I’m Fed Up With My School’s Physics Teachers (1 Viewer)

[CoolUsername9765]

This may seem like a bit of a rant, but I just don’t know what to do. I recently received my physics trial back and I did pretty poorly. So I thought, what did I do bad on? One MC where the wording of was extremely poor, one mark on a question where the teacher didn’t understand efficiency is the ratio of power input into a system to the power output, one mark because the teacher couldn’t even be bothered to read the marking criteria, four marks because I misread a question and switched two variables, two marks for making one mistake, and a couple marks that actually made some sense. So I thought ‘ok, I’ll perhaps make an appeal for these questions’. So I did. All I got back was a big cross and the word NO written, with no reason or explanation whatsoever. So I asked if I could get more detail on where I lost my marks. When I received it back, only one teacher even said something, every other teacher had just completely ignored me. I understand that I sound like I think the world revolves around me, but surely if the only explanation to me losing 5+ marks is NO, and no other reason, then perhaps something is wrong.

Another thing I’m frustrated with is with the teacher who writes the test. In our previous test, they had made a mistake in one of the MCs which many people who had picked the right answer were quite angry about. And they just kept saying that it was wrong, until they admitted that the answer they made was wrong, but if they had changed the answer ‘the people who picked the wrong answer would argue that it’s right in some extremely niche scenario’, and coincidently 2 of the top 3 had picked their ‘right’ answer. And when writing the trial, they put in a difficult question which he only showed to his class and no other teacher showed to theirs, and it just so happens that only one person outside of their class had gotten the question correct.

Perhaps I’ve become completely blindsided and am only seeing the story I want to see, but all of this is genuinely how it feels to me, and I honestly don’t know what I’m supposed to do from now on.

 

[scaryshark09]

honestly i think its a collective human experience with physics, that's why i just dropped it

 

[nsw..wollongong]

im convinced we have the same teacher

 

[synthesisFR]

Whilst your situation does suck, you can't do anything from now on, it's the trials, it's done and dusted. Just focus on doing well in the HSC now.

personallyi would fight for justice

 

[nsw..wollongong]

yeah id ask other ppl if theyre feeling the sm way and a lot of the times if a couple of parents raise an issue with the principal, something can be changed

 

[howcanibesmarter]

dw mate my phys teacher is an 80 yr old grandma who took a 5wk school leave at the beginning of this term - half of us thought she died but apparently no

 

[wizzkids]

Unfortunately, research has shown that in New South Wales schools, 41% of Physics teachers are teaching "out-of-field", i.e. outside of their area of qualification. It is one of the worst subjects for teacher shortages. Schools can't attract properly qualified Physics teachers. The metropolitan independent schools get the pick of the teachers because they pay slightly higher. Other schools resort to forcing teachers to teach "out-of-field" to cover the shortages. Retired teachers are encouraged to come back into the classroom, as you experienced, stuff like that is happening all over Australia.
I don't know if it is any comfort to know that most Physics students in NSW are experiencing something similar to your experience.
You can't change this situation, so focus on what you can change. Do the best you can in the public examination.

 

[wizzkids]

out of curiosity, what other subjects have terrible teacher shortages ?

The worst teacher shortages are in STEM subjects.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported on 7th October 2021 the results of a leaked report from inside the NSW Education Department.

One in six teachers working outside their area of expertise, documents reveal

An analysis of HSC results found students taught by specially qualified teachers did better than those who were not, particularly in science and technology subjects.

www.smh.com.au

There was a further leak last month that revealed the situation had only got worse.

Number of specialist maths teachers just doesn’t add up

A third of high school teachers are taking classes in subjects including maths, humanities and technology without specialist qualifications in those fields.

www.smh.com.au

Out-of-Field teaching in Chemistry is 38% (these figures are for New South Wales)
Out-of-Field teaching for Extension Mathematics is 28%.

 

[yewdee317]

lol this isnt really relevant but when i started year 11 chem my teacher didn't even give us the syllabus - just handed us hsc past papers and was confused when we didn't know how to do anything he was one of those teachers where you know they're smart and know what they're doing but they just cant reiterate any of the information they know if their life depended on it lol

after 6 weeks I dropped chem and moved to food tech, best decision I made. Caught up the content in 2 nights and now am coming first

 

[nsw..wollongong]

out of curiosity, what other subjects have terrible teacher shortages ?

CHEMISTRY.