Disclaimer: Please remember, these are my observations. These are only my observations. I am not attempting to solve any problems or make statements about a group of people or political party. Got it?
1. Government and Legislators. I know that public education is BIG. The organization is huge and it's been around for a long time - and will continue to exist long after I'm done. What frustrates me the most about this group is that we have people making decisions at such a high level, they don't or can't possibly understand how the decisions impact the classroom level. What sounds good on paper and from that high level, absolutely makes no sense at the local or classroom level or even from an individual student level - and furthermore, we have people making decisions that have never set foot in a classroom or taught kids. Our legislators and government officials need to come teach for awhile to get a clue...and not in just one classroom.
2. Parents. I am a parent. I have two kids - one at the high school level who has struggled in school almost his entire school career. I have another at the middle school level - who has breezed through school - it has come very easy for her. They attend school in the district that I teach in, so my colleagues are their teachers. For the most part, I love the parents of my students and they are very supportive parents. I live in the district that I teach in and I am friends with a lot of my students' parents/guardians. So that's my caveat to what I'm about to say...
Parents sometimes drive me nuts because they automatically assume that 1) I am out to get their student or I don't care about their student or worse, I hate their student; 2) their student walks on water (in other words, they can't possibly be less than perfect - academically or behaviorally); and 3) I have no idea what I'm doing because that's not the way they were taught in school.
Please know this: I love all my students (even those you may not think are deserving or worthy of love) - I love those kids even more; I have high expectation of kids academically and behaviorally, keeping in mind that they are KIDS and they are where they are at developmentally (and knowing that they are not perfect all the time: we all have bad days) and I teach the way I do because of research and where your kids are at developmentally. I wouldn't expect the classroom to look or feel as it did 25-30 years ago. Would you expect your doctor to use the same instruments to diagnose you as when you were little?
3. The General Public. Agent K in the movie "Men in Black" states, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow." And this leads to my point - individually, most people appreciate teachers and education, but as a group - the general public, whether it is at a district level, state level or nationwide: lamblast, berate, hate, criticize, deride, abuse (insert negative adjective here) teachers. While I love being a teacher and I'm proud to be a teacher, there are days when I want to know what in the heck happened to the opinion of teachers over the years?
Many of you know that I was in the private sector for 17 years before I began teaching. I have never worked so hard (physically and mentally) as when I became a teacher. My salary was cut in half when I moved to education. In order to afford healthcare for my family, we have an outside health plan which is utilizes a health savings account. My family does not benefit from my schools' health plan - so the taxpayers do not pay for it (and it's so expensive, my family cannot afford it). If you think I sit around all summer eating bon bons, I don't. I have curriculum to rewrite and improve, I take classes for continuing ed to stay licensed, and I spend $200 - $400 of my own money to outfit my classroom and what it needs every year.
Again, walk a mile in my shoes and come teach for awhile.
Did I really just say all that?
And now it sounds like I'm just complaining - which I don't mean to do - so I'm going to stop. :)
Make it a great day everyone!
