12/05/2008

About Time Too!

Hello,
As very long term readers should be aware I loathe, hate and despise the teaching profession. Oh I like the idea of it and some of them are excellent but in my experience the vast majority of them should be hurled into the lowest pit of hell or shot. I'm not fussy whatever comes first.

So you can imagine my delight and surprise to see one of them publicly humiliated and struck off for being a buffoon in charge of children. Still I am baffled what in God's name did she do wrong that 90% of them aren't? I expect she pissed off the wrong parents or wasn't terribly popular in the staffroom. If I were in her shoes I'd have taken my colleagues down with me.

Then again, could it be that standards are at long last being imposed on the morons?

A good teacher is a rare delight. Ideally they should be able to manage boredom well and make the subject engaging without resorting to childish and patronising games. With the exception of Art and Drama no -one really wants to be taught by a circus act. They should also care passionately about their subject and welcome questions from enquiring pupils. Nor should they be deterred by tantrum throwing pupils who don't want to learn. In truth teaching is a very difficult job but that's widely accepted is it not? I am therefore baffled why the profession is populated by socially inept, ill mannered, bullying careerist fucks who couldn't care less about children or their education.

A good teacher should be the norm but let's face it they aren't. As far as I can tell most of them approach it like cattle herding or worse wacky babysitting. I pity the school child of today. In my day you could vanish for months at a time and no one would come looking for you which meant I didn't have to go to school much. Instead I sat about libraries reading books and making attempts to educate myself since the people paid to do so weren't in the slightest bit interested (honourable exceptions- Technical, Home Economics, Religious Studies, Modern Studies and English). Nowadays one is five minutes late and one's parents are informed. That said I believe persistent truants get ferried to school in a taxi and allowed to pick and choose when they attend so it's not all bad.

I would recommend that the truant of today does not use the excuse that they are avoiding school in order to get an education. Nor would I suggest that this makes up for all the school trips one has been done out of because the teachers are involved in some sort of industrial action. In short do not lose your temper and use the words 'money for nothing', 'naked greed' or brutality. It makes them very angry, very angry indeed. 'Well I do take your point sir but....' is another no-no. Honestly it gets them fit to be tied. Oh and never complain when they refuse to answer a question because it's not relevant to the exam. I shan't bore you with the detail but having to explain to a senior and well paid English teacher that a passing knowledge of Shakespeare comes in handy in the study of English is outrageous. What sort of moron trains these buffoons? The internet wasn't on the go when I was at school so I can only guess they purchased their qualifications from a vending machine.

I am disappointed we didn't see the sort of scenes that we usually see outside the trials of paedophile though. I had hoped for a justified lynching -the first of many. Then again the whole time I was at school I could never understand why there wasn't a mass uprising by pupil and parent alike against them. Surely people don't need reminding that 'teachers' are funded by the tax payer.

Still it should be remembered that even though most of them are hopeless educators they are pretty good babysitters. Now that standards are being imposed on them who shall watch the kiddies when the inevitable shortage occurs?

Cheerio

4 comments:

CopPorn said...

In my cynical moments I think of schools this way:

We're a modern (post?)-industrial society. Parents go out to work, theoretically anyway. In the olden days, when kids reached a certain age they started working too, allowing their parents to stay economically active and even helping out themselves. On the fields and whatnot.

But nowadays we have a notion that childhood should be a blissful period of playing and general arsing about, punctuated by education. Also most folk can't really take their kids to work. I couldn't exactly take children to my boring computer programming job, and have them sit about staring at walls.

Therefore we have schools! Schools keep them out of the way and they are someone else's problem. They even have to do work while there. It is just like olden times, problem solved.

So thinking of teachers as having the primary function of educating might be wrong. They have the primary function of keeping children out of the way, and the secondary function of ensuring that then they become adults they have the ability to stay keeping out of the way. In the case of some neds etc they have failed at the latter.

It is really only when kids take an interest in educating themselves that they actually become reasonably smart. And teachers aren't going to inculcate that, ever.

Anonymous said...

"As very long term readers should be aware I loathe, hate and despise the teaching profession."

No man who hates dogs, children and teachers can be all bad. That is a quote I have adulterated, but it is still true!

Vavatch is correct in what he writes and he brought to mind another quotation from the English Playwright John Osborne:

"Teachers are underpaid as childminders but overpaid as educators"

That is essentially what teachers are, glorified childminders, their job is to keep kids off the streets until they are ready to take their place in the nations economy.

Unfortunately that means English teachers who don't know Shakespeare (or indeed grammar)

"I am therefore baffled why the profession is populated by socially inept, ill mannered, bullying careerist fucks who couldn't care less about children or their education."

Because it provides the "socially inept, ill mannered, bullying careerist fucks" with the sort of income they could not get any in any other line of work. The fact is bright graduates become Accountants, Stock Jobbers, PR people, Solicitors etc. Only the dullards become teachers. Nobody seems keen to change this.

Clairwil said...

'Only the dullards become teachers.'

With very few exceptions this is true. Mind you as the country is run by dullards I don't suppose there is much prospect of the situation improving.

Ala said...

Ever thought that some people may actually prefer working with children than working with bankers and legal professionals? Can you imagine?