This teacher is sick of the people who bully and harass him; sick of those who interfere in his work but could never do it themselves; sick of the know-it-alls who are ruining his profession:
| I am in my 44th year as a teacher. I have taught from Prep to Grade 12, but mostly in Primary school and Special Education. I can fully sympathise with the teacher who retired early after 20 years and I have been doing what Vance is doing, for most of my 44 years.Teaching is about children. Each child is unique and each standardised test is an attack upon that uniqueness. There is no such thing as a “normal ” child. The children I taught in the class for those with “intellectual disability” were certainly not “normal children”. Each child had his/her own unique set of abilities and interests. Each had a unique set of educational needs and a unique set of pre school life and experience making him/her the person that he/she was.I am sick of education in general and teachers in particular being deprofessionalised, bullied and harassed by people who have no idea what they would do if they were put before a class; people who have no idea how to teach a child to read from scratch and no idea how to assess a child’s wealth of knowledge, skills and attitudes, and cognitive readiness to move on to the next level.It wasn’t always like this. This is not to say that at some time in the past we experienced a golden age of education. It is just to say that in the hands of bean counters and politicians, education has descended to the sorry state it is in today. And the perpetrators have the unmitigated gall to blame it on the teachers. |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Tomorrow I hope to have more “fight” in me, but, just for today, I am bone-tired.
Tired of feeling hot tears rise in my eyes when I hear politicians & news pundits say hurtful, derogatory, and false things about teachers to the cheers of the crowd. You see, I know the cheering crowd is made up the of parents of the children we serve.
Tired of having to defend ridiculous claims about our “lavish” salary and “cadillac” benefits to neighbors, parents, school-boards, politicians, and the public. Because they are neither.
Tired of having to cross-fingers for school levies that are vital, but scoffed at, because my Governor is on a quest to “break the backs” of the teachers union, and has decimated school funding. Tired of legislation that does not help teaching & learning, but places unreal & unfunded burdens on schools & teachers.
Tired of hearing again and again that Teachers and their Unions are the enemy. That I, and others just like me, are “union thugs”, and that teaching should be akin to charity work where the adults are “selfish” to expect or demand reasonable compensation.
Tired of the mountain of initiatives, buzz-words and absurd demands made on my professional time that just take away from the real reason we’re all there — to teach kids.
Tired of defending Public Education against the growing for-profit, unaccountable business interests who have forgotten, or maybe never cared, that Education is for & about real children, not widgets.
Tired of knowing I can no longer in good faith recommend the once honorable profession of teaching to any young person. Why, would I set them up to feel as tired, demoralized and incompetent as I, and my colleagues, have been made to feel.
I hope today is not your turn to feel like I do. Because there is much to be done and little to gain from feeling demoralized. Together, we will rise to the challenge. Just writing this all down gives me spark to stand up again and do my best work.
School starts Monday. Between now and then I WILL find a way to regain my fight and my enthusiasm to do the hard and valuable work of teaching. And, it really will be “for the kids.”
You stated this so well … My feelings exactly.
Wishing you strength and courage for the coming school year.
So many educators stand with you.
That was beautifully written. As a high school English teacher who just began my 12th year in the classroom, I feel the same way. It is hard not to feel beat down these days.
When I see the light in my students’ eyes each day, it is a reminder to stay strong and keep going.
However, as a parent of daughter who will be a kindergartener next year, I am so sad when I think of what her years in school will be like…
I will do my best to keep her creative streak alive, her love of literature going strong, and try my best to support her public school teachers along the way (I’ll be sure to seek out the dedicated veterans who have stayed there despite all we’ve been dragged through).
Second career, 14th year in the classroom, tears in my eyes. And Mary, I feel your pain too. Having a child in our public schools has left me with more enemies than colleagues – within the District and our neighborhood.
I know in my heart my teacher friends want to be and do better for my son, and all of their kids, but can’t or won’t stand up to rage against the machine. Watching our kid suffer in order to stand up and speak out for public education, our kids, and our communities has been one of the most difficult things my husband and I have ever done. While we do opt out from State testing (and I wish EVERYONE would), that does not opt our son out from the dull-dry-dead test prep curriculum his teachers and schools are measured by – not to mention the loss of social status by not buying into the notion that performance bands are a valuable label of one’s humanity, for those not afforded the privilege to make their own labels.
I hope for a better day, and our Chicago brothers and sisters have been INSPIRATIONAL, but after spending a PD day on the common core today I am assured, more than ever before, that I can hope in one and wish in the other but neither will result in anything but disappointment and disgust and anger over an utter erosion of our precious democratic ideals – which for those with the means and wherewithall matters NOT ONE IOTA. Raised fist, big sigh…
Beautiful… stand strong. Tomorrow will be a better day.
Something I’m tired of is a teacher looking you straight in the eye and saying. “What are YOU going to do about this?” Yep, it’s my fault, a retired teacher . Yep, it’s the fault of the union rep or the union president.
There was something I was asked yesterday by a parent that I do like: “What can I do?” Needless to say, I rattled off numerous suggestions.
I still have hope that I might get a chance to teach again, so I hesitate to step up and put my head on the chopping block, and I don’t expect that you will do so either. There are definitely costs, whether you are teaching or not, to leading the charge. Thank you, Diane and thank you to everyone who has taken up the challenge. Kathy, sometimes just sharing your thoughts is more than enough.