Customer Reviews

Bad Teachers: The Essential Guide for Concerned Parents

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I wish I would have read this book prior to my daughter attending elementary school! My daughter had the unfortunate experience of having a "bad" teacher for fourth grade - I felt it was me against our local educational system. I was up against a "valued" member of the staff, but unfortuately she did not know how to reach my daughter. She was labeled "unwilling to participate" or "not trying hard enough". I truely beleive I could have been more effective in any of the numerous conferences had I read this first. I knew from the onset of the problems that my daughter's learning style did not coincide with the teacher's teaching style. But as a parent, how do you turn this situation around and how do you approach this problem without creating a bigger one?? This is a handbook all parents should read if they are having difficultly with a teacher.

Guy Strickland gives straight forward advice on how to maneveur through conferences to actually obtain useful information. The book is full of practical situations that every parent could use advice.

As Guy points out in the first part of the book, Poor schoolwork is not the problem - only a symptom. But as most parents don't know, how do you constructively work with the educational system to find the true problem? It is too often blamed upon the child when in fact, the child is not the problem!

I'd like to believe that the majority of teachers are wonderful, but the reality is that a bad teacher can really damage a child. This book gave us real examples of the exact situations we were going through (delay tactics, union reps) and some inside knowledge on protecting ourselves and our child. Teachers have unions and large administrative supports behind them - parents need the info in the book to stand a fighting chance of working with or hopefully eliminating a bad teacher.

I recommend this book highly. We learned a lot about the unspoken pressures and motives regarding dealing with such an unpleasant situation.

Unfortunately there is a real need for this book. It is a shame that this kind of information is so limited. No one wants to touch this very important topic, although most of us know this exists-including the good teachers. I have been amazed and extremely disappointed with professional educators we have come across since our children started school. I wish someone would write a book about what to do when your child is unlucky enough to get the "Mean Teacher".

Strickland profiles poor teaching and the self-limiting character of educational bureaucracies. The book is written expressly for parents; it is not a guidebook for teachers.

Strickland takes the cold, hard approach that most systems for teaching children are poor and there is nothing a parent can do to fix the system. He focuses on sensitizing his reader to get the most for their children. Since most readers of the subject are teachers or educators, this message amounts to a public spanking. Reviewers faulting Strickland for negativity give evidence that Strickland has hit his mark.

This is not a book for parents who want to be reassured. It does not proffer the Utopian view that most educators are qualified. It does not provide a prescription for fixing the system. Rather, it is a guerrilla guide that is based on a view behind the bureaucratic veil. It reveals poor education to be widespread and endemic. It gives tools essential to enabling parents to remedy individual situations.

The importance of Strickland's message is evidenced by the paucity of discussion on the topic of education from a students point of view. If you're a parent or a student, then this book is written for you.

Is your child being insulted, humiliated and demeaned by a rotten teacher? Our son was, thanks to a school that refused to do anything about one lethal teacher whose awful treatment of kids was well-known to them for years.
A year later, we were still helping our son recover from that experience. This book may help you to see the signs earlier than we saw them, and if so, it also will tell you what you need to do to protect your child against an incompetent teacher.

I determined by reading the book that I was faced with a BAD Teacher problem. The book helped me to determine the proper actions to take for dealing with an incredible defense system built to protect the teachers and associated staff, at ALL COST. Yes, it has a few minor holes and it may not cover every problem, but when I read this, almost every chapter struck home and helped me fix the problem. Sure beats walking into to the principals office blind!

Strickland offers a number of excellent tactics for digging into real problems at school. These tactics would be useful for parents who want to get past the symptoms and address their child's real problems at school. The book depends on old references to research done as long ago as 1959. Also, there is not one positive research study cited by Strickland regarding teaching and learning. Other authors do not seem to have trouble finding this type of research. See Linda Darling-Hammond's RIGHT TO LEARN. Linda Darling-Hammond and Strickland would agree that good teachers make all the difference in the world. Hammond is willing to point to school systems and school districts that know this and make efforts to see that teaching produces student learning. Strickland seems to think this never happens. Finally, Strickland takes an unfair potshot at an outstanding educator. Strickland tells parents to run from any teacher that mentions Madaline Hunter. Strickland apparently believes that everyone that has been exposed to Hunter's elements of instruction have misapplied her work by using the elements as a lock-step, or paint by the numbers instructional method. Hunter's elements could be abused in this way. However, Hunter's intention was to create a logical decision making process available to teachers to decide what a lesson should include as well as what a lesson should exclude. Used correctly Hunter's elements of instruction are fantastic tools for teachers and administrators to use in creating outstanding lessons where students learn and educators can discuss important parts of a lesson. Hunter's elements of instruction are meant to facilitate a teacher's decision making process so she can rationally plan a lesson to produce the desired learning in the students. Strickland is simply unfair in his opinion of Hunter. After all, his book is full of information and ideas that can be misapplied and abused just as easily as Hunter's.

I liked the fact that the interest of children was at the heart of the book. The author comes across as a strong advocate for young pupils. I also think he can be naive. Children are human and have human weaknesses such as laziness, dishonesty and irresponsibility just like adults. Social skills and self-control are learned skills every bit as important as academic skills. I think too much blame is placed on teachers here. He does have excellent suggestions to making parent-teacher conferences more productive.

During my school years, I had more bad teachers than good. Teachers are generally egotistical people who can not boss other people around in work settings, so they choose teaching in order to wheld their power. Teachers who pick on shy or overweight students are the essense of evil. I had a teacher who picked on a student the day he got back to school after being off because of the death of his mother. This was in the 1960's, and his hair hadn't been cut for a while because the dad had several other children to take care of and going to the barbershop right after losing his wife was the last thing on his mind. The teacher put a bow in his hair and made him walk around all day like that. I had a teacher who told the boys in my class to throw rocks at me at recess, and he stood by and laughed while it happened. This was because I was overweight and he wanted me to see how boys felt about fat girls. I learned to hate life because of teachers. I have very little respect for teachers for the most part.

I am a teacher and I got this book wondering if I am doing any of the things this author states in this book. I was horrified by the things this author points to as research. Saying that college students only choose education because it is easy and that people become teachers and stay in teaching because they are stupid or don't have any other options. I am so insulted by this book. I was actually making more money working in the private sector. Now that I am a teacher, I can't imagine being anywhere else but the classroom. As a teacher, professional development is a requirement. That means that those summer vacations everybody thinks are 2 months of relaxation are spent in trainings and in preparing for the following school year so that it is better than the year before. I also spend weekends planning lessons and grading tests. Teacher guides are just that, guides. They are used as just another resource, not the only one. Saying that students don't learn more from an experienced teacher is against any research that's been done. There are so many subtleties to teaching that it becomes almost an art. It takes years to develop. I don't know where Mr. Strickland gets his information from, but it's as if he never heard of the standardized tests students are required to take each year. I have taught in three different schools and never have I met any teachers or administrators who are anything like the people he describes in this book. Any parent who reads this book thinking they are getting good advice will only become paranoid enough to go into their child's school thinking that being confrontational is appropriate because teachers are out to get their child. Shame on you, Mr. Strickland! People like you are the reason we teachers are not treated like the professionals we are.