Teaching has got to be one of the hardest professions. I have a dear friend who teaches middle school in eastern Texas and she has a very tough time of it. Oddly enough it isn’t the students who give her the most headaches, it’s the school administration.
I frequently read the blog of another teacher, she too is in Texas, who teaches math at the middle school level, but I think all levels are there primary through high school. She writes about her students and her trials with her own school administration.
Here’s what I’m getting from the two of them. School administrations are more concerned about students passing all the standardized tests than they are about them learning. NCLB has really created some of the stupidest priorities I’ve ever seen. Rote memorization is the call of the day rather than actual learning. It’s as if they say “Here, remember these facts” and don’t teach the actual principles behind the subject. NCLB will cripple our children if it’s left to stand the way it is.
I want to believe that Bush really wanted to improve the quality of education in this country but this law is stupid!! It is ineffective and has created a type of teaching that is disgraceful. Students are no longer learning critical thinking, and it isn’t because the teachers aren’t capable of teaching it, or don’t want to teach it, they are prohibited from teaching it. Administrations are so focused on the test scores that enable Federal funding that they have completely thrown what’s good for the students out the window.
I have seen teachers who shouldn’t be teaching as well. I don’t mean that ALL teachers are not being allowed to do their jobs. I have seen teachers yell and scream at students. I have seen them send them out of their classrooms after having called them rude names. I have even heard a teacher call a student stupid. None of this is acceptable. I stopped tutoring a child because of the way the teacher who was using part of the library was speaking so harshly to the students.
I know teaching is a difficult job. Between disinterested students and parents, administrators who may have never taught in a classroom, and policies focused on rote learning there is little reward or thanks. However, I hear them talk about what a student said, or how a parent told them that their class was their child’s favorite and they just burst with light. It is a wonderful thing to see.
I wish everyone would take just a moment to tell their child’s student thank you, and mean it. That teacher would then burst with light too.
