Tagged: Challenges facing teachers
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John Doe 4 years, 10 months ago.
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Hello,
I’m a male grade school teacher and although I love teaching, teaching in this area is very sexist. Through my placements in University I had been told by every female supervisory teacher never to make physical contact with students, each stating simply because I’m a male (insinuating male teachers molest). Each meeting I sat in female teachers would make jokes about males and various stereotypes, often verbally bashing their husbands. My last placement was with an ex-divorcee, from the first week I knew I was in trouble. This teacher nit picked everything I did, commenting on my handwriting being poor (despite the writing being in my own personal notes), in the end I contacted the University and left as she made it apparent I wouldn’t pass. Since then I completed the remaining weeks and graduated.
I derive a great deal of satisfaction from teaching however it can be uncomfortable dealing with these kind of middle aged women. It is no surprise to me that men go on to become principals and vice principals in a bid to leave the teaching area. Anyone else here in teaching?
I used to teach at a certain post-secondary institution. I’ve got lots of stories to tell about the school from hell. In addition, after being a grad student for several years, I’m not that impressed with tenured professors, either.
QuarterWaveVertical: i have no doubt that we have both teachers and students among us and I for one welcome your telling of your experiences on this topic. i’ll be looking forward to reading what you’ve got to say man.
Wow, that’s horrible.
Where shall I start?
I started my teaching position over 25 years ago. Even then I noticed how bratty students could be. Unfortunately, many of the administration’s policies defied any semblance of logic and reason.
The biggest mistake in educational policy was to adopt the doctrine of “student as customer”. That pretty much meant that administrators washed their hands of any responsibility and it was open season on instructors. The kiddies could do whatever they wanted.
I was reminded of that during my final year of teaching. I taught some service courses to a different department and, for one, I ended up with my all-time worst group of students. I had no problem with there being a large number of women in it. I always judged my students based on the quality of their work and I remember one young lady in my own department who aced everything.
Nearly 30 years ago, I courted someone who was not only a music teacher, she also taught kindergarten. She often told stories about the children, particularly how they behaved if they didn’t get what they wanted or otherwise expected. In the service course I mentioned, it was as if I had her kindergarten kiddies, but a lot older. Sadly, most of the women in it showed the most atrocious behaviour. Brattyness would be a mild description. For example, if I had a dime for each time I heard the words “It’s not fair!” (i. e., I can’t get away with doing whatever I please and be amply rewarded for it), I’d be a rich man.
One self-empowered self-entitled princess thought she could yack with her buddies any time she felt like, even while I was lecturing. Another didn’t like the fact that I penalized her on an exam for not showing me how she arrived at her answer. Her excuse was that she punched the numbers in her calculator (which she didn’t mention, by the way) and she verbally tore a strip off me for that, emphatically stating that I was at fault for not knowing that. I often complained to the department head about the antics of those wee urchins but he simply brushed them aside. He wasn’t worried about what happened as he had a year or two left before he retired. (That happened a lot in that place.)
The princess failed my course, but marginally so. The protocol was that she could write a supplemental exam to raise her grade to a pass, but she had to ask me if she could. That never happened, so I figured she simply flunked it, rightly earning that distinction. When the graduation list was published in the newspaper a few months later, guess whose name was on the list? You guessed it! So was the loudmouth.
I hung on just long enough for my financial portfolio to be worth a minimum level. When I reached that goal, I kept asking myself why I was still there. I finally decided to pack it in and resigned. When I saw that graduation list, which was after I’d quit, I knew I made the right decision. That was nearly 13 years ago. Based on what I hear about how things are now, I’m glad I’m no longer in that business.
QWV: the thing that resonates the most with me in your post is the whole “student as customer” thing. I guess they do that to keep enrollments high? Sounds like they care about lining their f~~~ing admin pockets and don’t give a crap about guys like you in the trenches.
One of my friends who taught for near 30 years got in a lot of trouble about four years ago. when i would visit him in his city we would (and sometimes still do) hang out at his very nice house across the street from the beach and enjoy a cigar and cognac on his patio and discuss things. he was getting near retirement at that time and found that everyone was against him as he hit that stage. he’s one of those old school rare breeds that teaches factual information, doesn’t take any s~~~ from anyone, and wasn’t afraid of lowering grades for students not doing their work. His reward for this was getting completely screwed over by the district and barely escaped with his pension. He had been holding his students to certain standards for years and was well liked by students and the community UNTIL a female student got p~~~ed off at him for giving her a D. she wasn’t showing up for class, didn’t do her assignments and he had a talk with her and said he should flunk her but he was being nice and giving her a D. she went home to mommy and daddy and started all the buzzword smear campaign against him and the family filed a formal complaint to have him terminated after 26 years of service. he had to appear numerous times in front of admins explaining himself and got completely ill from the worry that this brought him. Of course, after that complaint was filed, a couple other deadbeat female students filed complaints as well and then his life got really f~~~ed. after being married for 25 years, his wife sided with the complaining female students believing bulls~~~ from the hive and totally not supporting him in his time of crisis. in fact, she filed for divorce WHILE that was going on. So here he was, student complaints mounting up, wife leaving, admins hating on him publicly.
He had to hire an attorney at great expense and go to his union and go through a ton of s~~~ before righting the ship and hanging on until he got his pension confirmed. Students as customers is scary s~~~ man. I talked to him about a month ago and he’s so ill now from the stress of that situation he isn’t really enjoying himself even though he’s got enough money. he has multiple heath problems and is having trouble walking. he got killed in the divorce and is thinking about ex pat status as he just can’t take what the system has become.
ListenUp:
My miseries began shortly after I started. Most of my colleagues effectively retired on the job and their ineptitude and slackness made mine all the harder. They often let the students get away with all sorts of garbage which, had I tried them as an undergrad, I would have been expelled. But the chap I shared an office with was particularly nasty to me and he was determined to get rid of me. (There are indications that he might have had a hand in a predecessor of mine leaving after a year and he might have pulled similar stunts with another colleague as well as some support staff.)
Things got worse after he was promoted to assistant department head. Any error that I committed as a rookie was elevated into a crime against humanity by this guy. Then the department head I started with retired after 2 years and the ADH quickly went to the replacement to besmirch my reputation. That was when I first heard the rumour that I “hated” women….. and I don’t mean saying uncharitable things about them, if you get my drift.
When the department head went on leave after 6 months on the job (yeah, nobody else could figure that one out, either), the ADH was temporarily in charge and he decided it was open season on me. To make a long story short, the situation ended up in the associate dean’s office and, after an investigation, I was found to be nowhere near as bad as the ADH portrayed me as being.
I took a year’s leave to finish my second master’s degree and had, in between time, started part-time on my Ph. D. That was like waving the proverbial rag in front of a rather unhappy bull. It wasn’t enough that the ADH went at me, the DH did, too. It went on for several years and, ultimately, became quite ridiculous.
In one instance, one female student was unhappy with the grade she received on her lab report. I suggested she stop by my office and we discuss it as I was willing to let her explain herself because, perhaps, I misunderstood something. It didn’t take long for her to storm out of my office after opening up the waterworks. Guess who got blamed for that?
A few days later, that twerp came and asked me if she could re-write it. Since I knew I’d get skinned if I refused, I agreed, though reluctantly. I never saw a revised lab report and, as far as I know, she not only passed the course, she graduated as well. I can well imagine what sort of employee she would have made if she pulled stunts like that on the job.
I eventually finished my doctorate but, typically, my detractors punished me for it. For example, I was threatened with severe disciplinary action if I ever had my students address me as Dr. Vertical, something I could only laugh at. I not only earned it, I had every legal right to use the title because it was granted by the university on behalf of the provincial government.
Eventually, I quit because I knew that someone was eventually going to come up with something to hang me with, even if they had to invent it. (If you look up the term “academic mobbing” on the Internet, you may come across the name Ken Westhues. He wrote extensively on the subject.)
The thing is the ADH was, by himself, quite the milquetoast. I strongly suspect that his wife was behind it as she certainly had a personality for that sort of thing. She was relatively nice to me in person, but I got the impression that she was all to willing to trash my reputation when I was out of earshot. As for the department head, he wanted to be a big fish in a small pond and would stop at nothing to get there.
And then there was stuff I had to deal with while I was a grad student, but I’ll save that for later.
QWV: holy mutherf~~~ing s~~~ man! great thread, keep posting as you have time!. I’m changing your nick to Dr. Vertical as of now lmbo……………..
Let’s see…. there was the class from hell that I taught some service courses to and which wasn’t just lazy, but obnoxious as well.
Among them was a motormouth land whale who acted like normal rules of behaviour didn’t apply to her. One day, her incessant nattering got on my nerves, so I stopped my lecture, walked over to her, and told her in no uncertain terms: “Shut up!” Her response? Indignation, of course, plus the admonition that I didn’t treat her “with respect”. Of course, that wasn’t the last I heard of that incident.
Later, I set a mid-term exam and one jerk decided to turn the whole class against me because he thought it was too tough. For one thing, I refused to tell him what was going to be on the exam, despite his asking me because he didn’t want to study the “wrong” material. (Whatever happened to being accountable for everything that was in the course?) Because he was in a wheelchair, he was allowed to write it in the student services centre and was allowed extra time. The problem was, according to what someone from that office described to me, he showed up zonked out of his gourd and couldn’t finish a 1- or 2-hour exam in–get this–8 hours. As a result, he started a petition against me and that resulted in a meeting between their department head (who didn’t want many hassles as he was close to retirement), the class, and me. Of course, I was hung out to dry, and it was during that session that the motormouth whined that I was being a meanie to her.
So I cancelled the exam and let them re-do it as a take-home. I knew very well that they’d cheat, but I turned it to my advantage. The class average was at least 90%, so I sent a memo to my department head (who wanted to have me strung up for what happened) and told him that I had “underestimated” their abilities. And, yes, I found it hard to keep a straight face when I wrote it.
Later, 2 of the women told me after the end of the final exam that they had to cheat as they wouldn’t have passed the course otherwise. What hurt was one of them was the best student in the course. So, it was my fault that they cheated…. How about learning the course material properly to begin with?
As for the chap in the wheelchair, he eventually graduated and the attitude of most of the instructors who I knew had him in their courses was “good riddance to bad rubbish”. There wasn’t anyone on whom he didn’t try stunts like that.
I’ve got more such gems to tell you, if you’d like.
Oh, by the way, the reason I was supposed to be prohibited from using my title? It “intimidated” my students, making them scared to ask me questions, thereby impairing their learning. Somehow, it didn’t prevent them from being rude and impudent to my face….
Dr. Vertical: awesome story man. wow, you have been through a lot of s~~~. EL OH f~~~ing EL re motormouth landwhale. to any motormouth landwhale females who got lost and ended up here : F~~~ off and Die-t.
Dr. Vertical: I gotta hand it to you man. You ingeniously outwitted the nitwits on this one. Damn, I agree….whatever happened to learning the f~~~ing material from the course? How about ALL OF IT? and that wheelchair guy, man he was working you over and then couldn’t do an exam in 8 hours? then you let them take it home and got commended? f~~~ man, you are working your way up to BrainPilot status.
I do hope you’ll keep posting because your strategies are superior and we can all learn from them. High five man and have a good rest of the night!
note: no actual motormouth landwhales, stoners in wheelchairs, or females secretly admitting that school is too hard for them are actually contained in this urn. thank you
Thanks for your comments, ListenUp. Time for some more stories.
There was one department that I taught a certain service course to for several years. For some reason, it seemed to have a high number of numbskulls, nitwits, and genuine fruitloops among the students.
In one class, I had a single mother who was a few years younger than me. The work she turned in was marginally acceptable and nothing I did would help her.
I would show how to do something in my lecture and what she submitted was completely different. The reason? Her boyfriend told her to do it that way. (OK, madame, if you’re going to do that, get your sweetie to teach the course. Until that happens, you have to meet the standards I show you.)
One day, just before our weekly session, she came to me and asked if Romeo be allowed to sit in. I knew what her tactic was: he would interrupt and contradict me whenever he could. (Fighting for the woman he loves–how noble!) However, since he wasn’t registered in the course and I certainly didn’t know who he was, I refused. She wasn’t pleased.
When final exam time came, I received a call from the student services office. Apparently, this student suffered from a condition brought on by stress, though I never found out what it was. (I do too, and it’s called drunkenness as a result of having to put up with all that nonsense. However, in my case, it was considered an occupational hazard.)
That meant she wanted to write her exam there. I don’t know of anyone ever refusing such a request (and, if they knew what was good for them in that nut farm, they didn’t), so I complied. She did it because she figured that she needed more time. In reality, it meant she could cheat like the dickens because it was well-known that those exams were poorly supervised. Even though I could outline what someone could take into the exam room with them, nobody in that office ever checked that closely.
As it turned out, it didn’t do her any good. She did as badly as I expected but, unfortunately, not enough to flunk her. With someone like that, it was often best to simply pass them and get them out of one’s hair. Standing up for what was good and right often created more trouble than doing nothing and my name was already in enough bad books there.
However, one of my students in that same class was former schoolteacher. She knew exactly what I had to put up with, which was one reason she was seeking a new career, so she was quite sympathetic and supportive.
DR. V: I gotta go to work for a few hours. Saw your post on my way out. Isn’t it interesting that that single mom student used manipulation to create a dramatic situation for you with no care for you whatsoever setting up you and her boyfriend as competitors in her dimwitted mind. Yet women do this effortlessly and without thought. A lesser man would have let boyfriend boy into the class and watched the whole class suffer and lost his job because we are all supposed to hail the golden vagina even when all she did was lay down and take some dick and then start roping in blue pillers. Damn, women suck. Congrats on your superior strategy once again. Common sense for the win! bbl.
More goodies…
The place where I used to teach had its share of moonbats and nut jobs.
I remember one case in particular. I taught a service course to a certain department and I had to get in touch with its head due to some last-minute glitch. I went over to the area where his office was located but I didn’t know exactly where it was. I spoke to a secretary who happened to be there when I came through the door. Since several departments shared that area, I thought she might know where he might be.
Big mistake. She started throwing a temper tantrum, hollering at me about it not being her job to do that, or some such thing. The result was that I beat a hasty retreat, being thoroughly singed by her attempts to breathe fire.
I didn’t think too much about it after that, figuring that maybe I came by at the wrong time or she was simply having a bad day, something that many people do, including me.
That turned out to be another big mistake. A year or so later, I went back to that same office area and, as I recall, I had to leave something for the head of that same department as, I believe, there was a new man in the position.
Guess who was there and guess what she did when I asked that she pass on the documents to him? Yup. She began spitting venom at me but I explained that, since that wasn’t my area of the campus, I had no idea about who was responsible for which part of the office or what everyone’s job was. Apparently, I was supposed to, according to that gorgon.
I was astonished that she should behave in such a manner. After all, we were working for the same outfit and, presumably, the same objective. In addition, the institution portrayed itself as a “customer service” establishment, so one was expected to help a fellow member of the “team”. (Yeah, right. The reality was that it was noting but loosely-connected petty fiefdoms, many of which were at war with each other.) I was surprised that she was allowed to keep her job. If I’d been seen to be so discourteous to any of my students, I would have been promptly boiled in oil.
Several years later, I was talking our department secretary one day and described what happened with Napalm Breath. Apparently, she was well-known for that sort of thing, as if that’s an excuse.
Ah, but the nuttiness didn’t stop there.
A few years after I started teaching, all the male staff were required to attend a sexual harassment seminar.
Dutifully, we all went there and were reminded how evil it was to have a penis and a body full of testosterone. Some among us likened the proceedings to a McCarthy-era trial with the potential for similar consequences.
None of that fazed the presenter who, by the way, was the former head of the student services office I referred to in my earlier posts.
I brought up the issue of women engaging in unseemly behaviour with the intention of winning unearned rewards (and I think you all know what I’m referring to). Her reaction was to stand silently on the stage and quietly fume. I guess the possibility that women could do that sort of thing put her off.
After it was over, we left but I doubt that the seminar ever changed anybody’s conduct. It certainly didn’t prevent rumours about certain administrators.
Of course, the moonbattiness didn’t end there.
Shortly before I quit, an incident between an instructor in a different department and a female student occurred. I wasn’t privy to the details, but it sounded like she took umbrage at certain comment he made. (Apparently, it something along likes of him asking if she was really suited for what she was studying which could be considered a legitimate question if someone clearly displays little talent in that field.)
She eventually filed a human rights complaint and it ended up in court. As part of the settlement, the poor chap was required to attend a sensitivity seminar.
However, since our departments were part of the same division, our institution saw fit to punish everyone else as well by requiring us to do the same.
It was a complete waste of time. I spent the better part of 2 hours listening to how I could be nice to other people, something which any mature and responsible adult knows.
There was little money to pay us properly but there was lots to spend on that rubbish. No wonder student tuitions were so high.
I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried…..
QWV: jesus f~~~ing christ man! F~~~!
People keep asking me why I won’t try to become a teacher, or even a substitute, at least. Apparently, because I’m a major history buff and can quote s~~~ about the Civil War, World War Two/Korea/Vietnam battle facts that even some of their own fighting veterans weren’t even aware of, everyone says, “How come you aren’t a teacher?”
Because of THIS f~~~ing s~~~ that I just read, and other horror stories from the same career field. Women teachers having sex with their underage students and getting 30 days probation, walking out of the court with a little smug smile on their faces, and male teachers who are destroyed mentally and career-wise by bulls~~~, f~~~ed-up female students who complain and wring the teacher out to dry with false complaints, when the teacher’s only crime was flunking her, or letting her know in some other way that she isn’t the f~~~ing center of the universe and that she can’t get good grades by just her LOOKS.
Unfortunately, everyone who recommends this line of work for me isn’t aware of the problems for male teachers, or for the asinine POLITICAL CORRECTNESS where you can get FIRED just because you’re not teaching the government’s censored version of lessons and someone gets offended for you teaching it the wrong way.
F~~~ teaching. Our enemies have succeeded in driving out the men who may have something educational to offer from the entire teaching profession. Old-time teachers are being fired left and right, some only DAYS from being qualified from their pension, and people today who would make pretty damn good teachers(like the principal that Morgan Freeman plays on “Lean On Me”)are bowing out and saying to HELL with that and choosing other professions.
The one thing I’ve heard, over and over and over again is that elementary schools desperately need less female teachers and more male teachers.
I was contemplating teaching somewhere in K-12 at one time but I won’t put up with the handicaps placed on teachers (especially men) by the government educational brainwashing initiative.
The Children of Doom... Doom's Children. They told my lord the way to the Mountain of Power. They told him to throw down his sword and return to the Earth... Ha! Time enough for the Earth in the grave.Based on my experience as an instructor at a certain post-secondary institution, many of the alleged misdeeds are often unfounded tattle, much of that simply used by one staff member or administrator against another.
In situations like that, it doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong. Whoever flings the mud first wins. Hitting the target is irrelevant.
Our educational system would be much more effective if all the pettiness, triviality, backstabbing, and games of oneupmanship were ended. However, I think it unlikely as there are too many people in that same system who benefit handsomely from them.
It just f~~~ing happened again.
“Why aren’t you a teacher? You know so much!”
This was asked by one of my distant cousins when I was at a family reunion lunch last Saturday. One of those people that I only see once every 3 or 4 years.
I replied, “Because the SYSTEM hates male teachers, and more of them are getting fired just because Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet and cried to the principal about a false molesting report just because her teacher said he was going to flunk her for not doing her homework or paying attention. Why should I go skate on THAT kind of thin ice?”
She walked off in a huff, her eyes narrowed to slits, and didn’t speak to me again. Well, I’m sure that by the time she sees me again, she’ll have forgotten this exchange and asks me again. I’ll try to come up with a better kick-ass answer that is guaranteed to really p~~~ her off!!!
One thing I learned about the post-secondary educational system is the one’s “effectiveness” at teaching rarely depends on how much one knows or how one can convey information, but on popularity. At the institution I taught at, the instructors who were liked the best almost always gave out high marks (often for mediocre work) like candy, made their exams so that even a concussed bee could pass them, and amply rewarded students for doing next to nothing.
So, in order to keep one’s job, don’t get the kiddies mad, keep telling them they’re all geniuses and excellent at whatever they do, and look the other way when they cheat.
The main reason I even took the job in the first place was that I was out of work for 5th or 6th time in 7 years and I couldn’t find anything else. It was the 1980s and a lot of people were like me: one year on, one year off, and not by choice, either.
What I take away is the lunatics are running the asylum.
Society asks MGTOWs: Why are you not making more tax-slaves?
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