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IMHO – A Reflection on Almost Three Decades in the Classroom
By Teachers.Net Community
Posted by Bill t 6 NC on the Teacher Chatboard
(Editor’s note: This post was composed before the Toyota recalls.)
A Ghanaian proverb says that the death of any nation begins in the homes of its people. Parents are the first teachers of their children.
I had a critic tell me that if Toyota put out a product as poor as the products produced by our public schools, then Toyota would go out of business. True, yet Toyota gets to choose the best materials for its cars. We do not. We must teach whoever shows up at our doors. Many years ago, I did a study on why teachers leave the profession, suspecting pay would top the list of reasons. I was wrong. It was working conditions.
Another, Native American proverb cautions us to not judge another until we have walked in their moccasins. It is easy to point fingers and assign blame to schools and teachers, when one does not know what we deal with daily. “Those who can do; those who can’t, teach.” Remember that one? I recall a time when, if you got into difficulty at school, you “got it” again when you got home. Now? Now we get threatened or harangued, occasionally sued, or worse by parents determined to shield their children from responsibility for anything. We hear that we should “raise the bar” and “have high expectations.” I have always tried to do that, but too often, have met resistance from administrators and enabling parents, upset because I gave students the grade they earned. I am told that I will harm their “self-esteem” or that “research has shown that retention does not help.” So students get passed on up, without the skills needed for success at the next level.
As I already said, I’ve no doubt there are things that can and should be made better in our public schools. There are good and bad teachers, just like there are crooked lawyers, incompetent doctors and dishonest accountants, insurance salesman, used car salesmen and even ministers, priest and rabbis who are selfish and devious. Every facet of life has its flaws. I grow oh so weary of society pinning it all on the public schools, saying it is solely our fault that children don’t learn. Society is failing these children, NOT us. Look at the “role models” they have….goofy basketball players with green hair who run up and down the court and make more in pay in a single game than a teacher does in a school year, football players who show contempt for themselves, others, and the law, rewarded with multi-million dollar contracts, politicians who rail on about family values and morality, yet get caught doing the very things they condemn, the “spartan” outlook that decries academia and casts suspicion on those who might be considered educated…. Some view our public schools as free daycare and little more.
Children come to school looking (and sometimes smelling) like they’ve been in a dumpster and the only decent meal they get all day is free lunch we give them; wanna bet, though, that the parents have beer and cigarettes a plenty? What message do these things send to our children?
I’ve been in the education business for nearly three decades, done without a lot of things in my because I just could not afford them with the pay I had, endured some unfair “slings and arrows” of outrageous misfortune and had to listen to some unknowing people spout unkind things about teachers and about public schools.
If I sound angry, I guess it is because I am.
I look back over what I have written and part of me says I should not have said it. But I did.
