Teachers Not Teaching

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I'd agree with this entirely. And teachers that actually try the hardest often do get flooded with complaints for bad teaching.

Many if not most of my college professors were awful at teaching to the point I didn't learn much or what I was supposed to learn in that class.

I still feel under prepared and I just graduated with a Masters in IT Management (went right from undergrad to grad).
It took 1.5 years to do) this past July.

Though I did get more than just an education at college, including diagnosis, therapy, a close friend, etc...

But I have yet to land a job....
I've been interviewing for about 2 years with no avail.

I'd very much agree, except that 19th century schools had higher standards in many ways and could be quite brutal in getting kids to reach those standards.
Also, we got the three-tiered system from the soviets (elementary, middle, and high). While it technically existed previously, the three tier classification grew as a national standard thanks to the DoE wanting to compare us to the Russians easier.

And I would say that the Math curriculum is the most broken.
This-Link- leads to a professional research mathematician who has a lengthy criticism of the math education.
To paraphrase he says "We might as well scrap the math education out of the schools entirely. We'd have a better mathematics curriculum if it didn't exist. The only thing it's good for is producing "trained chimpanzees.""

But the entire system is broken and they keep breaking it more every year.

I've been in college for 1.5 years, I don't have an associates degree yet. I feel like the school is building more and more walls between me and that goal. And I feel as if I've learned absolutely nothing except how chaotic, impersonal, terrifying, and nonsensical it all is. It's to the point where I have nightmares about college every night even over this holiday.
I'm a computer science major and it scares me that even with a masters degree that I might not find a job.

My undergrad is Management Information Systems and Marketing (digital marketing mainly).
My masters is the masters of MIS, so my classes double dipped.

But the reasons why I haven't been hired, the reasons why many NTs who I went to school with aren't hired.

The reasons are:
1) The internships dried up in 2011, making it quite hard to compete for what little were left.
1b) The internships started requiring a few years of industry experience in order to get hired.
2) most jobs in my fields require 3-5 years of industry experience, the degrees, and sometimes certifications as well.
These are entry level jobs, which I am not qualified for after three internships and numerous actual projects under my belt.
3) there are plenty of experienced people willing to work entry level jobs and lower.

I knew the dean of my school and he had to end the internship program, because businesses wouldn't hire college students for internships and entry level work (they had plenty of laid off experienced people to fill the posts).

It literally became near impossible for most college students to get internships (though it is getting a tad easier depending on where your school is located).

Employers are holding out for the "perfect" person.
I when I wasn't qualified enough, I wasn't perfect enough to be hired.

No one wants to train anymore...

Hopefully my luck will change soon.

Hopefully you'll have better luck than me.

I mean I did have some really good professors and did well in most of my classes. had a 3.58 Masters GPA.
Math classes were the hardest for me.

After graduation from elementary school and receiving my diagnosis (Asperger) I had a choice - to go to a regular school, or to a special one, where really problem children study.

I chose the first variant. Teachers were supposed to go home according to the program, but they ignored me, so I needed to go to school for them, where I waited for their meaningless lessons for long. Relations with my classmates were harsh too.

Government gave as present Apple Mac Mini computers to school pupils who were disabled and studied at home. At first it sounded quite good, but computers had strong passwords that denied access to most of its functions. Suddenly government tried to take away all the pupils' computers, making a big stress, so now I'm even unable to study or to work.

Hi Pawel, welcome to WrongPlanet!

I think you're find us a generally friendly and pretty creative bunch.

I'm sorry the school is so lousy. It sounds just terrible. The teachers are supposed to come to the home and they don't. And when you go to the school, it sounds like you have to wait forever and a day. And the lessons are not supposed to be talking down to you. They're supposed to be using different, nonconventional methods with you as an intelligent, creative learner.

Any way you or your family could get an advocate, whether formal or informal, to approach the school? Strategically, sometimes this works a lot better. In part the person acts as a fair witness. If the school doesn't follow through in a constructive way, one more person is witnessing and that does make a difference psychologically.

Thanks, I'm so happy that I found this site, because I felt kind of lonely earlier.

I'd like to do talk with advocate or jurist, but I'm afraid it is useless because I'm graduated from school in June of last year. Also, my pincipal of school is deputy of my municipality and she won local elections. Because of this I couldn't do anything about school. I made a decision that I'm not handing away the computer.

I constantly study on my own at my home, and I learned English pretty quickly.

My History teacher has her Honors class teach ourselves the lessons out of the textbook. All we do in class is copy down the answers to the fill-in-the-blank questions on the study guide. Once, we didn't know some fact about the Peggy Eaton affair because it wasn't in the textbook, but instead of actually teaching, she started shouting at us about how "You should all know this already! I shouldn't have to tell you! You should all be teaching yourselves the material!" Her tests were enforced open-book: You weren't allowed to answer the questions from actual knowledge, you had to find the answers in the textbook and write down the page where you found them. Now she explains things sometimes and actually offers non-multiple choice, non-fill-in the blank questions on occasion, but my mom, a history teacher, says I'm not learning any of the skills I'll need for the AP test, or any skills at all. So not only does my teacher not teach, she refuses to let us learn.

looks like I am not alone with this one, I feel that they are nothing more then government issue babysitters, or you sit and watch movies all day, every dy until they do an observation (principal or special education supervisor)

I tried to tell them how I feel, even told guidance department, they dont believe you unless all the students complain about the teacher!! !

in my case, did they do anything??? nope! what kept me sane was a big thick book on home repair or endless hours of staring at the door (and in late 12th grade, brought in a commercial door closer device to mess with and use for my handwriting)

I have no idea how they are paid, its even worse if they are NOT required to give the state tests (HSPT or EWT or whatever it is for high school levels now) to see where students are academically

I suspect special education students are exempt because they (the school district) don't want to try explain themselves or cover their butts with lies if one of them (or all of them) send in a blank test because they didn't learn something they SHOULD have been taught for that grade level! the embarrassment that can cause

I feel that if they did, it would really go to show where the money is going in the school district, as with special education, its suppose to be FAPE (Free Access to Public Education)

I am just glad I didn't choose to go to college or a university, I am sure that with the big "gap" in where I am and where I should have been, they may think (SAT scores and colleges) would think I was not paying attention or didn't care to learn


as for the teachers themselves, I have had my fair share or weird ones, some that sing, soem that read novels meant for little children, and even some that even NAMED THEIR DOORS (yup, I guess they were THAT board (haha pardon the pun)

I mean it was fun and funny while it happened, but still, if all I will learn is that your door's name is Woody or Charlie or Lewis, just give me the final exam now and let me learn on my own pace.


long far too late now, I graduated high school in 2002, but still, they did it back then too!

Actually that's not why teachers don't teach anymore.

Teachers are mandated to teach to the standardized test at all grade levels, once the test is done for the year they are free to teach whatever they want in the subject.
Though when testing is done, there is about a month or so left of school.

If teachers actually teach a subject instead of teaching to the test, they get punished under the law and the union and administrators cannot protect them.
Failure to teach to the standardized test, in most cases will get you fired.

If your school doesn't school a certain amount on the test and show regular improvements each year, you get sanctioned.
Sanctioning can be state and/or federal takeover, restructuring of the school administration, and/or even funding being cut or frozen.

Same thing happens to the school district as a whole when it fails to meet the proper scores.

Also the scores on the standardized tests are linked to federal and state funding here in the U.S.
Do good, you get money, do bad well you're getting poorer.

Also teachers have to meet the proper end point dictated by the school district in a given subject.
In many cases teachers have to rush to get there, because all the standardized testing crap takes up most of the school year.
This is why you're getting easy answers.

If it's past, it may not work. It may not work anyhow, it's just putting the odds somewhat more in your favor.

And by advocate, I also mean someone informal like a religious leader, like a scout leader, like a co-worker of yourself or one of your parents. Someone to visit the government or school official with you and be your ally and team mate in a low-key, matter-of-fact, confident way. The government official is then likely to take the visit more seriously and be on his or her better behavior.

Basically i think it's more about "networking"

If you have a good relationship with a prof they will be most likely to help you with recommendations and extra help after class on assignments.

The truth is alot of the work world is social and about kissing ass.

Teachers not teaching seems to be verry merry berry common, based on what my students have told me (I tutor high school students in math and science subjects a few hours a week).

For physics, one teacher just tells the students to self-study for most of the class period. He might write down some formulas on the board at the beginning of class, but that is it, the students self-study the rest of the time. This is also common in biology classes, most teachers don't teach the material, but tell the students to self-study the book. In chemistry, there seems to be more teaching going on, but some of it is really bad, like powerpoints downloaded from some website instead of teacher-prepared lessons. A lot of math teachers don't teach either, again the self-study and do problems from the book for the whole class period. One of them does teach, but his teaching is incomprehensible to eberryone in the class.

Some teachers are like that. Some don't care and think students don't care. A large part is that teachers aren't taught how to teach. They have to learn it on the job. Most of my professors used anecdotes that were relevant to the course. Sometimes the professor would get sidetracked and fall behind in lecture. I liked the anecdotes as long as they were relevant with few exceptions.

Ugh, this is never a good thing for teachers to do.