Is There Such Thing As a Bad Math Teacher?

Is There Such Thing As a Bad Math Teacher? Image

The other day, I decided to go see a movie, and I ended up watching Bad Teacher starring Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake. Although the movie did not get good reviews, I thought it was okay, and perhaps I was just happy to get out of the hot summer sun, as it is around the hundred and 5+ degrees here in the summer time and the Movie Theater blasts the air-conditioning. The movie was rated R because of the sexual content, brief nudity, bad language, and the scenes with drug use. Jason Segel, and Lucy Punch were supporting actors who did a good job too.

After I watched the movie I got to thinking about various conversations I've had with local teachers in our area. They've explained to me that there are too many problematic kids in the classroom with very poor behavior, and it made me think that what if the teacher was the problem, and what if they were setting a worse example than the kids themselves? We all know that our kids these days don't seem to be very well disciplined at home, and they bring all of those wonderful skills to the classroom.

You can imagine how tough it is teaching these days, especially teaching something serious like mathematics. Can you even begin to think how difficult it would be if you had a math teacher who acted in the same way is Cameron Diaz did in the movie? Can you imagine a teacher throwing something at a student that got the math problem wrong, or was having problems with their algebra or geometry?

One teacher I talked to recently who taught a substandard math class at the Coachella Valley High School explained to me that the kids had an extremely low attention span, and he had to entertain them at all times. In fact, he had to make the math fun, and keep the kids interested, or they would zone out, stop paying attention, and they just stop learning. Worse, if he got to be too boring, they would start misbehaving and he'd lose complete control of the class.

He also told me that before he became a full-time teacher with his own classroom, he had done some substitute teaching, and it was amazing how much the kids would mess around, and it was difficult for him to teach a math class because the kids would never give him a straight answer as to what they'd learned, or what they didn't know, even if he had the teachers notes who is out for the day. I'd say, it's a good thing that we have more professionalism in our schools and our math classes than were depicted in that popular Hollywood movie; Bad Teacher, so, I'd like you to please consider all this and think on it.