Most good teachers absolutely despise
the bull that's fed about teachers these days. Students are
repeatedly told about how noble and special there teachers are for
doing their job. This article is meant to help clarify that a bit.
There are amazing teachers out there. That being said, there are some
miserable ones too. Those miserable ones tend to tell the same lies
to there students over and over again.
1. You're not trying hard enough.
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When teachers fail to do there job,
they love to put the blame on their students. Teachers love to say
that their students need to study or focus better. The truth is,
students are only a part of the equation. Too many students spend
hours and hours trying to figure out the material they need to learn
only to get ridiculed for “not trying hard enough.”
You know if you're not putting in
enough effort to succeed. It's a teachers job to inspire a student to
want to learn the information. Naturally, that's not always possible
but it doesn't excuse them for not trying. Teachers do not know how
much effort you put it. There is no reason they can blame you other
than to try to alleviate their own guilt.
The teachers job is to help you learn
the material. If you're not learning the material, it could be you,
or it could be the teacher. The difference is, the teacher is trained
and paid to provide an education. You were never taught how to learn.
The teacher knows that motivation is
the number of factor. If they fail to motivate you, they shouldn't be
blaming you. Education requires both people participating. The
teacher is only privileged to seeing their own side of the story.
They don't know how much effort you put in.
2. These are the best years of your life.
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Many people that end up teaching
enjoyed there time in school. While there are exceptions, most
teachers look enviously back at their time in school. That's probably
part of the reason they went into that profession in the first place.
For most people, school is not the best
time of your life. You're herded into classrooms and forced to learn
whatever it is the schools want you to learn. You might get to be
with some friends but all your interactions are sterilized by the
rules of the school.
Teachers will try to make it sound like
you're privileged to be learning this information. To some extent you
are privileged but you're not given a choice in the matter. High
school is bad. College is a little better. Life is where you're given
a choice...
Sure, you can give up and let school be
the best years of your life, or, you can step up and make the rest of
your life the best. That's all up to you.
3. I'm a martyr.
Teachers are some of the most vocal
martyrs there are in this world and students are legally obligated to
listen to their complaints all day long. A lot of teachers like to
pretend they're suffering for your good. They'll talk about the long
hours they work and the poor pay they get for it but they'll insist
they're doing it for the good of their students.
If they're a boring lecturer then
they'll insist that there students are poor listeners. If they don't
prepare there students for standardized tests then they'll blame the
tests. Teachers tend to be completely convinced that they know how to
do there job right and everyone else in the world is wrong.
Teachers are not martyrs. They are not
volunteers. They're getting paid to do a job that they chose to do.
They make good money (accounting for the months off,) and they have
great benefits and union protection.
You may be forced to listen to there
complaining but you certainly don't have to believe it. A good
teacher can have doubts but you certainly shouldn't have to listen to
it. (A martyr complaining about being a martyr isn't a martyr.)
4. Being Right Is Fundamental
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Your tests are graded on being right
and wrong. Life has very little to do with being right and wrong.
When you step out into the real world
it's much more complicated than that. You can't just study a textbook
and expect to succeed when you get started.
One of the most important skills that
you can develop is a willingness to manage risks and be wrong
regularly. Most questions don't have right or wrong answers. People
that succeed aren't the ones that are right most. They're the ones
that are willing to fail hundreds of times while consistently
improving their own abilities.
The hardest part about this is that no
one will give you red marks on your paper when your wrong in life.
You can be wrong for decades and decades without anyone pointing it
out. It's your responsibility to mark up your own life with a red
pen.
Don't let teachers get you too hung up
on perfection because school is the only place you'll end up using
it.
5. College is your best option.
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This lie has been repeated way too many
times. Most students that choose to go to college should not be
going.
College is not the place to go if
you're just trying to figure stuff out. In fact, it's one of the most
costly possible options. Most students could travel the world for the
same amount of money they pay for a semester in college. Even after
that semester in college, most people have no idea what they want to
do with there lives.
If you have a plan and know exactly
what you want (and it requires a college education) then, by all
means, go for it. If you have no idea what you want to do with your
life then you should not be going to college. In fact, many students
would actually have better terms for their education loans if they
waited a few years before heading to college. (Parents go off the
federal loans. That can end up saving tons of money.)
College can reduce the volatility of
your life but the volatility is where you learn your most important
lessons.
6. You're going to need to know this...
It doesn't matter what subject a
teacher is trying to teach, they tell you it's going to be absolutely
fundamental in your daily life. This is just the teacher projecting
their own bias onto the students. Most teachers have not had careers
outside of teaching. That means, any claim that the information that
their class is relevant is baseless because their only experience is
in teaching it. (Of course it's relevant to the teachers daily life.
They teach it!)
The majority of the information your
teachers are teaching you is not relevant to daily life. Have you
ever heard of the show where adult professionals are pitted against
the information in a fifth grade textbook? The adults are asked
questions that fifth graders can answer but the adults always
struggle to answer them. Why is that?
It's because for the past 20-30 years
the adults haven't seen that information once. Most of the
information you're being taught is going to end up like that. If you
become a mathmatician then math will be the only information you
remember. If you become a writer then you'll remember language stuff.
If you become a barber then you might not remember any of it.
7. You're not important.
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Teachers don't directly tell there
students this.
They just represent it in everything
they project. The teacher stands in the front of the classroom and
teaches the students. The students are required to raise there hands
to ask questions. Anyone that talks when they're not supposed to is
scolded by the teacher. This is not the way life works.
We are all the teachers and we are all
the students. There is no authority figure. Even in an office, while
there may be a boss, there is rarely a clear hierarchy. Bosses rely
on the employees and employees rely on the bosses. Most teachers
might as well be talking to a wall.
This has obvious advantages for the
teacher but it also has advantages for the students too. Students
don't need to stand up to there teacher. Students don't have to
embarrass themselves by not being able to teach something. Students
are allowed to sit silently and hide in the shadows.
Life is not so simple. You can only get
away with not participating for so long in life. If you're not
helping everyone else at the place you work then you'll get fired. If
you don't speak to your friends then you'll lose them. In life, the
most costly mistake you can make is doing nothing and not standing
out. In class, that's what's expected of you.
Not all teachers distill these lies to
there students. There are plenty of good teachers out there and
that's what this article is all about. You don't have to look at your
bad teachers as noble creatures because that's just an insult to the
amazing teachers that you have in your life. Bear in mind, not all
your best teachers will be in a classroom.
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