To think too much is expected of teachers these days

As I see it..

the population has grown, stating the obvious

more "needs" are identified...

be it health, or education.

there is far more to learn...
but

I thought this news item (!)
was about the young children, learning how to speak?
etc..

so I have been wondering... where are the parents? I know.
mothers now go out to work,,

I grew up in the war years and afterwards,, my mum was basically a single parent as my father was away in the army

when I started school I didn`t need to learn/be taught, how to hold a knife and fork, attend to my toilet needs, speak even!

oh did I mention, my mum as a single parent, and another child, also had to go to work, and grow our vegetables, and keep a few chickens, to look after the family..

I learnt how to do housework, laundry, etc..

says it all for me..

OF Course, before anyone jumps on me, I do know there are special needs, but this "news" report was not aimed at those.

I can recall having been bashed on the head with a large thick book by the so-called teacher who did sewing/knitting etc. How the fcuk did some of these people get to be teachers? Miss Shearer belted me over the head because I couldn't knit for love nor money....I had gotten my school scarf all wrong and an older sister had to finish it off for me. If anyone did that to any of my grand-daughters I swear to god I'd swing for them!

Yes !! I’m not so worried about some the areas you mention as most schools will have a SENCO and most teachers trained to look out for special education needs, mental health problems and learning diffs, and this is how it should be BUT there are so many other things teachers are supposed to do now and COVID has not helped ! My daughter is a reception teacher and her partner year 5, they are living with us whilst they save for a house. Much of their days are taken up with assessment after assessment (year 5) and in reception dealing with children who’s parents simply haven’t dealt with basics at home ! Dressing and undressing, toiletting, basic socialising, sometimes just using a knife and fork !!

Yes so much is put on teachers, not just education linked things !

I'm fascinated by the posters who don't believe that some children are without very basic abilities when they start school. My friend taught Reception for over 30 years, and has often commented on the fact that children were starting school unable to use cutlery (yes, they ate everything with their fingers) or hold a pencil.
The other huge change was the number of children who were still in nappies/pull-ups when they started school... As she said, changing one child who (for whatever reason) was not toilet trained was one thing - but having to change 5 or 6 several times every day (or toilet train them in school time) was another - and took up so much time that actual teaching became difficult.

I would hate to go any further back than 1997 in Education.
Yes more funding for more specialist trained teachers and support staff would go a long way to help.
But think of children 'being shipped off' as OP put it to what were called 'backward' schools again makes my blood run cold. And the random physical attacks from many teachers usually on kids who were poor, smelly and had undiagnosed mental problems and family problems with 'weapons' such as a board rubber or a metre rule. My heart still breaks at the thought of how many of my fellow pupils were treated in the classroom and what effect that has had on people's lives.
Thank goodness we have moved forward inclusion should start in the early years and people would be more equipped to deal with the different people who make up society.
Under investment in Education is the problem.

I worked in a 'special school' before it was closed. It had been flag ship in the 70's when opened with nurses and doctors even social workers houses in offices on the grounds. Successive governments cut money to put these kids in main stream schools without funding.
As for the 50's education both my husband in the South and me brought up in the North were moved into private schools. My mother found big bruises on my back/ Bulling of the local kids was dreadful and still can't remember what happened. No golden age of schools then.

polnan

As I see it..

the population has grown, stating the obvious

more "needs" are identified...

be it health, or education.

there is far more to learn...
but

I thought this news item (!)
was about the young children, learning how to speak?
etc..

so I have been wondering... where are the parents? I know.
mothers now go out to work,,

I grew up in the war years and afterwards,, my mum was basically a single parent as my father was away in the army

when I started school I didn`t need to learn/be taught, how to hold a knife and fork, attend to my toilet needs, speak even!

oh did I mention, my mum as a single parent, and another child, also had to go to work, and grow our vegetables, and keep a few chickens, to look after the family..

I learnt how to do housework, laundry, etc..

Polan

I could not agree more ! Well said

Buffy

What is wrong with a teacher telling girls they must expect unwanted attention if they wear skirts which barely cover their private parts? The silly girls say that they should be able to wear what they like and boys shouldn’t look. I read that a teacher was fired for telling them to use some common sense.

Buffy

I am utterly appalled by your comment above !! Girls and women SHOULD absolutely be able to wear what they like ! They should be able to walk down the street naked !!

Boys and men need to be educated and learn self control !!!

I trained to teach in the 1970s. We had an overview of (some) special needs and teach sex ed. We also kept eyes open for any other needs the kids might have. There was no army of teaching assistants to help us, and large classes were normal. Spending our evenings and holidays preparing work was normal as were lunchbreaks on duty, doing clubs, or cranking the banda machine to print off those worksheets!

So while I know current teachers have a lot of paperwork to do, so I don't think their workload is so different.

When I was at school in the 60s/ 70s, the word dyslexia didn't exist - I'm not sure that people even knew what it was!
There has been at least one person, now in his 60s who regularly ranting on our grammar school Facebook page that the school did nothing to diagnose his problem . I can think of several other people that are either friends or work colleagues that have only recently been diagnosed with the condition in their 40s and beyond.
Any of those in my primary school that were struggling were assisted by just 2 teaching assistants for the whole school.
Many of the children that currently have problems that are caused by something outside the school and my niece who is a Primary school teacher has often said that virtually every day she has to deal with a child and weigh up the balance between spending extra time with that one child on the days that her TA isn't there (if budgets have to be cut, it's often the TAs that go first) to the detriment of the rest of her class.
As far as sex education is concerned - many parents don't want their children to be taught it for religious reasons. Days gone by, those children could have been taught another science subject in another class, where now that is seen as discrimination.

Buffy

What is wrong with a teacher telling girls they must expect unwanted attention if they wear skirts which barely cover their private parts? The silly girls say that they should be able to wear what they like and boys shouldn’t look. I read that a teacher was fired for telling them to use some common sense.

Very often on Gransnet there are reminisces of wearing mini skirts did anybody put them on thinking they were going to be sexually assaulted?
Why blame 'silly girls' for mostly males being brutally violent and unable to control themselves or behave like decent members of society.

SEN are not always identified and when they are the resources to deal with them are almost non existent. Why do we insist young people with SEN are all lumped in with non SEN pupils. I kniw a disabled boy who hates going to his "normal" school as he feels he doesn't fit especially at break time. He feels he is constantly reminded about his disability, watching classmates run around and play games. We should stop trying to make everyone "normal". Why do we accept everyone is different yet want them to be the same. A lot of SEN pupils need special environments to address their needs. There should be teachers for specific needs, not one teacher to deal with all.

I completely agree. My son attends a specialist autism school and the staff are wonderful, but I do feel at times, because of the emotional needs of the children and the level of support they require, the lines sometimes get a little blurred and as a result the academic side of things fall by the wayside.
Add a pandemic into the mix and it's even harder.
10 years ago, when he fist began attending specialist education, there was a clear but positive divide between educational and emotional/mental health support.
It must be even more difficult within mainstream education.

As a retired teacher I would say that forming a relationship with each child, understanding how you could support and help them, was a huge key to their progress in learning. There was a huge change in the children I was teaching 25 years ago to the children arriving at school now. My personal experience was that children starting school more recently were arriving less able to concentrate, with less respect for adults and less motivated to learn. So are we expecting too much of our teachers now? We need every single school year to be a good one for each child, starting with nursery. Given the upset and stress that children may have been through during lockdown and the additional erosion of their self esteem we might expect, then yes, we expect far too much of our teachers. Many people don’t realise how much teachers have to document of what they teach, how pupils progress and feedback to children. It is a real challenge to manage. Teaching today is an intense, exhausting job and I am grateful not to be teaching anymore, even though I loved it when I was younger

I agree, as others have posted, that teachers should know about the SEND of their pupils, but I think the OP's general viewpoint is spot on.

The gradual stripping-out of funding for pastoral care support, admin support, classroom support, and social care has meant that teachers shoulder so much more responsibility than they once did. The workload is unmanageable and they are set up to fail.

All of the things you mention were part of teaching in Denmark in the years from 1970 to 2010 when I was teaching.

If children with special needs are to be included in ordinary classes, which they have been here since the 1980s, then obviously their teachers have to be trained to recognise these needs and in how best to include the child in a normal class.

Apart from that, one or more teachers who have specialised in the particular need will also be teaching the child in question.

Sex education has long been part of the school prospectus too. Since the 1970s in fact, geared to the age of the children in question.

In the early years, it mainly was a biological orientation on the differences between boys and girls and men and women, with for older children focus on the physical aspects of sex and procreation.

Teaching religious instruction to teenagers, I included discussions of various religious points of view on sexual morality, ethics, the legal and religious aspects of marriage and the various rituals used to include a newborn child in society.

Obviously, the subject has to be included in what is taught at colleges for those intending to become teachers.

Many people feel the subject is best dealt with at home and by the parents of each child.

I would like to agree, but this is really only so in an ideal world, which we do not live in.

I have had 12 year old girls in tears because no-one had told them about periods and the poor girls thought they were bleeding to death, or had somehow contracted a venereal disease, or AIDS.

Obviously, it is better that a teacher has told girls about menstruation before they arrive at the age for it, than the conspiracy of silence that apparently still exists. The mothers of these girls said they thought the girls knew, as adverts for sanitary protection are all over the place, but admitted that they had never discussed these things with their daughters!

So I must conclude that it should indeed be part of teaching to instruct adolescents in the biological facts and the moral and ethical considerations they give rise to.

I feel like I've entered the twilight zone on this thread lots of you seem to have very negative views of young people.

I also do not understand the obsession with 4 year olds using cutlery. Lots of households don't use cutlery.

Back to education it is all to do with lack of funding. EHCP were a good idea but children aren't diagnosed or identified early enough and there is not enough communication between education, health and social care unless problems are very pronounced. It also seems to have been used as an instrument to withdraw funding from individual schools and expect them to fund it without the funds to fund it.

Lets face the last decade has seen a series of devastating cuts from central government that have directly affected funding to/from local authorities that go into all areas inc schools. We also have a situation where local authorities have relied heavily on the voluntary and charity sector which is now failing through lack of funding.

I think teachers are too heavily relied on but it is a direct result of cuts to services across the board.

Buffy, Cossy
Girls and women should be able to wear what they like ? OK, but it’s not just the men and boys who need educating. Women, other girls and children also pass comments about other people’s clothing or lack of clothing choices.
“If you can’t say something nice, say nothing.” is often quoted on here but unless it becomes law, people feel entitled to say what looks good to them and what they feel is inappropriate.
Think how many on GN have asked, “Is this too young for me?” or commented on leggings worn on what they think are the wrongly shaped bodies.
I never thought twice about wearing miniskirts although I did know what my mum, dad, grandma and yes, what the boys would say when I went out.

The most disappointing outcome in broadening the roles of teachers is that we still have too many children that leave school without numeracy and literacy skills. Rather than improving outcomes we seem to be going backwards. Maybe there just isn't enough time to do everything well and we should accept that teachers need to just teach and if there are other problems e.g. toilet training, grief counselling, abuse etc we need teachers to refer these children to support staff and experts. As a society we need to decide what matters most.
Going to a parents evening leaves me feeling despair that the teachers themselves were badly taught when they were at school. Reading children's school reports is a complete waste of time as they are full of jargon and level achievements without telling me anything about the child and where they need extra help or input.
I have a couple of principles "Does it make sense?" and "what are we aiming to achieve" both these seem to be lost these days.

^ There was no army of teaching assistants to help us, and large classes were normal.^

There is no 'army of teaching assistants' in schools any more, Riggie. The number of TAs was greatly increased under Labour from 1997, but since 2010 the tory's austerity measures meant cuts to school budgets and TAs have gradually disappeared. Along with a number of the support services which schools tried to offer.

I am firmly of the opinion that too much is expected of teachers as per the OP.

Maybe there just isn't enough time to do everything well and we should accept that teachers need to just teach and if there are other problems e.g. toilet training, grief counselling, abuse etc we need teachers to refer these children to support staff and experts.

The support staff and experts have been dwindling fast because of cuts to budgets; they're not there in the numbers there used to be. Teachers are having to make up the shortfall.

It is done on the cheap because that is what we pay for!

Yes I think there should be specialists in schools as well as teachers. I am one as I work in a secondary school as a counsellor and my appts are always full! There have been a counsellors in every secondary school in Wales and Northern Ireland for years. England is far behind.

With regards to teachers there have always been bad, good and the ones that always went the absolute extra mile. They should be well paid but they aren’t the only people who have a hugely stressful job although you wouldn’t think it to listen to some of them.

My 1960’s secondary education was a nightmare, I remember being hit and humiliated by teachers who shouldn’t have been in charge of anything let alone children. I have very bitter memories of my schooling and being told I was not good enough. However I’m now better qualified than the teachers who told me I was rubbish so at least it made me determined.

My grandchildren are in a lovely school , still not all good teachers, but I’m glad they will have a happier experience than me

I will want my grandchildren to attend a school where the English, maths and other subject teachers area are highly qualified in their area and are supported to teach what they know so that the children do as well as they possibly can.

In 2008 I retired from my main job, and very soon after was approached by the local Primary School asking if I would consider a part time job to teach the little ones the following;

use of cutlery,

proper use of the toilet (even pointing out to one little girl that she needed to pull her knickers down before sitting on the toilet!)

Changing those who still wore nappies, and eventually toilet training them (parents attitude? "Oh toilet training? Never got around to it, I'm sure you can teach him/her")

Re-dressing those who obviously could not dress themselves (both legs down one leg of the pants, garments on backwards/inside-out, sweatshirt worn as tights, shoes on wrong feet etc)

And later I was deployed to year 5 (the year before SATS and 12 months before they left for secondary school) to give extra curricula lessons to upgrade reading and spelling.

I worked flat out 5 hours a day on these jobs, and I was happy to do so, but the teaching staff were even happier that those hours had not been part of their day, and that they were free to teach.

To all those who scoff at the thought that there are children and needs like this, please listen to those who have experience. This school was in a respectable area and, sadly, some parents attitudes were "It's not my job to teach them these things, it's what they go to school for"!