Four years for a college degree, maybe six for a masters’. Four years of teaching. Leave teaching. Five years later, still paying student loans. That’s me, and that’s the experience of nearly half of those who enter the teaching profession today. Biggest contributing factors: lack of control over your own work and unmanageable workloads. We are burying teachers under the responsibilities that our society doesn’t want, and the burden of the documentation to prove that they are doing it.
I had a chance to talk at great length with a man who had risen through the ranks of a union to become the union president and then negotiator. He also served three governors of his state on their Education Panel, a position that studied many aspects of education in that state. Not the least was teacher satisfaction. During his lengthy tenure on that panel, things really changed. What he told me was that when he started, the teachers were concerned about gum under desks. Twenty years later, they were worried about guns under desks.
I have a friend who teaches elementary school in a small neighborhood school in Texas. She has been there 25 years. For the first 15 years, she was home by 4:30-5pm. Gradually, it has ramped up over the past ten years, a half hour at a time, until now when she doesn’t get home until 7pm. Every day. This is because she must document specifically what she has taught each child, how that child has responded to it, and compared it to what the standardized tests say that the average/below average/above average ranges would be. And when I say document specifically, you have no idea of the degree of specificity and minutiae that can be dreamed up by the ‘instructional coaches’, principals, standardized test creators, and the myriad other positions in the education business that are more highly paid than the teachers.
My mission is not to keep potential teachers out of education, but to start a real dialogue about what is wrong with schools in general and with teaching as a profession. Our society has foisted off many of its responsibilities onto the school system, our legal system has confirmed and legitimized it, mandated and dehumanized it, and teachers are the ones who bear the burden. They are typically people who enjoy helping others, who can’t say no and so are being taken advantage of by a society no longer able to address what to do with its members when they are not capable or willing participants. If you are thinking of entering the teaching profession, I want you to come in with your eyes open and know what you are getting into. Teaching is, at its core, wonderful, and can make you float with happiness and excitement when what you do really makes a difference for a person. There are not many jobs that can do that. But along with that ability to float, you will receive sandbags tied to you in the name of administrators, parents, and unwilling students. Bon voyage!
My favorite education blogger: Ira Socol.
Amen. I retired some 4+ years ago from a district that when I began was a shining example of everything that was right in American public education (with graduates who had been Nobel Prize winners, leaders of foreign countries, baseball Hall of Famers, Grammy Award winners and everything else in the world you can think of) and by the time I left was rapidly becoming a basket case. Everything you say here is true.
Thanks, Gary, for your vote of cred. I love you for sending it, and so you must understand that I say, unfortunately, almost everyone I tell “I’ve written a book about my short career in teaching” has a personal story or that of a very near relative to add. It’s endemic. Yours, however, is especially pointed, showing just how far the fall. Thanks for reading, and for writing.
And Enoch, thanks so much for the link to that blog! I went and Socol is excellent! I’ll be rss-ing him now.
Reba — I agree with much of what you have said. Teachers are being pushed to the point of breaking! The pressure placed on them seems tortuous at times. And you are exactly right that most teachers are those who enjoy helping others and hope to make a difference in the world.
It seems that our legislators are doing everything they can to make their jobs more difficult!
I would like to clarify a couple of points, however.
As a campus-based instructional coach, my job is to support teachers as they tackle the directives and mandates that seem to be raining down on them every day! I am not considered administrative personnel and therefore am in a unique position to work closely with teachers without being threatening.
Part of my job is to research best practices in teaching and to help teachers implement solid instructional approaches by engaging them in job-embedded professional development and collegial discussions. Most of the teachers I work with welcome the opportunity to discuss new methods of instruction, enjoy having the instructional approaches demonstrated for them, and embrace the support that onsite coaching has offered them. They have told me this support has actually eased their load.
As you mentioned, teachers are now expected to use a wide variety of student data to help them plan more individualized instruction for their students…and I do help them interpret data and plan lessons based on what they discover about each child’s learning needs. It is time-consuming. However, most of the teachers I work with have found that when they make the transition from teaching a curriculum to teaching the child, the progress for every student is elevated.
And so — this additional work load for teachers in not in and of itself the problem. The problem as I see it is that teachers are no longer working that 8am-3pm work day with summers off, and yet their compensation does not reflect the hours they put in!!! Additionally, class sizes have continued to grow. And as mentioned, with the emphasis on individualized instruction, this increases the hours devoted to their jobs! If we could somehow manage to decrease class sizes – teachers would be in a much better position to provide the individualized, high quality instruction that our children deserve. As it is — most teachers are doing it already — despite the exhaustion they are enduring!!! Their efforts and devotion to our children is nothing less than heroic!!!