PART ONE
My second career was
elementary and high school teaching and elementary and high school
principal. As such, ‘I have made my
bones,’ and from intimate knowledge have earned the right to evaluate the system.
Politicians drone on about
the deplorable state of American education and people like President Bush 41
ask the question “Is our children learning?”
The answer is NO! At least
they are not graduating with knowledge and understanding of the world we live
in and a factual chain of math and scientific cause and effect; and most of all
they lack the ability to apply logic and reason.
There are numerous causes for
the inability of our schools to effectively educate our children to a
twenty-first century adequacy. The
major problem is that our system is the product of politicians and radical
(mostly religious) groups with special agendas.
The ‘whipping boy’ for this
failure is always the teachers.
As an educator, no longer
serving at the pleasure of an elected school
board let me give a view from inside a system designed for failure.
Let’s first look at
teachers. Most teachers are better
educated than you local bank president.
All have Bachelor Degrees and many have Masters and Doctorates. All have passed strenuous certification
tests and are required to continue their education in order to recertify at
specific intervals.
Teaching was historically a
female occupation, and as such was never looked on as a ‘legitimate’ profession. That mind set has carried over to today
where teaching is still not considered as professional, but instead viewed as
advanced child care. Teachers are not
paid salaries accurately reflecting their level of education and are not given
the respect received by other professions with lesser requirements and less
responsibilities.
Part of this image is the
fault of teachers. How often have I
heard teachers state that they teach because they love children. What bull shit! You might love lions and tigers but that
doesn’t qualify you as an animal trainer.
Teachers should demand professional respect. They should state that they teach because
they have developed a unique ability to impart information and because they
have special training and background on certain subject matter. They should support their unions that
constantly try to elevate teaching to a respected profession.
Teachers constantly have an
uphill battle. They preside over
classrooms that are overcrowded; they deal with unnecessary discipline problems
from unruly students - some that are potentially dangerous; they lack support
from principals who serve at the pleasure of parent and special interest school
boards; they are required to teach curriculum that is scattered and loosely connected.
Most teachers are good
teachers. There are some special
teachers that can go beyond and are able to encourage logic and critical
thinking skills (this of course is not valued in the south.) There are, in fact, very few ‘bad’
teachers. Most ineffective teachers
become dissatisfied with teaching and move on to other (and often more
lucrative) fields. There are, however,
struggling teachers in impossible situations. They are basically good teachers, who lack
support from their administration, and eventually burn out. Realizing the futility of their situation they
develop a survival attitude. They are
products of a system that can not succeed.
As a retired school principal
I can tell you with authority that the teacher’s main goal is the success of
their students. Our teachers morn the
fact that their students are matriculating with an incomplete education. They hate the fact that they have to teach to
testing standards. They know that if
given the authority and autonomy to set their curriculum to the special
demographics of their students they would be able to effectively improve
understanding and knowledge retention. They
are, however, hobbled by outside influences of non-educators and a bureaucracy
and a public that is not teacher friendly.
The teachers are not the
problem with the education inadequacy – they are the solution.
The Ol’Buzzard
I love teachers. They deserve to be treated so much better than they are. I couldn't do their jobs for all the tea in China... or the whole world, for that matter. I don't know how they do it but I give them nothing but credit for a job well done.
ReplyDeleteIt's the bureaucrats that always screw things up, not the teachers on the front lines. Hey, that's actually true in ALL fields...
Teachers get such a bum rap..I blame the parents..when I was a kid my dad and mom were on my ass about grades home work, etc..they attended every pta meeting..and had meetings with my teachers when I started getting she doesn't apply herself notes from the teachers..now adays?..the parents just dont seem to give a shit.
ReplyDeleteThe combination of parents and local politics can be deadly. As long as schools are controlled on the local level by boards that can be populated by any nut-job with an ax to grind, teachers are in an impossible situation. Then when you toss in a public that doesn't want to pay any taxes ever, no matter how run-down the schools get or how underpaid the teachers are (teachers could be making less than minimum wage and there'd by people who were convinced they were overpaid), it's a minor miracle American students are literate enough to be able to text effectively.
ReplyDeleteCan't speak for the rest of Canada but Saskatchewan Ministry of Education sets the curriculum, NOT politicians or pressure groups. This is not fool-proof as too often the people in the Ministry are academics with no knowledge or experience in teaching. They feel they have to change the approach periodically to appear modern which is why every so many decades phonetics is banned for a few years.
ReplyDeleteAt the school board level, most of the elected members are retired teachers or people with a genuine interest in education. The small p politics is buried inside the local Board of Education bureaucracy, where people are promoted to what used to be known as Superintendent with much less than satisfactory abilities.
There is no support for teachers at the Board level bureaucracy, where everything is done to avoid confrontation with parents, hence students must be passed to the next grade regardless, discipline is a problem, etc.
We were of the "if you got trouble at school, you got double trouble at home" type of parents when the kids were in elementary school. We volunteered at the school, especially (mostly) my late wife and were active in parent teacher stuff. My kids were blessed with three of the best teachers in Grades 6-8 that anyone could ask for, and two of my kids have a wonderful Grade 1 teacher.
I have a great deal of respect for teachers who are truly over worked, under paid and under appreciated. thank you for your post. I am sharing it on FB.