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Show How did your teachers rate? ' Teachers? good md the bad.. Editor'! Note: This b the fourth in a erfcf of articles examining the role of teachers In today's classroom. By JUDY JENSEN "He was the best teacher my child has ever had." "He was the worst teacher my child has ever had." How often do parents describe a teacher in this way? The irony of it, is that these parents were both speaking about the same teacher! So, what is it that makes a teacher "good" or "bad?" Members of the community were asked to respond to the questions, "Who was your favorite favo-rite teacher and why?" and "Who was your least favorite teacher and why?" The responses re-sponses were as follows: Secretary: "My favorite teacher went on a vacation and sent us all a postcard. That made me feel I wasn't just a student, but someone she really cared about. ab-out. She still remembers my name. When you feel better about ab-out yourself you learn more. My worst teacher physically threw a kid against the banister. Newspaper editor: "My best teacher took a personal interest in me and recognized I had a talent ta-lent and encouraged me to write. The worst teacher I ever had lost control and physically abused a kid." worst teacher had favorites and would ignore the others. She judged me on my appearance. She pulled my hair and would shake me and scream at me. She humiliated me. None of that helped me as a person. I just no longer cared about school or my grades." Junior High Student: "My, favorite teacher made learning fun not just bookwork. She involved in-volved us in the class. She liked all of us. My worst teacher tried to teach us but couldn't. She knew how to do algebra but she couldn't teach us. When we : didn't learn it would make her mad and she would yell at us." College student: "My best teacher worked us very hard. But he treated us like equals not like he was our superior. He would find out what we knew and then add to that knowledge. He was consistent in his discipline. My worst teacher was boring. Everyday Every-day he would read to us out of a book. He was never prepared and just tried to fill the time irrelevant questions." Many times parents' judgement judge-ment of a teacher is based on their own bias. One teacher who - is currently serving in the Davis County School District said, "I was raised in Louisiana and I'll never forget the day that my mom came to school. I recognized recog-nized her voice as she came down the hall saying "Where's my boy? Where's my boy?" She entered the classroom and grabbed grab-bed my arm and took me out as fast as she could. It was the first day of school and she found out my teacher was black. I didn't ever have the chance to find out if she was a good teacher. I was only in the class about five minutes." mi-nutes." Over the course of the normal thirteen years in the public school system a student will have about fifty teachers. Some of them will stand out in his mind as superior and a few will be remembered re-membered as "bad" teachers. One mother who has had two sons win the coveted Presidents Award from BYU said when her children first started school she would always go to the school to be sure her sons were put into the class of the "best" teacher. "Then one of the best things happened," she said, "We moved into a new neighborhood when my son was in the third grade. It was very traumatic for him not knowing anyone and he refused to go out at recess. The teacher failed him in health. He was used to getting very good grades and he was devastated by the "F" on his report card. I knew I could go to the school and put him in another class but I didn't thirJ-: that was the right thing to do. 1 had to tell him that she was the boss and she was not the last person in his life who would treat him unfairly." She continued that her son decided to stay in her class and about a week later he came to her and said, "Mom, I found out that nobody likes Mrs. , so everyday I'm going to go up and tell her something some-thing I like about her." "That was the best lesson he could have learned," said his mother. According to this mother, chil- dren need to learn to get along with a "poor" teacher. Being in a a class with a "poor" teacher is not necessarily a poor experience experi-ence for a child unless the parents pa-rents make it so." She said when she has done volunteer work in her children's school that the principal has received complaints com-plaints about every teacher in the school. "Teachers are people and parents want them to be perfect per-fect but children should learn to grow in our very imperfect world," she said. But what about those teachers who, according to school psychologist Joe Langeveld "can have a very negative effect on children." How can they be eliminated from the system? The Davis County School District Dis-trict will immediately terminate teachers for two reasons: one is sexual improperties with students stu-dents and the second is conviction convic-tion of a felony. Dismissal for reasons other than these is handled hand-led through the principals. According to Gayle Stevenson of the Davis County School District, Dis-trict, "Principals have the power, pow-er, the authority and the expertise," exper-tise," to decide on the dismissal of a teacher. He said that each year "about 10 or 12 teachers are fired or counseled out of the system." In the past, teachers were transferred to other schools when they couldn't get along. According to Davis County School Board President Sheryl Allen, in the past five years the board has adopted the philosophy: philoso-phy: "If you've got a problem solve it, don't transfer it." Allen said they now nave more supms-ticated supms-ticated methods of evaluating a prospective teacher's skills before be-fore he is hired. She said she feels the worst kind of teacher is one who does not motivate the students to learn and just lets them "get by." We must teach students to be problem prob-lem solvers, to be creative, and adapt to change, because much of the information they're getting will be obsolete in the not too distant future." One current teacher said "A lot of teachers are good learners but not good teachers. He claimed a teacher cannot give good quality teaching unless he's willing to pay the price of preparation. prepa-ration. Teachers are influenced by the opinion of a student's peers, and by pre-conceived opinion of a child's ability. Years ago a study was conducted. Teachers were told that blue-eyed students were brighter than brown-eyed students. stu-dents. It became a fact as teachers worked harder with the blue-eyed students and labeled the brown-eyed students as slow. Test results that had in fact previously pre-viously shown no correlation between be-tween eye color and intelligence changed dramatically by the end of the study. Each person interviewed agreed that a "bad" teacher is a teacher who physically abuses children. According to Nancy Nelson, Clinical Social Worker, many times the emotional scars a teacher can inflict from verbal abuse are harder for a child to overcome. If in fact a teacher's behavior needs reporting the parent pa-rent can speak to the principal about it. It is a parent's responsibility to fairly evaluate a teacher's performance, per-formance, and to decide if their child is learning from the teacher. Parents need to decide what their priorities are for their children's chil-dren's education. Do they want their children to learn or just to have a good time. It seems that some teachers have the ability to combine both learning and fun. Those interviewed inter-viewed seem to agree that teachers do their best jobs when they remember the old addage, "Children don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Next week's article will deal with solutions for today's classroom clas-sroom problems. Former teacher: "The best teacher I ever had was also the most strict teacher I ever had but the kids loved him. He knew his subject and was always prepared. pre-pared. He never called us by our first names. He called us 'Mr. and we called him Mr.' He treated tre-ated us like adults and expected us to act like adults. My worst teacher didn't like kids and wasn't knowledgeable in his subject. sub-ject. Teaching was a job to him and it should be an adventure." Straight-A High School Student: Stu-dent: "My best teacher was more involved with my life. He talked with us, not at us. My worst teacher was rude and uncaring. She labeled everybody. Everyone Every-one was in a certain group in her mind and no matter how hard you tried you couldn't get out." Struggling High School Student: Stu-dent: "My best teacher cared whether or not I learned. He wasn't there just putting in his time, he helped me to learn. My |