Teachers in America, specifically Washington State

[TMA_1]

Good gravy!

I got in trouble in school today, and for silly reasons. One of my teachers (who is a good one by the way) lets a student teacher of his teach this certain class called Comparitive Religions. The thing is, the guy does not know what he is talking about at all, and opinionates beyond belief. We started out learning the important religions in the middle east, the first couple of classes were just general overviews of what we would learn. Well here is where it got ugly. He began talking about persian and arab religions, and we got into zaroastrianism. He began it by saying it is a dead religion... I corrected him and he got upset at that, challanged it. he then found out he was wrong and said nothing to correct it. Later we started talking about it's offshoots in the next couple of days me made mistake after mistake. For example I had to correct him again because he said Mythraism was a sect of zaroastrianism, totally wrong. I had to correct him time after time.

we got into islam and good grief, he said things like Bahai and other groups are offshoots of islam, and that is wrong as well, kept on doing this!

We started Judeo-christian teachings and more and more mistakes were made, that he finally found out were real mistakes when I said so, all were right.

It doesnt take a genius to know this stuff, you just have to read...

Not only this student teacher makes mistakes constantly, but my american history teacher, my american government teacher, and others. I got in trouble finally by the comparitive religions guy for correcting him, protested it and was taken out of the detention he gave me, and hopefully will be repremanded.

Its okay to make mistakes obviously. We all do it, but if you make them over and over, in the field you are supposedly an expert in, and are teaching this stuff, there is something wrong. especially when you dont admit to your mistakes. Not only that he and others are giving misinformation to kids in class. It is horrible to do that, to give kids false information that might stick with them. It is intellectually dishonest and is pretty poor. To give the next generation of adults this info can only lead to continual ignorance. It just is annoying. And the thing is this isnt an isolated incident. Teachers are constantly getting into this stuff, failing their tests, not knowing important information. Many teachers are complaining saying that it is a violation of their rights to make them take these tests over. They say that they shouldnt have to retake tests that they have already taken to get their certification. Well if teachers are failing like they are in pockets around america, then what else can you do? Also, their teaching seems to be poor, at least in the area I live in. The Wassel, a test that sophomores have to take at our school show that we are at an all time low in scoring, and soon might loose our funding because of the poor teaching.

Something is really really wrong, dont you guys think>?

[ordos45]

Well my mother is an elementary school teacher, and state law requires she attend thirty hours of training classes a summer and pass them.

However, yeah, I notice this a lot in my teachers, not knowing anything about a topic. It's quite scary at times, I had an arguement for a whole block once with a History teacher over some minor thing I can't remember now.

Now my Trig teacher, she was impressive. She managed to work a Trigonometry problem backwards, while talking to the Principal on the phone. Everyone in the class checked it for mistakes and there weren't any.

[nemafakei]

How are your teachers qualified?

That is to ask, do they have to have a degree in their subject (or thereabouts) to teach it to the level of 18-year olds (A-levels here)?

[ordos45]

It varies usually state to state and county to county. For high school positions, I think they prefer you have a degree in what you're teaching. You can start substituting right out of a 4 year college program and a few months of student teaching (supervised by a teacher). However, teachers with more experience and better degrees do in some cases get higher pay.

[DukeLeto]

Reminds me of my eith grade history teacher:

"Following Stalin's rise to power, the communists hunted down and killed Leo Tolstoy for opposing Stalin."

Wow, the Soviets killed the guy who wrote War and Peace? Or perhaps we meant Leon Trotsky? Yet I got into big, big trouble for correcting him.

[TMA_1]

lol, that is funny in a sad and pathetic sort of way duke. Shows that sometimes students know more than their teachers, how ironic. and you are right ordos, usually it is different from state to state. you have to get certification and take tests in order to become a teacher, also you usually have to join a teachers union, oh how I dispise them...

[Mahdi]

You need a four year bachelors degree and then a two year degree from teachers college here, although I had teachers with masters degrees in high school. One had a masters in history (probably my favourite teacher) one may have had a masters in chemistry, but I'm not entirly sure (he knew his shit either way, as he spent a long time in the private sector).