Education Survey

[John Simkin]

Bliss, the magazine for teenagers, claims it has just carried out the most comprehensive study to date of teenagers' views on their own education. Maths teachers were labelled as the "most evil" with a quarter of all votes, followed by science teachers (20%) and language teachers (17%). Overall, only three in ten secondary school pupils think they are getting a "very good" education while science, maths and languages are singled out as the "worst taught subjects", according to this survey of 2,000 students.

Nearly half of secondary age pupils think their teachers are flirts while 45% said "perving on students" is thwir most disgusting habit - marginally behind bad body odour.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/uk/newsi...000/3665743.stm

[Graham Davies]

Maths teachers were labelled as the "most evil" with a quarter of all votes, followed by science teachers (20%) and language teachers (17%).

I remember one real monster of a maths teacher who taught at the grammar school which I attended from 11 to 18. His nickname was "Tarzan". He was a Welshman, formerly a coalminer and built like the proverbial brick sh*thouse. He would throw the blackboard eraser with amazing accuracy at inattentive pupils and would whack pupils who misbehaved with a gym plimsoll - right in front of the class. He got good exam results, though. Then there was "Gladys", a buxom lady with a stentorian voice who taught maths at a school where I taught German and French. She used to put the fear of God into her pupils, including boys over six foot tall who were members of the first 15 rugby team. She was very patient, however, with pupils who genuinely did not understand a maths concept and would spend a lot of time with them after school hours. Gladys got amazing exam results.

Tarzan was not the most feared teacher at my grammar school. This distinction went unquestionably to the head of Latin, who was nicknamed "Ichabod" (Hebrew for "the glory has departed"). Hardly anybody in Ichabod's Latin sets failed O Level Latin. Ichabod was, however, a good teacher. He knew his stuff, accepted no excuses for not handing in homework, corrected all our written work conscientiously and quickly and would spend time with pupils who were genuinely struggling.

As a former secondary school teacher of German and French, I find it hard to judge if I was "evil". I probably was. I was very intolerant of written inaccuracy and would make kids correct every mistake they made and produce a fair copy of their corrected work. It got results.

I guess maths, languages and science are singled out as "worst taught" because they are also perceived as "difficult" subjects. I note that the BBC survey lists art, PE and English as the most popular subjects.