Hi Educators!
It seems that the beauty and fulfillment of our great profession, teaching, is today a metaphor for failure, apathy, and unprofessionalism. The very attributes that once characterized our reason for being who and what we are...concerned, knowledgeable, compassionate, firm, and persistent have been flipped and now seem to have become the very yoke around our necks. A once revered and respected institution is now in danger of becoming extinct.
Yes, there is so much promise in our students. Yes, they are capable of performing at a much higher level. Yes, public education is under fire for low performance. We understand all of this and we want to turn it around! Yes, we really do. But, I think, however, many of us are getting a bomb rap! I think that the buck does not stop in the classroom, neither does it began in the classroom. Let's look at this thing again.
The decision to become a teacher in the first place for most of us was because we really believed that we could make a difference in children's lives. The great majority of us had a natural affinity for young people and believed that education could provide the knowledge and skills to build on that foundation of concern. We enrolled in great schools of higher education and many of us even went on to get advanced degrees like masters, specialists, and even Ph.Ds. And then we went into the classroom... Why is it that many of us felt like we still needed something else? I learned all of the great strategies! I did! I listened, paid attention, got my homework, completed my projects! Why are they not working?!!! Why didn't our school meet AYP?
This is when we begin to beat up on ourselves along with everyone else. It must be something that we are not doing. STOP. Is is just us? Are we the "sole" problem? How many times have we questioned our education? Our schools of higher education? How well did they prepare us to navigate racially, SES, ethnically, culturally, diverse school systems? How well did they help us to examine ourselves in terms of our own biases and subjectivities? How many times have we questioned the educational system itself? How realistic is an educational structure designed based on 18th century paradigms supposed to appeal and motivate 21st century students. While the NCLB Act placed all of these requirements on school districts, teachers, and students, the funds needed to implement these requirements were and continue to be held at bay.
We still maintain our character of persistence. We take more professional development classes. We stay late after school. We defy failure and continue to hold high expectations of all students even if we have very little time to spend with our own children because of reading, grading papers and designing new lessons to energize and motivate our students. We are determined to cram at least 30 hours in a 24 hr day. We try in spite of the odds to fit that square peg in a round hole. I know how hard we work. I know how much we care. I know how tired we get. And, know we will never give up. We are educators and that's what we do.
I want this blogspot to be a forum for teachers to not only vent, but to offer REAL solutions to REAL problems. I want this spot to begin our agency for change. We refuse to die! We will fight for change! A NEW DAY STARTS NOW!
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