Can you imagine having to beg to able to do your job?
If you can’t imagine, ask teachers what it’s like.
How much can we pile on our teachers until they break?
How many more seminars can we ask them to attend?
How many more processes can we ask them to learn?
How much teaching for tests can we request?
If actions do speak louder than words, then we clearly have nothing to say to the teachers we demand so much from, yet give so little to. We want teachers to set our kids up for success, yet we don’t to the same for teachers. I mean seriously, even from a self-serving POV we still come up short.
70 PERCENT WITHOUT SUPPORT IS POINTLESS
We have no problem watching them pathetically beg for raises, plead for better teaching conditions while screaming for every advantage they can get for their students. Teachers are not respected, honored or cared for. I mean really, it’s okay that we hand our kids over to teachers for 70 percent of their childhood but have no issue with them groveling to make that time significant and life affecting?
We’re on a quickly eroding slope with our only notable claim being that our country has more college educated kids than any other country. While that’s definitely a good thing, the bar is being set lower and lower year after year. We are on yet another race to the bottom, which is deplorable for a nation that believes itself to be simply the best.
BIG LEARNNG IS BIG BUSINESS
The K-12 public education system is a big business, and anyone who’s worked for big business knows that the workers are constantly the ones to blame, although it’s the decision makers who determine success or failure. In the education system, teachers are merely the worker bees. The education fault lies at the top where the impact decisions are made. This includes (usually the cutting of…) budgets, student activities, teaching support, technological investments, the arts, adulting classes etc. But cutting money from testing…LOL!
REALITY CHECK
Stop blaming teachers for “not being able to get through to them.” Some kids just aren’t cut out for school. It doesn’t matter how good of a teacher they have or how much they’re inspired or motivated by their parents. Some kids are just poor students who don’t care. I hate to say it—especially since my Student Success Project tries to help these kids—but the truth is the truth.
Parents are the first line of defense and offense. They have a responsibility for building an environment where learning and education is not just enforced but made enjoyable. It’s not enough to simply send your kids off to school and hope the teacher inspires them to care about their future.
CLASSROOMS OR DAYCARE CENTERS
We seem not to value education, intellect, or higher thinking. We accept an education system that frequently serves as nothing more than daycare centers. Teachers have lost their classes to disrespect and cell phones. Try to do something about it and parents are in the principal’s office or filing complaints with district offices about student rights.
We’re losing teachers in record numbers. I mean, who wants to deal with the constant migraine of rude students, over-bearing parents, and the government constantly telling them they are not worthy as witnessed by the lack if everything that teachers need.
The failure of our education system can’t be blamed on one group of individuals. The blame must be placed on all of us. And when that happens, we can once and for all stop blaming teachers for everything that’s wrong in a system that needs to clearly put value in actions being louder than words.
This column is by Ritchie Lucas, Founder of The Student Success Project and Think Factory Consulting. He can be reached at 305-788-4105 or email at ritchie@thinkfactory.com and on Facebook and You Tube as The Student Success Project.
