - Classic Comic Relief
“way too many so-called teachers who have found that showing up every day and hanging out in a public school is a good way to collect a guaranteed paycheck whether they bother teaching or not.”
I don’t know if this description is accurate or not. I will keep it in my mind as a critical opinion of an American citizen about some or many of the teachers who are engaged in teaching activities in public school systems in Canada and the US. Thank you for your information, KnowItSome.
It is common knowledge at most schools who the poor teachers are. Parents try to avoid them. The schools do little, and if there are very serious problems they move these poor teachers to other schools.
I am critical of teachers who are more motivated to impose ideology on kids than to teach the subject, who over teach with their ideas about “critical thinking”, and who regularly go on strike.
If you want to get the flavour I suggest you join the NIFL list serv for language and literacy teachers. You can look it up on Google.
@steve
Are you talking about the following kind of thing in Canada?
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2005/10/07/bc_teachers_20051007.html http://bit.ly/ayUCbU
“In six of the provinces and the two territories, basic salary scales and fringe benefits are established through negotiations between the teachers’ association and representatives of the government. In some cases, supplementary negotiations take place at the school board level concerning additional fringe benefits and conditions of work. In British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario, all negotiations take place at the local or regional level.” Education Canada Network http://resource.educationcanada.com/salaries.html/ http://bit.ly/9h55pS
“Why it’s so hard to fire bad teachers: Most principals would rather hide or transfer incompetent teachers than try to oust them”
by Rachel Mendleson MACLEANS.CA http://bit.ly/bWGldb
There are 52 comments on this article.
“This kind of makes me want to be a teacher. I’d be one of the 5% who are incompetent, BUT I’d work hard at making the students like me so I don’t get transferred. Maybe I’d teach a lower grade too so the kids don’t realize they’re smarter than me.”
The above comment on the article is very funny.
The number of truly incompetent teachers may be only 5%. However, the number of outstanding teachers may not exceed 10%.
A famous man, whose name escapes me, once said that any teacher who can be replaced by a computer should be. I think a majority of teachers fall into that category.
The truly outstanding, and the very good ones, the inspiring ones, (perhaps 30-40% of teachers), should be paid more and use modern technology to reach more students. The uninspiring ones should get another job, and stop demotivating learners.
There is no need for students to sit in class 5-6 hours a day, every day of the week. a far smaller amount of interaction with the teacher, but with outstanding teachers, would do them much more good. And they could use other resources to learn.
Even when I was a child, I remember that during one boring class, a boy put up his hand and asked the teacher if he could go to the library to study. He was, of course, punished.
I suppose the smart boy was you yourself.
No Yutaka, it was not. I was quite impressed by the boy, however,, and of course his question got a big laugh in class, which impressed me since I liked to do things that made everyone laugh.
“How to Create Nonreaders” By Alfie Kohn
- Quantify their reading assignments.
- Make them write reports.
- Isolate them.
- Focus on skills.
- Offer them incentives.
- Prepare them for tests.
- Restrict their choices.
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/nonreaders.htm http://bit.ly/95Oyw9