Bizarre teacher

[TerryJ2]

easy child has a new teacher this yr. She has a teaching degree. The school pulled her from the sports area to teach English in addition to sports. She is teaching a class on epic heroes. The extra credit questions for the final exam included:
What is my favorite color?
Which character do I most resemble in Harry Potter?
OMG. She's really giving credit for this stuff.

 

[Jena]

LOL is all i can say........

Is she trying to get the kids to like her maybe???

 

[hearts and roses]

Maybe this is part of the new curriculum: "The Dumbing Down of America"?? Teacher sounds like a difficult child to me.

"It's all about ME! It's all about ME!!" Haha - horrifying.

 

[Andy]

My easy child had a female teacher who looked identical to Snape in Harry Potter!

So, who does the teacher resemble? There is a character who changes hair color - I think her name is Tonk? Also, Professor Umbridge was into the color pink big time and she was an evil person. (Snape like black). I don't know if the favorite color would go along with the character though unless it is Professor Umbridge. Has easy child read the books or seen the movies so she is familiar with the characters?

Or am I reading the question wrong and the student is suppose to answer their favorite color and character they resemble? What did easy child answer?

I am sure what easy child writes isn't as important as how she writes in the grading. She will be graded on the use of nouns, verbs, symbolisms, details of descriptions, and perhaps imagination. But it would be interesting to read what she writes.

I had an English teacher who was also a boy's gym teacher. His true passion was theater and the kids knew if they got him talking theater, he would spend the whole class time doing so. It was very common for him to come to his senses two days before the end of the quarter and make us do several chapters of work each night to catch up. Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!
He actually gave us a test once on theater make up techniques! Stupid!

 

[flutterbee]

My 8th and first half of 9th grade (I moved after that) English teacher was also the golf coach. That was really his only interest and he didn't teach. He just assigned work and we turned it in. We never went over it. When the principal came in once a year to review his class, he would have us read from our English textbooks out loud - taking turns. We did that once a year.

We would have an extra credit question every week on the vocab test and it was always something completely unrelated. Once it was: What is the busiest shopping day of the year? Well, everyone got it right which ticked him off so he tried to say it was July 4th and wouldn't give credit to anyone.

I didn't learn a thing in his class. I'm learning grammar by helping Wynter do her school work.

 

[gcvmom]

My easy child had a female teacher who looked identical to Snape in Harry Potter!

My NEIGHBOR looks like an overtreated blonde Snape who spent too much time in the sun as a kid and has had too many margarita lunches...

Wow. That sounded really bad!

 

[Marguerite]

I think it sounds cool.

I suspect the message the teacher is trying to send with this, is that kids need to learn to reach out to people around them, to show an interest in them. It also keeps the kids on their toes and makes them pay attention. And stops the exam from being too boring.

I remember reading about a Latin teacher back in the 70s, who wrote at the top of an exam paper he set, "soc et tuem."

I also bought a copy of "The Essential 55" by Ron Clark, a US teacher who wrote a rule book for teachers on how to do it well. He himself has been acclaimed for his success as a teacher. One of his rules is "no cheezels!" He makes a big point of confiscating all cheezels, of making a big fuss about it. He says it's not because he hates cheezels, he's just doing it purely to be eccentric and to give the kids something to giggle about.

As for this teacher giving credit for these answers - if the exam is at all connected with social skills then it makes sense. Otherwise, she doesn't say exactly how many bonus points she will give for those answers, does she? Sounds like she's leaving it open to her discretion...

Marg

 

[1 Day At a Time]

Our easy child also had a teacher who put interesting questions like this in various parts of the test. Actually, we loved this teacher! I think that he was trying to "lighten" the test environment and inject humor into a tedious task. I know that I always relax when I laugh!

I hope that is this teacher's strategy as well!

 

[WhymeMom?]

Would like to give her the benefit of the doubt but would really imagine it was a matter of the administration trying to cut corners and couldn't afford to hire a "degreed" english teacher. I didn't think this happened anymore....... When I first began teaching I was asked to teach a section of sixth grade science (my field was home economics) I was totally out of my element---not a science fan.......but luckily it wasn't rocket science so to speak...... and I hope I managed to get across a few scientific principles......
I would guess she is trying to make the best of her situation and possibly give the kids a couple of "free points" on the test....... Don't know how much English is being taught, but hoping the kids might at least be a little open to listening.....?

 

[TerryJ2]

Would like to give her the benefit of the doubt but would really imagine it was a matter of the administration trying to cut corners and couldn't afford to hire a "degreed" english teacher

I think this is exactly what it is. Very sad, since they have raised the tuition again, and plan to raise it to something like $10,000 in the next 2 yrs. Good thing easy child is graduating this yr! It's one thing to pay that amt for college (on the low end, in-state) but in HS I expect more.
None of the kids think the teacher is funny. I think the questions backfired.

We'll see how many points the Qs are worth when the grades come out after Christmas.

 

[skeeter]

My ex taught for a while (high school science - usually Chemistry or Biology). He always told the kids that anything he talked about during the year was fair game for the final.

He would talk about a LOT of things during the year.

His extra credit question was almost always something like "What do you have to say to the robot in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" to stop him? (Klaatu Barada Nikto)

 

[TerryJ2]

Oh dear. I always thought chemistry was hard but NOW I know why. LOL!!!

 

[susiestar]

So many of the tests our kids take require them to give back info they have absorbed.

Questions like this can give the students teh chance to be creative, to let the teacher see how well a student can express him or herself when surprised, and see how well a student can "sell" an answer, rather than how well a student can reiterate info presented through the school year or in a book.

I don't think there are right or wrong answers to these questions. Rather, the teacher wants to see what the student is thinking and how well he can express himself. How clearly, how concisely, and how grammatically.

It also gives the teacher a little bit of leeway when figuring grades. The teacher can give more credit to a student who has been working hard but the material simply doesn't come easily to, who is on the borderline of passing and failing. The teacher can also point to the question, left undone, by a smart student as a reason to NOT push that grade up that hundredth of a percent.