RE: Fixing Education
September 24, 2013 at 9:39 am
(This post was last modified: September 24, 2013 at 10:01 am by Zazzy.)
I was a high school teacher for over 10 years, and the system is so broken it's hard to see how to fix it. All of the things people have brought up here are valid. I think the problem boils down to societal views and expectations of teachers. Society pays lip service to teachers the same way it does to soldiers (thanks for your service, but that's all you get). It's not a valued profession, and part of that is because we aren't doing anything to attract and keep our best and brightest- so there are many teachers who mean well, but just aren't all that smart (sorry, fellow teachers, but we all know it's true).
And parental expectations of teachers are bizarre. Teachers cannot parent, teach, mentor, and monitor 150+ students very well. It's just overwhelming how much you're supposed to do: teach a subject in the Goldilocks zone to avoid too many failures but maintain rigor, grade mountains of writing, teach self-esteem and impulse control and critical thinking, deal with behavior problems and all the personal problems of their students, plan stimulating lessons that are student centered but still somehow teach to a test, tutor after school, do all of this on a shoestring budget and for crap pay, all with endless kindness and patience and being a model of adult behavior, dealing with parents who are miffed that you aren't accomplishing all this perfectly with their kid... and then you hear that "teachers have it easy."
Oh- and all of this while being on stage, being stimulating and entertaining for 6 hours a day, to the most judgmental audience in the world.
And teachers CAN have it easy by just not doing most of that and showing movies most days and not giving homework and turning a blind eye to bullying, etc. MANY teachers just give up and cruise along because it's just too life-draining to accomplish all the above with little to no support.
How do we fix that? By fixing our views and expectations as a society. How does that happen? I have no idea, because just like no one really wants to hear about what soldiers go through, nobody wants to hear about what teachers go through. Thanks for your service and have a nice day.
And parental expectations of teachers are bizarre. Teachers cannot parent, teach, mentor, and monitor 150+ students very well. It's just overwhelming how much you're supposed to do: teach a subject in the Goldilocks zone to avoid too many failures but maintain rigor, grade mountains of writing, teach self-esteem and impulse control and critical thinking, deal with behavior problems and all the personal problems of their students, plan stimulating lessons that are student centered but still somehow teach to a test, tutor after school, do all of this on a shoestring budget and for crap pay, all with endless kindness and patience and being a model of adult behavior, dealing with parents who are miffed that you aren't accomplishing all this perfectly with their kid... and then you hear that "teachers have it easy."
Oh- and all of this while being on stage, being stimulating and entertaining for 6 hours a day, to the most judgmental audience in the world.
And teachers CAN have it easy by just not doing most of that and showing movies most days and not giving homework and turning a blind eye to bullying, etc. MANY teachers just give up and cruise along because it's just too life-draining to accomplish all the above with little to no support.
How do we fix that? By fixing our views and expectations as a society. How does that happen? I have no idea, because just like no one really wants to hear about what soldiers go through, nobody wants to hear about what teachers go through. Thanks for your service and have a nice day.
