Comment Re:Not real life (Score 1) 279
I've had a lot of problems with language teachers as well. It seems like it's easier to get around bad teachers in math and the sciences because of the lack of wiggle room for grading. My Spanish teacher senior year of high school would literally assign grades at the end of the semester based on how hard she "felt" you had worked. Luckily, I'd had teachers like that in the past, so I knew how to BS my way into higher grades. She was also a bit crazy; once she lectured us on how Muslims must like the number 11 because of the Moorish invasion of Spain in 711 and the attacks on 9/11/2001.
A lot of the fault in my school district didn't lie with the teachers themselves, though. The more advanced Spanish literature classes had a lot of native speakers who were put into the classes prematurely just because they could speak Spanish. Counselors had incentives to put them in the advanced classes because it looks better for the school when we have more kids enrolled. They had no clue about orthography, grammar, polite speech, etc., which wasn't their fault, but nonetheless detrimental to the class. Teachers had to keep up with multiple levels of learning all in one class period, so it was hard for them to focus on any one group.
On the original topic, though: I obviously don't think that bad teachers help students. Self-motivated learners get dragged down by trying to please the teacher's whims, and those who aren't yet self-motivated see the teacher's actions as a disincentive to try to learn. Why the teachers are bad is a multifaceted problem that involves both the teachers and the bureaucratic environment the teachers work in.
A lot of the fault in my school district didn't lie with the teachers themselves, though. The more advanced Spanish literature classes had a lot of native speakers who were put into the classes prematurely just because they could speak Spanish. Counselors had incentives to put them in the advanced classes because it looks better for the school when we have more kids enrolled. They had no clue about orthography, grammar, polite speech, etc., which wasn't their fault, but nonetheless detrimental to the class. Teachers had to keep up with multiple levels of learning all in one class period, so it was hard for them to focus on any one group.
On the original topic, though: I obviously don't think that bad teachers help students. Self-motivated learners get dragged down by trying to please the teacher's whims, and those who aren't yet self-motivated see the teacher's actions as a disincentive to try to learn. Why the teachers are bad is a multifaceted problem that involves both the teachers and the bureaucratic environment the teachers work in.
