Teachers

 

Those who can, do. Those who can’t…

I think most teachers wonder about how their students will turn out later in life. Some students struggle and always will. Some students struggle, but only for a while. Some students never struggle, but will as they grow up. Some students are wild and stay wild. Some students are wild, but learn to calm down. Some students are calm, but become wild. Some are quiet and shy and stay that way. Some are quiet and shy and grow out of it, finding their voice and self-confidence as they mature. Some are loud and outspoken, but somehow learn to shy away. Some students are mean and uncaring, and won’t ever change. Some students are mean and uncaring, but eventually learn kindness and concern for others. Some students are kind and caring, but with time, they lose those traits. Some students are thin and stay thin. Some students are thin and become fat. Some students are fat, stay fat, or become thin. Some students will become liberal as they grow up, while some become conservative. Some will be Christians, and some won’t. Some will turn out to be straight, and some will be gay, bisexual, or transgendered. Some will be short, and some will be tall. Some will keep their hair, while others become bald or gray-haired.  Some will live long lives, and some will live short ones. Some of these things you can have a pretty good idea about, too, but you can often be surprised—for the best and the worst. It amazes me to know how accurate some teacher’s predictions have been—you don’t have to work as a teacher for very long to see how certain things in a child’s life can impact their futures.

I often wonder about the students I teach; not just what will happen to them in the future, but in the present as well. I wonder if the smart girl in class who always raises her hand to answer the questions will always be so smart. I wonder if the shy kid who can barely speak above a whisper will always be so shy. I wonder if the effeminate boy will grow up to be gay or bullied because of it. I wonder if the little boy or the little girl who always complains about being hungry will find any food to eat at night. I wonder if any of my students are being abused. I wonder if any of them have done things already in their young lives they’ll always regret. I wonder about all of them, and try my best to help them in whatever way I can.

Most teachers I know do worry and care about their students. In a lot of cases we’re the only ones who do. It frustrates me to no end when I hear people talk about teachers as though we’re the scum of the earth. I hear people talk about how stupid teachers are, how selfish they are, how uncaring they are, and it just makes me want to pull my hair out. To anyone who thinks those things, I say to them: you come to school day after day, spend as much time with these kids as we do, go through all the things we teachers have to go through, and tell me then that we don’t know anything, are selfish, and don’t care. The overwhelming majority of us do care. We care a great deal! I’m only a substitute teacher and I’ve spent a great deal of my own money and outside time to help students one way or another. I see teachers spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars every year out of their own pockets to help their students. I see teachers stay after school to help students with their homework, set up activities for the next day, attend meetings to learn new content or meet with parents, putting in days as long as ten to twelve full hours long just to help make a positive difference in the lives of their students. I see teachers put up with pay cuts, loss of benefits, uncooperative parents, media that just wants to run them down no matter what they do, cussing and physical violence from students, and administrators and politicians who in most cases don’t know their own asses from their elbows about education, who always want to change everything on every little whim, and without any input from the teachers who have to implement their ideas and know above all others what actually works and doesn’t work in the classroom.

We teachers put up with a lot. But there’s a reason we do that. We do it because we love teaching and because we care about our students. We do it because we want to impact our students in a positive way, to help them learn and improve their lives as much as we can. We wonder what will be in the future for them, and we try to make that future the best possible outcome we can help make.

I enjoy teaching immensely. I love my students and care a great deal about them. I worry about many of them. I want them to have the best education in all regards, but I know that is too often not what they’re getting. When supplies run out in the Spring; or when assistants who do so much to help the students have to be let go; or when classrooms designed for twenty to twenty-five students at most become crammed with thirty or more; or when parents refuse to help their child/children with homework, feed them adequately, provide them with decent clothing, supplies, or any sort of stable home life; or when a child is being, or has been, abused; or when the standards have been changed, dumbing down the content and leaving so much out; or when good teachers decide to give up under all the pressure; or when a student gives up on himself/herself, which breaks my heart to see happen, I know the students aren’t getting what they need under any of those very common circumstances. Every day, in so many ways, is a reminder of how lucky I was growing up. I would never proclaim to be the smartest person in the world, or to have always had the best. When I was very young, I actually struggled a great deal in school and often had limited resources. As I got older, I caught up though, despite any limitations. I thank my parents and many of my teachers for doing so much to help me catch up. They worked with me and inspired me to be something better.

Those who can, do. Those who can’t… certainly do not teach, and have no place in education. To teach, you must do so very much. You must know the content, know how to use multiple teaching strategies, manage classroom behavior, plan your lessons, communicate well with your students, parents, and coworkers, give of your own time and money on many occasions, be responsible at all times, and challenge your students to go above and beyond. You are often not just a teacher, but a parent as well. You are a role model and an example for which your students can look up to. But above all the things you do, you must first and foremost always care. Most all teachers I know do care—that’s why they became teachers in the first place. I just wish so many more people would recognize this.

Educating America

The last couple of weeks I’ve heard President Obama and other people in his administration make comments on how they would like to improve education in our country. A few of their ideas include longer school days, adding on an additional month to the school year, merit-based pay for teachers, and providing a $4,000 refundable college tax credit that will require the student who accepts it to perform 100 hours or more of community service. After hearing these ideas I am troubled by the direction this new president wishes to take education.

The whole idea concerning longer school days and extending the school year by as much as a month are based on what other Asian and European countries are currently doing. The idea is that students in this country simply are not having enough time to learn all that is required of them. Now, this is an idea that I agree with, but from a different perspective. I do not think the problem is that our school days aren’t long enough or that the school year is too short. I think the problem is that a lot of high schools have become colleges, and as a result, the basics in middle and elementary schools are being taught so fast that students simply do not retain the knowledge they need, or cannot keep up at all and are getting left behind. Now, one thing President Obama is supporting is college credit classes in high schools. At face value, this certainly appears to be a good idea. But let’s look at the results. With more and more high schools doing this, our students on average have not become smarter, but dumber. And I need no test or statistic to tell me otherwise. If you want proof, just ask people at various ages’ math questions. My grandparents can add, subtract, divide, and multiply fairly well. My parents are equally as well. But myself and my brother, and virtually any other person I’ve encountered around my age, we struggle terribly. It’s a wonder younger people today are able to do any math at all. Now, in high school, I took many math classes. One of them, pre-calculus, actually was a college credit class, which counted for college algebra. In these upper level math classes, I did well overall; only once can I remember making anything less than a B and quite typically I made all A’s. However, after eight years of being out of high school, I now find myself struggling just to figure out what should be a simple math problem. I have trouble remembering the rules for subtraction and division in particular. I remember virtually none of the algebraic formulas. Nor do I remember most of the formulas for geometry. And what I’ve seen is a decline in retention. But much more than that, I’ve found that most of the math skills learned in those upper level courses I’ve rarely, if ever, needed outside of school. And the skills that I have needed, those basic math skills, I cannot always recall.

So, what is the problem? As I said, I did fairly well in most school math classes. So, why didn’t I retain more of that knowledge? I can tell you it was because what math was taught to me was taught too quickly. I had just enough time to learn how to take the test, do it well, and then move onto the next thing and forget it. I remember at the time wishing that we could slow things down a bit so that I could get a better grasp of things. And by time I did take that college credit math class, making that C was a struggle in itself. Now, having said that, it would certainly sound as though a longer school day or a longer school year would have been the solution. But let’s look at the bigger picture here for a moment.

Elementary and middle schools teach the basics in math at an accelerated pace so that there is time for college credit math classes in high school. Students are therefore rushed and do not get as firm a knowledge on the basics as they should. When they get to high school, math is either impossible for them, or has become a struggle, which is why so many students opt to take as few math classes as possible—they just don’t understand the subject and it’s too difficult for them. Those who take the higher level courses may find ways to pass them, but by time they get out of school they find that their level of retention with math skills has diminished considerably. Does anyone else see the problem here? Why isn’t high school teaching high school math and leaving the college credit courses to college?

There’s the real issue we as Americans are facing. Students are being rushed through the process, in an attempt to compete with other countries, and are not getting as firm a grasp on the basics as they need to be able to succeed. The solution isn’t to extend the times for school. The solution is to slow down the process, allow students to get a better understanding of what they’re being taught, and to then make college free to every student wishing to attend.

Did you catch that last part? Yep, I said “free” college. In this day and age, when we live in a world where free trade has virtually killed the middle-class manufacturing jobs that had once helped to make this country what it is, getting a college degree is one of the most important things a person can do. Without it, there just aren’t a lot of higher paying jobs available like there once was. So, if we’re going to truly be a competitive country again, when it comes to education and high paying jobs, we must make college a free opportunity to anyone who wants it. Why not simply tack it onto the already public education system? Now there’s a solution worth fighting for! If our leader’s truly wanted us to be the best in the world, they would provide a higher level of education without financially crippling a person with tuition, financial aid, and other loans just to be able to go. With this solution, elementary and middle schools can slow things down a bit, allow the students to get a better grasp of the basics, allow high schools to build upon the basics, and then allow more people than ever before to attend college, earn a degree, retain knowledge, and go out into the world as the smartest people in it. We can do this! So why haven’t we?

The other problem I have with President Obama’s solution is that it takes away time for kids to be kids. Longer school days? Longer school year? No, I don’t think that’s such a wise course of action. My first argument against this would be just because other nations do this, doesn’t mean we should as well. Just because something works in one country doesn’t mean it would work in this one, in other words. My second argument is that if you push learning and school nonstop on any kid, they’re just going to eventually become so frustrated, burned out, and against school and learning that they’ll give up and reject it. They’ll rebel against it. While learning is important, so is play. Allowing children time to be children, to run around and play and socialize with other kids, is a very healthy thing. And as our children continue to become more and more obese in this country, I see this as something crucial to not be done away with. But the bottom line is just that there needs to be a time for school and learning as well as a time away from those things. After seven to eight hours or more a day in school, five days a week, children need a break. Now, I believe it was Obama’s secretary of education who suggested the school day be extended as long as perhaps eight in the evening for struggling students. Huh? I’m sorry, but a twelve hour day is not what any student needs. By the end of the day their little minds will have become nothing but mush.

And how about extending the school year? This too will not work. The president seems to forget about all those rural students who, even in this day and age, need those summers off in order to help their parents on the farm. For a good number of farmers, this is critical to their family’s livelihood. Without their children’s help, there can be no farm. And with fewer farmers, the more this country will have to depend on produce from other places around the world in order to survive. But on another matter, summer time is the time for play. Again, I think children should be allowed time to be children. And what better time to get outside, run around, get plenty of exercise and play than during summer? Our children need this time off for those very reasons.

Now, concerning merit-based pay for teachers, I think this is a tragedy just waiting to happen. The idea is that a teacher’s pay will be based upon how well their students are learning. Again, at face value, this may seem to be a good idea. However, my concern is on what this will be based upon. I don’t think it’s too hard to imagine the measure of how well a teacher performs will be based upon how well their students perform on standardized tests. Now, isn’t this the same president who spoke out against teaching to the tests, a big part of No Child Left Behind, before he got elected? You see, the minute you begin paying teachers based upon how well their students are learning you make everything, yet again, based upon tests that do not and cannot cover everything needed to be learned—not everything can be tested by a multiple choice test. Furthermore those tests are skewed in that they incorporate the academic achievement of all students.

Let’s say a teacher has twenty-five students in her/his classroom. One third of them have a learning disability, and at least two are either physically or mentally unable to function just to take care of themselves, let alone to be able to take a test (this is actually about an average make up for a general class, believe it or not). Are you seriously going to tell me that you’re going to base a teacher’s pay upon whether or not all those students reach a proficient level of learning? For most of them this is impossible, regardless of however much wishful thinking is involved. Now, I’m not saying these students should be given up on, but just that no matter how much attention you give them, the odds of them performing just as well as a student without any problems like this are slim to none. For most, it’s just not going to happen. They may show signs of improvement, and with a good teacher this will happen, but they aren’t very likely to score as high as their other non-disabled classmates. That being the case, how could merit-based pay ever be fair? It can’t. What’s more, if this does become a reality, a large number of good teachers will eventually just throw up their hands and give up. They’ll give up because the system will be against them. They won’t have a chance to begin with. You could have an extraordinarily good teacher who, just because the makeup of her class for a particular year includes a high number of students with disabilities, gets penalized by a pay cut or even worse, faces dismissal. Where is the logic to this? For a president who says he wants to grow the number of good teachers in this country, he’s sure off to a poor start at keeping them and encouraging others to go into the field.

A teacher’s merit should never be based upon tests alone. In a lot of ways you simply cannot measure the worth of any teacher by any given definition. A teacher may be a good teacher simply because he or she cares and loves their students. For a student, a teacher’s love may be the only love they ever receive. But how do you measure love? A teacher may be a good teacher because he or she teaches the students self-worth and endurance. But how do you measure those things? You see, it’s not just how well a student does on a test that determines the worth of a teacher. You could have an extraordinarily poor teacher whose students do well on the tests. But what do those tests really say about her/him as a teacher? It’s these things that I believe President Obama fails to recognize. He’s looking at education from a very narrow mind-view.

Now, concerning the tax credit to students wishing to go to college, it’s not the tax credit itself I’m against. It’s the requirement that students who accept it must do 100 hours of community service. Now, community service is a good thing, don’t get me wrong. But when you have to work, take care of a family, go to school, and do homework, that doesn’t exactly leave a lot of time for things such as community service. Especially not 100 hours of it. I have no doubt that some students will be helped by the president’s tax credit, but it’s certainly nowhere near a cure all, and for those non-traditional students such as myself, who has all those other things to do besides going to school, it won’t help at all—I for one would not be able to find the additional time to meet this requirement. So, whereas I think President Obama has the best of intentions by this, I think he fails to take into account the various circumstances people have in this regard. My argument again would be, why not just make college free to everyone who wants to go by tacking it onto the public education system? I guarantee if this were done, more people than ever before would attend college and earn a degree towards getting a higher paying job. Talk about our country profiting then!

I truly hope and wish for this President to do a good job. I think our nation needs him to do well. But I think with ideas like this, he is selling himself and our country short. He is taking backward approaches to the problems within our education system, looking over the root problems, and providing blanket solutions that in and of themselves still will not address the many challenges we face today.