I think some teachers shouldn’t be teachers.

As a teacher, I’m not excusing bad teachers (and some are HORRIBLE), but people think teachers have much more autonomy than they really do. Or have endless amounts of times/resources. Teachers are micromanaged to within an inch of their lives. Plus a ton of these are “this online program marked this answer wrong because of such and such format”, but teachers have access to those quizzes/tests. We can go back and add points if the program marked something as incorrect that wasn’t wrong. And frequently these programs import directly from mandated curriculum resources, so teachers can’t even change the “correct” answers even if we wanted to (see: lack of autonomy). I ASSURE you this happens because it happened in my district last year and teachers were SO frustrated because it was sold as this big time-saver (just import and the program grades it, easy peasy!) except we would still have to go through and manually check each answer PLUS deal with students freaking out/angry parents

I'm a lifelong volunteer in a major global youth organization. I have always thought of my self as a teacher - and I do it for "love of game". There was a thing circulating around a while back about something people would be surprised to learn about you, and my answer is "Despite my gruff and unapproachable exterior, I remain a kind and patient teacher of youth". I do not know who these people are here, but they're not teachers.

“Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.” This was said by George Bernard Shaw in his 1905 stage play 'Man and Superman' . Over a century later, and (really?) the derogatory phrase (is) often thrown at educators in a disparaging way (that) stubbornly persists. ----------------- I copied this from https://www.ethicssage.com/2023/04/those-who-can-do-those-who-cant-teach.html The grammatical corrections and the comment of despair in parentheses are mine.

I'm currently working as a TA for two teachers at the same time and oh my god the subject knowledge they have is pushing me to the brink. They said that a regular pentagon has only 1 line of symmetry (it has 5), they were unsure of the statement 'lower in pitch means it gets quieter' and they pronounced apartheid "apartheed" with emphasis on the 'th' as in thimble

People tend to believe that because they were once students, they know how to teach. That's like thinking that because you watch sports, you're ready to coach a team. What you see in the classroom (or at a game) is a fraction of what a teacher does, and is stripped of the context of the job. Dealing with parents, admin, school boards, districts, laws, accommodations, and more is incredibly complex. There are often a host of reasons behind what teachers do, but students only see the one thing that makes them mad.

My 6th grade math teacher in Louisiana used to thump me I'm the head and call me stupid. He also put me in remedial math after failing a metrics test when I had never had never done metrics before and I'm pretty sure the rest of the class hadn't either. They sent me back from remedial fairly quickly just after a couple of classes because I wasn't remedial. I'm pretty sure his goal was humiliation I have no idea why he hated me so much. To this day I have trouble with math comprehension. I'm talking about you Gus Martinez, never should have been a teacher or a principal. He also subsequently abused one of my younger brothers after becoming principal of the school he attended.

It is frightening to read about teachers supposed to teach English who cannot write it themselves.

When I was in elementary school, really young, class had to draw a tree. Everyone else did the straight brown trunk and green circle on top. I drew what a tree actually looks like, with branches, irregular branches and leaves, really kinda realistic looking for a young kid. The teacher told me I did it wrong. It was just supposed to be a green circle on top of a tall brown rectangle. I never drew again the rest of school.

I think that I'm lucky to have been homeschooled (by parents who weren't fundies and actually taught me)