teacher voice

Read this yesterday. Here are my thoughts.

I am not a DeKalb County teacher. With 20 years in education, I am in my fifth year in a different metro area school district, where we are suffering from whiplash due to the shifting winds and changing plans and mandates. It seems that every year there is a new intitiative or program rolled out with much fanfare, and then incompletely implemented, only to be half-forgotten by spring testing. We have dutifully tackled Lerning Focused Schools, Understanding by Design, backwards design, differentiated instruction, inclusion, Working on the work, Results Now, schoolwide discipline, Marzano's research on Instruction that Works in Classrooms that Work ('high yield' strategies, which he himself says are no cure all), and on and on and on. Each time, we're put through a crash course or 'boot camp' on the new plan for making miracles, then quickly realize we are underprepared and under-resourced to truly implement the plan. Worse, the administrators who will evaluate us may not even understand what we are trying to accomplish, so we worry about a bad rating caused by misunderstanding.

We have to beg for common, basic supplies- pencils, pens, paper, board markers, but there are interactive whiteboards all over the place. One day, we may even have the time to learn how to use them to full advantage. I waited 4 months for basic stationery items. That's not a typo; it really took 4 months. It gets frustrating having to buy my own supplies and materials to work with, especially with a consultant coming through several times a year, at what is surely an astronomical cost, while we go without basics. I am paid less today than I was when I strted at this school. Between furloughs (pay cut), reductions in local supplement (pay cut), reduction in contributions to my retirement (future pay cut), increase insurance costs (ouch), and inflation, there's not much left for treats. Please don't expect me to provide school supplies as well.

Meanwhile, my students are less prepared and more needy every year. For too many, learning takes a backseat to dreams of fame and fortune on the athletic field or the stage. Sadly, their parents encourage this magical thinking instead of being realistic and insisting on education as a priority. They arrive without basic supplies, without even their schoolbooks. Paper disappears like candy. I've given out around 200 pencils to a small group of students with disabilities, and my closet is empty. They come to me with tremendous gaps in their skills, things they just never learned. The expectation laid at my feet? Fill the gaps while teaching grade-level curriculum to students who can't read or write fluently, or do basic arithmetic, or both.

Oh, and they desperately need social skills, never having mastered the fine points of listening to the person speaking to you before telling them off. They have learned survival socialization, meaning they draw a line and dare others to cross it so that then they feel obligated to prove that 'no one can diss me and get away with it'. The proof may be verbal, or physical. It comes daily, even hourly. In my classroom, as much time is spent on social skills as on our subject area. Fortunately, many of my kids' parents have no illusions about their young one's charms, but that doesn't substantially reduce the disruptions. There are others who look at us like we're nuts to expect a quiet and cooperation once in a while, as if incessant talking should be acceptable even it if keeps someone else from functioning. (“My child needs...” Yes, but what about all the OTHER children in the room?)

Please understand: I LOVE teaching. Really love it. In between their outbursts, I like the kids, too, even though they try hard to make themselves as unlikable as possible. The problem is that there is precious little teaching taking place many days. At this time of year, it's a balancing act to make sure students have at least seen everything that may be on the CRCT, while also trying to review from early in the year so that it's not forgotten. The test looms large on the horizon, like a sea monster in the distancee, and it's getting closer and closer by the day. I have no illusions about the validity of the test for my students, but at the end of the day, their success and mine come down to that number, and how close they come to the magic number of 800. Is this really the joy of learning that we are supposed to be sharing? Whatever happened to following an investigation where it leads? Whatever happened to students pursuing their interests? Whatever happened to reading a book and enjoying the journey, instead of taking a quiz on it? And then, after we the adults have made THE TEST into the end-all-be-all of this enterprise, we have the nerve to be upset with students' perception that there's nothing of importance going on at school after the end of April. Parents know this; your kids come home and tell you they aren't doing anything meaningful for the entire month of May. The truth is that is when we try to squeeze in the fun, interesting, student-directed learning opportunities that have been postponed for so long; it's just that the kids are no longer interested.