It’s inevitable at the end of each school year. My 8th graders, who have spent two years slaving away in my English class, will ask if I’ll miss them the next year. “What will you do without us?” I’ll hear.
My response? “I’ll be crying every day without you.” Not really, of course, though there are always so many students who have brought joy to my teaching and I will miss them.
Teaching is all about cycles. There are new groups of students every year, and they will leave and move on to bigger and better things. But there are also teachers that cycle through, and one knows that at the end of every year, you will say goodbye to people who you barely got to know and to some whom you’ve known for years and years.
I am crying a bit this year, both with some staff members leaving our school who I have known for a long time and for one particular teacher leaving the entire profession. My sister, Angie, has decided to stop teaching after 15 years.
Angie started as a special education teacher and gradually moved to teaching ag and some science. From all accounts, she’s been an outstanding teacher. I know through my myriad conversations with her over the years just how passionate she has been in her career; it’s been hard for us to be in the same room or on the phone without spending a ton of time on education.
So why is she leaving? There are two main reasons, and these encapsulate what’s wrong with education and why so many people are shuffling schools and/or quitting teaching.
She’s been disgruntled for a while on the hoop jumping teachers have to do. Education keeps looking for “things” to have teachers work on rather than just being able to focus on the many issues each individual classroom presents. These are couched as professional development, but when teachers see the same ideas recycled and then tossed aside, it’s hard to buy into anything.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was when a student threatened her life this year. He was suspended for a few days… and that’s it. The lack of support shown at districts across the country has been staggering. This is a mixture of some laws that handcuff administrators and also a fear of conflict with the general public. Teachers get stuck in the middle of a difficult situation like my sister went through and feel helpless without someone there to back them up and to tell some parents a harsh truth.
So now education loses another good teacher. And based on the teacher shortage we already have, especially in areas like Angie taught, you would think the government and school districts would do everything in their power to change how things currently operate in order to attract and retain these quality people.
Mr. Tom Rademacher, former Teacher of the Year in Minnesota, has a lot to say about education and tends to tell it like it is. He has a fabulous book out titled It Won’t Be Easy: An Exceedingly Honest (and Slightly Unprofessional) Love Letter to Teaching. He’s also very active on Twitter; his tweets are inspirational and thought-provoking. Plus, he blogs on a regular basis.
A blog earlier this year related to what is happening in schools everywhere and how to change that. I found a lot of correlations between what he wrote and what has happened with my sister. All those hoops and grand plans schools have that will save every student and help everyone succeed but are really just a sham? Here’s what Rademacher says:
“Hi everyone, we have this wonderful, innovative Whatever. Everyone has to use Whatever, and use Whatever in this way, so that everyone is the same and every classroom is the same because that is for some reason important. If Whatever works, it’s because we’re smart. If it doesn’t work, it’s because teachers didn’t implement it correctly, those (darn) teachers. If teachers leave, that’s ok, we’ll hire other teachers, and Whatever will still be there, so everything will be fine. Also, Whatever gives us tons of number and numbers and numbers that we can use to say all sorts of stuff about how great Whatever is doing. Whatever.”
I asked him if it’d be okay if I quoted him because nobody could say better what is happening in schools across America. And it’s driving good teachers away. Just let us teach. Let us interact with each other and leave the flavor of the year idea out of it. Many folks are just sick of jumping from one idea to another and being told they won’t be as good at their jobs if they don’t do it this way.
Here’s an idea for all the tens of thousands of dollars that districts waste on speakers and presentations and all that. Those are fine occasionally, but spend that money hiring subs and have us go visit other schools and watch other teachers and bring back fabulous ideas, and then open our doors and collaborate with other schools to bring people here to see the fabulous ideas our teachers have.
Rademacher also wrote about the support teachers need. It has to go beyond being told they're appreciated. That’s nice, but he says that we should hear about specific things we’re doing and get support for those things as well as guidance for areas in which we can improve. We should be listened to on a regular basis since we’re in the trenches and see what’s going on. When we face difficult situations, as my sister did, we should receive committed support from administration and should get the help we need to be able to focus on what’s best for kids in every setting.
The students at the school my sister left should be crying. They’ve lost a great asset and leader. And it’s happening everywhere. Time to stop the shenanigans and allow teachers to focus on teaching and time to back our teachers and give them reason to stay where they are and to stay in education. Otherwise, there will be a lot more tears shed.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is metanoia, which means a profound transformation in one’s outlook, as in, “The school district underwent metanoia and decided to do everything it could to retain all the quality teachers.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!