25 Biggest Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them

106 Classroom Management and Instruction
too. An added caution is to let gifted
children be themselves—do not
exp ect them to be “perfect” at all
times. Such expectations could lead to
perfectionism, which can be detrimental
to these students (Orange, 1997).
SCENARIO 14.2
I Don’t Know, I’m Just the Teacher
I took a physics course in high school. We didn’t get our teacher until one month after
school started. The teacher was a seventh-grade math teacher who never taught
physics. He developed this “oh well” attitude with us whenever we didn’t understand.
He would say things like, “oh well, that’s what the book says.” He couldn’t justify the
explanation in the book. Because of this my grades suffered, and my GPA dropped
while others were allowed to take other courses. My class standing dropped.
The school administrators
share the responsibility for
this twofold problem. The first pro blem
is assigning a teacher to teach
a subject that he or she is not qualified
to teach. This strategy is
doomed to failure. The second problem
is not offering students who are
forced to stay in the class some grade
consideration and opportunities
for remediation. The administration
could have supplemented this
teacher’s instruction by offering
tutors. The knowledge gaps that
result from this poor-quality instruction
could have long-lasting effects
beyond the GPA, as these students
SCENARIO 14.3
Get Thee to the Second Grade!
attempt to take higher level physics
courses.
The teacher’s attitude is indefensible.
Responsible teachers in such a
situation would research the answers
to the students’ questions if they did
not know the answer. They would put
ego aside and enlist the help of other
teachers. They also would make student
learning the primary goal and
top priority. A lesser response is a
teacher luxury that students cannot
afford. The results of poor-quality
instruction are evidenced in the high
prices this student had to pay, namely
low grades, lowered GPA, and lowered
class standing.
I was in the fifth grade and had a history teacher by the name of Mrs. W. She made us
read aloud in class. The boy who read before me could not pronounce one of the
words correctly and so she made him stand up. She yelled at him and called him names
like “stupid.” Then she sent him to a second-grade class for a day to learn how to read
with the young children. He was so humiliated and I felt sorry for him. He was my best
friend and, even worse, she called on me to continue where he left off! I was so nervous,
I felt like I had forgotten how to read.