The Problem with Teachers

I by-and-large don't have a very high opinion of teachers. This is based on my experience in school and experience with people who were elementary education majors in college. So if you don't want to be even madder at me, you probably shouldn't read any further (but you should since I spent a lot of time and stayed up very late to type this up). I am curious as to what points you would rebut.

1. When I think back to my days in elementary school, the thing that strikes me is the stupidity of the teachers. When I was in third grade, the teacher had difficulty spelling calculator. I was in third grade and I could spell it.

2. Another time I was "stuck" on the tire swing. Some other kids thought it would be funny to push me as high as they could, and spin the swing around as quickly as possible. The swing spun around so fast that I couldn't hold my head safely within the diameter of the tire, so every time the swing came around my head nearly hit the poles that supported the swing. When my "friends" finally stopped the swing, the teacher came over and proceeded to yell at me (in front of the other kids, mind you), saying I had no business going that high or spinning that fast, and that I should have gotten off right away when I saw her approaching. Hmmmm. You ever try to get off a tire swing that's spinning around at a million RPM? I wanted desperately to get off, but had no control over the situation. I was yelling at the top of my lungs for them to stop, but that only made the situation worse. Well she bought none of this and said I was just making that up to get out of trouble. Does she have any idea which end is up? Why didn't she yell at the other kids who held me captive. Seems pretty obvious to me what was going on. And then to automatically assume that I lied about it...

3. I believe I told you about the time when I was in third grade and got in trouble for throwing a snowball--at the ground. After telling my parents that I had lost my recess privileges for 2 weeks, they instructed me to confront the teacher about it and explain that I wasn't throwing them at anyone, and it was only one snowball. Well, when I did this during reading time, while the entire class was present, the teacher chased me back to my desk, screaming so loud other classes heard it, that I should grow up and take responsibility for my actions, and not try to get out of punishment by running home and telling my "mommy". I was 8. I sat at my desk with my head down crying like a baby.

4. In 4th grade during track and field there was a backwards 50 yard dash. About 3/4 of the way through I tripped on a big bump in the dirt and fell backwards (and I would have won, too!). I put out my arm to try to catch myself as I fell, but all my body weight ended up landing squarely on my hand, which was bent back from my arm at a 90 degree angle. The force of the impact was so great that the radius bone in my arm crushed in on itself as it hit the wrist bones. I was writhing in pain, but the teacher wouldn't let me go to the nurse because I "wasn't hurt that bad". I was out of school for 2 weeks and the pain was far more excruciating than a typical fracture because the bone was crushed and there was extensive internal tissue damage. Yup, not hurt that bad.

5. In fifth grade the teacher was attempting to teach state capitals. She would ask a student for the capital of a certain state, and then, every single time, would have to look it up in the back of the book. After doing this for 7 or 8 states, she simply started asking me since I knew them all. How pathetic is it when your 9 year old student knows more about the subject you're teaching then you do?

(and there are many more stories like these, including the 11th grade English teacher who only showed up to class 25% of the time leaving the class unattended 75% of the time; the 9th grade science teacher who couldn't explain absolute zero; and the 10th grade American history teacher that taught not one thing about American history, but rather taught solely about Mormonism and baseball)

6. When I was at Bethel I knew a whole slew of el ed majors. They never ever had any homework. When you go into biology, or chemistry, or physics, or music, or darn near anything else, you learn things you never knew before, and most of