02.09
It is a tough job to be an educator these days. There are demands from all angles. An educator is supposed to insure that certain educational standards are met, make sure that their students are learning what is necessary for students to pass certain state-mandated tests, increase test performance on other standardized tests, keep upwards of 30 students in line, satisfy their administrators, deal with parents, keep up with grading papers, tests, and completing lesson plans… oh, and did I forget that they have lives and families of their own? The list is long and exhausting, and the job can feel thankless.
I believe, as many of is do, that being a teacher is one of the most important jobs that exists in our world, and teachers are still grossly underpaid, proportional to their true value to our culture. It is a job that, to be successful, one has to have passion, creativity, structure, patience, intelligence, wisdom – traits that are difficult to maintain in a challenging environment. I believe that there is a huge price that we pay, collectively for undervaluing our education system and those that teach our children.
Too many times today school personnel spend more waking hours with children than many parents do. That puts them in a very powerful role when it comes to shaping children and their perspectives on life. Many kids have challenging homes that they come from. There may be physical or sexual abuse, drug use, overwhelmed parents, erratic parenting, or even lack of parenting and the list goes on…
When kids misbehave, there can be any number of reasons why. I know that there are many teachers and administrators out there who have the best interests of the student at heart and are trying to do all they can to make the lives of children better. This blog series is not about them. It is about the teachers and administrators who see disruptive children as a problem to be expunged from the school, and those who hide and mask the issues and misbehaviors of themselves and/or others in the system. What is most difficult is that there are often layers of protection for those who manage the education system, but little protection for those who are supposed to benefit the most, the students.
This series will also address the seeming sense of entitlement that many parents have that demand higher and higher levels of performance in their children, but do little to help them at home. They shake their grade cards at teachers and administrators and sometimes never check their kids homework. I hope you will stay tuned to read and participate in this discussion.
Respectfully,
Dr. E…
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