Now obviously not in all cases, but in some cases I have personally seen (not my own), a teacher has been a more positive influence in some of my classmates lives than their own parents. Teachers also have to have background checks and blue cards, parents do not.

Yes, I think teachers can sometimes be more better influences on children than parents. Not all the time though. For one example, I think a bad parent can do more harm than a bad teacher, so in that way a teacher would be better.

Thread title of the year, by the way.

It depends on the teacher, the kid, and the parents. Personally, I've had some seriously positive teachers, and some seriously negative ones. My parents, despite the fact that I was a royal little [censored] and we didn't really get on for most of my life, were a consistent positive influence on my life, both in terms of morals and practical teaching. As well as opening some career opportunities for me that might otherwise have been closed.

On the other hand, I've known kids with parents that got drunk and beat them, or molested them, or simply didn't give a [censored]. So it really depends on the situation. In those cases, a good teacher can fill a role that is vacant in that child's life.

I don't know about "more better," but I think teachers can be a better influence on kids than their own parents. In some cases. As with most things, it depends on the situation. Sometimes teachers are awful and the parents are great influences. Sometimes, the parents are the teachers. It all depends.

In my experience ive never seen a teacher that would want to have any interaction with the student other than their job, and if anything teachers have had negative effects on the students, for example when they had parent/teacher night each teacher that had contact with you would talk to your parent, mine would come home and tell me that they said this about me, it was pretty much all common comments from each teacher, it was all nonsense, i queried other students what the teachers had said about them, i did this over the years, it wasnt till my final year that i found out from a teacher that had left the school that they had made up set generic answers since none of them really paid attention or knew who they were talking about.

So in this instance parents were getting a false impression from the teacher and i know my parent paid more attention to what they said than what i said was true, and the only impression that any teacher left on me was that they were lazy and overpaid, and even up till the last time when i was an advlt in the education system and a teacher as well, my impression didnt change, the only ones i met that were good were trainers that were temporarily contracted to do classes, because they worked harder and interacted better with the students because they wanted their contracts to be renewed.

Sure, teachers - even in a universal way - have more influence over ordinary people. Although, parents can be better teachers if they have the knowledge, the patience, or the instinct to teach. After all, they are our true role model; we look up to them. The parents influence is powerful; we are more or less shaped by how we were nurtured at home.

My dad is a teacher who would do after school tutoring classes every day and spend his lunch hours helping kids with experiments, the administration of the school constantly gave him [censored] for helping kids pass as they wanted kids to drop out of Maths B in to Maths A, because a bunch of A's in Maths A looks better on their books than a bunch of C's and B's in Maths B. Although a lot of teachers svck in my experience it seems to be in part due to the admin having ulterior motives.

Hmm, I'd say it firmly depends on the teacher, and the school as well. You can have a great teacher, but if they are at a terrible school, there really is only so much they can do for any one student to make an impact on them. I say this because there were a few teachers I remember fondly from my time in Highschool, but my school was an awful one that showed horrific favoritism to athletes and very much discouraged close teacher/student interactions, so even though I know a few of my teachers were above average, none of them left any significant impact on me and my life, since there just wasn't space for any real interaction, especially since I wasn't an athlete.

*eye twitch*

A teacher failed somewhere

Typo. Under clause 837 jurisdiction you can't legally call a typo a grammatical or spelling error.

Having some Mo' Better Blues are you?

As a qualified English teacher, under Clause 838/2, I can.

However as a kind, gentle, witty and intelligent person (shut up I am), I will let it slide....this time

I've had teachers that were horrible and some that were inspiring. Some...that weren't professional teachers.

If we are talking in the context of home schooling, then it has to be assumed that the parent teachers do care. The only question for me in this scenario is whether the child has healthy social interactions. It is possible I suppose.

My teachers were jerks who kept me in detention 24/7. So, no.

(I should mention that I rarely did anything to deserve it, I just happened to talk to bad kids and got associated with them by the teachers, and one teacher just didn't like me)

I never learned anything I was in detention so much. That's partly why my parents decided to home school me. (that, and they wanted to put me on drugs for ADD or some [censored])

Just like that teacher from the movie The Breakfast Club. ^^