I've taught in classes of 12 and of 32, the differences in students' behavior, and in reaction my own was huge.
Similarly, I've taught classes where students just came back from an hour of PA and classes that were the second class of the day. The former group of students had always trouble concentrating and focusing, whereas the other group would sometimes have trouble getting up to steam in many activities.
Similarly, I've taught classes that were obligatory for students and classes that were electives. Again, the differences in students' behavior was quite pronounced.
Given constraints and practicalities of our educational system, it is difficult to offer each student the best courses, activities, support, etc. they each individually need. Instead, you often end up compromising. Which isn't great. Particularly for students performing above or below average compared to their peers.
Anyway, just a frustrated ex-teacher here. Thanks for listening.
Teaching isn’t a field littered with people who failed to launch elsewhere. The four to six year college barrier to entry (that’s four to six years of teacher focused classes, in person unpaid internships and full time unpaid student teaching that ranges from 3 months to more than a full year of unpaid full time work in a classroom as a teacher, certification testing, etc) all for a job that is critically underpaid and unappreciated, attacked both by the children in the school, and by people like you who tell them their noble decision to dedicate their life to educating your children means they’re a failure or a loser in some way. That isn’t something a “failure” is going to chase.
These teachers achieve a bachelors level degree (or higher) in education, are specifically trained teach through a multitude of specialized classes, have to spend upwards of a year doing completely unpaid in person full-time internships, and are as highly trained and educated in their field as any college graduate who achieved a bachelors or higher.
Most teachers cannot afford to live in the communities they serve with current housing and rent prices. The current state of education funding and school overcrowding means many of those teachers who put their heads down and soldier through are coming out of pocket with hundreds or even thousands of personal dollars just for basic school supplies like paper, while teaching class sizes that have ballooned to unreachable levels. I had classes with more than 40 students in a classroom that seated 38 max.
“Couldn’t make it in their own field.”?
Teaching IS our field, and the things that are killing our education system are not teacher-lead.
Maybe stop spouting nonsense and go look at a school. The young teachers are bright eyed idealists with tens of thousands in student loans who are fresh off bachelors degrees, and the old grizzled teachers are the young ones who survived and stuck around - they have been doing their job for literal decades. The places you find uncertified teachers (the human beings you’re denigrating) working in classrooms are usually the extremely underserved, underpaid, and desperate schools and communities and states where it’s extremely difficult to find any certified teacher (like a rural town with high housing prices, nothing in town to rent at a number a teacher could afford, and a sub-$40,000 starting wage for teachers in the year 2024).
My only regret is that teachers failed to teach you to recognize the Fox News style propaganda you’re regurgitating. Bashing teachers does humanity no favors. We should strive for livable wages, functional safe workplaces, reasonable commutes, and affordable housing for all workers, regardless of career, because a functioning society needs all of us, from doctors to burger flippers, and especially teachers.