Cool teachers and good ideas

Derail of a sort.

When I was in high school in the late 70s, the best math and science teachers were either ex-military officers or quite intelligent, older women who were denied the oppotunities in industry. All my older brothers and sisters had great teachers for the AP biology, AP chemistry and Calculus. Unfortunately, the chemistry and calculus teachers retired before I got there and the biology teacher was in her 60s.

Are these types of teachers being replaced? If so, how?

I got to learn biology from "Mama" Morton who was a suburb teacher. I never found anyone in my class who did worse than a 4 on the AP test and the vast majority got 5.

The calculus teacher I got had actually been named state math teacher of the year and, was in fact, a very good and enthusiastic teacher of geometry and pre-calc. In the 4 years I was there, he led our math team which won the county and state math team every year and twice finished top on national competitions. But he was lost in calculus and computer science which I unfortunately had the displeasure of learning from him.

The AP chemistry teach was the same. Good teacher of introductory chemistry but out of his knowledge zone in AP chemistry.

CBL
 
CBL4 wrote:
I never found anyone in my class who did worse than a 4 on the AP test and the vast majority got 5.
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I don't think you would see this today. Not because of the teacher, though. We are in a different era. More people are desirous of college than in the 1970's. Therefore, the talent pool is dilluted. IMO, this is one of the major changes in education in the past twenty years, and it's also one of the major problems. We have people taking AP courses now who would never have dreamed of taking it in your day. So, we have 1's and 2's in our AP courses as well and there would be nothing Mama Morton could do about it.

Of course, no one will admit that. It's not politically correct. 'Everybody can do anything if you just try hard enough.' And, if you're not talented, blame someone else.

BTW, ex-military people typically don't make good teachers! (being very general).
 
We have people taking AP courses now who would never have dreamed of taking it in your day. So, we have 1's and 2's in our AP courses as well and there would be nothing Mama Morton could do about it.
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I knew of scores of 2 in both math and chem but not one 3 in biology.

I would guess they "her" scores were a point higher than chem and one and half point higher than math. Of course, my memory would be biased by my scores of 5, 4 and 3. I should not that these were exactly opposite of my perceived skill in the subjects. I have a math degree despite only getting a 3.

CBL
 
Cbish,

I hope this is not too personal a question but what is your background? I very rarely hear of good high school science teachers.

BTW, ex-military people typically don't make good teachers! (being very general).
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That was not my experience in high school. I can think of 4 in my high school. Three were in math and science. One of them was superb and the other two were good - until they started teaching AP classes.

The 4th teacher was a history teacher who I did not particularly like at the time but with, more maturity, I now appreciate. I did not like his views but he was perfectly happy to let me disagree with him. He always gave essay tests. If I had not done any studying, I would parrot his answers and get an A. If I knew anything about the subject, I would give an opposing viewpoint and still get an A because I backed up my answers.

CBL
 
I graduated from University California at Davis. I have a degree in Biology. I began working in a lab as a dishwasher for the Dept. of Nematology and Dept of Entomology. After graduation, I worked as a PGR, Post Graduate Researcher in the same dept. I worked off and on for two years while I was getting my Teaching Credential.

My interest in teaching came from helping my dad coach high school baseball after I had graduated high school. Basically, I became a teacher so I could coach. I would also argue, that is a bad reason to get into teaching. I coached for 13 years. I am no longer coaching.

I credit my science teaching ability to my experiences in the lab at UCD. I also credit my master teachers at Cordova High School who had an extraordinary insight into science and science education. They're all retired now and I've yet to meet their equal.

I credit my overall teaching ability to my experiences as a baseball coach and a baseball scout (that's a different story).

I consider myself very, very lucky to have had the influences I've had. Sadly, I know of only a handful of science teachers who have similar experiences.
 
Let me clarify what I meant by the millitary comment.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who enlist in the armed forces, serve a few years, go to college and become teachers. I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about the 20+ year, retired Lt. Col. type.

We've had a couple of those and they've really struggled. They're just not used to dealing with 'regular folk'. Believe it or not, where they struggle is with discipline. They're really not disciplinarians. They've never had to be. No one has ever questioned, let alone challenged their authority. It's incomprehensible to them.

We had a teacher in our dept. who lasted a year. He would let the lunatics run the asylum then snap and hammer down hard. He was inconsistent.

Worse than that, we had a Principal who was a Lt. Col. right out of the Pentagon. She too, was soft on crime. She destroyed our disciplinary infrastructure. She eliminated all the detentions and suspension services. She just couldn't believe that kids would vandalize, steal, cut class, smoke dope etc.etc.etc. After 15 months on the job, she had a break down, was hospitalized, and resigned. We're still trying to recover.
 
Cbish,

It sounds like you took a long road to find the right spot. I am glad you found it and your students are probably as well.

I have thought about teaching too. I am 43 year old software engineer. I loved it for the first 15 years but lately the most enjoyable part has been teaching less experienced people. I no longer get the thrill in engineering. In the next year or two, I may be in a financial position to retire (or at least take a major paycut.) I have thought about teaching at a community college or high school.

We are talking about the same military people - retired officers. For me it was WWII and Korean War vets and two were colonels (not sure about the others' rank.) Perhaps they have a steep learning curve and the ones I had were the ones that overcame the initial problems. They had all been teaching for at least 10 years when I had them as teachers.

My personal experience with the younger math/science teachers was that they were just not that good at the subject. Of course, my experience is 25 years out of date.

CBL
 
CBL4 wrote:
have thought about teaching too. I am 43 year old software engineer. I loved it for the first 15 years but lately the most enjoyable part has been teaching less experienced people. I no longer get the thrill in engineering. In the next year or two, I may be in a financial position to retire (or at least take a major paycut.) I have thought about teaching at a community college or high school.
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We are of similar age (I'm a little behind you). I share the same sentiments about teaching that you do with your job. It must be an age thing. The grass isn't greener. If you wish to teach, I would recommend community college. Honestly, working with teenagers is alot of work. It might be too much of a shock to the system if you tried to do it now. If you've worked with adults your whole life, stick with adults. 19-20 year old CC students are flakey enough.

My personal experience with the younger math/science teachers was that they were just not that good at the subject.
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That definitely can happen. If they're beginning teachers, they may not know the subject very well. Consider this. When people get a degree, they've recently been studying their topic in a specialized way. When they begin teaching high school, the curriculum is basic. Realistically, they haven't thought of those topics in years. It may have been freshman or sophomore year in college or maybe even high school since those topics were last considered. For example, being a computer engineer, you'd most likely teach computers or math. When was the last time you used the Quadratic Equation? You may have to teach that but you haven't seen it in 25 years. Good Luck! It takes a few years to nail down your subject matter at that level.

If you have any other questions, fire away.
 
Cbish,

Thanks for the encouragement and the advice. It is what I would towards anyway but it is good to get confirmation.

My problem is what I know (embedded and real-time programming) would probably be a graduate level class. What they are teaching at CC is probably stuff I do not know.

CBL
 
I just thought this (ie the topic) was worth a bump.

Any other things you or a teacher you had did to make school more fun/bearable?
 
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